Tiger offense can't find consistency
Missouri’s spread offense requires one constant and Chase Daniel was the first to admit that it wasn’t there against Nebraska.
“We made mistakes, especially me, and I haven’t played well enough these last two weeks,” the Tigers’ sophomore quarterback said. “And in this type of offense, you have to have your quarterback play well.
“This was a big game that we lost. We just didn’t have our best game today. When you turn the ball over three times — I’ve turned the ball over six times in the last two weeks — that’s not Missouri football.”
The Tigers got off to a bad start with an inconsistent offense and the defense couldn’t keep Nebraska from earning a 34-20 victory.
“We got in a little bit of a deficit there and fought back in it through the fourth quarter. We put ourselves in a position to have an opportunity to win and I was encouraged by that,” Missouri coach Gary Pinkel said. “But we just made mistakes and obviously weren’t consistent enough against a good football team to win.”
Perhaps the most telling statistic of the game was third-down conversions. Nebraska converted 11 times in 17 attempts, while Missouri was just 3-for-13.
“In the third quarter, we would get them in third-down situations and they were converting them,” Pinkel said. “You can’t get off the field. They were making plays. We battled, but you have to play more consistently to beat a good team like Nebraska.”
While Daniel took over the school single-season record for passing and moved past Brad Smith on the school’s single-season total offense list, he was disappointed in the team’s consistency.
“When they’re in a three-man or four-man front like that and dropping seven or eight guys, you have to be able to run the football,” Daniel said. “When you go three-and-out four or five times, it’s pretty hard to win ball games. That puts so much stress on our defense and they still did a great job.”
Nebraska capitalized on two Daniel interceptions in the first half to take a 27-3 lead before Tiger kick Jeff Wolfert nailed a career-long 54-yard field goal on the last play of the half.
“Jeff came up with a big 54-yard kick and we got some stuff going,” Daniel said. “Tony (running back Temple) got going and we got the offense going, but we just didn’t have enough time.”
Nebraska often used a three-man front, interchanging it with the base defense of four up front, but Daniel said that didn’t cause problems.
“They did exactly what we thought they were going to do. We’ve seen three-man front all year,” he said. “Everyone wants to change for us, because we’ve have been pretty efficient throwing the ball and they want as many guys as they can in coverage.”
Daniel was sacked just once, but was hurried several times.
“When he misses a throw, we kind of look at each other and say ‘What’s wrong with Chase?’ because he is so accurate,” Pinkel said. “He just got out a sync a little bit, but it wasn’t just Chase. Protection was down a little bit and we didn’t run the ball as well.”
While Missouri had seen similar defensive schemes, Nebraska did serve up one surprise.
“We thought they were going to blitz a little more,” Daniel said.
Tight end Martin Rucker said the Tigers didn’t take advantage of that.
“We expected them to blitz more. At halftime, they had only blitzed twice the entire half,” he said. “That threw us off a little bit. We just needed to get started earlier and since they weren’t blitzing, go attack them.
“When we came out, we couldn’t get out of the gate offensively. The defense was playing really hard and they kept us in the game the whole time. It took the offense entirely too long to get started.”
Senior defensive end Xzavie Jackson wouldn’t let the Tiger defense off the hook.
“Our offense made some big plays in the second half but we just didn’t come together as a football team in the first half,” he said. “We didn’t play hard enough in the first half. I know I didn’t make enough plays for my team to keep us in the hunt in the second half.”
Reach Ryly Jane Hambleton at 475-7314 or rhambleton@journalstar.com
“We made mistakes, especially me, and I haven’t played well enough these last two weeks,” the Tigers’ sophomore quarterback said. “And in this type of offense, you have to have your quarterback play well.
“This was a big game that we lost. We just didn’t have our best game today. When you turn the ball over three times — I’ve turned the ball over six times in the last two weeks — that’s not Missouri football.”
The Tigers got off to a bad start with an inconsistent offense and the defense couldn’t keep Nebraska from earning a 34-20 victory.
“We got in a little bit of a deficit there and fought back in it through the fourth quarter. We put ourselves in a position to have an opportunity to win and I was encouraged by that,” Missouri coach Gary Pinkel said. “But we just made mistakes and obviously weren’t consistent enough against a good football team to win.”
Perhaps the most telling statistic of the game was third-down conversions. Nebraska converted 11 times in 17 attempts, while Missouri was just 3-for-13.
“In the third quarter, we would get them in third-down situations and they were converting them,” Pinkel said. “You can’t get off the field. They were making plays. We battled, but you have to play more consistently to beat a good team like Nebraska.”
While Daniel took over the school single-season record for passing and moved past Brad Smith on the school’s single-season total offense list, he was disappointed in the team’s consistency.
“When they’re in a three-man or four-man front like that and dropping seven or eight guys, you have to be able to run the football,” Daniel said. “When you go three-and-out four or five times, it’s pretty hard to win ball games. That puts so much stress on our defense and they still did a great job.”
Nebraska capitalized on two Daniel interceptions in the first half to take a 27-3 lead before Tiger kick Jeff Wolfert nailed a career-long 54-yard field goal on the last play of the half.
“Jeff came up with a big 54-yard kick and we got some stuff going,” Daniel said. “Tony (running back Temple) got going and we got the offense going, but we just didn’t have enough time.”
Nebraska often used a three-man front, interchanging it with the base defense of four up front, but Daniel said that didn’t cause problems.
“They did exactly what we thought they were going to do. We’ve seen three-man front all year,” he said. “Everyone wants to change for us, because we’ve have been pretty efficient throwing the ball and they want as many guys as they can in coverage.”
Daniel was sacked just once, but was hurried several times.
“When he misses a throw, we kind of look at each other and say ‘What’s wrong with Chase?’ because he is so accurate,” Pinkel said. “He just got out a sync a little bit, but it wasn’t just Chase. Protection was down a little bit and we didn’t run the ball as well.”
While Missouri had seen similar defensive schemes, Nebraska did serve up one surprise.
“We thought they were going to blitz a little more,” Daniel said.
Tight end Martin Rucker said the Tigers didn’t take advantage of that.
“We expected them to blitz more. At halftime, they had only blitzed twice the entire half,” he said. “That threw us off a little bit. We just needed to get started earlier and since they weren’t blitzing, go attack them.
“When we came out, we couldn’t get out of the gate offensively. The defense was playing really hard and they kept us in the game the whole time. It took the offense entirely too long to get started.”
Senior defensive end Xzavie Jackson wouldn’t let the Tiger defense off the hook.
“Our offense made some big plays in the second half but we just didn’t come together as a football team in the first half,” he said. “We didn’t play hard enough in the first half. I know I didn’t make enough plays for my team to keep us in the hunt in the second half.”
Reach Ryly Jane Hambleton at 475-7314 or rhambleton@journalstar.com
Copyright © 2002-2008 Lincoln Journal Star. All rights reserved.