You can say this about Nebraska's offense and it might matter against Purdue

Three key numbers the Huskers likely need to hit to beat the Boilermakers

Nebraska WR Malachi Coleman catches a 44-yard touchdown pass during Nebraska’s 17-9 win over Northwestern Oct. 21, 2023 | Courtesy Nebraska Athletics

It’s always Air Force, except when it’s Army. Occasionally it’s Navy, but mostly it’s Air Force.

Every year when the college football season is over, I dump all of the stats from the season into a spreadsheet and push them around for the next eight months. Every year, once you count sacks as passing plays, Air Force is at or near the top in passing yards per attempt. Army and Navy are typically right there as well.

Of course, this is something of an accounting quirk. These triple option offenses rarely take sacks, don’t attempt many passes and when they do the passes often look like a run play the defense has defended 28 times that day, so the passes often go for big plays. Air Force is first nationally this week at 16.2 yards per attempt,¹ partly because it attempts about five passes per game and partly because the scheme is so strong conceptually.

To put it another way, “The option, man, it works.” I say that to myself at least once a year when I see the academies among the biggest-play passing offenses at the end of the year.

This year, I also said it to myself during Matt Rhule’s postgame press conference following Nebraska’s 17-9 win over Northwestern last week.