2024 USC RECAP: The Face Of God

It's virtually impossible for this to keep happening so often to one football program. And, yet, it does!

Photo courtesy Nebraska Athletics.

After three-and-a-half years of doing this newsletter in this specific period of Husker football, I think my brain has finally run out of ways to eloquently write an opening that says something to the effect of, “Wow, Nebraska probably should have won that one but screwed up a bunch and blew all of its chances.” 

There have been two stats I’ve seen recently that can illustrate what Nebraska’s going through more sharply than anything I could write:

• After Saturday’s 28-20 loss to Southern California, since 2018, Nebraska has played in 36 games where it had the ball for its final offensive possession down one score or tied. In those 36 games, it has scored just three times, and it has won just once. (Credit to @stewmanji on Twitter for the research.)

• Nebraska now holds the record in FBS football for most one-score losses over a period of one season, two seasons, three seasons, four seasons, five seasons, six seasons, seven seasons, eight seasons, nine seasons, 10 seasons, 11 seasons, 12 seasons, 13 seasons, 14 seasons, 15 seasons, 16 seasons, and 17 seasons. (Credit to @arbitraryanalytics on Twitter for the research.)

This is a level of futility and mistakes and bad breaks in close games I can’t even begin to understand or comprehend. Theories of probability would tell you the chances of this happening this often to one team over this small of a time period is microscopically improbable. I write a newsletter where I chart hundreds of elements from each of these football games, in an effort to understand, in detail, what is happening on the field and what is changing on the field. That’s to say, I’m a person who believes in process, in evidence, in providing proof in verifiable ways.

But I’m starting to think the only real explanation for what is happening to Nebraska football now can’t be provided through any of this. Examining science and material reality is useless when you’re presented with the face of God. And that God is saying he hates us.

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This week’s sections are:

• Early Holgorsen Changes

• Stopping Counter

• Small-Margin Mistakes

• Stunting

• Run Defense

• Rant Of The Week: Malcolm Hartzog Is Getting Put In The Sniper Scope

• Turnover Margin Tracker

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Early Holgorsen Changes

The hiring of new coordinator Dana Holgorsen was meant to provide a spark to the anemic Husker offense, but the first game was a bit of a struggle. Nebraska’s 38.1% success rate was worse than its season average of 43.5% entering, and its 4.89 yards per play were also down from the 5.37 it had averaged. Its explosive play rate and havoc play rate were essentially identical to the season-long figures.

Pretty understandable that bringing in a brand new playcaller off the street had some hiccups in its first game, and I don’t really think that has any bearing on this move’s long-term success or failure, but if you were hoping for a dead-cat bounce, you didn’t get one.

There were some noticeable changes under the hood, though. One game is not enough to really say anything definitive, but these were many elements of Nebraska’s offensive profile that were different with Holgorsen in charge, some substantially so. And I think, “Can the offense be good,” is what virtually every Husker fan is most concerned about right now, so let’s dive in:

More Passing

Hiring one of the guys who helped create the modern Air Raid unsurprisingly led to more dropback passing. Nebraska entered Saturday running true dropbacks on about 46.7% of its plays but against USC was at 60.3%. That’s probably a little inflated by playing from behind late in the game and having to go on a two-minute drive, but the rate would still have been very elevated regardless. 

Nebraska’s RPO rate was about the same (17.3% entering to 15.9% vs. USC), so the increased passing mostly came at the expense of Nebraska’s true running plays: Its rate of true runs was at just 23.8%, 13 percentage points below the season average. That was the second lowest rate of runs on the year, trailing only the Indiana game (23.6%), when it was down three touchdowns in the first half. 

I’d expect the elevated passing to continue. This isn’t going to be a predominantly running team anymore, at least not out of designed sets. Whether that will work I’m less sure of: Nebraska’s true runs are the most efficient part of its offense, with a 47.5% success rate on the year, and NU’s passing offense against USC had just a 34% success rate. Maybe Holgorsen’s elevated passing threat boosts their efficiency of the running game, but it also could result in Nebraska doing more of something its worse at. Time will tell!

More Quick Game

There was also a different style of passing used in Holgorsen’s debut. Nebraska in the first nine games had prioritized throwing the ball down the field, running three-step passing concepts on 48% of its dropbacks and deeper five- and seven-step concepts on another 16%. It was running “quick game” — short-depth concepts requiring fast decisions and meant to get the ball out of the quarterback’s hands immediately — on just 24% of its dropbacks.

The Air Raid relies heavily on quick game — it’s basically based around quick game — and we saw those percentages flip. NU ran quick game Saturday on 43.3% of its dropbacks, with the three-step concepts dipping almost 15 percentage points to 32.4%. The deep shots remained about the same. Could be game-flow related, but generally I think we can expect to see more of the short, fast passing with Holgorsen at the helm.

With more quick game, we also saw changes to protection. NU had run a lot of heavy protections, keeping backs or tight ends in to chip block and provide help to the offensive line. Nebraska had gotten all five eligible receivers out on routes immediately on just 40.6% of plays. That rate went up to 51% against the Trojans, while the rate of six-, seven-, and eight-player protections all fell.

More Wide RPOs

NU’s rate of run-pass option plays was largely the same, but the types of RPOs were different. Most of NU’s RPOs had been the arrow/slide routes to the tight ends or bubble routes to the slot receiver, but Holgorsen ran more wide passing element RPOs, meant to get the ball out further toward the boundary on a quick screen with a blocker in front:

Nebraska had run just five of those wide screen RPOs all season entering the Southern Cal game but ran three Saturday.

More Tempo

Nebraska entered huddling or subbing on about 80% of its snaps, and Holgorsen did up the overall speed of the operation. Nebraska still huddled/subbed on about 70% of its plays, but its rate of slower “check with me” tempo — where the offense gets on the ball fast and then signals from the sideline — was up to 24% of snaps, which is double what it was doing before. No one’s going to mistake that for the 2012 Oregon Ducks, but it’s also a step toward not being the slowest offense in the country.

Typically moving at pace means you have to simplify what you’re running (to make it easier to signal in) and also leads to more mental mistakes (moving faster and in a hurry generally does). So far, no noticeable difference in the execution — the success rate of Nebraska’s plays out of huddling vs. tempo were essentially identical.

More Motion On Runs

Nebraska’s rate of using overall motion stayed about the same, but Holgorsen used different types of motion and deployed a higher rate of motion on running concepts than Nebraska was previously using. Sixteen of Nebraska’s 25 called runs or RPOs featured some form of motion (61.8%). Those same plays used motion on just 42.4% previously.

The types of motion Nebraska was using were in the playbook previously but not often used. There was still a lot of typical jet motion, but Holgorsen was also using a lot of this motion package, where the formation starts in a spread look (in either doubles or trips) and motioned a tight end just before the snap to take their usual position:

That’s not something it had done much of previously. It also went back to a motion package it used during the Ohio State game, where Janiran Bonner would start wide and motion in to perform a split zone block like a tight end:

Saturday it also used a lot more of this glide/widen motion from the running back, where the shifts horizonatally at the snap before releasing on a pass route:

This was originally a thing the 49ers did with Christian McCaffrey last season, and NU had done it a few times in the first nine games, but it did it for three reps against USC.

More Pistol, Less Under-Center

NU on Saturday traded almost all of its snaps under center out. Nebraska entered the USC game running about 20% of its offense from either under-center singleback or I-formation looks, but against Southern Cal it ran just two snaps from under center. 

Nebraska traded some of those for being in the pistol more often (9% of snaps Saturday vs. 6% of snaps entering) but way upped its shotgun rate to 87% from 72%. This isn’t going to be an under-center team anymore.

Fewer Tight Ends

NU was in 10 personnel (no tight ends) or 11 personnel (one tight end) on 86% of its snaps, and it used 12 personnel (two tight ends) on the other 14%. Nebraska rate of using multiple tight ends or a fullback was at about 31% entering the game against Southern Cal, so we saw the usage of heavier personnels cut in half to just stay in 11 personnel looks more often.

More Boerkircher and Lindenmeyer

There was also different tight end personnel on the field. Nebraska had previously used Thomas Fidone on almost every snap, then brought on Nate Boerkircher and Luke Lindenmeyer when it wanted to get into heavy personnel. But it subbed out Fidone on Saturday and put Boerkircher on the field as the only tight end far more often than it had been, and it also brought on Lindenmeyer to set picks on the Air Raid’s many pick-route passing concepts: 

More Stack Alignments, Less Bunch

Nebraska only used one snap of a bunch formation Saturday, a major drop, but instead relied heavily on receiver stacks, where one of the wideouts is lined up directly behind another. NU used receiver stacks on nine snaps vs. USC, which was a season high by three:

Stacks are good tools to get receivers free releases off the line:

But Nebraska was also using them to throw the wide-screen RPOs, too, putting the blocker directly in front of the receiver and not having them try to block in space as much.  

Fewer Condensed Splits

Almost all of the pro-style “throw down the field with condensed receivers on crossing routes” stuff was out of the offense. Nebraska entered the Southern Cal game using condensed receiver splits on 32% of its plays, but it used them on just 9% of snaps Saturday, all of which were out of the pistol or shotgun. The “49ers Offense” dream is dead.

Lighter Boxes

Nebraska entered having faced a “heavy” box — with more defenders than blockers within the tackle box inside five yards of the line of scrimmage — on 54% of its rushes and RPOs this season. It faced a matching or light box on just 36% and 9% of its runs, respectively. Nebraska’s offensive line has generally blocked pretty well this year by the eye test but been facing one more defender than it had people it could block on over half its snaps.

But Holgorsen’s use of more spread formations, fewer tight ends, and fewer condensed splits got that number of heavy boxes down considerably. NU ran into a heavy box just 32.0% of the time against Southern Cal, and faced a matching box on 52% of its runs and a light box on 16%. 

That’s a huge improvement. The running game seemed to find some lanes, especially in the second half, as this more spread-out approach kept defenders from being able to pack the line of scrimmage. NU’s backs ran for 107 yards on 18 carries Saturday, the best day they’ve had in Big Ten play in 2024. This was the most promising sign to me. 

More Zone Runs Than Gap

Entering the game, Nebraska had used slightly more gap-scheme run concepts (plays typically run with a puller or specified gaps) over zone running concepts. 

Against USC, though, the balance flipped; NU was 58.3% zone and 41.7% gap. It’s harder to run gap-scheme with lighter personnel, so it tracks the Air Raid schemes have largely favored zone running concepts.¹

The biggest change is that NU largely abandoned Duo concepts — its most used running concept entering the game, at 27% — in favor of increased usage of regular Inside Zone and Split Zone concepts. Nebraska ran Duo just twice, but went to Inside Zone five times and Split Zone an astounding 13 times. That Split Zone usage constituted 52% of all called NU run concepts; its season average entering had been just 8.9%, and the most it had gotten called in a single game previously was 10 reps.

More Spot/Snag and Double Slants

A new play Nebraska hadn’t run before that we saw Saturday was a pairing of two classic Air Raid concepts out of a 2x2 look, with Spot/Snag to one side and a Double Slants look to the other:

Both Double Slants and Spot/Snag are heavily used Air Raid concepts, and both sides of the play are good man-coverage beaters. USC was running predominantly man coverage on Saturday:

The quarterback has the option to throw the Double Slants side of the play (blue) right away if they get off coverage for easy yardage. Spot/Snag is a play NU was already running a lot, but Holgorsen tweaked how NU was running it. The tight end on the deep corner route (green) was functioning less as a receiving option and more as a “pick” player meant to contact the defender covering the back’s flat route, pushing the coverage defender out of the play to give the back space underneath. You can see Fidone in the clip above not even really looking for the ball and instead trying to just get in the way of as many defenders as possible. You can also see it here with Lindenmeyer to the top of the screen:

Nebraska ran this play five times, completing all four of them for 6.2 yards per play. Not huge gains, but a dependable quick-game concept, which this offense didn’t have previously. Nebraska quarterback Dylan Raiola went to the Double Slants side on all but one of them, some of which were misreads. I imagine the teaching point was to throw the slant if the coverage was playing off, like below:

but there were big gains missed to the Spot/Snag side of the play that he didn’t seem to even be looking at.

More Mesh

Mesh is a now-ubiquitous passing concept that was invented by the Air Raid, involving two short crossing routes underneath, one of which is trying to pick a middle defender to spring the other crossing route free. Nebraska had run Mesh just four times on the season entering the Southern Cal game.

It ran it three times Saturday, with successful plays on two of them. The one it didn’t complete probably should have gone for a touchdown with better execution:

The teaching point here is to throw the ball to the receiver on the drag route right after the other crossing route sets the pick on the man coverage defender trailing the drag. Boerkircher gets about as good a pick on the play as you’re ever going to see to spring Alex Bullock wide open:

and Raiola doesn’t throw it. This was a more egregious miss than the failed pick play he doesn’t throw on the next snap. It’s a new concept taught by a new coach, but the play’s never going to get more open than that, brother. That’s what a P4 college football window looks like.

Getting The Ball Out

A big problem with Raiola’s recent play has been an inability to make quick decisions against pressure. He’s either not recognized his hot outlets in the face of blitzes or held onto the ball in an attempt to make plays. 

That was better Saturday, as he seemed to have received some emphasis over the bye week to stop holding onto the ball, and he seemed to have a better idea of where he should be going with it. Adding more quick game to the offense — which is easier to read than downfield concepts — probably helped, too.