Is Nebraska/the fanbase scared of an air raid offense?

[2010sarenevercomingback]

Callahan's offenses were great in hindsight, he just hitched his wagon to Cosgrove & it killed his tenure

Which part of his offense did you like better - the part where he in 4 seasons only had 4 games where he scored 40 points against a P5 team (none with a winning record), or the only one of his seasons where we just cracked into the top 25 offenses by keeping our starters in the 4th quarter against Nicholls State & Troy to score some garbage time touchdowns?

This whole narrative that we had a good offense during the Callahan era needs to die in a fire. We had a middling offense that moved the ball between the 20s, and only achieved non-horrible averages by padding stats against FCS opponents & playing our starters deep into blowout losses where the other teams were substituting liberally.

 

[SlumpBuster]

I've said this forever...scheme is probably 3rd or 4th on the list of what makes an offense successful. Fit (into the overall team strategy) is more important and execution is probably more important than that. It's not unimportant, but almost any style can be effective.

My favorite offense is SF. I love the almost "positionless" way they run the offense but they hit you and hit you hard and then they'll look at the defense you're in and find a way to put you in a bad spot.

I honestly don't care what we run as long as we establish our identity and what we want to do, we execute it at a high level, and we are physical. I look at Harbaugh and I think he took a long look in the mirror and realized that if he was going to beat tOSU (which I think he will do for years to come), I've got to be a physical ass football team. Now they are and they've leapfrogged tOSU in my mind and there's nothing I've seen this year that suggests tOSU is catching up anytime soon.

 

[doublewing]

Which part of his offense did you like better - the part where he in 4 seasons only had 4 games where he scored 40 points against a P5 team (none with a winning record), or the only one of his seasons where we just cracked into the top 25 offenses by keeping our starters in the 4th quarter against Nicholls State & Troy to score some garbage time touchdowns?

This whole narrative that we had a good offense during the Callahan era needs to die in a fire. We had a middling offense that moved the ball between the 20s, and only achieved non-horrible averages by padding stats against FCS opponents & playing our starters deep into blowout losses where the other teams were substituting liberally.

The Bill Callahan revisionist history is also very confusing to me. His offense was mostly empty calories and didn’t perform well in the big games. It’s like Pelini’s defense after 2010.

When it comes to BC: he’s one of the best OL coaches in the NFL, he’s average as an OC, and absolutely terrible as a HC and leader.

 

[slattimer]

Fit (into the overall team strategy) is more important and execution is probably more important than that. It's not unimportant, but almost any style can be effective.

IMO
1. Execution
2. Fit to players - What can they do, what can you recruit to

 

[MtnHusker]

Callahan's offenses were great in hindsight, he just hitched his wagon to Cosgrove & it killed his tenure

I agree. Occasionally Bill Callahan would have a Brain Cramp with his play calling but his offense would have been epic. I was talking with the Kansas DC before we played them in Lawrence and he said it was virtually impossible for any college team to properly prepare for the complexity of Bill Callahan's Offense. Called it an NFL level offense. There just wasn't enough time to scout, install the offense with the scout team or even break down all of the film. He said it was the most difficult offense he had ever had to game plan for. All he could do was run their straight up base defense because of how complex it was. He said that once Callahan got the right players in his system for a couple years that we would have one of the very best and most dynamic offenses in all of college football. They expected us to be back to the level of Tom's teams in terms of national prominence where we were consistently ranked in the Top 5 and competing for National Championships. But no matter how good our offense was we still had the Cosgrove Affect on D,

 

[2010sarenevercomingback]

I was talking with the Kansas DC before we played them in Lawrence and he said it was virtually impossible for any college team to properly prepare for the complexity of Bill Callahan's Offense.

Including Nebraska.

 

[MtnHusker]

Which part of his offense did you like better - the part where he in 4 seasons only had 4 games where he scored 40 points against a P5 team (none with a winning record), or the only one of his seasons where we just cracked into the top 25 offenses by keeping our starters in the 4th quarter against Nicholls State & Troy to score some garbage time touchdowns?

This whole narrative that we had a good offense during the Callahan era needs to die in a fire. We had a middling offense that moved the ball between the 20s, and only achieved non-horrible averages by padding stats against FCS opponents & playing our starters deep into blowout losses where the other teams were substituting liberally.

I'm gonna disagree with you. Not because I know anything about football, which I don't. But as I posted I spoke with the Kansas DC along with a couple other Big 12 defensive coaches who were very impressed and concerned with with what Callahan was building at Nebraska. They thought he was building an offensive juggernaut that would be very difficult to stop in college football. But they said he needed the right players that had been in the system for a few years. Once players had a couple years to be experienced with the system that would allow the coaches to concentrate on teaching the new players plus the existing would be able to help newer players to speed up the learning curve. I'm no football coach but I trusted the ones I spoke with.

Callahan's final season in 2007 we scored 31 points on #1 ranked USC. We might have lost the games but we scored 39 points on #7 Kansas and 25 points on #10 Texas. His final season we played 4 ranked opponents and averaged over 25 pts/game against them. We shit the bed against #4 Mizzou, Oklahoma St & Texas A&M. Against Power5, including 4 Top 10 Teams, we averaged 31 pts/game. In my book averaging 31 pts/game against that level of teams is quite good. For comparison in Solich's final season we averaged 24 pts/game when you include the cupcakes. And 22 pts/game against Power5 and only played 1 Power5 teams that was ranked at the end of the season and that was Kansas St at #14. Was a down year for the Big 12.

 

[Pepe Silvia]

I agree. Occasionally Bill Callahan would have a Brain Cramp with his play calling but his offense would have been epic. I was talking with the Kansas DC before we played them in Lawrence and he said it was virtually impossible for any college team to properly prepare for the complexity of Bill Callahan's Offense. Called it an NFL level offense. There just wasn't enough time to scout, install the offense with the scout team or even break down all of the film. He said it was the most difficult offense he had ever had to game plan for. All he could do was run their straight up base defense because of how complex it was. He said that once Callahan got the right players in his system for a couple years that we would have one of the very best and most dynamic offenses in all of college football. They expected us to be back to the level of Tom's teams in terms of national prominence where we were consistently ranked in the Top 5 and competing for National Championships. But no matter how good our offense was we still had the Cosgrove Affect on D,

I've always thought Callahan was the closest we've been since TO to putting it all together, but that was mostly due to how he recruited. it's a shame BC and john Blake didn't get to operate in the NIL/transfer portal era. shit, that 2006 offense was largely what people are clamoring for now, with a power run game, a couple decent WRs and a QB who took care of the ball and managed the game

back in the Pelini era I kept track of his historic defensive ineptitude in the latter years and he made Cosgrove look good in hindsight

 

[huskerj12]

Which part of his offense did you like better - the part where he in 4 seasons only had 4 games where he scored 40 points against a P5 team (none with a winning record), or the only one of his seasons where we just cracked into the top 25 offenses by keeping our starters in the 4th quarter against Nicholls State & Troy to score some garbage time touchdowns?

This whole narrative that we had a good offense during the Callahan era needs to die in a fire. We had a middling offense that moved the ball between the 20s, and only achieved non-horrible averages by padding stats against FCS opponents & playing our starters deep into blowout losses where the other teams were substituting liberally.

The Bill Callahan revisionist history is also very confusing to me. His offense was mostly empty calories and didn’t perform well in the big games. It’s like Pelini’s defense after 2010.

When it comes to BC: he’s one of the best OL coaches in the NFL, he’s average as an OC, and absolutely terrible as a HC and leader.

Yeahhh I mean this is such old news but I'm with you guys. That offense never seemed to click and, as it turned out, it was about to be out of vogue once the spread/zone read type of stuff really took hold of CFB. I think a certain segment of fans have rose colored glasses about the Cally era because of some mixture of:

A) Being tired of Solich and the old guard
B) Feeling Callahan was treated unfairly
C) He jump-started recruiting during a time when online recruiting coverage was new and exciting

 

[MtnHusker]

Including Nebraska.

????? we scored 31 pts/game against Power5 teams including 4 teams that ended up ranked in the Top 10 at the end of the season. How many points do you think we should average a game to be considered a good offense?

 

[huskerj12]

Callahan's final season in 2007 we scored 31 points on #1 ranked USC. We might have lost the games but we scored 39 points on #7 Kansas and 25 points on #10 Texas.

USC was up 42-10 in the 4th quarter and we finished with 31 rushing yards total
KU was up 48-21 by the 2nd quarter and we finished with 5 turnovers and 79 rushing yards total

We also only scored 6 against Missouri, 14 against OSU (after infamously being down 38-0 in the first half), 14 against A&M

I just never felt like that era's offense was on track to become anything other than all over the place.

 

[2010sarenevercomingback]

I'm gonna disagree with you. Not because I know anything about football, which I don't. But as I posted I spoke with the Kansas DC along with a couple other Big 12 defensive coaches who were very impressed and concerned with with what Callahan was building at Nebraska. They thought he was building an offensive juggernaut that would be very difficult to stop in college football. But they said he needed the right players that had been in the system for a few years. Once players had a couple years to be experienced with the system that would allow the coaches to concentrate on teaching the new players plus the existing would be able to help newer players to speed up the learning curve. I'm no football coach but I trusted the ones I spoke with.

Callahan's final season in 2007 we scored 31 points on #1 ranked USC. We might have lost the games but we scored 39 points on #7 Kansas and 25 points on #10 Texas. His final season we played 4 ranked opponents and averaged over 25 pts/game against them. We shit the bed against #4 Mizzou, Oklahoma St & Texas A&M. Against Power5, including 4 Top 10 Teams, we averaged 31 pts/game. In my book averaging 31 pts/game against that level of teams is quite good. For comparison in Solich's final season we averaged 24 pts/game when you include the cupcakes. And 22 pts/game against Power5 and only played 1 Power5 teams that was ranked at the end of the season and that was Kansas St at #14. Was a down year for the Big 12.

I get the point, and have no doubt that both Callahan & the coaches you know have cerebral knowledge about this that would put me to shame... my whole issue with it was, it's an NFL concept offense that's fine and dandy when you have a miniscule talent differential at the NFL level and life-long professionals representing the top 5% of college athletes who have the elite physical skills and undivided attention needed to run a "be multiple" scheme.

You don't ever really have the personnel to run that at the college level because you have younger, less-polished guys with academic & other time demands, higher error rates, and much more one-dimensional skill sets, and getting a full 2-deep that can be brought up to speed on both knowing and professionally executing on all these concepts (while a quarter of the roster is turned over every year) - particularly when it's a West Coast offense that's heavily focused on medium distance plays & relying on teamwide execution for sustained drives - is one of those things that works in theory, but not in practice.

Against USC in '07, we were down 42-10 going into the 4th quarter and got almost everything as garbage points, including 2 TDs in the last 5 minutes. Kansas wasn't playing D with any intensity because they were scoring at will and the game was over after about a quarter and a half. That's my issue with a purely statistical analysis of the offense... the whole era was like that.

 

[Faux Sean Callahan]

No. Just no. One of the hall marks of Air Raid systems is their screen game (both perimeter, slow, and double) and using drags/crossers to defeat man coverage/blitz looks. It's not just huck and chuck deep. Shit, they ran several Air Raid concepts under Frost, mesh and y-cross.

I've said numerous times, I'd much rather have a spread system where you can manipulate and get consistent box counts to help the OL out. Plus a heavy read game, and you're set. I'd much rather see a run game that has explosive potential than just pounding the rock with a FB vs loaded boxes and shaky OL play.

Haarberg's run for a TD last game was a power read out of 12 personnel....and what's most frustrating....they didn't run it again at any point of the game. Dafuq we doing?

One of the more frustratingly things about that Illinois game was how not running Power read, power and counter enough. The strength of Illinois's team was their DTs. Purdoodoo made a killing running a counter OH concept. I liked what those concepts do to fight their strengths and play to Nebraska's strengths.

I absolutely love the air raid system for a college QB. It seems effective yet simple enough to get young QBs up to speed quickly. Look at Lincoln Riley.

 

[betsch]

Callahan's offenses were great in hindsight, he just hitched his wagon to Cosgrove & it killed his tenure

Not all of them. I remember one year when we were cheering midway through the second quarter when we would just get a first down. But overall yes, the offense was better than the defense.

 

[Alcaus]

Whatever offense plays from the shotgun and runs a triple option in 11 personnel by motioning the slot WR and utilizing him as a pitch man.

 

[huskerj12]

Whatever offense plays from the shotgun and runs a triple option in 11 personnel by motioning the slot WR and utilizing him as a pitch man.

Ah yes, I see you have been watching me play NCAA 2010...

 

[stonesak]

Whatever offense plays from the shotgun and runs a triple option in 11 personnel by motioning the slot WR and utilizing him as a pitch man.

I've been hoping to see that with Kemp.

 

[God is a Husker]

 

[whoboppin]

I think one of Nebraskas biggest issues has been switching offense every 3-4 years.

Went Option - WCO - Run Based Spread - WCO - Frost Spread - Run based offense

Wonder what the team would have been like if in 2003 we were just like whatever we do we are gonna be a run based spread team.

 

[Jim14510]

Nebraska fans want the opposite of whatever we're currently doing that isn't working. In a year or two we will grow tired of the fullback/2 tight end sets and bitch about how Satt needs to spread teams out more and when he is inevitably shit canned and we bring in some other OC to spread teams out more we will bitch about wanting more fatties on the field.

Amazingly you are correct.