For Husker OC Mark Whipple, the value of spring football is largely in building a ‘library’ | Football

The spring semester at UNL will only last a few weeks after Nebraska football caps off its spring session with the Red-White Spring Game on April 9, but new offensive coordinator Mark Whipple is expecting his players to spend their summer in the library nonetheless.

The library of film they’re building over five weeks and 15 practices worth of on-field work, that is.

That’s been a clear primary focus of the veteran coach since the Huskers began spring ball back on February 28.

Yes, he’s looking for improvement from day to day and week to week. And sure, he readily admits he’d rather not see the red zone fumble in Wednesday’s practice or the interception that cropped up in the second scrimmage last weekend.

The unflappable new head of the Husker offense has given the impression that he’s less concerned about results at this stage of the offseason and more focused on massive intake. Covering a mile wide and an inch deep in the spring, in his mind, creates the most efficient plot for deeper excavation as the weather warms and the calendar marches toward August.

“We’re not game planning. We’re just trying to install a bunch of plays and build a library, similar to what we’ve done in the NFL so that those guys can go back and when they’re throwing on their own, they know what this term means, what this concept is,” Whipple said. “So we give them a lot of different concepts and we’ll continue to do that (for the rest of spring ball).”

He’s overseen this kind of project many times before. Whipple has taken over as a head coach or coordinator at a new school 11 times in his career, so the first-offseason crash course isn’t a new challenge.

While players try to refine their understanding and techniques and gain reps with each other on their own after spring ball ends, Whipple said he’ll be diving deeper into the spring film in an effort to identify what he’ll want to hang his hat on this fall. Players, combinations, plays and all the rest.

For now, the last week of spring ball — or, at least, the two practices and work week leading up to the Red-White Spring Game on April 9 — just represents more installation time.

“We’ve got more things to give them and we’d like to at least get it on tape so that they could say, OK, this is what it is,” Whipple said. “We had about four of five new things (on Wednesday) and it will probably be the same thing on Friday. Then a few more on Monday when we come back. It’s just important for those guys. You’d like to get two days of those things because they see it, they run it, rep it and then they see it on tape and then they can fix it.”

This is the way spring goes most years at most schools, but it is perhaps more heightened than normal in Lincoln this time around because of the four new offensive coaches and influx of new personnel. Wide receivers coach Mickey Joseph said recently that he thinks his group’s performance will even out some once the top groups are more regularly catching balls from the top quarterbacks rather than mixing and matching throughout practice. Head coach Scott Frost said of Donovan Raiola’s offensive line, “Every time I look up, there’s a left tackle playing right guard and a right guard playing left tackle.

“Guys need to be able to play multiple things so when we fit it all together and get the best five guys out there, they’re ready to do it.”

When the best five need to be on the field together. That day isn’t today or April 9, necessarily. 

How about all those injuries on offense and the number of guys that have missed reps this spring? Is that a source of frustration for Whipple? 

“Not as frustrating as if we didn’t have those guys,” he said. “They’re going to be back and we know they’re good players, so I try to be positive with it: We’re building depth.”

That goes for quarterbacks Chubba Purdy and Heinrich Haarberg both being limited at times this spring. And running back Gabe Ervin. And offensive linemen Teddy Prochazka and Turner Corcoran. And perhaps NU’s top four tight ends. 

In an ideal world, nobody misses time. Football, though, doesn’t work that way. Even in a transition year, Whipple has confidence the Huskers will be ready by the time they arrive in Ireland as long as the players handle the next phase of the offseason the way he thinks they will. 

Whipple was talking about his receivers but could have been laying out what he hopes on Wednesday when he said, “I think they’ve done a good job of learning concepts and learning how we get plays in. That’s been a smoother transition for those receivers than it was, like, the first week when everyone was kind of worried about it. It’s gone without any issues in the two scrimmages. As a matter of fact, the second scrimmage was just a lot cleaner and everything else and I expect the same thing when we get into camp, it’ll be the same way.”