Georgia Tech looks good tonight...
- Thread starter onechase
- Start date
He's about to look like Kevin Sumlin
I love the option I miss the option i wish we still ran the option
The option is great for service academies and schools that struggle to recruit top players at skill positions. I don't know that it really makes sense for GA Tech - they are in a talent-rich area in a major city. I would think they'd be able to recruit to a pro-style offense.
I do wonder why schools like Iowa State and Kansas that will never be able to recruit top players don't try to hire an option coach.
Gill doesn't run the option as a coach. He hired Chuck Long as OC at KU and ran the spread.
For me, this is why I still lament the firing of Solich. Not because he was a great coach/recruiter. He wasn't, and our program had slipped under his watch. But firing him and replacing him with Callahan meant killing off the offensive system developed by Osborne. It was our biggest identity marker and should never have been replaced. If I had been the AD in 2002, after our awful season that year, I would have called Solich in and discussed the coaching changes and recruiting changes that had to be made. I would have greatly increased the recruiting budget and hired recruiting gurus to come in and consult. In 2002 the Nebraska name/brand still meant A LOT. So turning our recruiting around would not have been all that difficult. Coaching changes, such as hiring Pelini, had already begun as well.
So in many, many ways, I think the decision by he whose name I will not mention in 2003 to fire Solich and hire Callahan is the single most destructive thing to happen to NU football in the modern era.
And for the record and in the interests of full disclosure: I was in favor of firing Solich in 2003. So my remarks above go under the heading of "hindsight is 20/20"
So in many, many ways, I think the decision by he whose name I will not mention in 2003 to fire Solich and hire Callahan is the single most destructive thing to happen to NU football in the modern era.
And for the record and in the interests of full disclosure: I was in favor of firing Solich in 2003. So my remarks above go under the heading of "hindsight is 20/20"
If you posted this one more time it would be considered the triple option.
Yup. The option gave Nebraska an identity. It made Nebraska different, which was an advantage.
While everybody recruited tall offensive linemen, with the reach necessary to pass block, Nebraska could sign shorter guys like Aaron Taylor and Dominic Raiola (both generously listed as 6'1"). Those guys were bulldozers. Nebraska's offensive line had celebrity status for a reason. Even as the program slid, Nebraska had no problem getting guys like Fonoti and Incognito to continue the tradition. In-state talent favored that style of play, too.
Nebraska's offense meant running backs were going to get 60 touches a game, where they might only get 15 under a pro-style offense. Actually being able to showcase your skills still mattered to good recruits.
The offense made Nebraska one of the most desirable locations for dual-threat quarterbacks. On the recruiting trail, most dual-threat guys faced position changes to WR or DB in college. If they wanted to play quarterback, Nebraska was it. What if that had continued?
The story at the time was that recruits wanted to pay in a pro-style offense, and that Nebraska's dusty old option wasn't appealing any more. That was a cop-out to hide lazy recruiting and lackluster coaching. Had Osborne remained with the program, they likely would have had a championship in 1999 and a better shot at one in 2001.
As it is, we've had a revolving door of coaches, three different scheme changes, and no conference championships in a generation. I'm so glad we dumped that dusty old option offense!
Georgia Tech under Paul Johnson has always been able to move the ball. And I think he's disproven the myth that the option can't work against modern defenses. It's too bad that Georgia Tech has had horrendous defenses under Paul Johnson. Having a quarterback who can execute the option offense is also vitally important. Some years Georgia Tech's had that and some years they haven't.
I think if you bring back Osborne's offense from the 90's, it would roll through defenses today just like it did back then.
I think if you bring back Osborne's offense from the 90's, it would roll through defenses today just like it did back then.
Apparently that offense wasn't supposed to work back in the 90's if you were to listen to the talking heads.
Why isn't Navy winning titles or Georgia Tech winning titles? What about New Mexico? The coach was responsible for the success as much as the system. Taking what Osborne accomplished and making about the system doesn't give Osborne his just due.
Osborne, as we know, recruited better players on average than Navy, GT, and New Mexico. But he was also just plain better at the x's and o's. And his assistants were pretty good too!
Excellent post sir that I couldn't possibly agree with more. Yes, Pedeyshine destroyed NU tradition & success. We're just another fluff-ball program now......and we scare absolutely nobody.
I was all for letting the Solich thing play out since he made some changes and had pretty good turn around with it.
But we already talked about in another thread, sort of the inevitability of the death of TO's system by the end of Solich's tenure.
One thing I didn't mention in that thread was that Solich didn't appear to be an offensive genius on the level of TO or Meyer, so while the system would have likely changed to something more spread option-esque, it essentially would be "the modified spread option according to Barney Cotton".
That's a loss less sexy than where TO was in 1997 after 25 years of tinkering or where Meyer was in the early part of the century.
I agree with your post. TO ran a 'smarter' version of the option than what I've seen from Georgia Tech. We also had incredible defenses. I will go out on a limb and say that we probably don't ever get close to winning another NC until we get back our roots in some form. Hope I'm wrong. Yes, TO's offense would still dominate today. (I actually asked him myself ). I don't mean this to be a "bring back the option" thread, because the type of O we have in place now should be fun to watch and very exciting. Good enough to win another NC ( of even a conference championship)? I'm not holding my breath.....but always pulling for them, no matter what. GBR.
Its funny how folks associate our "roots" with the option dynasty of the 90's. Our original set of championships were won with a more traditional style offense.
q
Never said the coach wasn't responsible and I wouldn't expect any coach to run his system for the simple fact that you use what you're comfortable using. Besides, putting the offense Paul Johnson runs in place and saying it defines Nebraska football or that it maintains it's identity is false. Running the football may have a word in defining Nebraska football but the Flexbone does not. That Osborne offense wasn't even a true triple option offense, more or less the triple option replaced the passing game in a regular old pro style offense. He was innovative, the guy pretty much invented the counter run so no I wouldn't expect another to maintain his system as he did.
Never said the coach wasn't responsible and I wouldn't expect any coach to run his system for the simple fact that you use what you're comfortable using. Besides, putting the offense Paul Johnson runs in place and saying it defines Nebraska football or that it maintains it's identity is false. Running the football may have a word in defining Nebraska football but the Flexbone does not. That Osborne offense wasn't even a true triple option offense, more or less the triple option replaced the passing game in a regular old pro style offense. He was innovative, the guy pretty much invented the counter run so no I wouldn't expect another to maintain his system as he did.
What was it Deangelo Evans said? With Osborne play calling was like playing chess. With Solich it was checkers.
But the point is that you are pining for a return to an offense of yore but without that coach, the offense of yore wont get you anymore wins than what has been put out there the last 16 years.
we didn't scare anyone in 2002 or 2003 either. Hell that team that played in the national title game didn't scare anyone. This is revisionist history.
Lol!
2003's blackshirts would shut down our current fluffy offense like a Mercedes Benz running over a paper clip. 2001's OLine would run over our current blackshirts like an SS Panzer Tiger tank over an empty beer can. Haha....not to mention how easily Crouch would be in warp 7 scoring TDs all over the place.
Geesh.....I could on forever but since you're so happy with our marginal (at best!) performances with MR.....well, whatever works for ya!
Missouri, Texas, K State, Penn St, Iowa St, Oklahoma St just to name a few, were no longer intimated by Nebraska by 2002 and 2003. So pretend those teams were intimidating if you want but when Bo Pelini is crying to Bill Snyder that he was running up the score, that says all you need to know.
I'm not pining for a return of any particular offense, my post didn't even imply that. My point was that any offense will work in CFB with the right man wielding it. As they say, it's the wizard, not the wand.
Lot of folks think the only return to glory is the way TO did it. Hence Tuco's general statement.
I understand and I don't agree with that line of thinking either. A coach runs what he knows and is comfortable with, and I don't see the Nebraska offense when I'm watching GT play.
Even having an option coach wouldn't be doing it the way TO did it. He was a very innovative guy, that offense was unique to him.
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