[Husker] The Offense

[Steve Stone]

David wrote:

>Here is an article from Omaha.com about the offensive game plan in 
>the Missouri game.  The author makes a pretty strong arguement that 
>it sucked.  Watson said we kept throwing because Missouri was 
>stacking the box.  This guy says if you look at the film, Missouri 
>did so only on 16 out of 67 plays and 7 of those were in the final 
>drive when we were eating clock.  The basic question was....why so 
>many spread formation passing plays when:  1. it was pouring ...and 
>more importantly 2.  it wasn't working. 
>
>http://www.omaha.com/article/20091015/BIGRED/710159751
>
>My take at the time....SW called a lousy game.  But we won.  Keep 
>Green warmed up.


My comment in the Weird-Harold at the time was: "Cheap shot from a 
rank amateur in the cheap seats... etc etc."

It wasn't so much that Dirk Chatelain's conclusion was wrong, but he 
had/has no clue as to its cause-and-effect relationship. In a 
follow-up column he wrote he was standing by his story.

Like so many others, Chatelain seems to forget that the game is 
played by real human beings on an actual field, that is, when your 
top running back gets out of a sickbed to play and your backup rb is 
too young to carry the full load, you must use them sparingly unless 
you want to go to your third, fourth, and fifth backs.

Add to that a frog-strangling downpour, ineffectual special-teams 
play, and receivers with slippery hands. Also add a seriously 
jacked-up Missouri stadium and a Tiger defense playing with an 
overheated intensity that simply couldn't last four quarters. The 
result: shutout for three quarters.

As for saying that SW called a lousy game, well, that's a pretty 
lousy thing to say.

Steve Stone