My exact point. Lose Palmer, a burner with decent at best hands. And gain IGC and Betts with the potential for the freshman phenom to contribute.
I agree that getting Betts and IGC back is huge, but let's be careful not to discount Palmer. I don't know that I've ever seen a WR at Nebraska have as good of a season as he had.
Palmer was awesome but Whipple's plan to revolve the offense around throwing deep balls to him wasn't conducive to winning. No individual player will be as good as Palmer but IMO the wr room will be better.
Palmer was good, but come on! If Johnny Rodgers or Irving Fryer had played in this pass-heavy era, they would have set records no NU receiver including Palmer could touch. Even with that limitation Rodgers winning the Heisman and Fryer being first pick in NFL draft is a lot more than any receiver since has accomplished. But I realize many fans aren’t old enough to remember either guy so I assume that includes you.
Or the opposite where fans pencil in someone to replace a proven performer and expect the same results.
I am no fan of Whipple, but I am sure his play calling was affected by the fact that we had zero running game to set up the pass, and we did not have a possession type receiver worth a shit in the slot. But what we did have was some speed at the wide receiver position and so Whipple decided to focus on chunk plays via the pass in order to compensate for our inability to sustain long drives down the field.
Yep. I remember reading an analysis of Whipple before he came here that said he will identify your best WR and use his complicated route tree concepts to scheme him open as his main offense. That's exactly what he did.
We coulda had prime Jerome Bettis in the backfield and Whip wouldn’t have ran the ball. Zero desire on his part.
I guess we'll find out but I think Whipple's scheme and lack of commitment were a big problem with the lack of a run game.
I've seen them play. They were great. They don't hold the single season receptions and yard records for WR's. Palmer does. Everything else is just speculation.
While factually accurate, the offensive systems are completely different. I guess the question I would ask would be if you put Palmer in Osborne’s office in the early 80s, would he have set the records that he did last year?
We had zero run game in part because of his offensive philosophy and play calling. I loved his pass routes but he might as well told defenses what, when and where we were going to run the ball.
The game plan definitely revolved around Palmer. Probably too much. But when it worked, he was fantastic though.
Over matching teams with your running game tends to help out your receivers! A lot of DB's biting on play action in those days.
Yeah but I can see why the Pitt coach said it's not conducive to winning. Getting sacked and getting your qb killed while waiting for a deep pass opportunity isn't great for winning. I think we could have won a few more games with more screens to Grant.
I'm assuming by "the QBs" you are referring to Steve Taylor and maybe McCathorn Clayton. Steve Taylor just flat out wasn't a good passer- the passing game during his career was check to see if the #1 option is wide open and if not, scramble. Taylor was a great scrambler, but he didn't match the hype he had coming in. McCathorn Clayton was an option quarterback. Period. Very good runner, poor passer.
So much like Whipple spent most of his time working on pass protections and throwing the ball, Osborne spent his time running the ball. Whipple's team struggled running the ball and Osborne's teams struggled throwing the ball. The point of my post earlier is that a team is better at what they work on most. Blaming Raiola for the success of the OLine is a bit disingenuous. Whipple's offense did little to put the Oline in a position to succeed.
Exactly. Good coaches understand this. Nobody wants to be one dimensional, but you've got to have an identity, some go-to plays and counters off that. You don't want to be a jack of all trades and a master of none. Philosophically, you're going to get out of something exactly what you put in. This is how a Pelini defense looks bad even though he is a good defensive mind- last minute changes to the game plan won't work unless the kids understand it and can execute it UNDER PRESSURE. There are other examples on the offensive side as well. That's why the Whipple and Frost "blending of the two schemes" was doomed from the start- two different offenses, two different philosophies, two different beliefs in how practice time should be delegated, et al. Last year, I chose to be optimistic but it wasn't going to work unless the HC puts his ego away and gives it a chance. This year's interesting situation is Jimbo Fischer and "Biker" Bobby Petrino.
Go back and re-read my post. You changed the subject. The post I responded to dealt with opinions on all-time greatest NU wide receiver. We weren’t discussing who has the record for most receptions.
I agree, though I believe Armstrong was our toughest QB overall aside from Frazier. Toughness factor can mean more than pure skill sometimes. I think we would've sucked more even during those years without TA. I mean, we saw that when he went down and Fyfe came in for him.
All the option qb’s had to be tough, but none tougher than Jammal Lord who carried the ball nearly 500 times his last two seasons. He probably walks with a cane these days.
