2024 ILLINOIS RECAP: Opportunities

A blown game gives us a chance to see what this Nebraska team really is

Photo courtesy Nebraska Athletics.

Through three games, this Nebraska team had largely gone untested. Two of its opponents were physically outmatched, with the games never really in doubt. Against its one major nonconference test, it rode a wave of early energy and splash plays to a big lead against Colorado, and a sputtering Buffs team was never able to make it close again or put NU in a worrying spot. These Huskers have largely played well, but they also hadn’t really been put into the fire until Friday.

On that first stress test, they failed. There were numerous missed opportunities by NU to seize a disappointing 31-24 overtime loss to Illinois, missed field goals and passes, defensive gaffes, and bad breaks in a close game throughout. Coming out a week later (apologies), I won’t rehash them.

But a football season is a collection of these tests. A season is judged by a whole, 12 data points that together prove your merit. If a football season gives you anything, it’s chances to prove what came before didn’t matter, for good or bad.

So, one blown game isn’t “Same Old Nebraska” — it’s one blown game, a failed moment in a season that’s a collection of these pass/fail tests. While there’s understandable scar tissue at Nebraska from the previous seven seasons over a gaffe-filled close loss, a college team letting a game it should win get away isn’t that noteworthy. It happens all the time, to every program. Nebraska doesn’t have a monopoly on brutal Ls, even if it may feel like it sometimes.

What would represent “Same Old Nebraska,” though, lies in what comes next. “Same Old Nebraska” would also fail its next test, playing around with or losing to a Purdue team that looks like one of the worst in the Power 4 conferences. “Same Old Nebraska” wouldn’t regroup or refocus, letting this one bad moment turn into two or three in the coming contests.

The next stretch of games — at Purdue, home against Rutgers, and at Indiana — seems likely to define the season. Nebraska has so far proven better than all three teams, but not by so much you’d consider any a surefire win — the exact opportunity you’d want to prove yourself after a loss like we saw against Illinois. Go 3-0 in that stretch? You’re 6-1 and no one remembers a millisecond of the Illinois game. Go 2-1? There’s probably disappointment but not alarm bells. Go 1-2 or 0-3? That’s “Same Old Nebraska.”

How will NU players and staff respond? The true test of it comes now.

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PROGRAMMING NOTE: I wrote a little longer this week, initially on the thought/plan that I had an extra day for research, which soon became me being overextended on how much work I took on and releasing this a day late. Such is life.

This week’s sections are:

• Creating A Situational Offense

• Defense, You OK?

• Conservatism Isn’t Winning Football With This Quarterback

• Other Offensive Gameplan Notes

• Perimeter Blocking

• Unsung Play Of The Week

• Turnover Margin Tracker

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Creating A Situational Offense

You could argue Nebraska’s base-down offense has been a little generic, but coordinator Marcus Satterfield has made a major impact on this offense’s success with some creative situational designs this year. He was especially in his bag against Illinois.

When an offensive play-caller is designing their gameplan, they’ll have a set of “base” plays to choose from to be used during “standard” downs — your first-and-10s, your second-and-7s, plays where the offense is between the 20s and on-schedule. That’s a set of, for example, 15 runs and 15 passes the team practiced leading up to that week. But the play-caller will also have a menu of “situational” play calls — any specific plays/designs you prepare for specific, specialized situations in the game. They’ll have a selection of plays designed and practiced just to run on short yardage, on third-and-longs, on the goalline, in the red zone, when backed up in their own endline, etc. Special situations in the game. 

That is where Satterfield has done well this year. There’s been less use for situational calls with UTEP and Northern Iowa in the first four games, but we got a diverse menu Friday.

The first true situational call Nebraska encountered was on its second drive, a third-and-10:

Nebraska here comes out in an empty set, with a bunch formation to the field. This is already an outlier for the defense; Nebraska has run hardly any empty formations this season — only one snap, coming Northern Iowa — and when this staff has run empty in the past, it’s been exclusively out of a spread-out trey alignment. It’s never shown a bunch alignment out of empty, until this play. So that’s already putting the defense against a look they haven’t practiced. 

Also notable is the personnel — running back Emmett Johnson is in the slot to the two-receiver side, and tight end Thomas Fidone is the wing player attached to the formation in the bunch. The back is typically lined up wide in Nebraska’s empty sets, and Fidone is typically away from the formation in a slot alignment.

On this third-and-long, the play NU has on here is a “Deep Curls” concept, with three of the eligible receivers busting down the field for 15 yards before hitting the brakes and putting their numbers to the QB. Illinois is a very man-coverage-heavy team (that will come up a lot here), so this is a concept that will, in theory, get isolated, one-on-one individual matchups down the field against Illinois defensive backs. The issue will be protecting the QB long enough for the three receivers to get down the field against a presumed five-player rush (Illinois lines up with five rushers on nearly all of their snaps). 

But that protection is why NU is in the bunch, and that’s why Fidone and Johnson are aligned where they were: They both are there to “chip” protect, contacting and slowing Illinois edge rushers before they release on flat routes, allowing the receivers time to get down the field and the quarterback unpressured time to pick his matchup. The specific alignment and use of personnel by Satterfield here in a third-and-long helps NU convert.

The next situational-specific play happens a few snaps later, on the ensuing third-and-4:

Again, Illinois is very man coverage heavy, so on another third-down situation, Satterfield turns to a man-coverage-beating concept that was likely put in the gameplan for this matchup: Shallow Cross. Shallow Cross is a double in-breaking concept that has one receiver run a drag route across the formation as another receiver comes over the top of it on a “sit” route or an “over” route from the opposite direction at a deeper depth. It combats man coverage well by having two players running across the formation, presumably winning foot races with one-on-one defenders. Middle zone coverage can take the play away, but it works against the man coverage. NU gets man (Cover 1), and Fidone runs the over in the play above from a condensed, Y isolated split on the backside, and the “shallow route” route in the play above actually comes from a Levels concept — a different man-beating concept, two in the same play — to the trips side. Quarterback Dylan Raiola hits Fidone with a great throw after Fidone wins his route and clears the robber safety, and NU converts and gets an explosive. 

NU hadn’t run a rep of any Shallow Cross concept in any of the three previous games this season but ran five snaps of it on Friday, as Satterfield came ready with it for the heavy man rates from Illinois.

After two more failed standard-down plays, NU gets in another third-down situation three plays later, and Satterfield has a third-straight designer situational look:

Nebraska starts in a trips formation, with receiver Jahmal Banks on the three-receiver side. Satterfield brings Banks across in motion, and an Illinois defensive back follows him all the way across the formation. That’s a pre-snap tell that Illinois will be in man coverage again — if it had been zone coverage, the secondary structure would have shifted when Banks crossed the center, with a different player rolling down over the top of Banks. But when just one DB follows the receiver across the formation, it’s an indication to the quarterback before the snap that you’re likely to get man coverage. 

With the motion, Banks — predominantly an outside receiver — is motioned into the slot, where he now has a “two-way” route possibility against a corner, meaning he could conceivably break outside or inside on his route. As an outside receiver, he can only break inside (because he’s lined up next to the sideline), so the motion also has the effect of making the coverage assignment harder on the defensive back, because he’ll have to defend both the inside and outside on the field.¹

On the snap, the Illinois defense drops into one of its rare match zone coverage snaps in a curveball, but the playside still is essentially playing man coverage. Nebraska’s outside receiver runs straight down the field, clearing out that corner, and Banks breaks to the outside now that that space has been vacated. The corner — having to also defend the middle of the field on the two-way route — gets outleverage, and Raiola delivers a good ball to the outside to convert again.

This was the first time NU has ran this play, or put Banks in the slot, so this was also a gameplan-specific design meant to hit on Illinois’ man rates. NU would actually run this same play again in the second quarter, when Raiola threw the interception in the end zone (he takes the vertical throw to Isaiah Neyor on that rep instead of the out):

Back on the second drive, on the next play, NU again uses a gameplan-specific design to beat Illinois’ man coverage:

This is one of the “Arrow” RPOs, I’ve previously discussed, with the quarterback reading the edge defender and handing it off or throwing the flat route. That flat route has exclusively been run by wing tight end this season, but here, Satterfield again takes advantage of Illinois’ man-coverage calls by having Banks run it after a “return” motion, in which he slow jogs to the interior of the formation, then breaks back outside quickly to catch the man defender off-guard. You can see the defensive back responsible for Banks (#22) get caught out of position by the break back to the field, giving Banks leverage on the flat route. Raiola throws it out on the RPO, and Banks breaks a tackle from the out-of-position DB to pick up nine yards. 

That’s not really an example of a “situational” call, but it is an example of a “special” or “get-to” play Satterfield put in the gameplan for this matchup.