Month: August 2016

Southern Miss – Return of the Fullback

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As we discussed in the last post, Southern Miss was the game where Nebraska fans (and coaches) really discovered what they had been missing the last three years with Andy Janovich.  Langsdorf featured Jano in all facets of the Southern Miss game, as a ball carrier, lead blocker and a receiver on play action.  When NFL Scouts cued up Andy Janovich’s game film before the draft, there is no doubt that the Southern Miss game played a large part in their evaluations.

Let’s take a look at two key plays featuring Jano, including a shout out to the old 34/36 Trap from TO’s day, as well one of Nebraska’s many special plays. Continue reading “Southern Miss – Return of the Fullback” →

Charting Southern Miss – Hello Jano!

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Former Nebraska offensive coordinator Tim Beck once said that fullbacks were dead in modern football.  In a year where Wisconsin rushed for 581 yards against Nebraska and finished 15 spots ahead of Beck’s unit on the yearly rushing list.  Oddly enough, Andy Janovich was also on Tim Beck’s roster that year.  True to Beck’s words, Jano didn’t get a single carry.

Thankfully for Janovich, Beck was off ruining Ohio State’s MNC run in 2016 and new coaches Riley and Langsdorf were exhuming the fullback much to the delight of Nebraska fans.  In the Southern Miss game, Jano was featured heavily in both the running and passing game.

Continue reading “Charting Southern Miss – Hello Jano!” →

Miami – Power/Counter, a Fullback Sighting, and 2-Point Conversions

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Despite the Miami game being a general cluster the point that the offensive game plan was out the window by the second quarter, Nebraska did show a few new looks that were successful.  In this write up, we’ll take a look at Nebraska’s Counter OH Read play, the appearance of the Cross/Janovich combination in a Wing T on short yardage, and a dip into Nebraska’s bag of two-point conversion plays. Continue reading “Miami – Power/Counter, a Fullback Sighting, and 2-Point Conversions” →

Charting Miami – A Game of Ugly

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The Miami game was not Nebraska’s finest, either from an efficiency standpoint or in terms of offensive balance.  A porous defense coupled with early penalties and untimely drops put Nebraska well behind at the half, and an early Miami TD in the third quarter forced Nebraska to rely too much on passing the ball in the second half to catch up.

Even in the early going, though, Nebraska had relatively little success running their base run plays.  Let’s take a look at what did and did not work for Nebraska.

(Editor’s Note: For those of you who like to slow down the GIFs or play them frame-by-frame, I’ve now added hot links before each GIF that take you to a separate page where you can pause or play them frame-by-frame and also expand them to full screen mode.)

Continue reading “Charting Miami – A Game of Ugly” →

Inside Zone Part I – Guest Post

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One of the interesting things about football strategy is that even among the most basic plays, there are often wildly different ways to coach them.  To give you a bit of that flavor, I’ve asked other writers to occasionally provide guest posts to the blog.  Most of these guest writers have coached or played in Nebraska, though I’m always open to contributors from beyond the Good Life.  

Today’s guest post is part of a series dedicated to the inside zone play.  We’ve covered this play in the abstract, but for you guys and girls who really want to know the nuts and bolts of it, I wanted to dive a little bit deeper into the blocking scheme itself.  Enter guest poster Ryan Reuter, a Gretna Dragon who was stuck with me for most of this year’s Big Red Coaches Clinic.  After the jump, Ryan breaks down the basics of the inside zone play.  You can harass him on Twitter @Hoss_Reuter if you want more information.

Continue reading “Inside Zone Part I – Guest Post” →