What’s the Right Tempo Versus ISU?
Nebraska has practiced and run their offense at a high tempo this year. By running plays quickly, they can pressure defenses. It makes it difficult for the D to substitute, to call defenses, and to stay mentally sharp. It also extends the game by increasing the number of plays run. The Husker offense should have success against Idaho State this week regardless of tempo. That being the case, is it better to stay full throttle or to slow it down?
The first goal is always victory. It just doesn't seem that tempo will be too important in making that happen for Nebraska. There's an argument that the underdog might want to shorten the game by milking the clock to make it fewer possessions. That would mean they might need fewer scores and fewer stops to pull the upset. In that case, a slow tempo by Nebraska might help Idaho State. If a longer game helps the better team, then NU should seek to extend it with a quicker tempo.
A secondary goal might be to put up an acceptable score. A 17-3 victory would probably cost the Huskers esteem nationally which could translate into poll votes and even post-season opportunities. If Nebraska needs 50 points, the best way to get it would likely be to increase the tempo. An extra few possessions will make it that much easier to light up the scoreboard.
A more important goal might be to prepare for Wisconsin and other Big Ten teams. If NU plans to play up-tempo against the Badgers, would it be better to get some more practice at that speed? A counter-argument would be to show something very different versus ISU than what you want to run against U-Dub.
One of the more important goals this week though might be to avoid injury. If the Huskers decide to slow the game down so that there are fewer total snaps, they'll also reduce the risk of injury to key personnel. A 150-snap outing has fewer opportunities than an 180-snap game. That's just simple math. It's a long season, so why add wear and tear?
Also, if the Huskers are still concerned about their confidence on the defensive side of the ball (particularly with a starting linebacker now out for the season), wouldn't you rather keep the defense rested before each series. If the Huskers win by 40 but the defense plays 40 minutes, is that wise?
As you can see, there are good arguments on both sides. What would you like to see?
Wakita, Oklahoma
9/19/2012
The theory of using ‘high tempo’ to score points to gain national esteem has merit. The danger involved in that is the ‘delivery’. An example of that is last weeks game against ASU. A high tempo offense was used to attempt to score some extra ‘icing’ points when NU was already leading 42-13 with approximately 1 minute (or so) left in the game.
What everyone was witnessing was a superior offense who already had pounded a far weaker team fumble away a touchdown around the goal line.
Nebraska had already proved their point but careless execution really revealed that Nebraska was suffering from a huge chip on their shoulder from the UCLA game loss and trying to make it up on ASU.
In this case, trying to score needless points with the high tempo offense kind of backfired.
Winning by 29 points, as it turns out, was enough for the national media to bring Nebraska back into the top 25.
I don’t remember who exactly fumbled the ball but it probably was a second string player and those things will happen even with first string players.
9/19/2012
I think we need to score a lot of points to make up for the UCLA fiasco. Just from the sheer rankings standpoint. It counts towards post season play, and like the article put it…builds national esteem. I think that’s really important. You want to be ranked as high as possible, especially towards the end of the season. And since we’ve had 2 nice wins over grossly inferior competition where we really looked fantastic, the one loss to an unranked (at the time) team makes it so our record doesn’t really speak to how good this team is. If we had that UCLA game to do over, I think they’d pretty much win convincingly, but since we did have an extremely poor outing that day, I think we need to do whatever we can to get us up as far as possible in the polls to make up for that one transgression. I’m not one to run up the score unnecessarily, but in this case, it will help us more I think to go full bore and just annialate them and put up as many points as possible. I think a 60 to 70 point day will show how good we are to the national audience and pollsters. We really should be in the top 15 at least.
This is the year we should win it all. None of the teams in the B1G looks good at all. Huge opportunity for us. Every one was better last year except us. All of them look beatable, and with OSU not being able to play for it, and Wisconsin ranked somewhere in the 40’s now, and MU not exactly lighting it up and with MSU’s offensive problems, if we can play like we played against Southern Miss, we ought to be able to win it all. Just depends on which team shows up in all our games; the team that has won 2 games and looked like world beaters, or the team that showed up at UCLA and were tentative at best.
9/20/2012
Don’t change a thing on offense..obviously. andArkansas state was not a inferior competition. ucla was best team we’ve played and Arkansas state was the worst.