Our Husker obsession series continues today with the fourth part in a weekly look at topics that often find their way into conversations among Nebraska football fans. Topics already examine
BRIAN CHRISTOPHERSON / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Sunday, May 11, 2008 7:00 pm
It was a cry you used to hear frequently around here, usually after some failed third-and-4.
Never mind all those options to the short side of the field that resulted in big plays. It’s those efforts that didn’t succeed that sometimes brought the most noise.
When it went wrong, undoubtedly some guy seated in Section 34 — picture him in a Husker Apex jacket — would turn to the fans around him in an over-the-top production of agony, whining to whoever could hear: “Why do they always run the option to the short side of the field?”
You know how it goes. Every fan is a coach on Saturdays.
In recent years, with Nebraska rarely running the option, the topic basically disappeared — sort of a shame to those who remember the mileage that could be had from a good short-side option discussion. But the West Coast offense was here. Fans found plenty of other things to complain about, anyway.
Still, Tom Osborne remembers hearing the critics after short-side options gone awry. It was to be expected. After all, when a short-side option failed, it could look bad, sometimes really bad.
If the blocking wasn’t there and the play got strung out, Husker quarterbacks or running backs would either get swallowed up in a hurry or simply run out of room, getting shoved out of bounds in a heap of disappointment.
Osborne certainly had his reasons for going short-side during his years as Husker coach.
“Option football is a numbers game, so you always try to run where you have the numerical advantage,” he said earlier this week. “Of course, people are going to generally overload you to the wide side of the field. Sometimes we’d run out of room on the sidelines. But sometimes we’d have some big plays.”
Most options could go either direction once the play was called. But Osborne often had his quarterbacks audible to go to the side where the defense had one less player.
“It was all X’s and O’s, where you can get them a hat on a hat and have them outmanned,” said Steve Taylor, a Husker quarterback from 1985-88.
Though Taylor knew fans talked about the topic, he said he didn’t pay it much attention as a player.
“Although sometimes as a player you wanted more room to work with,” said Taylor, acknowledging that the sideline could serve as an extra defender when you ran to the short side.
Short or far, big plays have come each way.
One of the more memorable far-side options came against Nebraska in the 1987 Game of the Century II, Oklahoma running back Patrick Collins taking a pitch from Charles Thompson and breaking loose down the sidelines until he was eventually bowing in the end zone, breaking Husker hearts.
“A 65-yard bolt of lightning on a late afternoon in Lincoln, Nebraska,” Brent Musberger screamed and Oklahoma won 17-7.
On the other hand, consider that two of the most critical plays in the fourth quarter of the 1995 Orange Bowl were options … to the short side.
1) Tommie Frazier pitching it to Lawrence Phillips, who bounced off tackles and took it 25 yards. Nebraska scored on the next play and the game was tied at 17.
2) One series later, going for a national championship score, facing a third-and-3 at the Miami 20, Nebraska called a timeout. The play? You guessed it. Frazier made a quick cut and had 6 yards. The Huskers had the lead one memorable play later.
So maybe that short-side option wasn’t all bad, huh?
“Sometimes, I think people think about football a lot and begin to focus on one thing,” Osborne said. “But football is multi-faceted, and if you lose a game it isn’t just because you ran a couple of short-side options.”
Reach Brian Christopherson at 473-7439 or bchristopherson@journalstar.com.