It won't be a surprise to see NU on the run
By: Rich Kaipust, Midlands News Service
03/21/2008
Updated 03/21/2008 12:40:03 PM EDT
LINCOLN -- Joe Ganz won't lie: Those games were a lot of fun last season when he threw for 510 yards and seven touchdowns against Kansas State and followed with 58 passes, 484 yards and four TDs at Colorado.
They put Ganz in the Nebraska football record book and are the most recent air barrages in a four-year span that saw almost every Husker passing mark broken -- some over and over again.
Ten years from now, it will be interesting to look back and see if those four pass-happy years turn out to be an anomaly in a Husker history built mostly on the ground.
Bill Callahan, who ushered in the pass-heavy attack, was ousted as head coach immediately after the 2007 season. NU offensive coordinator Shawn Watson stayed and will assume the full autonomy he didn't have under Callahan, starting with the first of 15 spring practices Wednesday. How heavily the Huskers commit to the ground game is one of the questions of spring.
"There's two ways this can go, and I think it'll be a mix of both,'' guard Matt Slauson said. "Everybody knows what an amazing job he (Watson) did at Colorado and what an amazing job he's done here thus far. We've had a Top 25 offense, so we really shouldn't be changing much. But this is Nebraska and the running game is what this whole program here was built on, so I wouldn't be surprised if we're getting back to a smash-mouth style.''
The days of 50 passes might not be gone entirely, but they likely will be fewer and further between. Those passing records might be safe for a while.
"If I throw for zero yards and we win, I don't care,'' said Ganz, a senior quarterback from Palos Heights, Ill. "Whatever we have to do to win is the way I take it. If I have to throw for 500 yards, I'll take it. But if we throw for 200 and run for 200 and win, it doesn't matter how we do it.''
Nebraska passed on 53.6 percent of its offensive snaps last season, the highest rate in Callahan's four seasons. One reason was that the Huskers trailed in a number of games and were forced to throw.
Watson won't offer percentages when asked what kind of balance Nebraska will seek. Not before spring practice.
"You've got to find out what you've got in terms of your players,'' he said. "But I do know this: Philosophically, you've got to rush the football to win championships. It's just a fact of life. I think what that says is we'll spend time developing a run game.
"In 2006, we were a really good rushing team, so it's not like we don't know how. We do. Last year, obviously, situations predicated not being able to run the ball as much as he (Callahan) would have liked.''
Nebraska passed more than it ran in both 2007 and 2005. An improved running game was partly behind the Big 12 North championship and Cotton Bowl bid in 2006.
For a hint of what Watson might do, check Colorado's statistics in his six seasons as offensive coordinator. Not once did the Buffaloes throw it as often as NU did in 2007 or 2005, and they had more rushing than passing yards in both of their Big 12 North championship seasons of 2001 and 2002.
His personal favorite was 2001, when CU ran the football almost 65 percent of the time and totaled 2,742 yards rushing and 2,471 passing.
"We were a very, very balanced team,'' Watson said. "We could do whatever we really wanted to do. Then 2002 I enjoyed it because it was a big challenge. We had so many kids replaced and had to work through a quarterback issue, and we were able to protect him and win football games by being able to rush the football.''
On paper, Nebraska has the elements to run the football better.
Coach Bo Pelini said the offensive line can "be a strength for this football team.'' Senior I-back Marlon Lucky is the only returning 1,000-yard rusher in the Big 12.
"We have the pieces to be (better),'' Watson said. "What we become, in terms of how we look, will be predicated on using all those pieces.''
Ganz chucked 148 passes while starting the Huskers' final three games last season. Sam Keller threw it at least 35 times in six of the first nine games.
They followed Zac Taylor's two-year run as the starter in which Taylor set just about every NU single-game, season and career passing record.
Ganz said Watson will keep a lot of the same plays, but maybe change some of the language to make it shorter and more concise. His own running ability should mean more of the shotgun and zone read that the Huskers tried in the season-ending loss at Colorado.
"As a quarterback you want to throw the ball, but you've got to find a happy medium,'' Ganz said. "I'm sure Coach Watson will find that. He'll know when to dial up the long ball and when to run it. A lot depends on what other teams let us do.''
