Why pass protection is everything

Ok, your reality check just made me throw up a little in my mouth.

Does the fact that Colt has been told to not run for the first few games effect this at all?

Won’t is willingness to run open up the short routes?

The thing I will never understand about Greg Davis is that his efforts to get a particular player involved are patently obvious. When we ran the disaster of the Q package, Chiles came in and got a direct snap, a handoff, or a pitch the vast majority of the time. The defense simply had to focus on Chiles, and mostly tackeld him for a loss. Next play, Chiles runs to the sideline. Not a whole lot of deception going on.

Now, it looks like we may be doing the same thing with D.J. Monroe. He comes in, and we hand it off to him on a zone read. Why can’t we throw out of the formation, even a quick hitch/slant or our patented WR screen? Don’t give me the “can’t pickup the blitz crap,” as Colt is already scramblign every other down when there isn’t a blitz.

i’m sorry, but the kirkendoll TD was about a 5 yard drag, that’s not intermediate

also, almost no one runs the ball well against 7, and why would they want to?

Thanks for the dose of reality.

Wet blanket.

“The thing I will never understand about Greg Davis is that his efforts to get a particular player involved are patently obvious.”

Tony Jeffrey and the slot reverse – hi!

Absolutely flawless breakdown CA, couldn’t have said it better myself (though bless my heart I’ve tried). Please tell some of the morons at HF this…they don’t seem to understand that we don’t have the best O Line in the country and that Greg Davis is not a top tier OC just because he has good total yardage stats.

I’m sure CA is just dying to go talk football on hornfans.

“i’m sorry, but the kirkendoll TD was about a 5 yard drag, that’s not intermediate”
-———
For GD that is throwing down the field.

I consider myself lucky to have never actively participated in horfans.

Hook ’em!

CA it’s good to have your thoughts on a regular basis again.

On the inability to run consistently: there’s plenty of blame to go around, but I’d offer that the game itself has been changed in an unanticipated way by the new emphasis on pass protection. Holding or no holding, lineman simply aren’t moving their guys backward anymore.

As more and more D’s are retooled to stop the spread, there seems to be an opportunity for a team that can run between the tackles with consistency. It’ll be hard to do, though, with an o-line used to standing straight up while backpedaling.

Where are the orange dots. None of this makes any sense without moving orange dots.

Hookem: I’m the same, to the point of where I don’t get the inside jokes about HF because I was never there.

CA it’s good to have your thoughts on a regular basis again.

If you read the Letters to the Editor section of Tiger Beat, you would have had them on a regular basis.

HJ, at what point can we expect you to fill us in on what we missed from the mind of ChrisApplewhite in the interim?

Good post CA. Our inability to exploit the open field we had in the flats was perplexing to me. If nothing else we could have been hitting quick hitches (I can’t believe I’m typing that). The WR screens and dump offs to running backs in the flats would have been even better. Instead we actually tried to work the ball into the coverage that was sitting back… just didn’t get us at all in the first quarter and a half.

The offensive line struggles in protection are just not excusable. We’ve seen offensive lines protect at a much higher level in this scheme with these coaches… so I’m not inclined to just drop blame on Davis and McWhorter here… but the line needs to get their shit together. They lost a lot of 1-on-1 matchups against Wyoming and that’s just not acceptable. It’s be a good time for Colt to get in a few faces privately (if he hasn’t already).

CA –
 
Fun stuff.
 
I love that we’re now in a place of realism and acceptance such that we now advise trying different variants of the passing game when we see an undermanned front with LBs lined up in prevent drops ala A&M ‘06.
 
Hey, running game!
 
Obviously, we don’t have a guy capable of punishing a D with a 70 yarder up their ass ala J. Charles, but I wouldn’t mind stubbornly bleeding someone at 4, 7, 8 yards a pop with our counter play. Eventually popping for 15, 20.
 
Neither our fans nor our OC have the patience for that though. It’s funny – as much as we supposedly pine for the running game as a fan base, we’d often exhibit the patience of a child when we see it working modestly.

Scip,

Stubbornly bleeding and our OC could be paired together in a variety of ways… but not the way you describe.

“that little turnaround stop”

In the old days that route was called a “button hook”. Does anybody use the term button hook any more?

One of the best drills for a receiver to develop his hands is to stand with his back to the QB (maybe 10 yards away) and have the QB pass the ball and then tell the receiver to turn around to catch the ball. Since the ball is already on the way before the receiver even starts to turn around there is very little time to locate the ball, get the hands in the proper position, and gather in the ball. It not only trains the receiver to locate the pass rapidly, to have soft hands and to adjust quickly to the ball in the air but it also teaches the receiver to be calm (might want to start out wearing a face mask).

It has occurred to me that teams might want to attack Gideon but the obvious response is to move Gideon around at the snap. Also, when Gideon is deep at safety, it is difficult to attack him unless the QB has a lot of time (which is not probable).

Regarding throwing to intermediate routes, UT got killed by OU for many years by trying to throw to intermediate routes that took longer to open up than the time the O line could protect. Most really good defensive teams are going to be able to pressure the QB consistently unless the QB gets rid of the ball quickly. The zone blitz makes it really tough to figure out where the pressure is coming from. If you play 4 WRs all the time (like UT does with Buckner at flex TE), then the opposition defense should obviously load up with DBs. This means at least a dime package and spinning down LBs to DE and DEs to DT. This really makes it much easier to zone blitz by dropping a DE (really a spun down LB) into quite flexible pass protection or dropping a DT (really a spun down DE) into zone pass defense in the middle.

If GD is going to run Tech’s offense, then UT must be able to efficiently:

• run the screen (Chiles has looked good at this)
• swing pass to TBs
• throw to receivers sitting down in holes in the zone. The big receivers can defeat a jam at the LOS rapidly, screen the defender with their big bodies from the incoming pass), and present a larger target with bigger hands for Colt to hit.
• involve the WRs in the running game
• run draw plays

It is not clear that teams feared UT’s long passing game that much last season. One way to complete a long pass is get a guy open and hit him with a beautiful on target long pass. This isn’t easy and throwing the deep ball is not Colt’s strong point. His arm is accurate but not amazingly strong. The much easier way to complete long pass is to get a tall, physical receiver in 1 on 1 coverage and throw him a 50-50 ball, depending on the receiver to out jump and/or outfight the smaller defender. This is much easier for any QB to complete but last year the 4 starting WRs were not big guys who could be depended on to out jump and physically overwhelm the defender. This season the horns have 2 large receivers: Malcolm and Buckner (Chiles is also somewhat tall at 6’2" and weighs more than 205 pounds). The opposition should be more worried about the deep ball this season.

When a QB cannot throw a bullet on the long pass there is a good side effect: the ball takes longer to get to the receiver. This means the QB has to throw the ball sooner to accommodate the pass’s rainbow route. Given that the QB without the golden gun also throws the ball slower, the pass takes a bit longer to get there. This means that the OL does not have to protect for as long. I have not calculated the difference in time this amounts to but my guess is that it is significant (WAG: >= .25 seconds on a long pass). The downside of course is that the safety has more time to help out.

Tech does not have their QBs run (very prudent on Leach’s part) but Colt’s running is very difficult for Tech to deal with. I hate to have colt running because it increases the probability that he will get hurt (compared to raising up and throwing the ball immediately) but if it is a close game it could be the difference.

Excellent point about getting into Colt’s trust circle.

The success by Kirk (at least in part) seemed to be based on some wonderful running after he caught the ball.

Thats why Colt’s running is Absolutely huge, if we plan to compete for a national title, the defenses will have to worry that we can run the ball, the way its ran doesn’t matter as long as its moving the chains and keeping DC’s honest. I just wish that our first half game plan didn’t consist of 5 misdirection runs, 3 bubble screens, and 2 hb dives. I wonder what the numbers are on all the games that colt has ran for say at least 8 ypc , i would be willing to bet we haven’t lost a game or scored less than 35 points when his carries are up like that. It just makes the offense completely dominant. I saw a post asking if our offense isnt designed for power running then why do we recruit power lineman, You would think we would get lineman that are more like our d line but instead we have 300 lb finess guys that can’t get any type of push, I have extreme hope in mason walters, kyle hix, and david snow, but our left side of the line just seems like the side florida or usc would be licking their chops over.

Scipio:

GD’s offensive strategy makes it tough for the horns to recruit that big 5 star TB, the real big fast great blocking TE, and may be starting to impact our OL recruiting (case in point Mathews going to A&M). GD runs the Tech offense (albeit GD has thrown out a few of the tools from the Leach toolkit rather than just slavishly copying Leach). Sometimes slavish copying is not such a bad thing.

A moderately successful running game against inferior competition is probably going to turn into an inferior running game against good competition.

I would love to see the horns with a strong downhill power running game ala OU but it is not going to happen with GD. GD loves the passing game. At a certain point you have to deal with reality. Now I hope for GD adopting more tools from the Leach toolkit (effective screen plays, draw plays, WRs getting into the running game, etc), a TB quality runner playing at least one of the WR positions, playing larger WRs who can block, playing OL who can run fast enough to block on screen plays, that kind of thing.

No one who has watched a UT football game in the last ten years has to be told that the OC is incompetent. The talent has always overcome his complete lack of skill.

I don’t know, ransom, turning over all decision making duties to VY was inspired.

The most important key to the game is whether that little purple angel that sits on Colt’s shoulders and gives him the ability to execute more proficiently than any 18-22 year old in the history of football shows up. I guess he missed the plane to Wyoming.

Although there were a few breakdowns in pass protection against Wyoming, and this is concerning given the level of competition, I thought Colt held on to the ball too long far too often and got happy feet in the pocket on a few occasions. I suppose part of that was the nature of the routes we were running but I saw him ignore checkdowns on occasion trying to hit the big play.
I would be okay with that if we would force the ball downfield to Malcolm Williams to see what happens every now and again but whatever. Having a potential destroyer of worlds might make our passing game unstoppable but then if he isn’t consistent in practice then we’d better not risk it.

The big play to Kirkendoll with about 10 minutes left in the first half went at least 15 yards in the air. I am watching it right now.

CAs right about that pass. huge must be thinking of another pass to kirk, almost all the other ones were 5 yard variety to him

nevermind, the Kirk TD was a 25 yard play but a 5 yard pass. he had a 43 yard catch earlier that was thrown 15 yards downfield. huge was right but CA is talking about a different pass than the TD I guess

The General:
The 7000+ feet altitude at WU probably screwed up Colt’s accuracy in the first half. The prevent defense confused Colt and the receivers in the first half. Most likely he will be fine against Tech.

Rollo:
Agree that Colt held onto the ball too long, the OL cannot block forever. Better for Colt to throw in rhythm or dump the ball to an outlet guy, throw it away, or run it. The Cowboy’s zone confused Colt and maybe the receivers, too (i.e. maybe they were not sitting down in the holes in the zone).

Given how great Malcolm is at blocking, I’d like to see him given a chance at H back or flex TE. If you have both Malcolm and Buckner at H back/flex TE at the same time, it will be easier to pick up blitzers and Colt will have great outlet receivers (i.e. huge targets who can motor).

I have a hard time believing Malcolm has a problem with his hands because Mack has him returning kickoffs (where the penalty for dropping the ball is a disastrous turnover deep in UT territory). Maybe Chiles played more than Malcolm in the blowout games because Mack is trying to develop Chiles (inexperienced as a collegiate WR) as rapidly as possible. I’d be happy throwing to Malcolm or Buckner deep anytime they can get single coverage by a much smaller defender).

Ransom:
I wouldn’t argue that GD is incompetent. He is obviously an outstanding QB coach: he developed Major, Simms, Vince, and Colt. Two ex NFL QBs (Simms and Gilbert) have entrusted their sons to GD. GD constructs pretty sweet passing offenses. The OL pass protects pretty well (in general), the receivers catch the ball well and run good patterns, the running backs pass protect and catch the ball well, and the QB is well taught and normally not encouraged to do anything beyond his level of ability.

GD’s problem is that he does not value the downhill running game. OU combines a downhill running game with a potent passing attack so there is no reason that UT could not do the same thing. To be so reliant on the passing attack makes UT vulnerable on bad weather days. It would be nice to be able to run downhill (without changing personnel) when the opposition defense sells out to stop the pass.

Did anyone notice Malcolm Williams block on Chiles TD? He dominoed 3 defenders.

Malcolm’s blocking is really impressive. If UT runs a screen play and Malcolm runs a deep route right at the strong side safety and then blocks him, Malcolm would routinely take two defenders out of the play (i.e. the CB initially covering him and the safety that Malcolm blocks).

dick is correct, i was referring to the kirk touchdown.

also, its such a nice luxury when our offense plays like crap and colt is as off as we have seen him and we still throw for 167 in the first half. not that i dont recognize everything CA says and agree with most of it.

Scip’s point was more on the mark than the article.

The real storyline in the first half of the Wyoming game was continuing to do the same thing that wasn’t working and expecting a different result. As predicted, we made changes at half and became mult-dimensional in Qtrs 3 & 4. Game over.