A Little Spring Game Thread

I just got sacked by Garrett Nelson while I was writing this

Jamal Turner getting some of his 9,000 career spring game receiving yards. Photo courtesy of Huskers.com

Spring games are great for scratching that offseason college football itch and getting irrationally hype about backups who will never see the field in a real game (this post is dedicated to perennial spring game legends CURENSKI GILLEYLEN and JAMAL TURNER).

But they are typically not great for indicating anything actually significant about a football team. It’s essentially one practice out of many; teams run their most basic schemes and are focused on improving weaknesses and getting depth players reps; and the format is often very nonsensical or limited (shoot whatever Nebraska was doing in that first half into the sun and NEVER BRING IT BACK). Spring games are about having a good time, doing fun things for your fans and inspiring moments.

That being said, I was watching last Saturday with a little bit of piqued interest as the Huskers go through the process of breaking in a new offense and working to meld two offensive schemes. I took a detailed look at Mark Whipple and Pitt’s scheme last year in my last newsletter, and, while the offense was very limited in the spring game, some of the Whipple concepts I mentioned did show up, mixed with some of Scott Frost’s staples from last year.

I did a thread on Twitter last week breaking some of that down that I thought some of you might enjoy:

Black 41 Flash Reverse, The Newsletter @B41FlashReverse

i will break down the spring game in more depth at some point, but wanted to do a short thread on what we saw saturday compared to what whipple ran at pitt last year (piece breaking down '22 pitt below and sorry for the screenshot quality)

black41flashreverse.substack.comWhipple SZNThe hiring of Nebraska’s new offensive coordinator didn’t make immediate sense on paper, but really how big of a departure is Mark Whipple’s scheme?

Black 41 Flash Reverse, The Newsletter @B41FlashReverse

formationally, we saw a lot of the whipple staples. his spread out open looks like spread flex and trey and the i-formation pistol and tackle over stuff are below. another thing i noticed was heavy use of trips formations into the boundary (the short side of the field)

Black 41 Flash Reverse, The Newsletter @B41FlashReverse

the play selection was limited but we also saw some of his favorite passing concepts. here is one variation on the shallow cross look. trey palmer is running the basic/over route out of the slot but stops it against the cover 4 zone so that he doesn't run into the hook defender

Black 41 Flash Reverse, The Newsletter @B41FlashReverse

they also ran the drive concept (to the bottom of the screen and to the side of the field away from where thompson throws it)

Black 41 Flash Reverse, The Newsletter @B41FlashReverse

we also saw some triple option! it just looked different from last year. here smothers has a keep/give read on the end man on the line of scrimmage and a keep/throw the bubble screen read on a second-level defender:

Black 41 Flash Reverse, The Newsletter @B41FlashReverse

here's another triple option concept. it's similar to the one above but replaces the bubble with a little tight end arrow route. nu has run this quite a bit over the last few years, and i'm glad to see some of this stuff is still in the offense bc it rocks

Black 41 Flash Reverse, The Newsletter @B41FlashReverse

also, overall i thought the quarterbacks' processing/timing was already much improved? this was the most impressive of the day to me. watch smothers eyes start on the concept to the trips side (levels) before he gets to the backside dig on time in the zone's hole

Black 41 Flash Reverse, The Newsletter @B41FlashReverse

and finally, one thing i wanted to see was how they were getting plays in (whipple had his qbs at pitt run over to the sideline bc he was afraid of sign stealing, which was very strange). but it looks like nu was signalling like it has under frost, at least for the spring game!

I may do a little more of an in-depth look at the spring game in the future if I feel it’s warranted, but for now here’s a little tidbit with some of the basics.

Sound off in the comments: What did you think of the spring game? Who did you think played well or poorly? Can any of our tackles block a kindergartner? Coaches’ pullover game: Fire or nah?

As always, thanks for reading, smash the subscribe button if you haven’t already and share this post with anyone else who you think might enjoy it!