More playmakers than 2010?

[McLoofus 35,182]

12 minutes ago, BigWhiskey91 said:

It was a 50yd fg, and prior he had just made a 47yd fg. He was a redshirt freshman and had hit from further away. Yes, field goals are attempted when the offense runs out of downs to move the ball. Be careful, if you keep grinding your axe, eventually you’ll run out of material.

Actually, a lot of teams punt when they're not in their kicker's range. Also, the entire point is that the offense couldn't move the ball but folks keep blaming the defense.

No need to be a smart ass. No axe grinding here. Just logic. 

[BigWhiskey91 632]

2 minutes ago, bigbird said:

Which is what we've seen the last 4 years. The O never adjusted after the new substitution rules.

Which is maddening. That’s why we see polar results from the offense. Rarely is it hot and then cold or cold then hot during a game unless it was on purpose. 

Whats further maddening is reading and watching some Malzahns offensive philosophy breakdowns and explanations. In his Tulsa break down, he mentioned “we are a passing team, we like to throw the ball to open the run. We want the DEs in rush mode and the LBs thinking pass”. 

[BigWhiskey91 632]

4 minutes ago, McLoofus said:

Actually, a lot of teams punt when they're not in their kicker's range. Also, the entire point is that the offense couldn't move the ball but folks keep blaming the defense.

No need to be a smart ass. No axe grinding here. Just logic. 

Who is blaming the defense solely? If you look at StatTigers score card, I’m pretty sure all three phases failed. The offense was snoozing and missed out on the opportunities it had. The defense couldn’t stop the run and special teams had a missed FG and a turnover deep in our territory. None of those helped us win.

Continuing to say the defense was fine it was everyone else’s fault isn’t logic. 

[McLoofus 35,182]

11 minutes ago, BigWhiskey91 said:

If you’re advocating that Malzahn should slow his offense down to protect his defense or change the way the offense is designed to attack, I don’t know what to tell you. The offense is design around generating impact/explosive plays. There are several things that go into facilitating the explosive play generation as well. Pace, repitition and execution. Slowing down the pace exposes some of the designed simplicity which makes the offense easier to defend. The only time you’re going to see a Malzahn offense chewing up clock, is when we are trying to get out of a game by running the ball to death. 

The DSOR did get flack on the O side of the ball. If you go back and look at the game thread for the iron bowl that year, several clowns were complaining about the red zone offense in that game too.

1. Exactly. Gus's offense is inflexible and insufficient for many game situations. But as for the Mississippi State game, I just I would expect him to have his guys ready to play and get some first downs and hold on to the ball for more than a minute and a half at a time. Or if he's only going to stay on the field for four plays, he needs to score a touchdown on the last one every now and then.

9 points.

2. Yes, that is why I made an exception for that game. And the offense actually did fail to score more than seven points in that game, so they deserved it.

And exactly. The people who said that the Iron Bowl was the offense's fault that year were clowns just like the people who say that the Mississippi State game last year was the defense's fault are clowns. 

[DAG 33,980]

All I know was the defense did not live up to par during the Mississippi State. It sucks. However, it is a sad state of affairs when the defense has to be the one to bail the offense out CONSISTENTLY on a team whose head coach is an offensive mind. The whole point of team victories and losses is the need for balance. When the defense got blasted in the running game, this was the time the offense needed to bail them out, sort of like what the defense did during the UW game. I think some people wanted the defense to bail the offense out every game. Well, unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. Things like that hurt us in 2014 and caused someone to get fired.

Edited April 16, 2019 by DAG

[BigWhiskey91 632]

6 minutes ago, DAG said:

All I know was the defense definitely did not live up to par during the Mississippi State. It sucks. However, it is a sad state of affairs when the defense has to be the one to bail the offense out CONSISTENTLY on a team whose head coach is an offensive mind. The whole point of team victories and losses is the need for balance. When the defense got blasted in the running game, this was the time the offense really needed to bail them out, sort of like what the defense did during the UW game. I think some people wanted the defense to bail the offense out every game. Well, unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. Things like that hurt us in 2014 and caused someone to get fired.

Ultimately I just want W’s. If that means we score only through special teams to beat someone, then I will take it. Doesn’t mean it’ll be pretty or I will like it. 

Im not blaming Steele at all. Hell, his system is like Gus’s on O in that it’s about simplicity and letting the boys play. When it comes to stopping the run, that’s about wanting to stop the run. Just like Gus couldn’t do much about Stidham overthrowing a WIDE open Slayton and whitlow fumbling going into the end zone.

The miss state game was just a game of what could go wrong did go wrong. 

[BigWhiskey91 632]

35 minutes ago, McLoofus said:

And exactly. The people who said that the Iron Bowl was the offense's fault that year were clowns just like the people who say that the Mississippi State game last year was the defense's fault are clowns. 

Who exactly is saying that loss was exclusively on the defense? They aren’t the sole reason, but it was a team loss which does include them.

[aujeff11 6,243]

23 minutes ago, DAG said:

However, it is a sad state of affairs when the defense has to be the one to bail the offense out CONSISTENTLY

It’s probably more cyclical but let’s not forget that the offense has received the brunt of the blame for last season as it should have. It’s not like the offense is getting off with a pass here. Gus is sitting squarely on the hot seat again. The defensive coaches have received minimal criticism and all is well as long as Gus remains the coach. That’s just one more example of football being a team sport. They have to live and die together. 

23 minutes ago, DAG said:

When the defense got blasted in the running game, this was the time the offense really needed to bail them out, sort of like what the defense did during the UW game.

In what way did our defense bail us out against UW? I seem to remember our offense striking quickly and our defense almost letting a Washington offense almost as pathetic as ours back into the game. 

 

Scratch that, just checked, Washington’s was way more pathetic than ours. 

Edited April 16, 2019 by aujeff11

[McLoofus 35,182]

18 minutes ago, DAG said:

All I know was the defense did not live up to par during the Mississippi State. It sucks. However, it is a sad state of affairs when the defense has to be the one to bail the offense out CONSISTENTLY on a team whose head coach is an offensive mind. The whole point of team victories and losses is the need for balance. When the defense got blasted in the running game, this was the time the offense needed to bail them out, sort of like what the defense did during the UW game. I think some people wanted the defense to bail the offense out every game. Well, unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. Things like that hurt us in 2014 and caused someone to get fired.

And that's another thing. If you look at the entire season up until that point, you see a lot of things coming to a head. But I won't go down that road in this thread. 

 

[McLoofus 35,182]

28 minutes ago, BigWhiskey91 said:

Who exactly is saying that loss was exclusively on the defense? They aren’t the sole reason, but it was a team loss which does include them.

The person who I initially responded to said that Kevin Steele should have been on the hot seat for that game. He even said that our defense giving up yards against MSU and UT "cost us a good season". (The UT game was less defensible, no pun intended.)

In a game where we scored 9 points and our kicker went 3-4 and only missed from 50, then no that one missed kick is not really a special teams mistake to focus on. He had already missed several kicks from 50 or longer at that point in the season. Gus was making poor head coaching decisions. And that many long field goal attempts not only signify a sputtering offense, but also a defense that is repeatedly having to defend a shorter field, even if "only" shorter by 15-20 yards.

I also have mentioned the muffed punt several times. That was a special teams mistake (made by our best offensive player). But that further illustrates that too much was put on our defense's plate in that game. And the thing is, they still kept them out of the end zone. That was a failure by the stripes.

The defense came prepared to win that day, and they would have with just a little bit of help.

Some more fun numbers. Our offense had one possession the entire game that lasted longer than 2:30. Of our 10 offensive opportunities, 8 of them resulted in either a muffed punt or less than 96 seconds of possession. That's pretty bad unless you're scoring. 

Edited April 16, 2019 by McLoofus

[DAG 33,980]

32 minutes ago, aujeff11 said:

It’s probably more cyclical but let’s not forget that the offense has received the brunt of the blame for last season as it should have. It’s not like the offense is getting off with a pass here. Gus is sitting squarely on the hot seat again. The defensive coaches have received minimal criticism and all is well as long as Gus remains the coach. That’s just one more example of football being a team sport. They have to live and die together. 

In what way did our defense bail us out against UW? I seem to remember our offense striking quickly and our defense almost letting a Washington offense almost as pathetic as ours back into the game. 

 

Scratch that, just checked, Washington’s was way more pathetic than ours. 

What?! After the 1st quarter our offense was a shell of itself. 12 total points in 3 quarters. We were actually down halfway in the fourth quarter . That is the epitome of the defense picking up the slack to keep us in the game . The defense also made a crucial stop in the third quarter and caused a fumble when Washington was in the red zone. Come on now. Don’t argue just to argue. You legitimately can’t argue the defense was a big factor in us winning that game. And they were a big factor in us losing the Mississippi state game. But bigger than that, the offense had been inconsistent-throughout  last year. There is no denying that. Just like the defense was horribly inconsistent in 2014. There is no denying that .

Edited April 16, 2019 by DAG

[abw0004 10,110]

1 hour ago, McLoofus said:

No axe grinding here.

Sorry, couldn't resist.  To lighten to mood a tad.

[aujeff11 6,243]

Just now, DAG said:

What?! After the 1st quarter our offense was a shell of itself. 12 total points in 3 quarters. We were actually down halfway in the fourth quarter .

We are splitting hairs here. We had a ten point lead and then a 9 point lead that was eventually lost to an offense that ranked 88th in the country in PPG. And then our offense scored a TD while down in the fourth quarter and then the defense held up . I consider that a team victory. 

[BigWhiskey91 632]

3 minutes ago, McLoofus said:

The person who I initially responded to said that Kevin Steele should have been on the hot seat for that game. He even said that our defense giving up yards against MSU and UT "cost us a good season". (The UT game was less defensible, no pun intended.)

In a game where we scored 9 points and our kicker went 3-4 and only missed from 50, then no that one missed kick is not really a special teams mistake to focus on. He had already missed several kicks from 50 or longer at that point in the season. Gus was making poor head coaching decisions. And that many long field goal attempts not only signify a sputtering offense, but also a defense that is repeatedly having to defend a shorter field, even if "only" shorter by 15-20 yards.

I also have mentioned the muffed punt several times. That was a special teams mistake (made by our best offensive player). But that further illustrates that too much was put on our defense's plate in that game. And the thing is, they still kept them out of the end zone. That was a failure by the stripes.

The defense came prepared to win that day, and they would have with just a little bit of help.

Some more fun numbers. Our offense had one possession the entire game that lasted longer than 2:30. Of our 10 offensive opportunities, 8 of them resulted in either a muffed punt or less than 96 seconds of possession. That's pretty bad unless you're scoring. 

Woaaaahhh. I’ll have to go back and look at that, but I didn’t see someone say Steele should be on the hot seat. That is absurd. 

I agree that the number of field goals attempted from 50+ was poor in hindsight and ultimately Gus stopped doing that. We had a late bye week this past season and I’ll have to go back and check but I believe those insane fg attempts stopped shortly after our bye. That being said, all the talk that spring from special teams was about how great Anders was looking. That being said, he did the same thing with Daniel as he was a weapon. It feeds into the thought that he tends to be less aggressive when he has other things to rely on. It’s almost like everything he hasn’t done in the last threee years was an attempt to reduce turnovers and just collect points when given the opportunity. That IMO would go against everything Gus was about when he was hired in 2009.

I think that was why the bowl game was so refreshing. I get the opponent we faced, but we took deep shots on EVERY possession and kept the foot to the floor. It got to the point where Purdue fans boo’d Gus because he took timeouts to hit 50pts before half. Part of that seemed to transition over to spring as well. Idk if anyone has mentioned it, but we didn’t score a single rushing TD in the spring game. Almost all the impact/explosive plays came through the air. Easily the most exciting spring game in Gus’s time here.

[BigWhiskey91 632]

7 minutes ago, DAG said:

What?! After the 1st quarter our offense was a shell of itself. 12 total points in 3 quarters. We were actually down halfway in the fourth quarter . That is the epitome of the defense picking up the slack to keep us in the game . The defense also made a crucial stop in the third quarter and caused a fumble when Washington was in the red zone. Come on now. Don’t argue just to argue. You legitimately can’t argue the defense was a big factor in us winning that game. And they were a big factor in us losing the Mississippi state game. But bigger than that, the offense had been inconsistent-throughout  last year. There is no denying that. Just like the defense was horribly inconsistent in 2014. There is no denying that .

I think what he is saying is that the offense moved the ball very effectively throwing the ball in the first half. We could never get the run game going to compliment the passing attack we had going. We were never able to force UW to drop a safety into the box so they were playing a safety almost 25yds away from the line of scrimmage to take away our deep ball. That’s why early in the game you saw us ripping them apart between the 20s on back shoulders and skinny posts. But once we got to red zone they were able to compact our offense. If we cannot run the ball, our red zone offense has suffered, and it’s always been that way sadly.

[McLoofus 35,182]

1 minute ago, abw0004 said:

Sorry, couldn't resist.  To lighten to mood a tad.

Damn. If we're using GoT to lighten the mood, then I really need to come up for air.

 

 

[DAG 33,980]

Just now, aujeff11 said:

We are splitting hairs here. We had a ten point lead and then a 9 point lead that was eventually lost to an offense that ranked 88th in the country in PPG. And then our offense scored a TD while down in the fourth quarter and then the defense held up . I consider that a team victory. 

I never said it wasn’t a team victory. I said the defense picked up the slack when the offense was sputtering . The defense sputtered horribly in the Mississippi state game. That would’ve been great opportunity for the offense to pick up the slack in that regard. That’s a team. You pick each other up and compliment each other. 

[DAG 33,980]

1 minute ago, BigWhiskey91 said:

I think what he is saying is that the offense moved the ball very effectively throwing the ball in the first half. We could never get the run game going to compliment the passing attack we had going. We were never able to force UW to drop a safety into the box so they were playing a safety almost 25yds away from the line of scrimmage to take away our deep ball. That’s why early in the game you saw us ripping them apart between the 20s on back shoulders and skinny posts. But once we got to red zone they were able to compact our offense. If we cannot run the ball, our red zone offense has suffered, and it’s always been that way sadly.

This is all true . But I don’t see how that plays into how the defense reacted in that moment. That is an offensive issue. And it was an issue throughout the year. 

[McLoofus 35,182]

6 minutes ago, BigWhiskey91 said:

It feeds into the thought that he tends to be less aggressive when he has other things to rely on. It’s almost like everything he hasn’t done in the last threee years was an attempt to reduce turnovers and just collect points when given the opportunity.

I think that mentality explains everything, honestly.

Fingers crossed that Purdue is the new truth. 

[aujeff11 6,243]

7 minutes ago, DAG said:

I never said it wasn’t a team victory. I said the defense picked up the slack when the offense was sputtering

And apparently the offense bailed out the defense when they were sputtering. Every time you check the box score, you’re going to see we scored more points than they did. #teamW

[BigWhiskey91 632]

4 minutes ago, DAG said:

This is all true . But I don’t see how that plays into how the defense reacted in that moment. That is an offensive issue. And it was an issue throughout the year. 

It’s really been an issue for Malzahns offense as a whole. In games where we score 30+ points, I believe we would see a large portion coming from explosive plays. 

But yeah I was just saying that maybe he was referring to the offense moving the ball as being productive. Ultimately points are points, but the offense started out 2019 looking good. Lots of intermediate routes and checksown options to the RB and H back. Then once we realized we couldn’t run the ball, things fell apart.

[DAG 33,980]

3 minutes ago, aujeff11 said:

And apparently the offense bailed out the defense when they were sputtering. Every time you check the box score, you’re going to see we scored more points than they did. #teamW

I like how you completely ignored that I agree that it was a team victory . You can have it man lol. It’s too early. 

[DAG 33,980]

2 minutes ago, BigWhiskey91 said:

It’s really been an issue for Malzahns offense as a whole. In games where we score 30+ points, I believe we would see a large portion coming from explosive plays. 

But yeah I was just saying that maybe he was referring to the offense moving the ball as being productive. Ultimately points are points, but the offense started out 2019 looking good. Lots of intermediate routes and checksown options to the RB and H back. Then once we realized we couldn’t run the ball, things fell apart.

Yep. The Purdue game showed and reminded us what a Gus Malzahn offense looks like! It was refreshing. In my eyes, if our defense holds someone to 15 points in a game, I am confident that we will have victory because of the expectation of what a Gus style offense can produce . That’s what I want to see again. 

[BigWhiskey91 632]

5 minutes ago, McLoofus said:

I think that mentality explains everything, honestly.

Fingers crossed that Purdue is the new truth. 

And in the case of Purdue, a large part was our talent level being violently superior than theirs. So in essence we did what we were supposed to. That being said, it was refreshing to see with how that season had gone. 

IMO, idc who starts at QB. I just want to see limited personnel grouping changes to facilitate faster pace of play. Joined at HBack/RB/Slot is promising because it gives him a variety of attack options. He could be very dangerous on Wheel/Seam routes. 

If anyone is interested, I found a YouTube vid of a PowerPoint/film session that Gus gave at a coaching clinic after his 2007 season at Tulsa. It’s very in depth and fascinating honestly.

[aujeff11 6,243]

4 minutes ago, DAG said:

I like how you completely ignored that I agree that it was a team victory . You can have it man lol. It’s too early. 

Well you can have that the defense bailed out the offense which contradicts “team victory.”

 

It’s just whatever.