Joel Klatt Top 25

[I am I]

Here's the thing though.  Both of those are magnified when you lose a lot of close games.

Turnovers, yes, we've been terrible.

But we've actually been pretty respectable on penalties for the past three years.

2021 - #35 in penalties per game; #32 in yards per game

2022 - #39 & #26

2023 - #32 & #27

Nothing to throw a parade for but upper third to quarter isn't nearly as bad as people seem to think we are.

And we were even a little better than down down the stretch last year.  Even though we lost them all.

To be fair, I said “untimely penalties.”

there are too many instances to categorize the last 7-8 yrs we have been flagged for “mental penalties.”  
False starts, jumping offsides, illegal formations, too many men in motion, illegal shift, breaking huddle w too many men..etc etc….

Thats organizational. That’s discipline. That’s having the 2nd team and backups in sync, that’s conditioning, that’s  focus. We have absolutely killed ourselves w momentum and drives, and vice versa on defense with dumb, undisciplined, out of shape or unfocused penalties for nearly a decade. 
Every team gets penalties. We KILL ourselves with our mental penalties. 

 

[brophog]

To be fair, I said “untimely penalties.”

there are too many instances to categorize the last 7-8 yrs we have been flagged for “mental penalties.”  
False starts, jumping offsides, illegal formations, too many men in motion, illegal shift, breaking huddle w too many men..etc etc….

To be fair, you really didn't describe any of them. Untimely penalties are things like a defensive penalty on 3rd and 25 that results in an automatic first down or offensive holding overturning a long TD pass or pass interference late in the game that sets the other team up for a game winning FG. Procedure penalties are annoying, I agree, but how many times do you legitimately lose the game on a false start. And of the times you think that 5 yard penalty was meaningful, how many of them were simply signs that your offense is so poor it can't ever afford to go off schedule.

 

[brophog]

But if we've got receivers that can fire off the snap and get open we sure as hell better not be bunching up too much.

When you run a lot of those compression sets you invite a lot of defenders to the party, and they don't RSVP....you don't know who is coming or going. Raiola is a phenomenally advanced QB for his age with world class personal coaching and he gets to go against all of White's gimmicks every day in practice but none of that is game reps. I'd do that stuff when appropriate, but focus more on what makes the QB comfortable. One big advantage of spreading the field is it makes it easier to control where defenders can come from. 

If you really, really want to run the ball out of tight sets, try to motion into those tight sets sometimes.

We didn't see a ton of motion in the spring, but I think we will see more as the season progresses. With the headset rules, defenses are more inclined to hold their cards until later in the clock and early motion is a good way to get them to show their hand. We won't go full Bill Callahan dance party, but I anticipate more pre-snap movement.

 

[BigRedBuster]

To be fair, you really didn't describe any of them. Untimely penalties are things like a defensive penalty on 3rd and 25 that results in an automatic first down or offensive holding overturning a long TD pass or pass interference late in the game that sets the other team up for a game winning FG. Procedure penalties are annoying, I agree, but how many times do you legitimately lose the game on a false start. And of the times you think that 5 yard penalty was meaningful, how many of them were simply signs that your offense is so poor it can't ever afford to go off schedule.

I can sort of agree with you, in that our offense needs to be better so they can overcome a penalty here or there.  But, there have been times in the last few years where a penalty directly contributes to our loss.  I remember one game last year that, I think was one we lost by 3, where we were on the goal line and maybe the RB scored a TD.  But, then the O line was called for a clear penalty which dropped us back and we ended up not scoring any points. (I may have the description a little wrong) But, here's a situation where the penalty directly contributed to the loss.  And, it was a penalty was from something the player did that was totally preventable.  

So, yes, our offense needs to be better.  I think we will start seeing that.  Every team gets penalties and many have been better than us to overcome them.  But, at the same time, in recent years, we have been a penalty prone program with mental penalties.  And, those are the easiest to prevent.

Also, those mental mistakes are a sign of an undisciplined team.  That lack of discipline carries over into us not being good on offense in other ways.

 

[Mavric]

To be fair, I said “untimely penalties.”

there are too many instances to categorize the last 7-8 yrs we have been flagged for “mental penalties.”  
False starts, jumping offsides, illegal formations, too many men in motion, illegal shift, breaking huddle w too many men..etc etc….

Thats organizational. That’s discipline. That’s having the 2nd team and backups in sync, that’s conditioning, that’s  focus. We have absolutely killed ourselves w momentum and drives, and vice versa on defense with dumb, undisciplined, out of shape or unfocused penalties for nearly a decade. 
Every team gets penalties. We KILL ourselves with our mental penalties. 

That's fair.  Although there really isn't anything that is a "timely penalty."  Which is why I noted that almost all penalties are magnified when you're in so many close games.

A "timely penalty probably only occurs when you're up for four touchdowns or something.  But we haven't done a lot of that in a long time.

 

[I am I]

Too many times the past several seasons we have been in opposition territory, putting together a drive and false start or delay of game on 2nd 6 backs us up. Then we take a sack or get stuffed and end up punting. Those are very untimely. 
 

A pass interference on 3 and long against us is a hustle penalty and often much more subjective. An untimely penalty (or call it “unforced” if you want) has absolutely killed drives, extended them for the opponent, and for sure have cost us games. Then there are the damn turnovers. We a know those and hopefully you don’t argue that they have absolutely lost us games. 
 

Penalties and turnovers have plagued this program and lost us games. 

 

[brophog]

I remember one game last year that, I think was one we lost by 3, where we were on the goal line and maybe the RB scored a TD.  But, then the O line was called for a clear penalty which dropped us back and we ended up not scoring any points. (I may have the description a little wrong)

It happened just before half in the Minnesota game. Went from being able to hurry up and call a very high percentage QB sneak right at the goalline to needing to use a timeout to avoid the runoff, pushing us back and now we had to call a pass in which Sims threw an INT. Goes from up 4 and getting the ball to start the second half to down 3. Then to start the second half we'd get the long kickoff return and long TD pass on the throwback play. Minnesota could have been down 11 before they got the ball in a game in which both teams struggled to score 10. 

I'm not even beginning to dispute that some penalties carry more weight than others, but again, penalties don't have much of any correlation to winning and that is very counterintuitive. Penalties are designed to be punitive and so you'd certainly expect that to be reflective in the final outcome. It's interesting examining why that's not the case.

 

[lo country]

For us to actually be one of the top 25 teams in the country, there'd be a huge assumption that we've pretty much completely ditched the problem with turnovers & false starts in one offseason.

I find it really hard to believe that will be the case, but hopefully we at least put a big dent in the problem.

We've been plagued with the TO for more years than I can remember.  Fix those and all of are 5-6 seasons are wining ones....Same with the penalties.  

I love Rhule addressing the one score losses with the "chasing 3" mantra.  No hiding it.  Not pretending that monkey doesn't exist and is in all actuality a 500lb Silver Back. Dude is checking all the blocks.  I just want to win...GBR!!!