Practice #11 PC 3/30
- Thread starter SOHusker11
- Start date
After a lot of off-season silence on Oliver Martin, I’ve been hearing his name mentioned much more frequently as of late.
When asked about using TE’s Whipple signaled interest in tapping into what we failed to do with guys like Allen, Rafdal, and Hickman:
“"I don't have a number (of catches to reach). The ball spread is predicated to what the defense is giving you. Certainly we can get guys in certain areas. I think the size of those guys can help you in the red zone. That would be a place where 6-5, 6-6, 6-7 down there, where the windows are tighter and you got to be physical catching the ball, and speed's not as important as it is learning about leverage on a defender and those things."
“"I don't have a number (of catches to reach). The ball spread is predicated to what the defense is giving you. Certainly we can get guys in certain areas. I think the size of those guys can help you in the red zone. That would be a place where 6-5, 6-6, 6-7 down there, where the windows are tighter and you got to be physical catching the ball, and speed's not as important as it is learning about leverage on a defender and those things."
Considering Allen was one of our best last year, this is disappointing to hear how using him was maybe not as much of a priority-
“(Whipple) wants everybody involved in the passing game,” Beckton said. “There are certain plays that tight ends know they’re the first option. We used to be third or fourth, now we have plays where we’re the first option.”
“(Whipple) wants everybody involved in the passing game,” Beckton said. “There are certain plays that tight ends know they’re the first option. We used to be third or fourth, now we have plays where we’re the first option.”
I think coaches are their own worst enemy.
Few years back I had to call plays on offense (Hated it and sucked at it). I called this play and it got us a few yards and I called that specific play because I was "outsmarting" the other team.
An asst coach on staff said "Hey, just run that again but run it with the other kid", okay, sure. So I did that.
Kid took off for a 50 yard TD.
After the play was over I said "What made you think to have me call that?"
He looked at me and goes "Because that kid is bigger, faster and stronger than everyone else on the field"
He was right.
Long boring story short: Allen should have been targeted 5-8 times a game.
I don't disagree he could have been used a little differently. However, people have been screaming to get the ball to Manning, or Betts, or Toure, or even to "run the damn ball". There's only so many plays and only 1 football. If we're giving more 1st looks to Allen, then we're not giving them to the other guys & vice versa. We can't have it both ways unfortunately.
That is why it is great being a fan! We get to ***** about it...we don't have to actually make the calls!
Sometimes coaches call plays that don't make sense to us but there's a rhyme & reason. Setting up plays for later in the game or even later in the season does take place. Yes, you want every play to score & they are all designed to do so in certain situations, but even personnel can be used to set things up. You're wrong if you think for a minute that Whipple doesn't try to outsmart the opponent & utilize plays & personnel to see reactions & set up something for later.
According to an article I read a couple of months ago, Whipple will go to great lengths in game planning to maximize an advantage.
Yeah, this is just looking at tendencies.
Okay, Team X, on the last 3 game tapes, ran this on D when the opposing team came out in this look. So you just hope that they do that again.
That is what all the coordinators try to do.
What you say is absolutely true. And even if he was a late read, Allen finished second in receptions (38) behind Toure.
Betts and Manning simply did not seem to be targeted as much despite having pretty reliable hands and respectable 20-26 catches respectively. So I don’t know how much they were taking away from Allen.
There’s also an element of how a QB is trained to read a defense pre-snap. Do we know if Adrian had “flexibility” in the order of his reads? Or (my impression) is they taught him one way to run a play, which certainly poses disadvantages. I know he didn’t have audible rights, so it makes me question what he knew about where to go with the ball (combined with generally slow decision making).
I keep thinking of him missing Falck and Vokolek running wide open for potential TDs.
It happens, but was there ever a chance to be clued in on their likelihood of getting open based on pre-snap reads? Maybe, maybe not.
How do you know he didn’t have audible rights? I’m not disputing, just curious how you know that for a fact.
Pre-snap reads from the QB spot aren’t that difficult in its basic form. When defenses disguise coverages, it becomes much more difficult but can be done. Either way, you have to process it all quickly which I don’t think AM did very well some games. I actually do think he did a good job sometimes but he seemed very inconsistent to me. Zach Taylor was very good at it as I remember.
While not 100%, I’m pretty sure it was discussed in the past, as well as just from observation.
It’s also different because their audibles came in the form of sideline checks. So it doesn’t mean we never audibled, it just came from the coaches, not QB. Adrian’s decisions focused more on zone read stuff, plus route progressions.
I believe this to be accurate. I don't remember many plays at all, where the audible didn't come from the sideline. Hell I don't remember very many plays where they simply lined up and ran the play called in the huddle. There was always a check to the sideline. The exception being late in halfs or games when the clock was running.
I agree it greatly reduces the need for an audible but I would expect the QB to still have that option. When they've rec'd the play, and the defense changes so he looks over for another play and with time ticking off the play clock, the defense changes again. It will be rare but still has to be an option. Now, did the QB get prepared enough during the week to make an audible or is he just going to call a time out because he's confused and doesn't have enough time to look over for a 3rd play & set the offense? I've never seen an offense that didn't have a "go to" audible to keep a team out of a bad play. I'm not saying I know for a fact that AM was given options but I would still be surprised if he wasn't.
Yeah, I thought the same thing.Nice to see our snaps haven’t improved at all.
Agreed. And it could be the same play to audible to in several scenarios. If the defense does this, audible to that. Just change up the HOT call
In theory, yes. I am just asking, when did you see Martinez make a call, walk up and down the line and let the OLine know the play call, make the hand funnel to yell out to receivers the new play or whatever? I don't remember seeing it, is all I am saying. They huddled, went to the line, did a fake snap, looked to the sideline to see if they need to run the original play or get the new play, then ran the play.
I am just saying I don't remember Martinez making many of those calls, they all seemed to come from the sidelines and signaled in to the players.
I can't remember any. And quite frankly that whole " line up and then look to the sideline " just totally flew into the face of the "play fast" philosophy coming in
Play fast was as much to catch the opponent in with certain personnel as it was to catch them in a certain formation.
The best display I saw with that was the Oregon vs Florida St game in the Rose Bowl CFP semi final. There was so many times that Frost caught Charles Kelly with a personnel group in and got a big play, then ran that exact play a few times in a row until they scored or until Florida St called a time out.
Never REALLY saw it at NU much. There were times/flashes of it. That's funny because like you say Frost was successful with it at Oregon and saw it at ucf as well.
There was a significant amount of hurry up in Frost’s offense here too. Again hurry up doesn’t have to mean getting to the ball fast and running a play every 20 seconds. To be effective you just have to play fast enough to keep the opponent from being able to substitute if you get the matchups you want.
Good caveat that it’s not only about when the snap comes.
Interesting article in the other thread (Whipple Offense/Frost Offense)
where we learned Whip used fast tempo twice as much as Frost in the sample games analyzed (from last year) and Frost used slow tempo twice as much as Whip.