Option and Run Offense

[GI56]

3 runs accounted for 142 yards. The other 40 went for 86. I don't think that's exactly how Dr. Tom would have done it.

I think this really tells the story of how ugly our game was today offensively, beyond the final averages, which look impressive.

To be clear, I am not a fan in the slightest of the "If you take away [all the best plays], yeah, he didn't do anything."

But what we can see here is that against a FCS team, we broke three very long runs because of pure athleticism (and broken defensive plays, you could argue). Either one is good to have, but those runs were going to be good from whatever point on the field the play started. So we have relied on that to beat an FCS team, which is not the bad thing, because it's expected that we can do that. The bad part is that you can take a look at the other 90% of our run plays and see a lot of our playmakers being stuffed. By UTC.

This is what my post disagrees with.

Beck said that he called the same plays repeatedly just to get the players to run them correctly.

This is what I agree with.

UTC was selling out completely to the run. We ran no wrinkles (aka play action), other than a few quick out passes out of the I. UTC knew what was coming- we were just running it again and again to get it right.

 

[flatwaterfan]

Watched the game again and the FB blocking on the options seems to be an issue. I don't think Legate had his best game. TE's had some trouble at times too. Point is the whole O has a lot of work to do. Line definitely does need work. long way to go. Mostly mental not physical. Good things = A couple of times in the 2 tight sets they had very good plays.

Good point on the play calling. They didnt run any counters, very very few play actions. They pretty much played it straight.

 

[BIGREDIOWAN]

Makes sense to me to call a pretty vanilla game plan against a team like this just to make sure guys are getting the fundamentals down in a gametime situation. Still concerns me a little though..........

 

[Jarred04]

I think part of the blame is on the qb's and rb's, too. They weren't attacking the LOS. They didn't force a defender to commit to one or the other, and they both tried running to the same gap. It was awkward.

 

[redblooded]

I don't know, it's an FCS team and the first game of the season.

It's way too early to make any judgements on an entire year. It is what it is, a paid scrimmage. I think the team will get better.

I'm just glad it wasn't a nail-biter like half the big ten, auburn, etc... had.

 

[Danimal]

First a quick refresher on Osborne's philosophy on the option:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/hokies-journal/2009/10/option_offense_qa_with_nebrask.html

For those who don't want to read it, basically Osborne viewed the option like a pass- high risk/high reward. When looking at his run/pass breakdown he would basically consider option plays to be pass plays.

In this sense, the option served its purpose today. There were a few bad losses/fumbles, but the long TD runs came off of the speed option.

A quick calculation of the raw offensive efficiency of the 1st string offense (see http://www.footballstudyhall.com/2011/3/15/2050106/the-toolbox-offensive-success-rates) gives roughly 27/60 = 45%. Normally this is about average, but adjusted for the opponent would be quite poor.

That said, Nebraska ran very little play action today and no option-pass plays. By Nebraska's second drive, UTC players were selling out completely on the edge- on many of the options the line sealed the edge fine, but players from the secondary were rushing up to string the play out. The simplest counter to this is the option pass, which we did not see today.

Where the line obviously did poorly was straight handoffs out of the I and pistol. These are plays where you're looking to get leverage and need to make blocks, and it just wasn't happening.

Final thought: although the Mocs D was small, it didn't seem that slow. Did anyone watch Wisconsin's defense on Thursday night? Very little speed. No doubt Martinez can shred their D the same way.

Beck even admitted he made some calls just because he wanted to see better execution of the play. We didn't even try to punish them for loading the box. The game was called somewhat like a glorified practice. Not saying we don't have work to do or that I wouldn't like to see us more able to "enforce our will" on a 1AA opponent but it isn't like we were doing everything possible to move the rock and score either.

 

[TheCheshireCat]

I am tired of not coming out with everything we have. When will the coaches learn their lesson? If you wait to unveil your offense on tougher competition, that's taking a huge gamble. And the last two years, it really hasn't paid off. The option looked like complete sh#t. This isn't 1995, and anyone who is trying to fool themselves into thinking this can work for us is in denial. If this is the "attacking, up-tempo" offense we've been working on, we'll be lucky to win 8 games.