“You go into a game with anywhere from 55 to 75 plays, and a lot of those plays are specific to the situation, so sometimes a situation comes up. Like, the one play that we hit Levi (Falck) for a touchdown, that was a specific red-zone situation where we had a tendency for the coverage they were going to be in and felt pretty good about it. So when that situation comes up, it’s just reaction and knowing, ‘Hey, that situation, this is the play we practiced, call it.’ But you can’t call that play until you get that situation because it’s designed for that situation.
“We want to call our best stuff first. The (fourth) down that we hit to Omar (Manning), going into the game, I thought that was our best fourth-down play. I wasn’t going to hold that back. First fourth down or third-and-medium, that play was coming up and we hit it.”
Lubick said NU also uses some plays early in the game to get an idea of how a defense wants to align to formations, react to motions, handle different elements.
“Which lets us figure out, OK this one might work and this one might not work,” he said. … “It’s situation-specific, you still want to call your best stuff first but then also have stuff on your play sheet that, if they’re doing this, you can go to this. That’s kind of where the adjustments come in handy.”
Castro-Walker’s impact (and shades): This winter, Nebraska hired Marcus Castro-Walker as its director of player development. Frost called it an “all-encompassing role” that includes being a resource for players, helping them build connections and being somebody they can relate to.
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