Breaking down the classic “beat an opponent by 29 points, yet inspire a crisis of confidence in your fanbase” win over Boston College. What does Notre Dame’s offensive identity look like through three games, and how might the Irish evolve if the passing game doesn’t improve*?
*It might just improve
The Basics
Saturday’s game was a bit above average in terms of both possessions and plays for both teams, mostly thanks to BC trying to run their offense at a solid tempo and multiple short drives from both teams pushing up the possessions. While it looked for a long time like an ugly game that might go down the wire, 24% of the game (most of the 4th quarter) ended up being played in garbage time.
Explosiveness
Let’s start with a quick look with what we know about the Notre Dame offense through three games. Who is ND offense right now? Out of 130 FBS teams, the Irish are…
- A respectable 23rd in Offensive S&P+, which on its surface seems like about what we might have guessed before the season, maybe a little bit behind if you were really drinking the preseason Kool Aid.
- Like with most teams early in the season, consistency is a question mark. Looking at offensive percentile performance (think of it like your old standardized test scores), ND logged an 87th percentile performance vs Temple, a 14th percentile game against UGA, and then an 85th percentile performance at Boston College.
- An extremely explosive (4th in Rushing IsoPPP) and decently efficient (54th in Rushing Success Rate) ground attack
- An inefficient passing game (118th in Passing Success Rate) that struggles on passing downs (120th in Passing Downs Success Rate)
That sums up the offense we saw against Boston College, doesn’t it? Maybe the most important question at this point is how efficient the running game can become. This offseason Bill Connelly explored the relationship between explosiveness and efficiency in this fantastic article. The key takeaway is that it’s pretty difficult to intentionally generate explosive plays – if anything, the best way to try to be explosive is just being efficient as often as possible and eventually some big plays will pop.
This has been evident in Notre Dame’s first three games – the Irish were hyper-efficient on the ground against Temple (59% success rate) and BC (53%) and broke off several big plays. Against Georgia, the offense couldn’t stay on the field long enough to break many big plays, and was far less efficient (24% rushing success rate). If the Bulldogs are the exception to the rule and the Irish can be find a season rushing success rate near 50%, Notre Dame will be tough to beat. If their current rushing success rate of 45% (or lower) is closer to reality once you average out the good and bad teams faced so far, this is a team that’s going to struggle with offensive inconsistency due to the dependency and high-variance nature of explosive runs.
Some of that inconsistency was evident through the ugly first half and much of the third quarter – the Irish offense score on only one of its first six possessions, and two of the first ten. Against BC this wasn’t costly, but with the concern about the passing game escalating, it’s a definite worry moving forward. The Irish will face much better offenses, and if the offense sputters and opponents are able to open up a big lead, this isn’t an offense right now that’s well suited for playing from behind.
Efficiency
Speaking of the defense, this was a minor step backward after what felt like a breakthrough performance against Georgia the week prior. The Eagles offense was unable to scratch out over 4 yard per play against Northern Illinois and Wake Forest, so for them to find moderate success at 4.74 YPP (before garbage time) against a more talented Notre Dame front wasn’t awesome. The same team that held the Bulldogs in check should have dominated this BC offense, but in the big picture it’s hard to argue with a unit so obviously improved from 2016.
So far limiting opponent efficiency has been the calling card of Mike Elko’s baby tenure in South Bend – the Irish are top 20 in limiting opponent efficiency, and pretty balanced between the run (12th in opponent rush success) and pass (24th). The huge “what if” here is the small sample sizes, especially with Temple looking abysmal offensively regardless of opponent and Boston College’s recent history of putrid offenses.
Are you surprised that the Irish were near the national average in passing down success rate last week? You may be less surprised when you find out that all of those successes came on the ground, via two Wimbush scrambles and three designed runs. The Irish actually ran the ball on 68% (13 of 19) passing downs against the Eagles, a dramatic increase from Temple (38%) and Georgia (33%) tendencies. Some of those runs were scrambles on called passes, but it will be interesting to see if that run ratio on passing downs (currently 26th highest in FBS) continues to increase.
Finishing Scoring Drives, Field Position, & Turnovers
It was encouraging to see the Irish find the end zone on all of their red zone visits a week after settling for four field goals against Georgia. Notre Dame now ranks 26th nationally with 5.32 points per trip inside the opponent 40, and I attribute the success to fullbacks and lack of success to not enough fullback use. Wake Forest had an excellent defense in the red zone and preventing touchdowns on scoring opportunities last year, and so far that Elko magic has also transitioned to South Bend. ND ranks 36th in opponent points per trip inside the Irish 40 (3.56), and it’s nice to see the Irish playing well on both sides of the ball when there’s a short field.
The Irish lost the average starting field position battle again, and this is starting to look like a potential under-the-radar issue. Notre Dame’s average starting field position was its own 25 compared to BC starting an average drive at their own 32 yard line. That may not seem like a big deal, but using historical data a team with an average starting field position 6-10 yards better than an opponent wins 78.3% of those games. The ND return game has been mostly non-existent this year minus an almost-celebration against UGA, and the coverage units have been as bad on kickoffs as they’ve been good on punts. This is an area that hasn’t quite hurt the Irish yet, but definitely has the potential to cost the team a close game.
The Irish won the turnover battle 3-2, forcing multiple late giveaways to compensate for the early gifts to the Eagle defense. A consequence of Brandon Wimbush’s inaccuracy has been a few deflections into the air – sooner or later those will cost Notre Dame, so I’m glad we got one out of the way in a 29 point win. Ideally the two lost possessions are learning opportunities in a game ND ultimately could afford them in, and the takeaways inspire some increased confidence in the defense’s ability to force a few more moving forward.
Bonus content: Where does the offense go if things stay the same?
Since we’re all prisoners of the moment, it seems like there’s been a rush to jump on the bandwagon of “Notre Dame will definitely not be able to pass the ball well this year”. The numbers are ugly, without a doubt, but this ignores some important things like 1) how most quarterbacks don’t debut to immediate success, no matter how talented or how long they’ve been in a college program, and 2) how they tend to improve over time. Wimbush’s reputation from years scouted in high school and in practice at Notre Dame isn’t of a Denard Robinson athlete learning to throw, it’s of a skilled passer who also is a threat with his legs.
Nevertheless, if – and this is a huge if – the passing game really will be a constant area of inconsistency this year, how does the Irish offensive identity evolve? For the fun of speculation and giving in to instant overreaction, here are some ideas, with the caveat that I think Brandon Wimbush is probably going to become a better passer sooner rather than later than any quarterback he’s implicitly compared to below.
Scenario #1: More of the same with some tweaks:
The least exciting but highest probability scenario is little change to the scheme and balance of the offense. The passing woes are a team failure – some on Wimbush, some on the receivers, and some on the coaches who aren’t matching plays with what the quarterback can do right now. The Irish offense placed a significant load of responsibility on Wimbush in the first three games, and the staff may look at ways to simplify and ease the number of things he’s asked to do. I think it’s pretty illuminating that after Temple Wimbush commented that they had only shown off about a third of the offense, but we haven’t seen anything much different in the two games that followed.
Another wrinkle may be borrowing a little bit from our service academy friends in terms of play calling and aggression. There’s no reason the Irish shouldn’t feel extremely confident about their ability to pick up first downs running the ball on third and fourth and short, so why not keep running the ball on 3rd and mediums (5-7) against less crowded boxes with an eye on running some more if you come up a bit short?
Scenario #2 – Bama 2016 with Jalen Hurts:
Despite a true freshman QB with some passing limitations, Alabama still finished 5th in Offensive S&P+ last season. The run game powered everything (2nd in Rushing S&P+), but the Tide still finished 29th in Passing S&P+ despite inefficiency throwing the ball (75th in Passing Success Rate). In term of offensive identity, the Tide were run-first (54th in standard down run rate) and run-second, running at an even high rate (21st nationally) on passing downs. The passing game then rotated between deep shots playing off the threat of a run and short, easy throws to build Hurts confidence. Notre Dame doesn’t have a Calvin Ridley, but these are low risk throw to see if a receiver could break a big play – per Pro Football Focus, a full 45% of Hurts’ completions came behind the line of scrimmage. Wimbush throws a nice deep ball and has been accurate on his quick / short passes, and taking a page from last year’s Saban/Kiffin playbook could be a direction to head.
Scenario #3: 2013 Auburn with Nick Marshall:
Back when Gus Malzahn was the hottest offensive mind in college football and the Tigers were blessed with divine intervention, Auburn also had a largely inefficient passing game (57th in passing success rate). Transfer and converted CB Nick Marshall was an explosive threat on the ground but had a ways to go as a passer. Through his first six games, his average passing line was 14-28 for 190 yards with 1.0 touchdowns and 0.7 interceptions per game.
The evolution of that Tiger offense was to take the ball out of Marshall’s hands as a passer – in the second half of the year (including the SEC and BCS Championship Games), he only threw the ball an average of 13.7 times per game, including three games with single-digit attempts. I don’t think such an extreme split is in Notre Dame’s future, but I also don’t think I’d hate seeing what this offense looked like with a more creative run game just getting carry after carry. And that did open things up for when Auburn did throw – in that stretch Marshall averaged 14 yards per completion.
On to Michigan State
Before the season, a lot of prognosticators (including me) wrote off the Spartans. After their own (less meme-worthy) disaster of a season in 2016, offseason issues sliced off much of what talented depth remained after already losing a number of key players to graduation. A Mark Dantonio hot seat entering 2018 seemed more likely than not.
All of that still may be true, but Sparty looked mighty frisky in their first two games, albeit against poor competition. Dominating bad opponents is a good sign for Dantonio and company, but it’s impossible to know if it’s a red herring or sign of good things to come. Mississippi State stomped bad competition in their two opening games and then unexpectedly rolled LSU; on the opposite side of the coin, Stanford’s opening week beat down of Rice has turned out to be what any team with a pulse does to the poor Owls.
Three key stats to watch for on Saturday night:
#1: Michigan State running success rate
Dantonio’s best Michigan State teams have thrived on efficient, run-heavy attacks, and that approach has worked well again early in 2017. The stable of Sparty running backs all lean more towards between the tackles efficiency than explosiveness, and one of the few areas they struggled so far is with too many runs going for zero or negative yardage (20.8%, 80th in FBS). The Irish defensive line has been unexpectedly solid and disruptive, and if they can semi-regularly get Michigan State in 2nd and 3rd and long scenarios, I really like the defense’s chances to force some mistakes. If Notre Dame isn’t penetrating and tackling well, like it did at times against Boston College, then the Spartans will be able to put together some sustained drives.
#2 Irish passing explosiveness
This could apply to any passing statistic you want to pick out of a hat, but here’s my rationale for passing explosiveness. I think this Notre Dame offense can be successful without an efficient passing game, but not without one that is connecting on some big plays every so often. If the UGA game is the exception to the rule and the Irish have the type of rushing offense we saw against Temple and BC, defenses are going to be forced to put a ton of bodies near the line of scrimmage to stop the run. Even on passing downs, you can bet opposing DC’s are also scheming about how they’ll contain Wimbush scrambles. If the Irish can hit a couple deep balls or use defense’s aggression against them with some well-timed screens, very few opponents can stop them. This feels like a big statement game in terms of how Chip Long and Brian Kelly see the Irish offense evolving as the year goes on, and this is one potential route to explore.
#3 Notre Dame run rate on Passing Downs
Against bad competition, the Spartan defense has shut down the opponent run games, giving up successes on just 25% of runs (4th nationally). The difficulty this weekend goes from freshman to Heisman level though, and in a hostile environment I think we may see the Irish go extremely run-heavy early. How Notre Dame chooses to run the offense in this game and how successful they are could go a long way toward establishing an offensive identity – something that’s been somewhat lacking in the majority of the Brian Kelly era.
I was thinking of comps for Wimbush earlier today, and Nick Marshall certainly popped into my head, but perhaps the best way to think about him is a broke-man’s RGIII. In an earlier thread I half-joked that we should run 4 verts and the read option all game, but honestly an only-slightly more nuanced version of that offense may be the best way to use Wimbush’s skillset. So, maybe the Art Briles offense, but (thankfully) without Art Briles.
Of course, the passing game we are currently running is basically the opposite of that.
RGIII was one of the best pocket passers in college football though. He completed 72.4%(!!!) of his passes his senior year. Wimbush would maybe be a dead-man’s RGIII.
Yeah, I saw RGIII in person against KState back in 2012…he was REALLY good. He could throw absolute dimes to Brice Butler 50 yards downfield and hit him in stride. Everything BW throws is at least 5 yards too deep
I see parallels, though perhaps dead-man’s RGIII is appropriate. Wimbush has the speed/shiftiness, but isn’t quite the runner, and has the arm to throw it deep like RGIII, but is nowhere near the passer. RGIII was a (much) better QB as a true freshman, with less talent around him then, than BW is right now.
But – if you can’t throw accurately, might as well miss on passes where the receiver has more time to adjust (i.e., long passes) than ones where you really need to throw it to the right spot (i.e., short passes). Maybe we don’t have the receivers for that, but if we need to run the short passing game, maybe Wimbush isn’t the guy, 200-yards rushing and 4 touchdowns notwithstanding.
Or, you know, I could be 100% wrong – https://twitter.com/PeteSampson_/status/910547801561534464
I would note that on those short passes, at least from my eye test, it seems like he’s only hitting guys in stride like half the time. I know there are plenty of situations where you want to lead the guy to the ground or away from a defender, but that doesn’t seem to be what is happening.
I thought I read somewhere that Wimbush had a 70% completion percentage in high school. While he has looked bad, you can’t do that in high school unless you have some basic skills/technique that make you throw accurate balls. Unless the speed and pressure of the game is just too much for him, you would think he would be able to adjust at some point to throwing more accurately.
Great run down as always with the stats.
I remember while (very loosely) following his senior year in HS, he was above the HS completion percent record for much of the year, but his team didn’t throw enough for him to qualify. I know he finally dipped under the record pace in the playoffs.
Wimbush also had the luxury of just chucking the ball behind the defense and letting Minkah Fitzpatrick run underneath it on a regular basis. If only Will Fuller were still around…
Here are his high school stats as a full-time starter:
Junior – 52/80 (65.1%), 10.3 ypa, 8 TD, 3 INT
Senior – 103/136 (76.1%), 13.2 ypa, 22 TD, 1 INT
In their senior years, Fitzpatrick had 20 catches for 551 yards and 6 TDs. There’s no way to know how to split credit for those catches, but for argument’s sake let’s assume they were 100% Fitzpatrick and 0% Wimbush. Taking all of that out would still leave Wimbush at 71.6%, 10.2 ypa, and 16 TDs against 1 INT. That’s still pretty damn good. St. Peter’s only loss that year was at IMG, and they pummeled Rashan Gary’s Paramus Catholic team in the state title game.
I know the college landscape is littered with guys who were awesome in high school and stunk in college, but all of that gives me cause for optimism that he has the tools and he’ll get it figured out.
Important correction here: I got those numbers off MaxPreps, and I just realized that for whatever reason they’re extremely incomplete. It might be that they didn’t include playoff numbers, but even so, there’s a huuuuge gap.
Here are the actual numbers:
Junior – 93/156 (59.6%), 9.4 ypa, 15 TDs, 4 INTs
Senior – 192/265 (72.5%), 12.0 ypa, 37 TDs, 5 INTs
In their senior years Fitzpatrick actually had 45 catches for 1,111 yards. Maybe MaxPreps stopped counting halfway through the year? Kind of weird. Anyway, once again taking Fitzpatrick’s production completely out, Wimbush was at 9.5 ypa and 25 TDs. It’s kind of like saying we should look at Joe Montana’s stats with Jerry Rice’s production taken out, which is to say it’s pretty silly, but like I said, for the sake of argument.
This prisoner of the moment thanks you for the discussion of the possible offensive evolution. Both the ‘Bama and Auburn evolution options are indeed interesting. For some reason, those relatively more dramatic changes seem more likely to succeed than the subtler tweaks – but as I write that, I see the contradiction.
If I’m understanding you correctly, you’re saying that Georgia did not bring extra men to the line to stop the run. Do we have any evidence that when teams bring extra men, Wimbush can take advantage? The theoretical reasons for “yes” are obvious, but not sure in practice. Especially because I feel like ESB has been pretty “blah”. I ask because MSU will almost certainly bring 8-man fronts and use single coverage.
I’m not the scheme expert here many any means, but UGA didnt feel all that different in terms of bodies in the box and daring Wimbush to throw. They had bigger stronger faster and more experienced defenders to be much more successful, and also did a ton with presnap movement to confuse Wimbush’s reads.
You are right that so far we dont have a ton of examples of making the defense pay for that. Theres been a few close deep balls that have been just off or dropped, and I’m not sure the receivers are helping a lot here. There’s no burners without Stepherson that scare you on an island, and ESB hasnt proved after Temple (in part due to inaccuracies) that he can just go up and win jump balls.
Great analysis, perspective on QB play…and moar screens.
Perhaps the offense would be more explosive if we played some of the explosive playmakers, /cough/ Sanders /cough/ Stepherson /cough/ Williams /cough/.
Steph is suspended and I’m not convinced Sanders would move the needle that much on offense.
I agree that Sanders wouldn’t stretch the defense deep, but he’s got the ability to be so much more dangerous on bubble screens/quick slants than Finke/Claypool. His quickness on the outside could really help stretch the defense across the width of the field, which would open up the middle even more for Adams (and to a lesser extent, Alize, although it seems to me that Wimbush has mostly hit him outside the numbers so far).
I just can’t really remember anything from CJ on offense last year that made me think “wow, this guy needs more touches.”
I liked him on screen passes. He doesn’t need to be a focal point of the offense but he’s very fast and good if they can get him the ball in space. And while maybe there’s no reason to think “wow this guy needs to be fed touches”, there’s also no reason to think “this guy needs to be on the field for 0 snaps all season” too. I don’t think they have the athletes and talent at WR to shrug off Sanders completely.
We’re in the midst of a heated debate about this in the writers’ chat room right now. I’m of the same mind, honestly; Sanders would occasionally do something good but then disappear for long stretches. In fact, he pretty much disappeared over the final two thirds of 2016 – over the last eight games, he had 11 catches for 78 yards and no scores, and half of those yards came against Syracuse.
I wouldn’t have a problem with him getting more snaps. I just don’t see that he’s done anything in the past to guarantee that he would improve the current situation. Is it worth trying? Sure. Is it a sure fix? No.
Sanders always struck me as being very good at dodging tacklers but not very good at translating that into upfield yardage. His jukes were to no avail because another guy would be on him before he regained his forward momentum. Contrast that to Fuller and how he would shake a guy then make the defense’s pursuit angles look terrible as he shot up the field like a bullet. Obviously CJ does not have that high end straight line speed.
The passing game isn’t currently working because the QB can’t get the ball to receivers who aren’t near him and when he does they drop the ball. Putting a guy in like Sanders who takes screens, sweeps/pop-passes, and short crosses makes for some easier passes for the QB. Additionally, Sanders, unlike some of the guys getting snaps on offense, has caught every ball I’d expect him to so far this year.
I don’t get to see whatever the coaches are seeing that apparently says not to try this guy.
First, I agree on the “why not give one of your most skilled guys with the ball in his hands some snaps/touches” argument. But to your last question, I think we tend to see only the upside of someone like CJ / Dexter and not the potential downside. Can they block / do they know their assignments? Is the effort there consistently? I don’t have the answers there, but those are things they are considering in addition to the upside they bring. And while you can always try to play to your strengths and avoid their weaknesses, if going up-tempo is something to keep in the toolbelt you may be trading that off as well with substitutions.
This isn’t so much a response to this post, just the bottom of the CJ chain.
I am on the CJ hype train. In the first 5 games last year, when he was fairly involved in the offense. He had 250 yds on 17 catches. It almost matched Toma’s best entire season and was more productive than Finke has ever been.. It was exciting to see a slot receiver actually contribute.
He wasn’t really catching deep balls, but still managed 15yds/catch over those 5 games, mostly due to his elusiveness and vision (which also matched up with what he showed in HS).
This seems like a guy you could manufacture 5 touches for a game in screens, end arounds, and maybe some other slot type receiving work. Of course, once they stopped throwing him any passes, he did get 4 carries which weren’t particularly effective. So maybe just screen and slot type receiving work.
Michigan State–I’m not seeing it. The advanced stats like us a lot more. State’s defense is supposed to be talentless. Run heavy offenses without Bama level talent are about the easiest thing to defend in college football. If they had a dealer at QB and an awesome O-line I’d definitely feel differently. I should probably have my head examined, but I’m anticipating a 35 to 17 type of win. I could see us scoring more and holding them to fewer.
“Run heavy offenses without Bama level talent are about the easiest thing to defend in college football.” Does that not describe us?
Or Navy?
Haha whoops–take it up with Brian Kelly and Chip Long, as I just calls em likes I sees em!
Fair point. I guess for purposes of my analysis for this game, I would say the difference is that our D has some legit NFL talent. State–less so. So then you say, well your argument is that we just have better talent on both sides of the ball. Perhaps. I just like the matchup for us–facing off against a traditional but not super potent offense that is not paired with a bunch of talent on defense. For us, our offense has been run heavy, yes, but not a traditional/pro-style offense.
Regarding the defense’s step back against BC, I thought Anthony Brown was significantly more accurate against us than he was against Wake. In 18S’s BC preview there are gifs showing him missing badly to receivers who were very open for the most part, and I didn’t see much pressure to speak of to explain the difference. Obviously this is a stats review and not an eye-test review, but I hope that explains some of the difference.
Brown started 11/11, believe it or not. After that he went 13/29, much more in line with his 52.1% completion rate coming into the game. As far as pressure, BC did a good job of taking advantage of Brown’s mobility to move the pocket and calling some quick throws to prevent our pressure from really getting home. We had the one sack when Tillery just bull rushed the center back into the QB, which was pretty awesome, and maybe a couple of hurries.
We could see some of the same approach from Michigan State with Lewerke, who has plus mobility. I’m a little less concerned with raw sack numbers in those scenarios than with how the defense does in fundamentals and situational defense. If we can stop the run consistently, we should be able to get them into downs and distances that make it harder to work around potential pressure.
Even after the hot 11/11 start, I thought he was mostly on target. I remember at least a few drops and good plays by our DBs. I didn’t see most of the second half though, unfortunately.
In the 2nd half I thought he looked terrible. It was really strange after that first half. While the pressure seemed to be better, he missed some absolutely wide open targets by a mile. Crawford’s 2nd pick was on one of the worst passes I’ve seen so far this year, and he had a clean pocket.
I agree. The second half he looked very much like he did in the game preview gifs. A handful of throws not near anyone (except maybe Crawford).
First half he was killing us on what seemed like 5 yd out then 5 yds RAC. He threw that ball really well. I think some of those routes may have been well designed plays with less than obvious releases from RBs and TE, or picks. Their running game was also decent in the first half.
It wouldn’t surprise me if his decline happened because once we got up he was forced the throw more and deeper. It both took away his best pass as an option, and added pressure to hit big throws, which is not his forte.
Well, that’s what I get for trusting Griese and Levy… I just checked the play by play, and Brown actually opened the game with six consecutive completions. Then he had two incompletions, then four more completions. So he opened 10/12, not 11/11. It’s not a huge error, but the booth should get that one right.
So after the 10/12 start he went 14/28.
Ha Levy was so incredibly terrible. I was just watching the highlights again, and he said “Wimbush goes in untouched” on a play where Wimbush ran through a guy that grabbed his legs.
“We could see some of the same approach from Michigan State with Lewerke, who has plus mobility.”
Is that just “plus mobility” or actually “mild+ mobility”?
Asking for a friend.
I haven’t watched any film myself, but I know he’s logged 10.7 yards per carry (excluding sacks) and gave Bowling Green and Western Michigan fits. So probably “mild+.”
I know traditionally it’s believed that you need to pass when you get down a couple scores, but I hope Kelly/Long don’t take that route if we get down 10 or 14 to MSU prior to the 4th quarter. Until Stepherson comes back, our best bet for a long touchdown is still an Adams/Dex/Wimbush run where 1 guy on the defense is out of position. Not to mention our O Line has the potential to really wear down a defense (especially a thin group like MSU has in their front 7).
Honestly, even if we somehow got down by 3 scores against MSU, I wouldn’t want ND to turn away from the run until the 4th quarter. There’s just too much explosive potential there, and I think we’ll absolutely be able to dominate their line late in the game. If we stick with the hurry up, we’re going to catch them sucking wind and out of position once every few possessions; I feel confident that our 3 speed runners will take advantage of that.
How about we throw the ball to Dexter! Mitigates he supposed pass blocking deficiency. Doesn’t tip our hand to run/pass. And gets a fast exciting player out in space.
Yeah, I’ve been advocating for two-back sets with Adams and Williams, with one of them motioning out or releasing after the snap. That has some potential.
I under stand each of these words individually, two, back, and set, but when you put them together like that it just sounds like garbeldy goop. Surely a team isn’t allowed to have two explosive running backs on the field at the same time?
Heh… I know we’ve used some with Adams and Jones already. And there was at least one play against BC where Williams was the lone back, motioned into the slot, then came back across on a jet sweep – I’m not sure if it was a designed keeper or a read that Wimbush kept, but either way, the BC front seven was all over the place tracking Dex. It wasn’t a huge gainer, I want to say it went for four or five yards, but it’s a nice idea.
Now, just do that again but have Adams in the backfield. See? That wasn’t so hard.
Here’s another idea for #4: ignore the common thinking about what constitutes a “passing down” and go for it on 4th down more often. If you know going into the game that you’re going to “go for it” anytime you get to your own 45 then you no longer have to worry about “Oh crap it’s 3rd and 10 or 3rd and 7, I have to pass and get ALL of it now.” On third and 10, dont change your thinking at all and just run a very effective play. If you can get 5-6 yards, then that’s a simpler 4th down. Hopefully that thinking will percolate to the top as well where instead of fretting that we threw an INC on 1st and it’s now 2nd and 10, we instead think “Ok, it’s only 2nd and 10, we have three plays to get 10 yards. That’s two of 3 yards and one of four. We can do that with this offense.”
Question for Dmac / people who have been to MSU:
Parking suggestions for the game on Saturday and what time should I arrive? I have tickets on the north side of the stadium, section 120
And by north side I mean Southwest corner.
I ALWAYS get North & Southwest confused for each other, too!
Favorite Elijah Wood movie: Southwest
Favorite music/entertainment/electronics festival: South by North
Favorite Cary Grant film:
Favorite child of Kimye: Southwest West
Begs the question, is The Southwest Face an overpriced brand of outdoor clothing or the disgusted look on your face when you get a C boarding pass?
Very funny, but if we could please stick with the True Southwest of the question…parking help?
Sorry, can’t help. Never been to North Lansing, I don’t venture up that far Southwest. West Bend is about as far Southwest as I’ll go.
LOL, Brendan and his Pythagorean Theorems!
https://youtu.be/CVoiq6CadrY