X's and O's thread

I hope they have some play action off of it. We have had a lot of success with our frontside read play action. Would be nice to actually be able to run the play itself first. Would make the play action that much better.
 
I'm not a coach but I would think that most coaches would agree that we got manhandled at the line. It doesn't excuse Jantz but we had zero rhythm on offense and that is because we simply couldn't handle them up front. In turn, it made everything we tried to do ugly. Our receivers couldn't get separation. Jantz had no pocket. He wasn't effective out of the pocket. I kept counting their defensive players thinking they had to have more than 11 guys out there. I'll give them credit. They might have one of the best defenses we face (I hope). Big fast guys up front. They also played like we've beat them the last two years - inspired. That #11 I think it was, when he hurdled Johnson trying to cut him - I was impressed. We simply have to block better and establish the run or Jantz (or whoever) isn't going to look good. Thanks to the defense for giving us a chance. Offense - fix it up and let's get one back in Dallas.
 
In the Tech game at least, they were cheating in with the safety/nickel and just flooding the playside with the extra guy. That extra man goes hard after the RB and it's very hard to make that work, particularly with a QB that appears to be flipping a coin in his head on the give/keep rather than really reading the END. You need to be able to play action out of that and make them pay with a crossing route or deep-in, heck even floating the TE out 10 yards into the vacated space just past the LBs. We have deficiencies clearly, so I don't know what these guys can run effectively against Big12 competition. It is frustrating to watch, clearly.



Yes, this is exactly what was happening. There were just too many guys there every time we tried to run it.
 
We can't switch offensive philosophy this year, this would be a 3 to 4 year transition with new position coaches, recruiting etc. K State seems to have success with the if you can't beat em do something well that the others aren't doing.

Very good discussion. Love these kind of threads. My question is, how practical is it to add certain packages mid season? For example, are there some kind of "heavy" formations that you can add to the playbook that would facilitate power running when you find yourself in the fix ISU was in Saturday night when nothing in the spread seems to be working. What I'm thinking of is double tight end sets, two backs etc. where you just line up and run it. You might only stick with it for a couple series, but it breaks up the continuity when a defense is dominating you the way Tech was. Jim Harbaugh and the 49ers have a lot of funky stuff where they even have huge defensive line types report in as eligible and throw off this kind of stuff.
 
They dared our receivers and qb to beat them and we couldn't do it. Line - awful. QB - bad. Receivers - not good enough. Adjustments by staff - ???
 
It seemed that our defense was unprepared for Tech's WRs to catch the ball and then run back against the grain. It seems that they made 3-4 big plays at important times that way.
 
Next question: Who made the wrong read on the first Jantz interception to nobody? Did Lenz incorrectly break it off, or did Jantz throw it to the wrong place?


Don't think anybody has addressed this question? It looked horrible, but who screwed it up?
 
It seemed that our defense was unprepared for Tech's WRs to catch the ball and then run back against the grain. It seems that they made 3-4 big plays at important times that way.

Personally, I saw a couple of their guys that were really fast. We seemed to be in the right spots most of the night defensively. They flashed some speed we haven't seen to date.
 
It seemed that our defense was unprepared for Tech's WRs to catch the ball and then run back against the grain. It seems that they made 3-4 big plays at important times that way.

This reminds me of a couple of WR bubble screens where Reeves was on an island and was blocked but pushed the blocker right into the receiver and blew up the play. They essentially got nothing because he stifled the play until he got help finishing off the tackle. I was really impressed with his strength on those plays.
 
Very good discussion. Love these kind of threads. My question is, how practical is it to add certain packages mid season? For example, are there some kind of "heavy" formations that you can add to the playbook that would facilitate power running when you find yourself in the fix ISU was in Saturday night when nothing in the spread seems to be working. What I'm thinking of is double tight end sets, two backs etc. where you just line up and run it. You might only stick with it for a couple series, but it breaks up the continuity when a defense is dominating you the way Tech was. Jim Harbaugh and the 49ers have a lot of funky stuff where they even have huge defensive line types report in as eligible and throw off this kind of stuff.

If we can't throw into a loaded box or run into a 6 man front we are in trouble and it doesn't matter what formation we line up in. We run nothing off of anything. What I mean is we don't establish something to make the defense "cheat" to defend. Most teams that want to run a balanced spread offense do this. It's called constraint. We don't have it. We allow teams to load up the middle to stop the run and proceed to throw to the outside more often than not. It is idiotic and for life me I cannot understand why it continues to happen. I have rewatched this game twice now and the middle of the field should have been shredded by us all night if they were going to do the things we were doing. We getting safeties one on one in the slot and doing nothing down the middle of the field with it. Now, if it were me and teams were going to do this, Quenton Bundrage is perhaps our best tool. He can stretch the middle of the field. Run him down the middle and let him clear out the safety/linebacker and then get the outside guy to follow. Also, for love of God, make a corner in zone coverage make a ******* decision There's no curl/flat or high low action taking place. I thought maybe I'd watch and find some good concepts in our offense but I can't find any. It's like it's predicated on being a ****** read option team. When we went away from the option and started running some quick hitting running plays what happens? Johnson and White tear down the field. What do we do after that? ******* option football. If Steele Jantz is your QB we should run that play maybe 5 times a game. Maybe. The whole problem is, teams know that Jantz doesn't know what he's doing so they are crashing linebackers into the line and letting an unblocked DE ruin Steele if he keeps. If you guys would like, I'll go chart his RO plays and let you know his percentage of right reads. I would prefer not to though because it's depressing. Our offense is a mess and it's not a mess, like "Well we just had a bad game calling plays against the defense." It's a mess like, "We don't really know what to do at all and we don't know how to make a defense react." I'm serious, we don't make a defense do anything.
 
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Personally, I saw a couple of their guys that were really fast. We seemed to be in the right spots most of the night defensively. They flashed some speed we haven't seen to date.


I still need to see the replay, but they seemed to get a lot of yardage after catches by running against the grain. It made me wonder if our DL weren't being told to head downfield after a catch to clog the middle.
 
Don't think anybody has addressed this question? It looked horrible, but who screwed it up?

Horrible pre-snap read there by the QB. Lenz did the right thing and (I think) Jantz checked the left side right before snap I think and never saw the CB drop back. I erased the game from DVR, but that's my memory from live and one extra viewing. If someone who still has it on DVR can check, but that's my recollection of it.
 
It seemed that our defense was unprepared for Tech's WRs to catch the ball and then run back against the grain. It seems that they made 3-4 big plays at important times that way.

Oh, imagine that! Moving toward the middle where no one is. What a novel concept!
 
Horrible pre-snap read there by the QB. Lenz did the right thing and (I think) Jantz checked the left side right before snap I think and never saw the CB drop back. I erased the game from DVR, but that's my memory from live and one extra viewing. If someone who still has it on DVR can check, but that's my recollection of it.

Jantz being Jantz and saying "**** it, I want to throw it to him no matter what happens" and Lenz going, "Oh, look, here's where I'm open, I'll go here." All Jantz, unless the play was called to be a 20 yard punt, which would be alright I guess.
 
Does anyone have a clip of the ineligible man downfield play? I never saw it live and the stadium replay was from and endzone. I'm curious if the whole line got a run play called, or if it was just 1 guy screwing up. That was a freakin huge play.

I saw a replay of this pass and it looked like the center was about a yard across the line of scrimmage after the snap. He probably would have been okay but before the ball crossed the line of scrimmage he released down field. I believe the officials got it right.
 
I saw a replay of this pass and it looked like the center was about a yard across the line of scrimmage after the snap. He probably would have been okay but before the ball crossed the line of scrimmage he released down field. I believe the officials got it right.

Interesting...I didn't see the game, but I believe there is a small area beyond the LOS where the OL can go without being called. I think it was a yard, but if they are within that area, I thought they were exempt from the illegal man downfield penalty.
 
Interesting...I didn't see the game, but I believe there is a small area beyond the LOS where the OL can go without being called. I think it was a yard, but if they are within that area, I thought they were exempt from the illegal man downfield penalty.

You must have missed the part where I said he released down field before the ball crossed the line of scrimmage.
 
You must have missed the part where I said he released down field before the ball crossed the line of scrimmage.

I saw this part:
it looked like the center was about a yard across the line of scrimmage after the snap
i.e. within the "zone of leniency".

**Edit - If he then released from that point, I'd agree with you. But I wasn't sure based on your initial post. No matter...
 
Last edited:
I saw this part:

i.e. within the "zone of leniency".

And there in lies the reason why I said he probably would have been okay if he did not release down field. I'm struggling to understand what your point is.
 
And there in lies the reason why I said he probably would have been okay if he did not release down field. I'm struggling to understand what your point is.


Looking for logic in a conversation with a troll? hawkfan2679
 

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