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(09-21-2015 07:31 AM)ODU90 Wrote:  

(09-20-2015 08:33 PM)Monarch Homselr Wrote:  Why was the offense so vanilla after the article in the Pilot with BW that promised an all out, anything goes, nothing off the table offense?

I think a lot of this had to do with field position and wanting to protect SB's psyche by not making making the big mistake. It seemed like practically every drive we had started inside our own 15 and many of those inside our own 10. I may be wrong, but i believe the one TD drive in the 2nd half came after a kickoff where we started around the 25 and had some room to operate.

They kicked a lot, because they scored a lot and ALL of them were touchbacks (save for one I believe), starting at the 25. I know this because Pascal wanted to return each of them and every time Nick England was..."slow down big guy, let's just keep it in the end zone."

(09-20-2015 08:33 PM)Monarch Homselr Wrote:  Why was the offense so vanilla after the article in the Pilot with BW that promised an all out, anything goes, nothing off the table offense?

NC State coaches read up on us too. Wilder may have just been playing with NC State a little bit to see if he could get in their heads.

Also, I don't feel as though the game situation allowed for much trickery on offense. I though when we scored our first touchdown (game was tied at 7), we might onside kick.

There was a play to Vincent Lowe where he caught a backwards lateral pass. It may have been drawn up for him to throw it down the field, but NC State was all over him before he could do anything. It ended up a seven yard loss.

ODU was really limited in what they could do offensively because the offensive line couldn't block anyone. They were absolutely overmatched. The one sack on Bentley was pretty pathetic at the end of the game where the entire defensive front blew through our line. All four guys sacked Bentley.

With Lowe, Harper and Little...how hard is it to install a fly sweep package?

This offense had over a month to give NC State something to look at and there was NO shortage of examples from concepts that bothered them from 2014. Our big surprise was a throwback to Vincent Lowe, which everyone saw coming.

It left a lot to be desired.

I'm looking forward to the article this Thursday where ODU is going to pull out all the stops against App State. Then around Oct 29th will get another one where ODU is going to be creative against WKU!!!

(09-21-2015 07:38 AM)ODUR8R Wrote:  

(09-21-2015 07:31 AM)ODU90 Wrote:  

(09-20-2015 08:33 PM)Monarch Homselr Wrote:  Why was the offense so vanilla after the article in the Pilot with BW that promised an all out, anything goes, nothing off the table offense?

I think a lot of this had to do with field position and wanting to protect SB's psyche by not making making the big mistake. It seemed like practically every drive we had started inside our own 15 and many of those inside our own 10. I may be wrong, but i believe the one TD drive in the 2nd half came after a kickoff where we started around the 25 and had some room to operate.

They kicked a lot, because they scored a lot and ALL of them were touchbacks (save for one I believe), starting at the 25. I know this because Pascal wanted to return each of them and every time Nick England was..."slow down big guy, let's just keep it in the end zone."

Certainly true. Guess it seemed worse because it was following defensive stops. We made them punt 4 times and our starting positions were our own 10, 13, 6 and 4.

You are right about the punts. They pinned us around the five several times. I wondered why Little fielded a couple of those.

(09-21-2015 08:22 AM)ODUR8R Wrote:  You are right about the punts. They pinned us around the five several times. I wondered why Little fielded a couple of those.

We all wondered the same thing.
I understand NCST had great punt coverage but fielding one on the 4?
Let it go and see if you get a touchback. If not then you loss 3 yds.

(09-20-2015 07:50 PM)Bpar73 Wrote:  While this thread is still around, I would like to ask for some help from you guys.

Each week on the show, we have a segment called "Coach's Corner" where coach Wilder answers questions that fans send in.

A lot of the questions are kind of lame, so I'm asking you guys to fire away, send me any question that you have for coach.

It could be about anything. He really loves that segment and is thrilled when a fan asks an intelligent football question. I'll even try to get a Lion's Den shoutout in there someway. You can send it as a video or just a simple old regular email.

Thanks in advance!

My email is brian.parsons@wavy.com

BPar73,
I thought about this last night, then I saw a few comments here also, but why is our punt return team calling for fair catches inside the 5 yard line? Is this being coached or are the players (actually one player) making the wrong decision?
My experience is from 30 years ago and only in high school, but I remember clearly being coached to put my heels on the 10 yard line and if they ball is over my head to let it go.

What gives?

When you can't get a first down those three yards matter. It gives our punt team, which has struggled this year, a few more yards to operate.

(09-21-2015 09:01 AM)odufansam Wrote:  When you can't get a first down those three yards matter. It gives our punt team, which has struggled this year, a few more yards to operate.

If we are fielding punts with that as our goal, we are already in big trouble.

(09-21-2015 09:11 AM)ODUBB35 Wrote:  

(09-21-2015 09:01 AM)odufansam Wrote:  When you can't get a first down those three yards matter. It gives our punt team, which has struggled this year, a few more yards to operate.

If we are fielding punts with that as our goal, we are already in big trouble.

Most of the fair catches that people are alluding to came later in the game. It was already obvious by that point that our offensive line wasn't up to the task. Just my two cents.

Also, early in the game Little let one go and it hurt us. He could have fair caught the punt around the 20 yard line and he let it go.

All I am saying is that its easy to second guess these decisions that the players or coaches made. I don't think they called a stellar game, but they tried to make the best of the situation. Our wide receivers couldn't catch and our offensive line couldn't run block. Nobody can win with that combination.

(09-21-2015 08:45 AM)Big Blue Crazy Wrote:  

(09-21-2015 08:22 AM)ODUR8R Wrote:  You are right about the punts. They pinned us around the five several times. I wondered why Little fielded a couple of those.

We all wondered the same thing.
I understand NCST had great punt coverage but fielding one on the 4?
Let it go and see if you get a touchback. If not then you loss 3 yds.

Yes, you camp at the 10. If it goes over your head, you let it go. Pretty simple stuff.

I think the problem was they had 2-4 guys camped out everytime as well. There punter had great hang time. If Little would have let the ball go, they may have even been able to catch the punts in the air/

And if they catch it in the air. How is that any different than us fair catching it????? At least 90% of the time it goes in the end zone and we get it on the 20. I am not criticizing the player, just pointing out that a better statistical decision is to let them go when they are inside the 10.

(09-21-2015 12:54 PM)ODUcatcher79 Wrote:  And if they catch it in the air. How is that any different than us fair catching it????? At least 90% of the time it goes in the end zone and we get it on the 20. I am not criticizing the player, just pointing out that a better statistical decision is to let them go when they are inside the 10.

Im just glad that the return team caught every ball they attempted to catch. Something our receivers could not do.

(09-21-2015 11:23 AM)ODUDrunkard13 Wrote:  

(09-21-2015 08:45 AM)Big Blue Crazy Wrote:  

(09-21-2015 08:22 AM)ODUR8R Wrote:  You are right about the punts. They pinned us around the five several times. I wondered why Little fielded a couple of those.

We all wondered the same thing.
I understand NCST had great punt coverage but fielding one on the 4?
Let it go and see if you get a touchback. If not then you loss 3 yds.

Yes, you camp at the 10. If it goes over your head, you let it go. Pretty simple stuff.

It's not really that simple. That may be a good strategy for high school but if they have 5 guys camped out at the goal line it makes sense to catch it at the 5. If they down it at the 1 then we are at risk for a safety even if we run it. Those 4 yards are a HUGE difference. Not worth the risk. If you watch the replay they had 3-5 guys around the returner on every punt inside the 10.

Just watched tonight's show. Cr8n had the only fan question. Way to go! He didn't really answer it though but that's OK.