It's not high risk, at least on paper
by pmcdnd96 (2011-09-14 10:37:11)

In reply to: It works in theory, against mediocre competition.  posted by Jurassic


When the players know what they're doing, there should be a pretty wide-open receiver on most plays and it should be a pretty easy read for the QBs.

But let's compare the power-up-the-gut football many prefer to a spread offense and assume we have good players (but not outstanding ones) across the board. Imagine that we then play a team like Alabama that has studs across the board on defense. Do you think it will be easier to get our good-but-not-great players to consistently open holes in that front seven so we can gain 4 or 5 yards a carry, or do you think it's easier to spread the field and have a receiver that is wide open at the snap for a 5 yard gain? On paper, the spread makes perfect sense.

As people have pointed out, however, there are two issues (actually several, but two huge ones as I see it) with this:
1.) If the coach insists on calling plays that don't have a high probability of success, the team is in trouble no matter what offense we run (se Davie, Bob)
2.) We should have a talent advantage over almost every opponent we play and should be able to win the up front battle against almost all of them.

Thus far, Kelly hasn't seemed to appreciate the value of our offensive lines opening gaping holes in the front 7 for most of the game against both Michigan and USF. So we start 3rd and 1 with our running back carrying the ball sideways 5 yards behind the line instead of running forward with a full head of steam and needing only a small crack to run through. Our linemen need to hold their blocks long enough for him to run 6 yards. That's asking a lot. Somebody once made the joke that Weis was playing chess while everybody else was playing football and it stuck with me because it was true. Similarly, Kelly seems hell bent on calling plays that should work on paper, but require an inexperienced or unreliable player to make a big play.

If we begin to focus our play calling around our linemen being able to block pretty much anybody, even within Kelly's offense, our fortunes could turn around in a hurry.