A little help from the better football minds

[OttoinGrotto]

Alright, I'm left scratching my head on this - why do we wait so long to involve our top wideout in the offense? It seems like Ish never even sees the ball until the second quarter. Are we trying to set up other things first? Is he just blanketed right from the start? What's going on with this? He's a fairly dynamic player and feels like an afterthought. I don't get it. Other teams find ways to get the ball in the hands of their best players. Is he not as good as I think and teams can take him away pretty easily? I just don't understand.

 

[jekelish]

I'll add to this: I was baffled as to why we waited so long to get Fredericks and Philips on the field, too. I mean, I get Philips a little since he's coming off of an injury, but Ish, Fredericks, and Erv are three of our five best offensive weapons (Dungey and Estime being the others) and they weren't at all involved on the first two drives.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

I'll add to this: I was baffled as to why we waited so long to get Fredericks and Philips on the field, too. I mean, I get Philips a little since he's coming off of an injury, but Ish, Fredericks, and Erv are three of our five best offensive weapons (Dungey and Estime being the others) and they weren't at all involved on the first two drives.

Our best lineup feels like it should be Ish, Salt Badger, Erv and Fredericks with a tight end out there (although it wouldn't kill me to see Lewis or Strickland with that group instead of a tight end). I'd be really curious to know how many plays that main quartet is on the field for. Hopefully we see it a lot going forward. You'd have to account for everybody.

 

[baggerbob]

Our best lineup feels like it should be Ish, Salt Badger, Erv and Fredericks with a tight end out there (although it wouldn't kill me to see Lewis or Strickland with that group instead of a tight end). I'd be really curious to know how many plays that main quartet is on the field for. Hopefully we see it a lot going forward. You'd have to account for everybody.

Rather use Custis, and Enoicy, then Parris, who isn't any threat in the passing game, and didn't do a great job blocking yesterday. If you want to run to the outside you need someone, who can get to the corner, and block, like Konrad used to do.

 

[Full_Rebar]

Our best lineup feels like it should be Ish, Salt Badger, Erv and Fredericks with a tight end out there (although it wouldn't kill me to see Lewis or Strickland with that group instead of a tight end). I'd be really curious to know how many plays that main quartet is on the field for. Hopefully we see it a lot going forward. You'd have to account for everybody.

This would be the Baylor look many have correctly called for here. Spread the field and the defense and it's a lot easier to establish a running game between the tackles. If a team wants to put 7 inside to stop the run, then your guys on the outside should be able to win 1 on 1 matchups.

I think you could use Lewis in the TE role and mix in Strickland to create those mismatches we've been hearing about since last January. I like Lewis, but every team in the ACC will welcome him getting 3rd down option carries.

 

[Orangeman]

I actually think the answer to this question lies with the non-Football minds...

I think it's been almost proven that the guys with legacy thinking are losing out, unless they can coach at absolute power-house like LSU, Bama, Wisconsin, etc.

I don't mean to be harsh on the coaches but I can't for the life of me understand how the coaches don't see the points highlighted above. The job now is locate/determine your best play-makers and get them the ball far enough away from the 250-300 pound guys (who are faster than they've ever been). What's crazy is we actually seem to do this reasonably well after we're already down. Which tells me those saying Lester/SS and company need to open early have merit. To be sure the defenses you're facing change a bit given score/time, but that 8 yard out to Ish is available from the start when run properly.

About the only reasonable explanation might be that our guys, for whatever reason, seem a bit fragile. I do think Ish might be banged up because it looks like he needs to come out after almost every play, he's waving over to the sidelines. We all watch a lot of games, doesn't seem to be an issue for other teams...combined that Brisly can't seem to play an entire game and maybe there's something to holding them back until later in the game. (I have enough anecdotal data to feel confident saying this, maybe I'm wrong).

But I think this staff just out-thinks itself. To RAMP the option offense against a defense who's strength is edge-speed with a freshman QB coming back from an injury, I just don't know there. I'm encouraged that they seem to have the right plays in the arsenal, I just think it would be helpful if they'd take the approach that they're going to set up the run with the pass. That's where the game has gone for all the programs that we look like right now, and while it would be a big shift psychologically I'd love to see it vs. UVA.

For one thing, I think Morris and MacFarlane fit that psychology MUCH better than "establish the run"

In fact (sorry for length here) if I have one criticism to make of the staff, it's going in with we're going to "establish the run" and thinking that Morris is that guy vs Fredericks, THAT is a HUGE miscalculation and would be the biggest critique I'd have. Know your personnel

 

[OrangeinBoston]

I actually think the answer to this question lies with the non-Football minds...

I think it's been almost proven that the guys with legacy thinking are losing out, unless they can coach at absolute power-house like LSU, Bama, Wisconsin, etc.

I don't mean to be harsh on the coaches but I can't for the life of me understand how the coaches don't see the points highlighted above. The job now is locate/determine your best play-makers and get them the ball far enough away from the 250-300 pound guys (who are faster than they've ever been). What's crazy is we actually seem to do this reasonably well after we're already down. Which tells me those saying Lester/SS and company need to open early have merit. To be sure the defenses you're facing change a bit given score/time, but that 8 yard out to Ish is available from the start when run properly.

About the only reasonable explanation might be that our guys, for whatever reason, seem a bit fragile. I do think Ish might be banged up because it looks like he needs to come out after almost every play, he's waving over to the sidelines. We all watch a lot of games, doesn't seem to be an issue for other teams...combined that Brisly can't seem to play an entire game and maybe there's something to holding them back until later in the game. (I have enough anecdotal data to feel confident saying this, maybe I'm wrong).

But I think this staff just out-thinks itself. To RAMP the option offense against a defense who's strength is edge-speed with a freshman QB coming back from an injury, I just don't know there. I'm encouraged that they seem to have the right plays in the arsenal, I just think it would be helpful if they'd take the approach that they're going to set up the run with the pass. That's where the game has gone for all the programs that we look like right now, and while it would be a big shift psychologically I'd love to see it vs. UVA.

For one thing, I think Morris and MacFarlane fit that psychology MUCH better than "establish the run"

In fact (sorry for length here) if I have one criticism to make of the staff, it's going in with we're going to "establish the run" and thinking that Morris is that guy vs Fredericks, THAT is a HUGE miscalculation and would be the biggest critique I'd have. Know your personnel

It was obvious after one quarter that Lester's plan wasn't going to work. But, meathead coaching be what it is, he continued to flog a failed approach when we were all screaming for him to open it up. What can you say after seeing that?

 

[OttoinGrotto]

I actually think the answer to this question lies with the non-Football minds...

I think it's been almost proven that the guys with legacy thinking are losing out, unless they can coach at absolute power-house like LSU, Bama, Wisconsin, etc.

I don't mean to be harsh on the coaches but I can't for the life of me understand how the coaches don't see the points highlighted above. The job now is locate/determine your best play-makers and get them the ball far enough away from the 250-300 pound guys (who are faster than they've ever been). What's crazy is we actually seem to do this reasonably well after we're already down. Which tells me those saying Lester/SS and company need to open early have merit. To be sure the defenses you're facing change a bit given score/time, but that 8 yard out to Ish is available from the start when run properly.

About the only reasonable explanation might be that our guys, for whatever reason, seem a bit fragile. I do think Ish might be banged up because it looks like he needs to come out after almost every play, he's waving over to the sidelines. We all watch a lot of games, doesn't seem to be an issue for other teams...combined that Brisly can't seem to play an entire game and maybe there's something to holding them back until later in the game. (I have enough anecdotal data to feel confident saying this, maybe I'm wrong).

But I think this staff just out-thinks itself. To RAMP the option offense against a defense who's strength is edge-speed with a freshman QB coming back from an injury, I just don't know there. I'm encouraged that they seem to have the right plays in the arsenal, I just think it would be helpful if they'd take the approach that they're going to set up the run with the pass. That's where the game has gone for all the programs that we look like right now, and while it would be a big shift psychologically I'd love to see it vs. UVA.

For one thing, I think Morris and MacFarlane fit that psychology MUCH better than "establish the run"

In fact (sorry for length here) if I have one criticism to make of the staff, it's going in with we're going to "establish the run" and thinking that Morris is that guy vs Fredericks, THAT is a HUGE miscalculation and would be the biggest critique I'd have. Know your personnel

I completely agree, and feel like you made an argument about as eloquently as you can. I want to give Lester the benefit of the doubt though and say that part of the reason why we have success later is because of what he established early. So is there something from the pure tactical football side of things I'm just not experienced enough to see? I want there to be, otherwise our offense has one of two fatal flaws. Either it can't be effective at the beginning of games, or we're misusing our best talent early. II keep banging the drum on increasing our margin for error, and the staff has done a great job reducing penalties and turnovers, but these wasted halves on offense need to get figured out.