Fear and loathing in the offensive coaches' meeting

I think Germany with Muller makes that a different game, but I see your point. I think the Dutch can counter better than the teams that Spain has played thus far, but I think they are too weak on D to make up for it. My prediction for this game is similar to my prediction for Germany/Spain and not at all based upon my hate for the spaniards, 3-2 Orangies. I hope Spain dives 300 times and the Dutch score on every one, while the ref laughs at those pansy girls and the world decides it’s time to reform overtime and the diving rulebook. The odds on that have to be pretty good right?

Very well put, Nickel. What’s amazing is how close UT came to winning it all despite that ridiculously conceived offensive “system”.

At times I can’t figure out whether I love Greg Davis or if I hate him. He manages to find plays (if not truly systems) that compliment the skills we have a QB reasonably well. Though the shifts weren’t overnight, he fairly quickly changed from Simms (drop-back, pro-style offense) to Young (shotgun zone read) to McCoy (shotgun passing-based). However, there really hasn’t been a whole system that builds on itself and transfers from year to year and player to player. I am not totally sure what this is a function of, exactly.

On the World Cup, I’m rooting for the Orange, but Paul the psychic octopus picked Spain. So Spain 2-1.

People on the interwebs like to credit Muschamp and Applewhite with fire and strategery. Let us hope that the unqualified Davis pessimism in truth misunderestimates the influence having fellow coaches with tactical reasoning skills— on both sides of the ball. I choose to believe in the thousand points of offense out there waiting for us now that we make it right.

Mack has a lot of input on the offfensive side of threball and virtually done on the D side. Lot of cooks.

They didn’t and perhaps the most irritating failure of the Colt McCoy offense was the lack of a running back draw play and the infrequent use of jailbreak RB/WR screens to punish the inevitable blitzing that occurred against the 4 and 5 wide offenses. If linebackers are dropping back and anticipating routes or blitzing heavily the obvious solution is to punish them with a draw, screen or pump-fake to double moves.

There are a lot of negative outcomes associated with those plays (from a conservative coaching standpoint). Above you said, “It’s all about playing it safe” and I really think that describes the Texas offensive philosophy.

I’m sorry Clapper, would you repeat that?

At times I can’t figure out whether I love Greg Davis or if I hate him.

I suffer no such indecision.

Greg Davis is evil. E-vil, like the Dev-il.

Not to be an apologist for Davis – truth be told I would rather have someone who is a bit more aggressive of a play-caller – but I have been pleased that he is willing to adapt his offense to the players he has rather than try to fit someone like Vince into an I-formation offense when he certainly wasn’t ready.

Greg Davis is an excellent quarterbacks coach and an excellent pass-offense coordinator. Sadly that only comprises 50% of the possibilities of offensive football.

WanderingHorn: except he did try to do that with Vince at first…I think Davis is a strong tactician and when he puts forth the effort he definitely conceives of strong plans for big games but again, his plays don’t compliment each other.

Matt Cotcher: If Davis thinks of the draw or screen as a risky play then he is far worse as a system builder than I thought.
The worst that can happen with those plays is a negative play while the potential that occurs from getting the usual targets in space is as high as it gets. Urban Meyer’s offense is designed around principles like, “I’m just going to toss it over to Percy Harvin over there and if you screw up we get a 1st down/touchdown. If you tackle him for a loss we’ll do it again later and see how you fare that time.”

Nickel: Correct me if I am wrong here – never claimed to be perfect – but wasn’t that really more a function of the fact that we had a more pro-style system in place and there was no established starter between Vince and Chance? I am more referring to the start of the next season when the coaches could implement a new system with less chaos than a mid-season change.

I suppose. I’m a little hazy now on the early details but I believe they made that switch at midseason anyways and didn’t really tailor the offense to Vince until after the Missouri near-loss.

I think they had good reason for dragging their feet on adopting the offense for Colt as they had the perfect pieces in the O-line, Limas Sweed, Jermichael Finely and Young-Charles for the 11 personnel run-then throw deep offense. Injuries to Limas set that back in 2007 and the coaches didn’t rework the offense until the following offseason to take advantage of Colt-Quan-Ship which was then apparent as the major talent.

I think the worst job by Greg Davis was after 2008 when he decided to stand pat with a weaker version of the 08 squad and stuck with the zone-running game when it was obviously not going to be worth anything. Thank God for Muschamp.

Nickel, sorry, but got a headache and couldn’t finish your very detailed post . . . Nickel for OC anyone?

Nickel, I think it’s important to look at those types of risk/reward plays in the Texas offense. While getting a ball to a carrier with room to run often has a positive net, it also risks a higher than average probability to turn it over or lose three + yards. The Texas running game definitely does not yield optimal results, but it also rarely nets a loss of greater than two yards.

With an offense designed around 4-yard passes, a negative play of 3-5 yards is a tremendous deficit. 2nd + 14 <<< 2nd +10.

In the offense, as it's designed, the risk/reward factor has to be taken into account. I believe this is why so many conservative plays are called.

(Note, I'm not defending the offense, only trying to provide some insight into the justification/logic of it)

all I know is I watched some of the replay of the big 12 champ last night and I have no idea what that was. A monkey fucking a football would have been more efficient than that. Granted, I don’t think uncle greg tells colt to stare at one receiver, then if he’s covered,run for it. Oh wait,thats our passing game basically.

Cotcher: Unless they were the worst screen-running offense in the world those plays wouldn’t net -3 yards with any regularity. I’m fairly confident screens would yield more positive yardage plays than the running game did and certainly more explosives.
Anyways you would run them as a constraint for something else, not as a base part of the offense. If it’s covered or they aren’t blitzing, you don’t run it.
The much maligned bubble screen has actually been one of the strongest and most consistent parts of the offense the last decade. More screens and some including the running back should be an important part of any passing offense, or really any college offense because the technical execution needed to stop it is beyond many college defenders and you can multiply that effect by 2 with the talent Texas fields.

Nickel, great stuff. One of the key ways that an O can systematically punish a D for loading up to stop the pass is for the running attack to be powerful enough to make it difficult for pass defenders to tackle the runner. When a D plays 6 DBs, it creates opportunities for power runners but it makes it more difficult for speedy/shifty runners (and screen plays, too).

A couple of years ago OU showed how to combine a power running game with an effective passing attack to create a devastating attack that is particularly effective in hurry up mode. Such an attack requires TBs that run with power, WRs/TEs/H backs that can both block effectively and are serious receiving threats, and an aggressive downhill run blocking/running scheme that pressures the D to respond very quickly to possible runs (increasing the effectiveness of play action passing).

If you can’t run with power, it is hard to punish a D for loading up with speed defenders.

While last season’s OL was not very good at run blocking, they did a good job (most of the time) pass blocking. With several new starters on the OL, most likely pass blocking will be worse this coming season than last season. By running more, the horns will reduce exposing their pass blocking weakness.

Besides running more, the horns will also be running differently in that the QB (unlike the past 6 seasons) will no longer be a major part of the running attack. To greatly increase the reliance on the running game while concurrently introducing a new running scheme (that is a major departure from the past) with a mostly new set of starters on the OL may not end well.

It makes sense to not run Gilbert inside (where the big uglies dream of dismembering QBs) but having Gilbert rolling out will put a lot of pressure on the D. It forces the D to deal with an option play (i.e. Gilbert can pass or run). It also forces the D to honor Gilbert’s running and forces them to cover sideline to sideline.

Rolling out preserves Gilbert’s health by:

• running away from blindside hits
• getting tackled by a DB instead of the DL
• makes it easy to throw the ball away because he is outside the tackle box
• makes it easier to get out of bounds

The rollout is a nice play for Gilbert because he actually has some straight line speed (once the big guy gets rolling) and throws well on the run.

Good thoughts Kafka. I think the rollout-playaction will be a useful feature in the Gilbert offense but he has also shown some very impressive pocket presence that I hope to God won’t be beaten out of him by poor protection.

Sadly they aren’t introducing a brand new running scheme, they are just running the zone more competently and from under center. Your point about punishing nickel defenses with power running is solid but you can do that with an effective draw as well. Anytime you get linemen downfield or a stronger back in the open field against DBs you get results that people will identify as power running.

OU 2008, to me, is the best comparison for how this offense can be designed. They had a big, powerful O-line, flexible players like Gresham and Clapp, and danced between the spread and the I with occasionally the same personal.
They actually ran power, inside-zone and outside zone themselves and ran it effectively against every team that didn’t have NFL d-linemen or a very strong 8-man front defense (TCU).
They also incorporate a lot of screens in the Kevin Wilson offense and plenty of sideline throws from the quarterback to “hit em’ where they ain’t”. Of course, Bradford was so good they could still score when the running game was stuffed but it was really the basis of their offensive system and they struggled when they couldn’t do it.

Seeing Texas-Alabama and Texas-Nebaska game reruns this weekend made me realize the the shovel pass interception in the title game was only the logical outcome to a play that the Alabama defense sat on waiting for after GD went to it 3-4 times in the Nebraska game. Alabama watches game film, too. But that momentum changer and potential game decider I lay squarely on GD’s shoulders. He is the team albatross that may have cost us the national championship in at least one identifiable way.

Greg Davis is a tendency wrapped in a probability embedded in a prosaic

“Anytime you get linemen downfield or a stronger back in the open field against DBs you get results that people will identify as power running.”

Right, but I haven’t seen Newton or Fozzy running over many (any?) DBs. For those two specific guys (who, IIRC, are at the top of the horn TB depth chart) facing more DBs is not an opportunity, it is a problem.

I’m all for running screens efficiently and regard it as a good sign that an OC knows what he is doing. Unfortunately, UT hasn’t been super efficient at running screens during the GD tenure. Maybe this is the season where GD figures out how to coach screen plays.

“Sadly they aren’t introducing a brand new running scheme, they are just running the zone more competently and from under center.”

The running scheme will be quite different in that:

• the QB zone read is going almost completely away and the QB will be much, much less likely to run than in the past 6 years
• there will be much greater reliance on H back blocking
• horn TBs have to (and will ) hit the hole quicker to make play action passing effective. The QB being under center means that the TB will be up to nearly full speed at mesh time. Since the (under center) QB now has to move smartly to get to the mesh point in time, this means that the QB and TB have to have a predefined mesh point that is on the path to the hole. This is a big difference from the previous leisurely hole selection process employeed by horn backs in recent years.

The horns will still be zone blocking but seem to emphasize drive blocking more than maintaining contact. So block target identification scheme may stay the same but the actual process of run blocking is going to be more aggressive. I think there will be more emphasis on attacking a particular hole quickly because the H back will have a predefined hole to block and the runner will more often than not follow the H back.

Whether the horns are using the same scheme may be a matter of semantics but, from the perspective of the coaches coaching and players playing, the running game is going to be quite different from last season.

Greg Davis is not responsible for the Spinal Tap Drummer Curse on our tight ends.

Ideally, the enemy linebackers should cower before each play, wondering if David Thomas is about to a.) earhole them from out of nowhere b.) catch a pass on the exact spot where they are now standing after they blitz or c.) go on a cruciate ligament safari after the QB starts to scramble. None of that can happen when there is no real tight end and 80% of the wide receiving corps appears to suffer from brachial plexus injury.

That’s all fine and well, but it’s not like Texas is hurting for talent that could be fielded under a coherent offensive philosophy. Your tight ends get hurt you adjust, you don’t have to run the same plays from the same formations and just throw your hands up and say,
“well we would love to run the ball effectively, but see the tight ends are hurt so we’re just gonna call plays like he isn’t hurt and you’ll see what I’m talking about.”