Thoughts on the offense?
- Thread starter TheWizardofCamelot
- Start date
Evans had a super spring game. Doesn't performance in a game situation matter? The words practice warrior come to mind. Franco Harris was a terrible practice player but showed up at game time. Didn't Evans earn game reps?
Michigan is struggling about as much as we are. The difference is, they have 2 consecutive Big 10 titles in their back pocket. We do not. Hence, our struggles are magnified while theirs are minimized.
None of it means anything until we play each other.
None of it means anything until we play each other.
You wrote (and I quote)…”I’d trade him in the blink of an eye for the running back from VT”. Hard to think I imagined that.
Yep, I should have said I would trade him in the blink of an eye for a RB that could run, cut and make defenders miss the way the RB from VT played against Pitt. Figuatively, and Nick is a great young man who I love in a PSU uniform, but that doesn't change the fact that he is not playing like an elite RB so far this season.
Singleton is almost certainly playing banged up. He didn't just lose that explosiveness in the off-season. Hopefully next three weeks will give him some time to get healthier. On the positive side, his receiving skills have developed quite a bit. He and Potts have both looked good catching the ball. With a few exceptions they've only thrown flares to the backs but as the season develops they'll use the middle of the field more.
RB’s don’t just forget how to play in a year. There’s something going on that we’re unaware of.
Total yards and even scores can be misleading. Michigan is one of the slowest offenses in the country. When you run much more plays, you're going to have more yards on average.
A better metric is Yards per play. Ohio State is #1 in the conference at 7.1. Michigan and Maryland are tied for second at 6.8. Penn State is...#10, with 5.3. Rutgers and Michigan State are higher at 5.5, respectively.
Perhaps an even better metric is when you combine every thing together on offense. The NCAA ranking for total offense has Penn State at 32 and Michigan at 60. My purpose here isn’t to say Penn State’s offense is better than Michigan’s but rather to say that it’s at least comparable to Michigan‘s since so many people here seem to think the 60th ranked offense (By NCAA stats) seems to be the gold standard. I‘m not accusing you of that.
Possessing the ball for 35-45 minutes a game us a wonderful offense. It would be a great way to stiffle the best WRs in college next week.
No offense but I hate this line. Folks said it every year in the first few weeks back when Joe was still coaching. "Joe's holding back the playbook," "Joe doesn't want to show so-and-so the whole playbook," yada yada yada. Now, I do think there will be a wrinkle or two for OSU. For instance, I could see Beau and Drew in the backfield at the same time. I could see them doing some different things when Allen and Singleton in the backfield than we have already seen. But those aren't the other 67% of the playbook.
It's been 5 weeks. The issues haven't been plays, the issues are performance. A play call didnt make a lineman miss a block. A play call didnt make a WR not get separation or drop a pass.
Given that were averaging 195 YPG through 5 games and is also leading the Conference in First Downs (128 / ~26 per game) - 59 by run, 60 by pass and 9 by penalty, sooooo......, no his numbers aren't making sense regardless of whether they make sense to you LMAO. If PSU were averaging 2 ypc (i.e., "between 1-3 yards per run"), it would require an average of 98 carries per game to average 195 yards per game! PSU is actually averaging around 40 carries per game and the fact that PSU is leading the league in First Downs by a pretty wide margin suggests they are facing a lot of 3rd-&-short (i.e., 1-3 yards) situations....
Nothing pisses off teams like the other guys converting third and short until it's a TD. The best stat is wins.
How many times has Yurcich called Inside Zone from 3x1 sets and we straight man blocked it? At times into 7 or 8 man boxes.
How many times did we roll Allar out vs WVU? How many times since?
I don't think we have plays per say that OSU hasn't seen before. I believe that we just aren't calling some of them with any regularity. I watched us run a 3 yard out/flat route to Theo 4 times vs Iowa and it was open every time. Didn't use it before, didn't call it vs NW.
I'm going to assume those are rhetorical questions? If you know the answers, I'd be interested to know. Are you implying that MY purposefully ran a play that just isn't suited for 7-8 man boxes?
Also, is it fair to say, MY didnt call them because of what he was seeing or what the opposing team was stopping?
Absolutely implying it. Now is it completely Yurcich calls or is Allar checking down to the easiest, safest pass? I'd say 60/40 Yurcich/Allar. Perhaps more on Allar, I don't have the calls.
I know that the Inside Zones are probably 99% Yurcich. We've ran them a ton. How much pulling and trapping have you seen? When we do it, it seemingly works. Holes look better. Backs get more yardage. We just aren't calling it.
Why?
We haven't had to. Defense is stopping people. Offense is getting 1st downs the hard way and grinding clock. They want more, of course. They want Singleton to turn that 4 yarder into 44 yards, but we aren't flexing our play calling either.
A lack of big plays is what’s keeping our average down. If one team averages 4 yards per carry for an entire game and another averages 2 yards per carry for a game but has one 80 yard run that drives their average up over 4, who had the better game?
Not really true, or all that simple - YPP is also drastically impacted by how often you have thrown the ball and your average yards per pass play (which greatly exceeds average yards per run play). PSU is averaging a league leading 80 Plays Per Game (duhO$U 63 and scUM 60) - given that PSU is outscoring both duhO$U and scUM by 16 Points Per Game (PSU also leads the Conference in First Downs Per Game, 26, by a wide margin - the reason they lead in Plays Per Game and Time of Possession by wide margins), it's rather silly to claim that duhO$U and scUM have better Offenses due to a higher YPP driven by passing numbers????
BTW, these numbers are not being driven by what you claim (yards per rush) - they're being driven by passing numbers which can be very misleading. For Instance, scUM averages almost 10 yards Per Pass Attempt (while PSU only averages 7), but PSU has 12 Passing TDs against zero Interceptions, while scUM has 11 Passing TDs against 4 Interceptions -- so which has been more productive on net-net basis especially when you consider that PSU has outscored scUM by 6 Points Per Game and has averaged 20 more offensive Plays Per Game enabled by their Conference leading 26 First Downs Per Game.
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Forgive me for belaboring the point but you noted that inside zones are/were working but not being called. Your premise is that why call a scheme/play that is working when our defense is stopping people. Can I assume that your point is that they aren't being called because we don't want to give more film to upcoming opponents?
If that is the case, you already noted that that scheme works and it's already on film. OSU, Mich, MD, etc are all going to have all the film anyway and see what has worked and what hasn't. if we know a play works, why not run it and not have to increase the pressure on the defense?
I ask all this as I'm curious and as you can see, I'm an admitted doubter when it comes to the whole "we're holding stuff back" optimism but I do welcome the info you have proved as giving me hope that we will see improvement in the coming weeks against better opponents.
The big thing that I can see we are doing is that we are trying to run our standard plays as much as possible from the 3x1 sets (Shotgun, 1 RB, 1 TE, 3 WRs). Of course, the plays we have seen work are on film, but if we aren't using them a lot they are easier to disguise as something else.
Think about Michigan last year. They played vanilla in every game before they got to us. Then they had a man in motion before every snap, pin and pull in front of their runs, modified formations to get the strongside advantage and pulls that confused our defense.
Why didn't they run those plays before our game last yea?
Because they didn't have to.
I could be wrong. I'm not in the rooms hearing what is said. And I know our efficiency is not great at times. I just don't think we've seen everything that we are going to try.
Fair enough. I missed the Mich game last year (I was driving the road to Hana in Maui at the time). I hope you are right and we see some success in the areas (running and WRs) that we aren't seeing now. Admittedly, I have my doubts but I hope I am wrong.
I think doubts are warranted and a great topic for discussion. We have deficiencies and people aren't blind. Truthfully, a lot of our short game type of stuff looks like a game plan for Michigan and their disruptive defense.
Seriously, as an outsider, I think comparing stats between the teams means nothing at this point as they played different opponents. The fun starts this week as they all get into league play. Watch out for Maryland (against OSU) this weekend. Not saying they'll win but I have a feeling it will be closer than many think.
I've been able to watch all 3 - PSU, UM and OSU - a few times this year and since this thread is about offense, I'll say both McCarthy (UM) and Allar (PSU) are impressive QBs to start the year. But, watch out for that OSU QB (#6) as he's really, really good and proved it in a bigtime pressure situation. He cut our (ND) hearts out in the last 1:26 of our game with OSU.
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If you're talking about the OSU QB, he was 10 of 13 on 3rd downs. He managed the game really well.
I don't get why people think we don't show the playbook until we reach OSU. You think Franklin is just going to sit back while losing 10-3 to NW and say, eh just keep it vanilla, don't want to show anything until OSU. Please.
You think we're just all of a sudden going to start hitting bombs deep, and have explosive plays when we haven't done it all year?
They scored 10 points the entire game up until the end. That’s what I’m talking about.
I'm also looking forward to watching the MD/OSU game. Md's offenses looks like it's for real.
Last I looked OSU was a 14.5 pt favorite, but if MD can hold up against the crowd it could be very a competitive game.
I think the issue may be the WR's and the patterns they are running. Also, they have dropped some quality passes. I do believe that we need to get the ball downfield, and that might loosen up the opposing D enabling our running game to get more productive. I have noticed in a few occasions. Singleton cutting on the wrong side of a good block. Coaching issue. Need to throw some screens. Used to be our bread and butter.
Exactly. If the WR's can improve their patterns and consistency during the off week, in the UMass game, and in practice in preparing for oh-high-ya the offense could take a noticeable step forward.
