I definitely do not want to throw the baby out with the bath water. I am talking about the basics. In much the same way the defense is far improved with some basic scheming, alignment, and fundamentals the same thing can be said about the offense. I will not beat a dead horse but the offensive approach has only worked against McNeese and two quarters of football against UT where they did not commit to stopping it. I agree we need a very strong OC to step in, implement CBNs running plays, and develop an actual passing game.
My guess is that if you cannot block for Mertz and help Etienne get 175 yards you’re not gonna get a chance to catch passes. Do it all or don’t get on the field
I absolutely agree in principle with the need for rapid improvement offensively. And I mentioned my concerns about routes and the need for an OC before UT. I'm cautioning against unrealistic expectations of major changes for a team this early on in a massive re-build. The reps and position knowledge are still pretty sparse/rudimentary. And TBH, Billy is still obviously trying to figure a lot of things out both as an OC and a HC. IMO, we don't yet have the schemes, roster, maturity/experience to permit us to implement things we all know need to be done without first playing some more football and making steady, incremental progress. I absolutely agree that BN is stretched too thin and a top-notch OC who would execute BN's vision with imagination and precision might eventually be "necessary." But FTR, that's a "wait 'til next year" deal. GG!
I appreciate the effort. Guys are playing hard and blocking well. A difference maker receiving TE would make this offense hum. And a lot less complaints about our OC.
Yeah, in hindsight our first half success was significantly dependent on Mertz throwing absolutely perfect 3rd down passes while on the run and 5 trying a "roller derby" tackle on ETN. Those are just not the sort of things you want to have to hang your hat on. I will admit we did run 12 personnel on the 4th and 5th drives and it was successful, so I will say my bad on that part.
I agreed with the rest of your comment but I wanted to touch on your opening comment. Many people here spent the past 10 years plus deferring to the people whose livelihoods depended on the success of the football team, the coaches. Most fans had criticisms but "trusted the coaches" had a plan and knew what they were doing. After so many failures to improve or change philosophies and after learning about so many things in hindsight about out prior regimes failures, I don't think it's surprising to see fans have some fears and maybe a little impatience that a seemingly necessary change or two won't happen. I mean why did it take two different defensive coordinators to change philosophy on defense? Why didn't Mullen or grantham address the problems? Why didn't muschamp ever open up the offense? Who would ever think a major D1 program would have such a pathetic strength and conditioning program under Mac? All of those duds were obviously way more knowledgeable than the average fan and yet the fans were pretty accurate about the deficiencies for each regime. Not that they could articulate the Xs and Os much. Measured criticism is ok in my opinion. If anything, the rapid turnaround from the defense under a new Coordinator and the competence of Mertz as a QB and a leader has fueled the trepidation about the passing game concerns. I'm not defending some of the over the top chicken Littles but I think there is room for banter on a message board.
I guess we just need to hire the perfect coach… and consult with James & the GNF team. It’s that simple.
We destroyed the Vols in the 1st half (halftime the game was over) and the reason we were successful was...Vols didn't stack the box..2nd half Vols go into genius mode and discover they need to stack the box, yet CBN still runs into a stacked box. If we only had a passing game!!! (Mertz was 16 for 19 passing in 1st half against Vols un-stacked box! ) ...no passing game? Obvious to me that CBN was playing keep away 2nd half, primarily burning the clock (he had a lot of confidence in the D (and it worked) (and we do have a passing game). I would not be surprised if we go into KY in 2 weeks, they stack the box, and we beat them anyway. This season may turn out to be a very pleasant surprise.
What's the beef? They are fans who do a podcast, and a good one at that. They actually provide analysis and look to educate their listeners rather than just simple rants and raves. I give James a ton of credit for his position on Trask after he came in during the 2018 Mizzou game. It doesn't mean he's always right but a lot of what he is saying about the passing game right now makes sense if you are watching the receivers during games.
Agree that we need more data points to know what we'll do on O. Stoops won't be Huepel dumb and will likely bring bodies into the box and be aggressive. What we do next week will be telling.
James confirmed by impression that Graham and Ricky are mostly out of sync. Says Ricky tends to run sloppy routes. And he seems to get caught up in the wash a lot.
Ricky has 20 receptions this year. That doesn't sound out of sync to me. He is ranked 19th (tied with 7 others) out of 250 receivers listed. https://www.ncaa.com/stats/football/fbs/current/individual/12 **Click on REC to get reception number order**
The WR coach Billy G.. Too bad he doesn't also speak up, i would guess he maybe knows at least a little something about the passing game.
You aren’t a genius if you are forced into it. I had serious doubts about Franks and was convinced Trask was better after that pair’s first Orange/Blue Game, how it took coaches who are paid millions to figure this stuff out didn’t see it is beyond me.
I agree that if we play a clean, mostly mistake free game we should beat them. If the last 2 years are any indication, KY is content to sit back, play solid run D, not give up big plays, and wait on unforced errors by our team and take advantage of them. Its how they beat us 2 years running. We are definitely gonna have to be disciplined to take those long time consuming drives and then we will need some better run blocking than we saw against Utah to punch home some TD's.
