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Message: [QUOTE="sutomcat, post: 34758, member: 27"] Good thread. I think DM has shown quite a bit of flexibility in his 2.5 years on the job. His first season here he did a lot of things to try move the ball and score points: the bubble screen Spence offense, the Wildcat, and then late in the year, a wide open pass based attack that got all of us pretty excited. His second season, the offense was bad, very bad in conference play, but I put a lot of that on a receiving corp that was severely banged up and depleted, to the point that we were playing 5'8 walk ons at WR at times. Chew was a shadow (and his shadow is not very big) of himself the second part of the season and Lemon was clearly not the same player trying to play with a cast and a broken bone in his hand. Once he saw he was not going to be able to pass the ball effectively, DM went to a run dominated ultra conservative offense, and I don't really blame him for that (though the question of why Sales did not play until the bowl game remains...he must have done something that really irked DM to not get any PT all that time when his help was desperately needed). No question the gameplan on offense against RU was not well conceived. I don't think Hackett anticipated them jumping the short routes so aggressively...he didn't have an answer for this all game long. He probably should have since he saw it a lot last season. Everyone has film. We all know we are going to see the other conference teams playing us tight, taking away the short stuff and pressuring us, much like RU or WF did this year, or everyone in the conference did last year. Are we going to be reduced to running a power run game the rest of the season (post Tulane) and hoping we can win 13-10? Last year, the WRs were so messed up, I don't think it was possible to throw the ball much downfield to counteract an aggressive defense willing to gamble on getting beat deep to take away the short stuff. This year, I think we are much better positioned to make teams pay that try this kind of defensive approach. We aren't where we need to be...definitely need more depth at WR and a couple of real play makers would be a big help. But we have the personnel (at least for now, knock on wood) to do some damage and with Tulane being Tulane (no offense Green Wavers), we have 2 weeks to work on it. I think if the key players all stay healthy, the offense will do significantly better in conference play than last season. If it doesn't, changes may need to be made. Like others in this thread have said, if there is one thing DM has shown, it is that he is willing to change to get results. I think he will do what is necessary to make the offense work. A couple of other things: I know DM would like to have a QB that can run with the ball, both on designed plays and on broken plays. He is on record saying that he has told Nassib not to run unless absolutely necessary. It might be partly because he doesn't think Ryan is as fast or agile as a dual threat QB would ideally be, but I think it is mostly because of the big dropoff we currently have from our first string QB to the backups (that is what DM implied). I don't think it is a coincidence we have recruited a number of big kids with strong arms, speed and agility...DM knows this type of athlete at QB gives him more options on offense and he wants this in place. Lastly, regarding the concerns about DM's ability to recruit skill players on the offensive side of the ball. It is true not many of his recruits have made an impact thus far at the skilled positions on offense, but if you look at where the top athletes in the DM classes have gone, you will find that the vast majority have ended up on the defensive side of the ball. Guys like S Thomas, P Thomas, Davis, Spruill, Lynch, Lyn and now Reddish, Simmons, Eskridge and Desire are all among the best athletes on the team, all could have helped on offense but were put on the defensive side instead. Not sure why the defense has been getting so many of the best athletes...maybe it is because Shafer is one of our best recruiters. It appears that the guys he gets, he gets to keep. No question we need to do better there. Pretty sure Devante McFarlane will end up playing on offense. That alone will help. [/QUOTE]

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