I wanted to take the post I made in the game thread and make it into a thread to discuss further. Predictability in our offense has been one of the biggest problems we've seen under Silverfield. While it's still early in the season, the past has shown that it hasn't mattered since it would still look relatively the same through the whole season. And while Seth is a really good QB, he is not an elite level QB. And that makes a difference with the poor run production. It puts too much of a burden on Seth that he can't always overcome. Anyway what I posted in the game thread was:

Quote:To me the problem isn't the line, it's the over-reliance on the zone scheme that makes us predictable. Although it did lead to a nice misdirection pass play for a TD. Reminded me of Fuente as he relied on misdirection in his offense. Like you mentioned they need to be more creative. The problems have looked the same every season. It's too consistently/predictably bad for me to say it's all on the players up front.

I decided to look back at this game to look what all was run. I'm not as thorough as I used to be so it's definitely possible I missed some things. From what I can tell and ignoring Seth's runs, these are all of the runs that were not some type of Zone scheme in the game.

1Q, 9:00, 1st & 10 - Counter play for Watson to the right. 6yds. Scates seemed to either miss his assignment and/or not put much effort into his block. 2nd back tried to up this defender, but he makes the tackle. Watson gains more on that play with more effort from Scates.

1Q, 7:13, 1st & 10 - Looks like Gap (could be counter) for Smith to the left. 4yds. Landphere (TE) lines up as an H-Back on the right side. Right guard pulls and Landphere works kind like a lead blocker or might be viewed as pulling. That's why I can't clearly say gap or counter.

1Q, 1:11, 1st & 10 - Counter for Ducker. 0yds. Interesting design with this play as the counter block goes left, but they sweep right. Landphere is again at the H-Back on the right. He attempts to block Straker, but Straker blows up the block and runs Ducker out of bounds. Probably would have only gotten 3-4 yds at best if the block was solid.

2Q, 13:25, 1st & 10 - Man blocking for Watson up the middle. 2yds. Not much push and the DTs still make the tackle.

3Q, 10:48, 1st & 10 - Looks closest to Man blocking. Watson up the middle. 3yds. Left DE makes RT Hill, guessing based on number, miss the block.

3Q, 9:49, 3rd & 3 - Man, Watson up the middle. 2yds. LB makes the tackle.

4Q, 8:39, 1st & 10 - Counter right for Watson. 13yds. Safety saves this from being a much longer run.

4Q, 7:15, 2nd & 7 - Counter right for Smith. 0yds. Pulling LT Pounders unable to block the LB that made the tackle. Smith probably could have also bounced outside of that LB. If he slows down just a little bit he may have been able to see the hole that formed to the right of that LB.

4Q, 5:50, 1st & 10 - Counter left for Watson. 0yds. Pounders (not pulling this time) seems to go to far down the line to the right before getting up field to the LB. LB helps make the tackle.


By my count and again removing Seth's runs, 9/33 run plays were something other than zone. Which means about 72.7% of those runs were zone plays. And this feels like the most counter I've seen in one game, although three of those essentially came in garbage time. Maybe that's a sign we will see more counter going forward after all. I definitely hope so because we need it.

Unfortunately as I was writing these down I began to notice another concern for predictability. As you can see almost all of these happened on 1st & 10. I hope Cramsey mixes this up more in the future.

And here are the best zone plays I saw.

3Q, 13:22, 1st & 10 - Zone left. Watson runs to the right of the blocking for 8yds. Left corner makes tackle

3Q, 6:30, 1st & 10 - Zone right. Ducker runs for 22yds. Surprisingly the right DE is the one that makes the tackle. If I understand it right, the blocking in this play is called a split zone. I saw it run quite a bit, but I'm specifically mentioning it here because it might have been a touchdown if blocked right. TE Doyle is in motion right and then sets as the H-Back. Then he goes back left to block while the zone blocking goes right (split zone). He doesn't get a solid block on the right DE. If he does Ducker might have taken that 70. WR Taylor also seemed unsure on who to block. It looks like if he had been more decisive and picked up someone earlier, Ducker might be able to get a few more yards.

4Q, 6:31, 3 & 7 - Zone middle. Ducker runs for 13yds. LBs played up on the line making it much easier for the OL to make their blocks and open up the 2nd level.


So far I believe out of the Silverfield era RBs, Ducker has the best vision of them all. Personally I would hope that once he gets healthy he would be our main back. But I don't see practice to know why he doesn't get the most reps. Because based on games he should be our #1.

This is something that has to change if Silverfield wants to break out of his conference struggles the last two seasons. As the old saying goes, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." We can't run the same blocking scheme over and over and hope for improvements in rushing performance when it has shown it won't improve. I'm hopeful that after getting a taste of counter plays against ASU that this is them stepping in the right direction. Because if it's not I won't be surprised if we see something similar to last year when we won four straight then lost four straight. The schedule is currently setup for three wins straight, followed by three straight losses. This may happen if the run scheme doesn't change enough.

After reviewing the Navy game there wasn't much of a difference from the ASU game other than no counter plays were run. There were not a lot of run plays for our RBs this game and Seth had almost as many carries as Watson (9 vs 10). Based on my count there were six plays that I listed as not being zone though one of them did employ backside zone blocking.

Keeping it shorter this time I saw two Gap schemes, 1 Horn (this one had the backside zone blocking), and two Man schemes. The sixth play design didn't have the lineman fire off to block. It looked like pseudo pass blocking. I wanted to call it Gap, but I'm not sure what to call this. That means 13/19 run plays for the RBs and Roc were zone-based which is around 68.4%. Watson's big runs were both zone plays. The first was a split zone, and he did a great job of making defenders miss. The second one was also zone, but the design is similar to the play I mentioned last week at 13:22 in the 3rd. It looks like it's going up the middle, but it actually goes off the outside hip of the backside tackle. He makes a great spin move to avoid the DB's tackle.

We also still run the ball a lot on 1st down. Compared to last season we seemed to see lots of back-to-back run plays and 1st and 2nd downs. This year so far 1st down runs are usually followed by 2nd down passes.

With the players Pounders and Landphere seem to have the most trouble with consistency. They do ok, but then one of them will make a big blocking mistake. There haven't been a lot, but the few have been really noticeable. For example Roc Taylor's reverse got blown up by the man that Landphere should have blocked. He goes out half speed as if he's kind of running a route. But then he turns and watches the play instead of engaging the safety that went to cover him. He barely touches him and the safety keeps Taylor from turning up field. He looks like a really good receiving TE, but it's like he will have a moment where he doesn't want to block.

Watson looks like the most agile of the RBs. I also liked his patience this game with letting the blocks setup before running North. That is an area Smith needs to work on. With the fumble I wasn't sure who caused it, but looking at it again it looks like its on Watson. During the handoff he closes his pocket too quick and puts his hands on the ball instead. Because of how fast he closes his pocket, his bottom hand goes out of position keeping him from holding on to the ball. He probably got too anxious on that play. That should be a simple correction going forward.

I'm not confident about the next three games. Outside of the two great runs and sacks we had 69 rushing yards total including Seth's runs. Teams that can contain big run plays will be a problem for us with the way we continue to run certain schemes.

We average 183 yards rushing per game. Is that really a problem?

(09-16-2023 07:12 AM)Southaven Wrote:  We average 183 yards rushing per game. Is that really a problem?

The avg looks good but it's due to a couple of big runs rather than sustained running success - which we don't have. Look at how many running attempts that yield 3yds or less - and the predictabllity of what downs we run.

(09-16-2023 07:33 AM)Atlanta Wrote:  

(09-16-2023 07:12 AM)Southaven Wrote:  We average 183 yards rushing per game. Is that really a problem?

The avg looks good but it's due to a couple of big runs rather than sustained running success - which we don't have. Look at how many running attempts that yield 3yds or less - and the predictabllity of what downs we run.

That's with every rusher. While the opponents have not been strong 4.8 yards rushing average is not bad.

Frankly I am more concerned with the offensive line than the predictability of the run game at this point in the season. Maybe they are related?

(09-16-2023 07:42 AM)Southaven Wrote:  

(09-16-2023 07:33 AM)Atlanta Wrote:  

(09-16-2023 07:12 AM)Southaven Wrote:  We average 183 yards rushing per game. Is that really a problem?

The avg looks good but it's due to a couple of big runs rather than sustained running success - which we don't have. Look at how many running attempts that yield 3yds or less - and the predictabllity of what downs we run.

That's with every rusher. While the opponents have not been strong 4.8 yards rushing average is not bad.

Frankly I am more concerned with the offensive line than the predictability of the run game at this point in the season. Maybe they are related?

It’s the tempo

(09-16-2023 07:12 AM)Southaven Wrote:  We average 183 yards rushing per game. Is that really a problem?

Well let's look at what the other teams have allow so far.

Bethune-Cookman - 176 ypg

43 car, 208 yds - Memphis
27 car, 80 yds - Savannah State
36 car, 240 - Miami

Arkansas State - 185 ypg

49 car, 220 yds - Oklahoma
41 car, 150 yds - Memphis

Navy - 155 ypg

32 car, 191 yds - Notre Dame
32 car, 82 yds - Wagner
31 car, 190 yds - Memphis

It comes down to perspective. The FBS teams above are supposedly better than us so on paper they should outperform us against the same teams. OTOH they also blew those teams out and called off the dogs early. They could have potentially put up even bigger numbers with their 1st teams, while we're fighting through almost the whole game to put up similar numbers with our 1st group in.

(09-16-2023 07:42 AM)Southaven Wrote:  

(09-16-2023 07:33 AM)Atlanta Wrote:  

(09-16-2023 07:12 AM)Southaven Wrote:  We average 183 yards rushing per game. Is that really a problem?

The avg looks good but it's due to a couple of big runs rather than sustained running success - which we don't have. Look at how many running attempts that yield 3yds or less - and the predictabllity of what downs we run.

That's with every rusher. While the opponents have not been strong 4.8 yards rushing average is not bad.

Frankly I am more concerned with the offensive line than the predictability of the run game at this point in the season. Maybe they are related?

Actually the point of this thread is to give a counter take to the blame the offensive line is getting. I believe the scheme is putting them in the position to struggle like they have the past few years. I'm a big believer in maximizing strengths and minimizing weaknesses. And my view is that what we run does not maximize strengths and minimize weaknesses of the line and RBs. If the other teams know what's coming then they have a much easier time of controlling our run game. So I will point out blocking mistakes when I see them, but I will mainly focus on the lack of variety in what we run. I didn't look at the BC game, but in our last two games 71.15% of our run plays for the RBs have used Zone blocking. And then there is what we do on 1st downs.

1st down plays vs ASU

Pass - 8 (1 withing the 10 yd line)
Run - 19 (3 within the 10 yd line)
Sack - 1

Now the disparity here is exaggerated in that the whole 4th qtr was treated as garbage time. Five of those 19 were in the 4th when we just trying to run out the clock. It feels better to say 14 is the true number for my concern.


1st down plays vs Navy

Pass - 12
Run - 16 (4 within the 10 yd line)
Sack - 1
Kneel

This time the pass numbers are the ones that benefited from the situation. Four out of 12 happened in the last drive in the 2nd qtr. Passing is pretty much expected in a 2-min offense so the true number here is eight.

Looking back at this closer I better understand why I was having a problem. Ignoring the 2-min off, only once in each of the ASU and Navy games did we pass three straight times on 1st downs. Coincidentally both were preceded by a 1st down sack so it could be said these both were four straight passes. Ignoring the 4th qtr of the ASU game, we ran four straight times on 1st down twice , and once five times straight. Against Navy six straight times twice. Also from these totals Seth had two of the runs and a TD in the ASU game (TD 2nd half). And four runs with two TDs against Navy all in the 2nd half.