ADVERTISEMENT

0-0 9:42 1st Qtr 4th and 1 on the road on your own 30 in a ROAD

Huskers_Rule

All-American
Jul 11, 2001
4,039
791
113
game. No way in hell would I have thought MR would make that decision. In the last two games he's made several big time gambles and won them all.

Still this one? Northwestern had a limited offense coming in so make them drive the field. Don't give them a short field to take an early lead.

In the end we ended up punting anyway. I think last week he was telling the team we're here to play to win today. I think the call this week had too much risk for too little return, I'm curious what others think...apologize if this has been discussed in depth already.
 
game. No way in hell would I have thought MR would make that decision. In the last two games he's made several big time gambles and won them all.

Still this one? Northwestern had a limited offense coming in so make them drive the field. Don't give them a short field to take an early lead.

In the end we ended up punting anyway. I think last week he was telling the team we're here to play to win today. I think the call this week had too much risk for too little return, I'm curious what others think...apologize if this has been discussed in depth already.
This is gonna be a little tough to respond to because hindsight is 20/20... but I'll try to be objective.

To me it was definitely a gutsy call, but at the time I thought we would make it so supported it. Still early in the game and if it didn't work I figured it was something we could recover from if they did anything with the ball. Against a different opponent I might not have seen it that way. But against Northwestern, it was a direct challenge to the line to make enough room for Armstrong. And they did, but not with much to spare.

Having said this, anyone who has an issue with this call at this stage of the game, I can't fault you for that either.
 
  • Like
Reactions: HUSK4EVER
Statistics say you should go for that but most coaches wouldn't have because they are risk averse and can't get in "trouble" so to speak by doing the same thing everyone else does. I'm a big believer in the idea of doing what your opponent does not want you to do. I guearantee Northwestern was hoping for a punt there and was disappointed when the offense stayed out there. Hence, going for it was the right call.
 
The offensive line had been winning the battle consistently. That's a week to week call on how we are winning those battles. I love the call and knowing MR has the guts to make that kind of call.

Statistics say you should go for that but most coaches wouldn't have because they are risk averse and can't get in "trouble" so to speak by doing the same thing everyone else does. I'm a big believer in the idea of doing what your opponent does not want you to do. I guearantee Northwestern was hoping for a punt there and was disappointed when the offense stayed out there. Hence, going for it was the right call.
 
  • Like
Reactions: HuskerLLM
Right at that moment, I was saying "go for it". Just felt like it was the right time and it would work. And it did.
 
I was kind of back and forth before I saw we were going for it, but I liked the call. Not saying it didn't shoot my nerves up a little, thinking of Northwestern getting the ball that far down the field with the game where it was at that point, but I still liked the call. With Tommy as QB, I was pretty confident we could get it, I'm not sure with a QB that's not as good of a runner if I would have felt as confident.
 
I didn't like it. Northwestern seems to thrive by capitalizing on other people's mistakes more than just about any other team. I would have been more likely to try and make them earn it.

hqdefault.jpg
 
I'm not a fan of it. Like the original poster said, to little reward for the risk. I doubt winning that 4th drastically increased the percentage chance of scoring on that drive. However, losing that 4th down play would have drastically increased the percentage chance of Northwestern scoring points. Also, some of the punts from around the Northwestern 40ish yard line drive me nuts as well. Those are 4th downs that would increase your chance of scoring significantly while not giving a huge advantage to NW if they don't convert. Also, the net of a punt from around the 40 that goes into the end zone isn't worth it either.

In the end, everything worked out, and that's all that matters in the end. But that doesn't mean it was the right call.
 
I thought it was a bad decision. You're a slight execution problem away from giving up 30-40 yards. I guess you could say that about any time you play defense, but I didn't like it.
 
I thought at the time that Riley was trying to get the momentum back that they should have had after play #3. Gutsy as hell. Too bad the drive went to hell starting on the next play.
 
I hated it. It's guts when you get it and stupid when you don't, but independent of outcome there's no way the reward justified the risk. But we got it and in reality all that matters is the outcome so who cares what I think.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Nate004
I wouldn't have done it, and I thought it was not a good call, but my behind isn't the one on the line.
 
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest posts

ADVERTISEMENT