Playmakers on Offense

[Turbine]

We adapted this offense some years ago to meet the talents we had on offense which were versatile quarterbacks who could run and throw. I think that the QB's we have now are very similar to that of Jerry Babb who flourished his first two years in this offense.

Jerry was a very special highly underrated athlete.

We forget by Mr. Babb was setting passing records his first 2 years under center yet when the offense was changed to run/run his Jr. year he won a conference championship. Not too many QBs can make that switch.

Unfortunately Jer had cracked ribs his Sr year and was only able to duplicate the 11 game record of his Jr. campaign.

The snag in the Bustle program -that he has yet to recover from- was to change of OC-DC coaches after that very respectable 06 season.

jmo

[cajun4life]

_ There is very little complexity to our running back assignment. There is no more complexity to our RB assignments than any other offense at 90% of the FBS conference teams. If the RBs these guys recruit (and let's consider the fact that we have 5-6 guys at various depths at any given time). These are academic qualifiers. They are RBs out of highschool (not just "athletes") and have succeeded in their roles in those systems. You almost act like we should give our coaches a free pass because on Tyrell's success... not going to happen. I'm not crediting them for what that special young man was able to do... if 8-10 other running backs that these coaches personally recruited... are not nearly as capable of quickly picking up their full assignments in this offense and cannot be productive.

A RB's ability to succeed are also coupled to the rest of the offense. If our QB cannot complete passes... if our coaching staff cannot call the right plays... if our OL isn't blocking well... if our coaches don't have our OL blocking technically well for our RB... all of that falls on our coaching staff. The verdict is not in on this year... but I can absolutely with certainty guarantee you that if we do not see one of these RBs have a breakout year this year... this coaching staff does not know how to coach these kids.

As for our QBs... I did state that I like having mobility. I do like a QB that is a threat to pick up yardage on a given down. I DO NOT like it when his legs are one of the primary "required" weapons to make our offense tick. I consider it a failure when our RBs cannot find holes, our QB cannot complete short and medium passes, BUT... we have limited success... down to the wire against mediocre teams... and we inch out a win on the battered legs of our QB. That is exactly why and how you end up with no more than 6 wins in a season.

As for our offense... we discussed this last year at length. I agree with you that we are still operating the zone read and without dismantling and recreating (which is virtually impossible) I would like to go back to the triple option with a QB that has mobility... but has an accurate short and medium passing ability. The spread requires that defenses also spread. The last couple of years, the Cajuns have been ineffective at getting the opponent defenses spread out. They plug the middle as if they know when we are running the ball, and they have no fear of our QB taking flight. They do not fear our passing attack one bit. I still feel like we are basically only a sure thing (almost) against only very bad opponents. That is simply unacceptable.

In a nutshell... all of that is the fault of coaching. You will rarely ever get me to single out a player for the inconsistency of the 11 man operation out on the field. If you've ever run something, you know damn well that if you picked the individuals, picked the plan, taught the plan, and expect the plan to win... you are the one to blame for failure... whether somewhere in that system you created is a headcase or 20 headcases... it is all on you.

I'm not negative about this coming year. I just expect this to either be a year that Bustle finally makes it past 6 wins... or the admin gets a flame thrower directed on their lard... and is forced to act... much quicker than they did with men's basketball. We fans had better either feel the sense of urgency for our football program this year... or create it. _

Ok, this is not meant to bash any poster on this board or you personally, but have any of you played football at the collegiate level?

If not, then to say an offense in college is not complex is an ignorant statement. It may seem like we run simple schemes and the same running plays every time out, but I can assure you they are not simple. One running play may have multiple variants depending on the defensive alignments, the blocking calls then throw in the fact that there may be 60 different running plays with the same number of reads.

Coaching staffs may also call certain plays that they know may not be very successful just so they can set up a play for later in a series. They follow their game plane and sometimes it works and others it doesn't.

[reddot]

_ Ok, this is not meant to bash any poster on this board or you personally, but have any of you played football at the collegiate level?

If not, then to say an offense in college is not complex is an ignorant statement. It may seem like we run simple schemes and the same running plays every time out, but I can assure you they are not simple. One running play may have multiple variants depending on the defensive alignments, the blocking calls then throw in the fact that there may be 60 different running plays with the same number of reads.

Coaching staffs may also call certain plays that they know may not be very successful just so they can set up a play for later in a series. They follow their game plane and sometimes it works and others it doesn't. _

Still not as complex as soccer.

[Damon]

_ Still not as complex as soccer. _

Replace sideline coach look-ats with Paul the Octopus, and we've got ourselves some real entertainment value.

[DrumRoll]

I think our offense is very complex, and because we rely on underclassmen to play it, maybe too complex. Also, while I am busy aimlessly prognosticating, I HATE the meerkat look to the sideline crap.

Can we not recruit a QB with enough football acumen to audible?

With the MEERKAT we end up looking at the fake poker face the D shows us, react to it, and then they change, or did they change, or was it really what they were going to do all along, or is it a fake to fake us and they did the same thing so next time when they change they will fake us out on 3rd and 3 when it matters...

All of this posturing, communicating, reading, play calling, meerkating, and so forth, has to contribute to the stress level of our own players moreso than to the defense we are supposed to be trying to confuse...

I wanna see our guys looking at the defense and developing a plan without losing eye contact...

Can we not coach up a QB to READ it and audible?

Let's stress out the bad guys instead of our own players :-)

_ Ok, this is not meant to bash any poster on this board or you personally, but have any of you played football at the collegiate level?

If not, then to say an offense in college is not complex is an ignorant statement. It may seem like we run simple schemes and the same running plays every time out, but I can assure you they are not simple. One running play may have multiple variants depending on the defensive alignments, the blocking calls then throw in the fact that there may be 60 different running plays with the same number of reads.

Coaching staffs may also call certain plays that they know may not be very successful just so they can set up a play for later in a series. They follow their game plane and sometimes it works and others it doesn't. _

[zephyr]

_ I think our offense is very complex, and because we rely on underclassmen to play it, maybe too complex. Also, while I am busy aimlessly prognosticating, I HATE the meerkat look to the sideline crap.

Can we not recruit a QB with enough football acumen to audible?

With the MEERKAT we end up looking at the fake poker face the D shows us, react to it, and then they change, or did they change, or was it really what they were going to do all along, or is it a fake to fake us and they did the same thing so next time when they change they will fake us out on 3rd and 3 when it matters...

All of this posturing, communicating, reading, play calling, meerkating, and so forth, has to contribute to the stress level of our own players moreso than to the defense we are supposed to be trying to confuse...

I wanna see our guys looking at the defense and developing a plan without losing eye contact...

Can we not coach up a QB to READ it and audible?

Let's stress out the bad guys instead of our own players :-) _

The look back to the sidelines is many times in fact, not an audible. They will call the formation in the huddle but the coaches will not call the actual play until they've reviewed the defense's setup and personnel to try to counter that with a better play. It has NOTHING to do with how smart our QB is or not. It is something that has caught fire in a lot of offenses who operate the spread and while it is truly annoying, it is done for a reason whether we agree with it or not.

[zephyr]

_ Jerry was a very special highly underrated athlete.

We forget by Mr. Babb was setting passing records his first 2 years under center yet when the offense was changed to run/run his Jr. year he won a conference championship. Not too many QBs can make that switch.

Unfortunately Jer had cracked ribs his Sr year and was only able to duplicate the 11 game record of his Jr. campaign.

The snag in the Bustle program -that he has yet to recover from- was to change of OC-DC coaches after that very respectable 06 season.

jmo _

I have no problem with the change made at that time. I do not like how Jerry was used his final two seasons as you are correct, we were throwing the ball around the field and running it very efficiently out of the triple option set with Babb but we also went under center out of several traditional sets as well. The point is, this offense has been run with a mobile QB for the past 7-8 years or so and it will continue to do so. This is the type of player we recruit. I felt that the coaching staff made a mistake running more and taking the ball out of Babb's hands those two seasons and while Fenroy was running all over the place, I still think we could have been extra dangerous throwing more.

The point is, I was not impressed with our DC at the time and many of the calls made on the field and I feel we have a better coordinator in there now. Offensively, Christophel was OK but I think the players we had then would flourish every bit as much as they did then and even more possibly with Munoz and Hudson calling the plays.

[DrumRoll]

Well here we go...

It has everything to do with how much trust is placed on the reading and playcalling skills of the QB. I have no idea whether or not our QB's can read and audible properly, never seen it happen... Not judgement. I truly have no idea one way or the other...

On the other hand, it's been a while since I have seen Peyton Manning line the Colts up in the Meerkat :-)

_ The look back to the sidelines is many times in fact, not an audible. They will call the formation in the huddle but the coaches will not call the actual play until they've reviewed the defense's setup and personnel to try to counter that with a better play. It has NOTHING to do with how smart our QB is or not. It is something that has caught fire in a lot of offenses who operate the spread and while it is truly annoying, it is done for a reason whether we agree with it or not. _

[Just1More]

_ Ok, this is not meant to bash any poster on this board or you personally, but have any of you played football at the collegiate level?

If not, then to say an offense in college is not complex is an ignorant statement. It may seem like we run simple schemes and the same running plays every time out, but I can assure you they are not simple. One running play may have multiple variants depending on the defensive alignments, the blocking calls then throw in the fact that there may be 60 different running plays with the same number of reads.

Coaching staffs may also call certain plays that they know may not be very successful just so they can set up a play for later in a series. They follow their game plane and sometimes it works and others it doesn't. _

Nope, I didn't play collegiate football... unless "flag football" counted... Anyhow... I didn't say that we do not run a complex offense. I said that the assignments for our RBs are no more complex than that of other spread offenses. And it goes back to coaching... if I cannot get an "adaptation" by my selection of backs... I either selected and recruited the wrong backs or I need to adapt my offense. Either way, I still haven't seen holes, much less seams, for our RBs, since Fenroy. Last year we practically reverted to end around runs with WRs as much as we ran a back anywhere close to between the tackles. I saw piles of large bodies in front of every handoff out of the backfield last year... following a bunch of dive blocking, so I'm a little curious what adaptions our RBs are expected to make.

I am not buying this scuddlebutt that our RBs aren't picking up the offense. If an entire stable of RBs, over the course of a couple of years, do not succeed... it is a problem with coaching. Period.

I'm not saying that we won't be successful this year. We line up and play football. I am pointing out that even in our offense you have to successfully complete passes and disguise your intentions in order for a ground game to work. The spread is predicated on concerning a defense in every regard. We have way too many good skill players that have to be tossed the ball in order to be a factor. We have to have a QB that is more of a good passer and is mobile and smart enough to tuck and run for a few yards when it's there for him. But... if our QB gets addicted to running... even if he picks up significant rushing stats... we will not go over 6 wins. No way... no how. We do not have Babb or MD... who... by the way... never made it over the 6 win season.

It is ALWAYS the coach's fault if from all of the student-athletes they have to choose from and all of the time they have to prepare for a few months a year on the main stage, that they cannot get someone from a lineup that they selected... to "adapt" to the system. There are RBs dumber than a box of rocks who are superstars in the NFL. It just simply is not rocket science. If it is tough for a coach to teach... then he isn't a very mentally skilled coach for the game we play these days. If he runs a complicated offense, and he can't teach it... HE is the failure.

I still have the same optimistic realism I have had for Cajun football since Bustle took over.... for whatever that's worth.

[CajunZ1]

Last year we practically reverted to end around runs with WRs as much as we ran a back anywhere close to between the tackles. I saw piles of large bodies in front of every handoff out of the backfield last year... following a bunch of dive blocking, so I'm a little curious what adaptions our RBs are expected to make.

You and I saw the same thing. Our O-line was way overrated last year imo. This unit must improve significantly for a 7 win season to occur.