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Intermediate Passes


bg5

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This is a question for the knowledgeable football guys out there (I'm a baseball guy so I don't know all the X's and O's). Do we not have any medium range passes because the Def. is taking that away from us or we just don't throw them? It seems to me we throw really short or really long but nothing in between. On 3rd and long we tend to go really deep rather than try to just get 10 yards or whatever.

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3 minutes ago, bg5 said:

This is a question for the knowledgeable football guys out there (I'm a baseball guy so I don't know all the X's and O's). Do we not have any medium range passes because the Def. is taking that away from us or we just don't throw them? It seems to me we throw really short or really long but nothing in between. On 3rd and long we tend to go really deep rather than try to just get 10 yards or whatever.

I would compare it to this in baseball. Late in the game and tying run on second base with no outs. How many times have you seen a guy swing and for the fences and fly out to left instead of trying to advance the runner with grounder to the right side of the diamond. It just doesn't make sense sometimes.

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6 minutes ago, bg5 said:

This is a question for the knowledgeable football guys out there (I'm a baseball guy so I don't know all the X's and O's). Do we not have any medium range passes because the Def. is taking that away from us or we just don't throw them? It seems to me we throw really short or really long but nothing in between. On 3rd and long we tend to go really deep rather than try to just get 10 yards or whatever.

It is a combination of several things.  

1) I think CGM & CCL have beat into JS's head that the middle of the field is dangerous and that is last ditch effort.

2) I think JS is more comfortable with throwing deep ball because he trusts the couple of WRs that go deep.

3) There are typically a lot more defenders closer to the ball so it does take away some of those throws in a lot of cases.

With all that said, I believe, most of this has more to do with #1 than either of the other 2.

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Been saving them for puppies and rednecks. ?

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I hope we see at least 5 intermediate passes vs UGH! The speed sweeps with Stove have worked well, but why not send he, Hastings and Davis across the middle a few times. Even if u don't throw to them, a D had to defend and worry about it. For us to win,  Stidham needs to have a very good game and the play calling needs to be more dynamic than it has in at least 4 of the games this year. Also our O Line needs to hold up. They did well against a strong D Line in A& M. 

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We threw a quick inside 7-yard curl route to hastings in the red zone and it worked out beautifully, first down and a 10 yard gain that led to an eventual score. We're going to need those against UGA's defensive line.

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I honestly think a lot of it has to do with continuing to break Stidham in.  During the Alabama game, the commentators made a good point when talking about Hurts' play of this year compared to last.  As he grows more comfortable, Hurts has been throwing more intermediate passes, and passes across the middle.  The easy passes are the short throws and the deep balls (if given the time).  This may be why we are slowly seeing the intermediate ball being thrown more as Sitdham can fully handle it.  I would expect to see more of Stidham throwing the intermediate ball against UGA and Alabama.

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I'm not looking for a onslaught of intermediate passes in the next two games.  We may have a few but ... The center looks open because our opponents have (rightly) crowded the LOS.  Georgia and Alabama are capable of engaging at the LOS using a standard coverage package and just having higher quality players up front.  Will Georgia start the game crowding us up front?  I certainly expect it.  But they and Bama won't be committed to fronting more personnel to stop us - it's just a convenience to them because we can't seem to break habits.  With all that said, we're facing a couple capable defenses, and like it or not, we're inexperienced in this area.  Subtle cues and route improvising on such quick timing would be - to put it lightly - highly risky.  Our chance to practice and rep on lower caliber defenses has come and gone.  The "I think CGM & CCL have beat into JS's head that the middle of the field is dangerous and that is last ditch effort" is probably factually accurate (is dangerous) and yet is a symptom of a self inflicted wound. As much as I love a team that is operating at a high level, I think there is an opportunity for a few Auburn players to "step out and rise above."  Goodness knows we've got some players with insanely great skill sets. JMHO

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What's an intermediate route??

Is that a bomb because we are home run or bust.

I honestly think it has to do with what others said, it's about trust and offensive philosophy. Gus said we are run, play action team. That play action is deep routes primarily. Almost always. Those throws in red zone were safe routes...it's a sprint out to the corner or a screen, if the throw isn't there the QB can throw it away or run. Gus doesn't like to throw into the endzone because he's scared the QB will throw into traffic. . 

We will probably count the number of short routes with three fingers on Saturday. Maybe in year two with Jarrett we will have those routes but they are going to be few and far between in a Gus run offense this year. 

A good opposing coordinator will know our plays by now so it's imperative for us to break tendencies in certain situations. We'll see on Saturday.

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1 hour ago, abw0004 said:

I honestly think a lot of it has to do with continuing to break Stidham in.  During the Alabama game, the commentators made a good point when talking about Hurts' play of this year compared to last.  As he grows more comfortable, Hurts has been throwing more intermediate passes, and passes across the middle.  The easy passes are the short throws and the deep balls (if given the time).  This may be why we are slowly seeing the intermediate ball being thrown more as Sitdham can fully handle it.  I would expect to see more of Stidham throwing the intermediate ball against UGA and Alabama.

I can agree with this assessment. Even Cam didn't throw a ton of intermediate routes his first few games. It was a lot of screens and deep passes to the sideline. By UGA that year, he was hitting intermediate passes in the middle of the field.

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Hate to sounds negative, however i will, I would very surprised to see Gus break any tendencies. He just don't do that, he casually tries to just out smart the other guy. The times where he has beaten a well coached team is when he had a player make extraordinary plays during the game and therefore bail him out of bad play calling. If CCL is truly calling the plays then we MAY see some breaking of tendencies. But at this junction i have come to just not expect a outstandingly called game. JMHO :dunno:

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It's worth pointing out that TE Canella was targeted, as best I recall, 4x against ATM. Did he catch one of them? I know he had at least one critical drop on an intermediate route. I don't think he caught any of them. Also, we targeted KJ and C Cox out of the backfield six times successfully. That's at least 10 of 27 pass attempts that were short to intermediate. The perception being tossed around here and on other boards that we only throw bombs was just flat out not true in the ATM game. 

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2 hours ago, TigerFanAU said:

We threw a quick inside 7-yard curl route to hastings in the red zone and it worked out beautifully, first down and a 10 yard gain that led to an eventual score. We're going to need those against UGA's defensive line.

That was actually an RPO and is what it should look like every time.  Beautifully read by Stidham.

The arrow route to Davis was what I want to see more of as well.  Used our other WRs to clear out defenders which opened up the middle for a quick hitter that turned into a nice 15-20 yard gain.

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1 hour ago, Timeslider 6 said:

Hate to sounds negative, however i will, I would very surprised to see Gus break any tendencies. He just don't do that, he casually tries to just out smart the other guy. The times where he has beaten a well coached team is when he had a player make extraordinary plays during the game and therefore bail him out of bad play calling. If CCL is truly calling the plays then we MAY see some breaking of tendencies. But at this junction i have come to just not expect a outstandingly called game. JMHO :dunno:

Nailed it. 100%

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1 hour ago, Timeslider 6 said:

Hate to sounds negative, however i will, I would very surprised to see Gus break any tendencies. He just don't do that, he casually tries to just out smart the other guy. The times where he has beaten a well coached team is when he had a player make extraordinary plays during the game and therefore bail him out of bad play calling. If CCL is truly calling the plays then we MAY see some breaking of tendencies. But at this junction i have come to just not expect a outstandingly called game. JMHO :dunno:

Yeah every year I am hopeful he was sandbagging during the season only to realize he isn't capable of busting out with new tricks at the end of the season.

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1 hour ago, Brad_ATX said:

That was actually an RPO and is what it should look like every time.  Beautifully read by Stidham.

The arrow route to Davis was what I want to see more of as well.  Used our other WRs to clear out defenders which opened up the middle for a quick hitter that turned into a nice 15-20 yard gain.

That RPO throw had such a fast release from Stidham the only way you knew the guy threw the ball was that it was no longer in his hands and was magically in Hastings'.  Very impressive with Stidham's throwing form.  NFL scout should be very pleased with his short wind-up when throwing.  

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2 hours ago, Timeslider 6 said:

Hate to sounds negative, however i will, I would very surprised to see Gus break any tendencies. He just don't do that, he casually tries to just out smart the other guy. The times where he has beaten a well coached team is when he had a player make extraordinary plays during the game and therefore bail him out of bad play calling. If CCL is truly calling the plays then we MAY see some breaking of tendencies. But at this junction i have come to just not expect a outstandingly called game. JMHO :dunno:

Look for Gus to open up the playbook this week.  Unfortunately, the book he uses for big games is only six pages with one play per page.  

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5 hours ago, TigerFanAU said:

We threw a quick inside 7-yard curl route to hastings in the red zone and it worked out beautifully, first down and a 10 yard gain that led to an eventual score. We're going to need those against UGA's defensive line.

We also threw several quick slants for nice gains. We'll need those too.

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I agree. Canella has dropped a few easy passes this year. Want to see #85, Harris thrown to at least two times a game. We have always had good TE's until Gus took over. Bring back Borges,  because look what he did for Campbell, a pocket passer!  Stidham is much more talented than Campbell. We also must recruit a top tier tailback that is at least 195 lbs coming out of highschool. 

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