Sorry if this has already been addressed, but anyone have thoughts on why we were "uptempo" in this game? It was a very welcome development, for sure, but what do you all think motivated it?, because IIRC we have been meerkating as far back as TGraham..

(10-07-2013 01:17 AM)texd Wrote:  Now I'm even more confused. Wouldn't late hits be Personal Fouls, not Unsportsmanlike Conducts?

Forgive my imprecise use of language. I'm surprised I didn't throw unsporting behavior and technical fouls into the mix.

(10-08-2013 12:50 AM)I45owl Wrote:  

(10-07-2013 01:17 AM)texd Wrote:  Now I'm even more confused. Wouldn't late hits be Personal Fouls, not Unsportsmanlike Conducts?

Forgive my imprecise use of language. I'm surprised I didn't throw unsporting behavior and technical fouls into the mix.

Don't Personal Fouls include both Unnecessary Roughness and Unsportsmanlike Conduct?

I think he was thinking he would have mixing soccer and basketball terms as well.

(10-07-2013 04:21 PM)ChicagoOwl (BS 07) Wrote:  Sorry if this has already been addressed, but anyone have thoughts on why we were "uptempo" in this game? It was a very welcome development, for sure, but what do you all think motivated it?, because IIRC we have been meerkating as far back as TGraham..

Was glad to see it - and surprised to hear Dillard in the presser say they work on it every week. It seemed to take Tulsa by surprise too. Strange that we haven't even shown it (until now) even in the 4th quarter.

On the negative side, has anyone mentioned our 4th down play calling ... again? How many critical downs have been called and thrown incomplete 30 yards down field? That pass hasn't been successful for us this year in critical yardage situations (at least not yet), but it's still what we seem to call. Just strange.

(10-07-2013 04:21 PM)ChicagoOwl (BS 07) Wrote:  Sorry if this has already been addressed, but anyone have thoughts on why we were "uptempo" in this game? It was a very welcome development, for sure, but what do you all think motivated it?, because IIRC we have been meerkating as far back as TGraham..

We've brought it out from time to time under Bailiff. It was a focus under MENSA OC in '07 and '08. We've generally slowed since then but every now and then we'll bring it back out. Probably was done this time to try and break the offense out of it's funk and get some rhythm back which Bailiff said was key post-FAU. 2nd quarter we probably were going to try to shorten the game with a 2TD lead but we started to fail to excute plays (and Tulsa switched to more man coverage after primarily playing cover 3 and cover 4 in the 1st half).

Post-Tulsa he's been talking about needing to get out the of 3rd quarter offense funk. So perhaps we'll go uptempo (w/ less meerkat checking) to start the 3rd this weekend.

(10-08-2013 03:21 PM)NYNightOwl Wrote:  On the negative side, has anyone mentioned our 4th down play calling ... again? How many critical downs have been called and thrown incomplete 30 yards down field? That pass hasn't been successful for us this year in critical yardage situations (at least not yet), but it's still what we seem to call. Just strange.

This is one of the observations (plus some comments) that leads some of us to the conclusion that the WRs aren't being taught how to get off of any kind of man under coverage, with or without deep help.

Obviously our conclusions can be wrong as we don't have all of the evidence, but based on what we know and can see and have been told (even that we need to do a better job of getting open against man) this seems entirely logical.

if a defender won't let you get inside position (obviously, you also failed to get inside position) then the answer seems to be to go deep... requiring a pin point pass if there is no help... (which we've also seen fail often) or timing, plus a pin point pass if there IS deep help... and BOTH require lots of protection.

The answer is to get inside position. Period. If your "in" ends up looking more like an ampersand, then so what? If you have to stack or motion and pick then so what? If you have to give up one route in order to make another more effective, then again... so what? If you get man coverage and are relegated in time (4 seconds to get open downfield before the rush hits) but not in space (you can be 8 or 18 yards down and anywhere within perhaps 10 yards horizontal and it doesn't matter if you make a 1 or 7 or 3 or an "infinity" shape to get there... you should be able to get open enough for even a mediocre pass to be completed.


As to the 3rd quarter... observation implies that as we go conservative on offense to shorten the game, they go aggressive on defense... thus stacking the box to limit runs, man and pressure... and we have often struggled.... because we can't get open against man coverage without trying to thread the deep needle (which we really don't want to be throwing anyway) or hitting that seam on things like the wheel route or the TE behind the LB but in front of the safety. I realized the wheel worked in OT vs Tulsa, but no doubt that was because after the defense held them to a FG and with our kicker, they had no choice but to try and force a mistake and MAKE us execute something we'd not shown an ability to do.

(10-08-2013 03:21 PM)NYNightOwl Wrote:  On the negative side, has anyone mentioned our 4th down play calling ... again? How many critical downs have been called and thrown incomplete 30 yards down field? That pass hasn't been successful for us this year in critical yardage situations (at least not yet), but it's still what we seem to call. Just strange.

I don't think we are "calling" a 30 yard pass play. That's not how passing attacks are structured. You have receivers running a combination of several pass routes, and depending on how the defense covers and reacts, the ball should be thrown to a particular receiver. So with varying coverages, the receiver can be one of several. The same play call that led to a 30 yard pass on 4th down may lead to a short throw in the flat against different coverages. The questions to ask are whether we are seeing the same coverage consistently on thrid down, and if so is this the best pass pattern to beat it.

Hambone may be onto something that I know ruowls has called to my attention several times, which is that our receivers are having a hard time getting off the LOS properly, and that pretty much defeats a lot of timing patterns and may be dictating the deep throws. But that's an execution problem, not a play-calling problem.

(10-08-2013 09:42 AM)gsloth Wrote:  I think he was thinking he would have mixing soccer and basketball terms as well.

Or that I already had inadvertently done so.