1. Jake Heaps or B. Doman is at fault for the Texas loss... exact verdict is still out on exactly who; BUT IT'S NOT ANAE.
2. The distance between a team with a good running game in the MWC, and a good running game in a BCS conference may be the greatest distance of any other team performance criteria.
Jake Heaps... heaven help us?
In two games Jake has thrown 3 interceptions and 2 TD's... bad right? Oh, by the way he is averaging just 5.49 Yards Per Attempt... that my friends is a dump and dink offense.
So is it Heaps or Doman?
Doman is inexperienced, and may have bitten off more than he can chew. All that talk of of a "keep the defense guessing" , and an "under center play action" style offense... well, right now it just looks like an unorganized version of an anti-Robert Anae offense. You know, the coordinator that was predictable, boring, and too conservative.... the same guy that won 56 games in six years with a 72% winning percentage. You know, the guy Bronco Forced out.
I'm not saying that I want Anae back, or even that Doman wont be a great coordinator. I'm just saying that Doman may want to try souping up a slow but incredibly productive offense instead of throwing it away and starting over as a first year coordinator.
Anae's offense didn't need a new engine, it just needed a good tune up, and a few after market parts.
Hey Doman, you still got that Anae playbook laying around... don't throw out the engine with the old oil.
WANTED: A BYU running game.
Harvy Unga is the greatest running back BYU has ever had.
It appears that he will never play another snap of football at the next level.
Does that paint a picture for you about where BYU's run game is without him?
Well how about this;
in the two games this year, the BYU offense is averaging 67 yards rushing a game. That's good enough for 113th in the country. That's bad, but it's not all Di Luigi and the boys' fault. a lot of it goes back to that abysmal 5.49 yards Jake Heaps is blowing open the defense with.
In the 2nd half of the Texas game a few simple adjustments were made by "Macky-B" and the longhorns.
One was that they saw that the big scary WR's whom BYU had proclaimed to be some of the most athletic ever, were not even getting targeted! So Mack sucked in the D, and put a spaced out version of 8 in the box on almost every down in the third and fourth quarters.
Mack Brown's 1st lesson on how to beat a dump and dink offense; put eight in the box, pressure the QB all day, and trust your DB's.
Success came in the second half for the longhorns. BYU's lack of being able to spread the field (or lack of even attempting to do so) crippled the run game, and put in stone the way to beat BYU. Good thing too, Utah needed a good game plan for Saturday.
Monday morning Head Coach:
So then what?! What are the adjustments BYU needs to make to resurrect a lifeless offense that appears to have weapons to attack defenses not being used?
Put a little Anae back in the offense.
Sure, it's predictable. But if moving the ball and scoring touchdowns is predictable, then line it up and hand the defense your playbook.
Speed up the offense.
If your goal is to keep a defense guessing, a restriction that must be lived by is a rapid fire offense. Even the most unpredictable offense can be scouted for pre-snap tells if given enough time.
if the Cougars increase the tempo, they will increase the number of offensive plays. If they increase the number of plays, they will have a few more plays to take chances with... lengthening the field!
The defense... play up to the LB's levels.
BYU's D has been good thus far in the season. But if a "best" has to be named with in the defense, it's the linebackers. And the "worst"... I'd say the D-line. If the D-line can get a better push and alter the run game better, the speed that is present at linebacker WILL get to the QB this season. If not, the LB core will have to stay at home more to stop the run.
The season has not been named... yet.
BYU won a close one... without it's offense reaching anywhere near it's potential. And BYU has lost a close one... without it's offense reaching it's potential. If BYU's offense reaches it's potential, and can start stretching the field, BYU will win out the remainder of the season. If they continue to sputter, they will lose to Utah, UCF, TCU, and Hawaii.
The distance between an 11-1 regular season or a 7-5 regular season... comes down to changing one number; 5.49 yards per pass attempt.
1 comment:
I'm a 60 year old just starting to really enjoy football ~ and your clever, perceptive writing makes it that more enjoyable!
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