Can the Cajuns' offense ever get its groove back?

[ULGrad@HOU]

This dumbed-down offense and defense is about as pathetic as is gets. I don't blame Jennings, and I don't think Jordan Davis is the answer. This train wreck was set in motion over two years ago. Hud cannot recruit. He gets a few guys, but not enough to make this team competitive.

[CajunEXPRESS]

This dumbed-down offense and defense is about as pathetic as is gets. I don't blame Jennings, and I don't think Jordan Davis is the answer. This train wreck was set in motion over two years ago. Hud cannot recruit. He gets a few guys, but not enough to make this team competitive.

Careful there. Boomer will set you straight. He'll call for T to prove him right. Yes, all the players that never set foot on campus might have made us a little better.

[Ragin' Caleb]

What makes you think that would be a success here?

the Jeff Driskel project

[CajunEXPRESS]

the Jeff Driskel project

Driskel is on an NFL team. You think Jennings gets on one?

[CajunSaint08]

Driskel is on an NFL team. You think Jennings gets on one?

He might, but never as a QB. Ball boy maybe.

[CajunSaint08]

Well, I couldn't disagree with you more. I don't think Jennings (or any QB) is going to execute his passing game with the horrendous protection we provide. His window of operation slams on him, and he's forced to work the play while dodging a train. I never have been able to examine why Jennings throws like a pro one series and then starts slinging balls high in the next. That's on him. But I don't think Jennings fails to run the playbook well. We are no better running the simple 5 plays Hud wants to run, as we are the rest of the playbook. It's just that the simple plays don't so obviously show the weak fundamentals and mechanics of each player. The simple plays are just asking the top athletes (lately Eli and Riles) to make something happen on their own. What Hud thinks is the trifecta of that approach is a running QB. That's why he couldn't get away from Nixon. He wants either Eli, Riles or Nixon to do the football checkers game - 3 great athletes to get the ball quickly... and run for it.

As for taking Jennings from LSU... 1) you don't get the SEC starter to transfer to UL. You will be taking a transfer that "got benched". Even Broadway left Houston because he was not the #1. 2) you can't judge every QB by the Les Miles passing game plays. LSU didnt give QBs a lot of options. And SEC defenses have enough capability to exploit a QB with limited options. 3) UL coaching could exploit the SBC. We get exploited, defensively, in almost every contest. It is there to be had. Our coaches aren't teaching "the play". I think they think if every player is in the right position before the snap... and they basically move the direction taught... that's the play. You get watch all of our players on offense body language at the end of most plays and tell that they know they didn't defeat their opponent. Only the skill player is left out there, trying to ram through a crowd, or out juking someone for 2 to 3 yards.

Other teams we play, look at App State, for instance... aren't depending on their QB to run. He is given protection... and you can watch his OL and tell they know what they're doing mechanically to block. Go watch them. Their QB tosses... doesn't gun... the ball to WRs that are running in gaps. Why don't our WRs give Jennings a place to toss to them in a gap that only that WR is in? Why? Go look at the routes we're running and watch our WRs. They are never technically getting an advantage. We have 11 men... they have 11 men. You can always exploit something on a defense, if you orchestrate plays and teach athletes details of their assignment. Our players block like ____ and they cannot figure out how to shed coverage. It's teaching.

Jennings isn't an NFL QB. And neither are any of the other SBC QBs... even if we make them look like one. But Jennings is a pretty damn good SBC QB. We are not doing anything to make anyone look good on that football field. We could swap athletes with App State... and give each other a year with each other's coaches... and they'd kick our ___ all over the field. We coach like ____. But if they want to blame Jennings and throw Davis in that ____ show... have at it. You'll think Davis is the greatest... and then the ____ show will catch up to him. And you'll stop posting about QBs... and you'll want Hud fired... but you'll say "we can't afford it"... and you'll then no longer read my long explanations where I've encoded the cure.

I'm not gonna go into a long detail rebuttal, but "Jennings is a pretty damn good SBC QB" is as about accurate as Heath Shuler was a pretty damn good NFL QB. I guess in your eyes, Shuler should have been a hall of famer. You must be related to Jennings if you think he pretty good. Jennings may be a very intelligent individual, but he has no football intelligence. He doesn't anticipate the route, but waits until the receiver has stopped and turned to look, which gives the defenders ample time to close on the play. The play where Jennings is suppose to take the snap and quickly turn and throw to the wideout who is near the sideline but not pass the line of scrimmage (you know one of the 5 plays we run 7-10 times a game), he takes 4-5 seconds to pass the ball, which gives the entire defense time to blow the play up before it ever gets started. That should be a snap and throw (1.5 seconds.) which would give the receiver time to catch, look up field and make a play.

I'll stick to my original thought and say, the reason we can't run more of the offensive playbook is because Jennings doesn't know more than the 5-6 plays he runs now. You would think by the 5th game of the season, he could learn another 2 or 3 plays. Obviously not.

[Ragin' Caleb]

Driskel is on an NFL team. You think Jennings gets on one?

Not a chance in the world

[CajunT]

A lot of fans keep mentioning our play book, our offense is predictable, our coaches inability to coach the finer points and mechanics of the plays......however, I come from another point of view. I think the guy leading the offense on the field is incapable of learning the playbook and only knows basically five plays; hence, we keep seeing the same plays run over and over and over. And the plays Jennings does know, he is not very good at. He can't read a defense, so he can't call an audible to effectively run a play. He has very poor mechanics and appears afraid to run, but does if absolutely necessary. So as an option QB, he is really useless.

Coaching has obviously tried to hide his inefficiencies by going to a quick snap, trying to catch the defense off guard, but all that does is cause false starts. Until Coach Hud swallows his pride and admits the Jennings project was a huge failure, 3-9 is not unrealistic but more like optimistic. I'm not against the one year savior QB graduate idea, but at-least try and find one that was successful at the college they came from and not one that was clueless to begin with and was benched. What makes you think that would be a success here?

Well that's interesting because the offense looks pretty much that same as last season in both formations and play selection, but two different QBs behind the center with similar results. I'm not suggesting Jennings does not have limitations, his arm is not much better than Nixon's, but as I've stated before he played well enough to win games against McNeese and South Alabama. What has taken place over the past 3 weeks defenses have shut down UL's speed game and lock down the edges. At that point all we do is try to run Zone Read and attack the middle of the defense or try and throw the ball downfield. With the way this line pass blocks and the absence of a 3 step drop in our passing game, UL simply doesn't block well enough on the edges to wait on receivers running longer routes. That is why we continue to throw 50/50 balls to the back shoulder. No adjustments will always end with the same results.

[CajunEXPRESS]

Not a chance in the world

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Driskel

[campo118]

Hud hasn't digressed as a coach. Five years ago everyone thought he could walk on water. Something or things have gone wrong. A teams talent can make a coach look real good or real bad. The bottom line is the team's talent has digressed.

Was he winning with Bustle's players?
How many HUD players have been drafted compared to Bustle?
Did he lose assistants that were good recruiters?
Is Hud just a poor evaluator of talent during recruiting process?
Was there more to the cheating allegations that have negatively effected recruiting?
Have the NCAA sanctions effected the overall talent level?

Pretty sure the words you are looking for are progress and regress...