[Husker] Angry Dad on HuskerMax

[Nick Chevance]

On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 4:30 AM, David Strong <gobigredlist at gmail.com> wrote:
> Love me some Angry Dad.
>
> http://www.huskermax.com/AngryDad/020811.html
>
> Dave

Well, he's entertaining, but is he right?  His claim that the spread
is dead is generally unsupported.  It ain't dead just because HE says
it is.  In the next section he says that Oregon and Auburn didn't get
to the big game because they ran the spread offense, but because they
ran it very well.  Well, duh!!  And NU's attempt at the spread wasn't
run well.  Well, double duh!!  NU in the 90's didn't win because we
ran option football, but because we ran it better than anyone else.
But not so fast.

Its hard to argue that NU's offense, pre-Texas, was pretty potent.
Review Ubben's article from yesterday to track the team's progress.
What we did learn was that the offense was more than capable of
putting up points in a hurry.  With Texas, call it a total melt-down -
they're in our heads and hopefully several years in the Big 10 will
take care of that.  OSU managed to slow up and hinder the zone read,
so we threw it over their heads.  We put up 51 points on that team,
who didn't lose again until they played Oklahoma who struggled to
score 47.  The first half of the Mizzou game was a great example of
what happens when a team concentrates too much on one player and
forgets about other players.  But the second half also shows what
happens when your offense relies entirely on one player.  And that's
how the rest of the season went.  Our offense was unable to recover
from an injured Martinez, and limped (no pun intended) through to the
end of the year.  And a gimpy Martinez wasn't enough either.  That
offense required a quick and speedy QB; a guy that had enough of both
to overcome mistakes in the reads.  Cody, a fine QB in his own right,
wasn't that same guy, and we know that Zac didn't have enough of
either.

I won't comment on his characterization of Cotton, and I tend to think
that the Texas game hinged on more than the inability of a particular
coach to teach something that has been around 20 years, regardless of
whether he's had the opportunity to run that scheme.  But I tend to
agree with his characterization of Watson.  It was poor play calling,
very apparent in the Texas game, and it did get worse with each
injury.  Again, the offense was working with a particular guy running
it.  A relatively common injury put a stop to that, better than anyone
we played this year.  And we couldn't recover from that injury, and
the OC didn't seem to have a remedy.

Generally, I don't disagree that there's no magic in the Spread, but
it seemed to suit the players we had on the field to start with.  But
it didn't work when we had injuries, and more than anything else, you
needed a system that your backups can run effectively.  Not so with
our version of the spread.  What Angry Dad didn't expand on, which I
found interesting, was that he mentioned that the spread is generally
a passing scheme, with running (the comment about 4 receivers on every
play).  So, what happened in the passing game?  The spread, like the
WCO, is intended to get small chunks of turf on short passes, in hopes
that all that confusion springs someone lose for more yardage, and
then run it when the defense is back on their heels.  Did we rely too
heavily on the run game?  Did we not have the quality of receivers
needed to be successful?  Could we not count on our QB's to get the
ball where it was suppose to be?  Or did we just not take advantage of
the players we had?  I think this is where he and I agree most.

Nick
-- 
"For every person with a spark of genius, there are hundreds with an
ignition problem"
         Coffee News(6/9/10)