Tad Stryker: Choosing Simplicity

Leaning on a resurgent offensive line must precede a Husker football revival

It’s Big Ten football. Let’s not turn this into an overthinking man’s game.

If the Cornhuskers are to return to national prominence, the offensive line will not only have to stop self-destructing, it will have to lead the way, so they might as well get used to it early in the season opener, far from the windy Great Plains, amid unfamiliar surroundings while facing a familiar foe in Dublin, Ireland.

The offensive coaching staff is new, including the o-line coach. Cam Jurgens left for the NFL, and Nouredin Nouili is suspended for the entire season. All the more reason not to saddle the offense with complexity. There are enough uncertainties to make anyone waver, and yet, those are some of the very reasons the Huskers should focus on running the ball when they open against Northwestern this weekend.

Where uncertainty abounds, let the running game abound even more. The Huskers must choose a direction and commit to it. Nebraska football needs to return to its blue-collar identity.

Last season, Northwestern had the worst run defense in the Big Ten, and it really wasn’t close. The Huskers should test it early and often, and not get discouraged if they encounter occasional resistance. If Husker running backs don’t have at least 35 combined carries Saturday, it will be a bad sign. The Huskers achieved that last year in their runaway win over Northwestern, but never remotely approached it against any other Big Ten team.

Yes, I know that new offensive coordinator Mark Whipple has historically favored a balanced — and sometimes pass-heavy — offense, although I think if I had a first-round NFL Draft choice at quarterback and a Biletnikoff Award winner at wide receiver, I might lean on the pass myself. But Whipple and the Huskers don’t have Kenny Pickett or Jordan Addison on the roster heading into the 2022 season. They do have a seemingly much improved group of wide receivers, and tight ends who could be difficult to cover. Those weapons will be dangerous if Casey Thompson can throw to them off play action set up by an effective run game.

If Scott Frost wants another year at the helm of Nebraska football, he absolutely, positively has to run the ball downhill early and often. Don’t be surprised if Whipple has gotten that message, and that he looks to the left. More on that in a minute.

Lean on the running game amid uncertainty. Offensive linemen should be least susceptible to nerves of anyone on the team. They know what play has been called, and the defense does not. The last three years of “yips” — frustratingly persistent pre-snap penalties — is a clear sign that the o-line was overthinking everything under Greg Austin’s leadership.

Is a return to hat-on-hat, physical, move-the-line of scrimmage blocking an refreshingly simple cure for the offensive line under Donovan Raiola? I’m eager to find out. No doubt about it, one of the things I’ll be watching closely is how much influence Frost still has on the offense, even though he’s not calling the plays. A prominent downhill run game would solve a majority of the problems that have hung over Nebraska football since 2014. Let’s not beat around the bush; let’s be straightforward about it.

It seems that Raiola is trying to be, and that he has Frost’s blessing. From what I’m hearing, the new line coach wants less dancing and more charging, a return to firing out, getting a hat on a hat and moving the line of scrimmage. Simplicity is not hard to grasp. Frost said last week of Raiola, “He’s kind of freed them up to be aggressive.” If true, that refrain will become music to the ears of Husker Nation.

The style of “crease” blocking favored by Austin turned out to be too passive and cutesy to work. Either not enough creases were being formed, or they weren’t large enough for running backs to find. Whatever they were trying the last couple of years was not working. It seemed to be a severe case of paralysis by analysis.

Is Raiola’s simple, straightforward approach a pipe dream? I think we’re about to find out. Are today’s defenses too sophisticated for this to work? Some of them may be, but not Northwestern’s, not in Week 0. If the Huskers can fly home from the Emerald Isle with 250 rushing yards and a victory, they’ll likely have a revitalized offensive line to lean on this year, which would set up all kinds of options. It’s worth working hard to create that scenario.

My attention will be on the left side, with Teddy Prochazka at tackle and Turner Corcoran at guard. Will the Huskers become a left-handed running team, the way my teenage crush, the mid-1970s Oakland Raiders, were? I wouldn’t bet against it. Nobody’s going to mistake Prochazka and Corcoran for Art Shell and Gene Upshaw, or even Bob “Boomer” Brown and Will Shields, but in my opinion, that’s where the potential star power is concentrated on this line.

Frost hinted throughout fall camp that Nebraska has a running back room that can make the offensive line look good once in a while. It would be ideal if one emerges and explodes, but if that doesn’t happen, it seems there’s a decent chance that the Big Red under running back coach Bryan Applewhite elevate their game to a stable of evenly matched good backs instead of last year’s stable of evenly matched mediocre backs.

This season is no time for overthinking. Too much rides on it.

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