Wrong Type of Offense For a Program Like ISU

That was mind blowing how quickly they abandoned the run game. With my limited knowledge of football x's and o's, I'm curious as to what makes this year's and 2016's team so much worse at run blocking than 2015? Last year's I kind of get, cuz we simply didn't have bodies, but this year we are much deeper. 2015, when Warren ran for 1300+ yards, our O-line was dominant at run blocking. I can't imagine the personnel being better on a team that also finished just 3-9 and got Rhoads fired.

Good question but I think pretty much that whole line would start on this team. Oni was a borderline NFL guy. Burton, Dagel, Taise and Lalk all make a very solid case on this team. I think that maybe Campos is the only guy pushing them and he probably gets a start because he's a more natural tackle then Lalk. So, yeah, it's talent and experience right now. It turns out Garcia isn't an OL savant. He was a needed body.
 
  • Agree
Reactions: FinalFourCy
Park is the best QB we've had in a decade, if not longer. He's one of the last people I would blame for tonight.

Agree with the former, disagree with the latter. It's certainly not all his fault, as he had pressure all night. He just got happy feet (which is on him) when there was pressure (but with poise could have made the plays). The staff also needed to get Montgomery more involved and needed to adjust better to what UT was doing.
 
**** it lets scrap the whole thing. Fire everyone and everything. OP is dumb as ****

Chucking a bunch of deep RPO's and expecting to win at ISU is the most dim witted thing I have ever heard in my life.

I may be a dumba** but I also watch an obscene amount of college football and particularly pay attention to how disadvantaged programs (e.g. K-State, Stanford, Georgia Tech, and Pitt last season) pop up in the top 25 in offensive efficiency rankings every year.

I absolutely do not advocate firing Matt Campbell. Although I didn't want him hired because of what he ran at Toledo, Pollard made his choice. I do not want to be KU like to firing Turner Gill after 2 years and then Charlie Weiss just barely into year 3. They had to settle for Texas A&M's WR's coach who is a KU alum.

What I want to see is Matt Campbell adjust from being at a MAC powerhouse to a Big 12 bottom feeder. I was born in 1987, so I don't know exactly how it happened, but isn't it interesting that Bill Snyder when from being OC of a team that had Chuck Long making it rain in the 1980s and somehow transitioned to running the speed option with guys like Michael Bishop, Johnathan Beasley, and Ell Roberson at QB in the late 90s/early 2000s. Then to modernizing it with Collin Klein, Jake Waters, and Jesse Ertz in the 2010s.

Given that Campbell has gotten guys like Devon, Re-al, and had a commit from Dwan, plus we have seen the lanram in the playbook and that quasi-speed option outside pitch to Montgomery that Park was running vs Iowa (imagine Re-Al on that!), maybe that is the direction they will head in. I hope so, because chucking deep bombs (Toledo's 2 outside WRs averaged 20 yards per catch last year) is a recipe for 2-10 at ISU. We already fired Mangino once.
 
I'd like to point out that Austen Arnaud threw for 440 yards vs their defense in 2008! Arnaud averaged about 165 passing yards per game in his 4 years at ISU. K-state had some other issues besides the offense.

While you are correct that K-State was 98th in defensive efficiency ranking in 2008, they were 47th in offensive efficiency ranking in 2007 and 2008...and that is with a 1st round draft pick QB and 2nd round draft pick WR. While Bill Snyder's offenses are usually top 20 in efficiency without a whole lot of NFL talent. Also, offense helps to dictate defense, and Snyder's offenses control the ball.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Omaha Cy
This wasn't our normal offense tonight. Not sure what it was, but it definitely wasn't what we usually do. No screens, no runs. We just tried to force the ball downfield all night. It was like the staff was overwhelmed and didnt watch what was happening in the field. They decided our only chance to win was big plays downfield and to hell with everything else.

I mean seriously, did anyone else feel like we weren't willing to take a 3 or 4 yard gain and sustain a drive? It was 10 yards plus or bust on every play.
The staff is also in over their heads and hoping some on the job training will get them where they want to be.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Clonefan94
You're the one saying we have to build an offense just like KSU or UI so I would assume you have a comparison in mind for our current scheme. Obviously, you care about it but what you can't do is compare ours to anyone's because you don't really know. Offensive football has little to do with scheme and everything to do with execution. If you think for a minute that Iowa's "system" of running a bunch of stretch would work against Texas, you're wrong. That was the whole problem with last night. We didn't think we could run the ball into that front 7 and to be honest, I don't think we could either and I don't have a problem with 10 carries for Montgomery. What I have a problem with is the total touches.

I think two things happened offensively. First, I think the staff thought they couldn't run the football but what they could do is run DM out of the backfield as a decoy to suck someone out of the middle and open up the passing game in the intermediate. What actually happened is that UT didn't respect Montgomery and sat on the middle of the field and Park was rattled, pressing, and didn't simply dump it off to him. They were giving him 3 free ones and we all know he's going to turn that into at least 6. Then, they started getting pressure early so he had to stay in and block a lot. Then Park more or less fell apart for 3 quarters. He kind of collected himself and made some throws later on but it was just to late. The WRs aren't free of blame here either. Murdock made the catch after he fell down but outside of that, they did nothing of note. Eaton had the huge drop. Murdock didn't cut his route off when Park wanted an early, quick throw down the sideline. Not that they were drops, but Butler and Lazard both had chances to bring in tough catches and it didn't happen. Montgomery is the only guy free of blame here and he even dropped one.

At the end of the day, everything went wrong all at once.

You question is which team runs a mesh point QB read offense designed to freeze the D at the snap, with zone blocking...um about 80% of teams in college football. Albeit some are more zone read run based like Oregon, and others are more RPO based like Okie State. And they all do it to varying tempos.

If you want me to single out 1 team, I'd say Toledo. Last year their playbook on RPOs was handoff or deep pass. Their 2 outside WR's, Cody Thompson, and Jon'Vea Johnson, each averaged 19 yards per catch and were 9th and 15th respectively in the country in ypc. They also had Kareem Hunt at RB and their h-back was drafted in the 4th round, so that helped free up those WR's.

You say schemes don't matter and it's all execution. While execution is certainly important, you overlook the fact that defenses see certain things 80% of the time, and thus 100% of defenses are built to stop what the see 80% of the time. 4-2-5 defenses with 210 pound LB's...a disadvantaged program like ISU would probably be better off running power-i than mesh point QB read. Cram it down these small defenses. I still advocate the K-State offense. Either way I want to see a lot less zone blocking and much more pull guards (like on the LanRam package)...get our big power resources to the point of attack. Our OL isn't talented enough to zone block.

But if scheme doesn't matter, explain to me why disadvantaged programs like K-State, Stanford, and Georgia Tech appear in the top 25 in offensive efficiency rankings every year. Because they run a unique offense that defenses don't see, don't recruit to stop, and don't know how to handle. If you want to win at a program like ISU, don't do what Oklahoma and Texas do.
 
Good question but I think pretty much that whole line would start on this team. Oni was a borderline NFL guy. Burton, Dagel, Taise and Lalk all make a very solid case on this team. I think that maybe Campos is the only guy pushing them and he probably gets a start because he's a more natural tackle then Lalk. So, yeah, it's talent and experience right now. It turns out Garcia isn't an OL savant. He was a needed body.
Agree. Go back even further to Rhoads best seasons with guys like KO, Stephens, Hicks, Lamaak, etc.

It's too bad the OL pipeline wasn't better stocked for when we have Park, these WRs, and particularly DM. The new staff did a great job getting the skill position talent upgraded, but it takes time to recover from the previous mistakes at OL recruiting.
 
  • Agree
Reactions: CyBobby
You question is which team runs a mesh point QB read offense designed to freeze the D at the snap, with zone blocking...um about 80% of teams in college football. Albeit some are more zone read run based like Oregon, and others are more RPO based like Okie State. And they all do it to varying tempos.

If you want me to single out 1 team, I'd say Toledo. Last year their playbook on RPOs was handoff or deep pass. Their 2 outside WR's, Cody Thompson, and Jon'Vea Johnson, each averaged 19 yards per catch and were 9th and 15th respectively in the country in ypc. They also had Kareem Hunt at RB and their h-back was drafted in the 4th round, so that helped free up those WR's.

You say schemes don't matter and it's all execution. While execution is certainly important, you overlook the fact that defenses see certain things 80% of the time, and thus 100% of defenses are built to stop what the see 80% of the time. 4-2-5 defenses with 210 pound LB's...a disadvantaged program like ISU would probably be better off running power-i than mesh point QB read. Cram it down these small defenses. I still advocate the K-State offense. Either way I want to see a lot less zone blocking and much more pull guards (like on the LanRam package)...get our big power resources to the point of attack. Our OL isn't talented enough to zone block.

But if scheme doesn't matter, explain to me why disadvantaged programs like K-State, Stanford, and Georgia Tech appear in the top 25 in offensive efficiency rankings every year. Because they run a unique offense that defenses don't see, don't recruit to stop, and don't know how to handle. If you want to win at a program like ISU, don't do what Oklahoma and Texas do.

Because one coach is being talked about as an NFL candidate, one coach is one of the best of all time, and one runs a triple option offense. I don't really care what we run as long as it isn't the triple option with QBs who can't throw. My point is that we can't block anyone and that will kill any system.

Also, let's not act as if KSU doesn't run any sort of spread principled offense.
 

Help Support Us

Become a patron