It just occurred to me that I spent the entire miserable Croom era griping about him not adapting his offensive philosophy to our personnel. This year Dan has the best quarterback in the SEC (our best ever) and a loaded wide receiver corps (our best ever) and I am still griping that we are not running the ball. Gotta work on that.
Croom/Mullen
- Thread starter dotcomdawg
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Ideally - you want a balance. Like we had last year when we were the best offense in the history of the SEC. It just appears we don't have that offense this year.
Croom's offensive philosophy was to keep Woodrow employed. The only reason we weren't dead 17ing last in the country in offense every year is because as an SEC team we can actually get a few talented players on name alone. Croom had a better chance at finishing P90X than getting a good offense.
If Malik Dear and every running back on our team but Shumpert and Holloway suffered a season ending injury, I don't think you'd hear people complaining. If Shump and Holloway are our only two options, it would be clear that what we need to do is make the most of the touches Holloway can handle and have SHumpert run the ball the bare minimum to keep the other team from selling out to stop the pass, and then try to use sweeps, screens, and swing passes as extended handoffs to replace the lack of running game. That's not really far off from our game plan against Auburn. I think any frustration at our lack of running game is coming from a belief that Williams or D Lee can be effective runners or just from general frustration that we've missed so badly on RBs.
We haven't missed badly on RBs. What are you talking about. We have two talented Freshman that are learning to pass block. J-Rob unexpectedly went pro. We'll get stronger at RB as the season goes on. Just bc we've had lack luster RB performance from our starter (Shump) thru 4 games, doesn't mean we've missed. We signed the top RB out of AL last year in 4 star Nick Gibson, so we haven't missed at all. Holloway averages a great YPC against SEC play. We haven't missed at all, and like coach said, teams are giving Dak the pass and he's picking them apart.
Stop trying to look so deep into things to draw your own conclusions. The coach is telling us exactly what's going on.
Stop trying to look so deep into things to draw your own conclusions. The coach is telling us exactly what's going on.
I would say we have somewhat missed at RB too. I don't think we have an elite back on the roster. To me, Dear is the only one who looks capable of being a feature back.
That's a good quote. The only thing I'll add is that one of the things that really concerns me about the running game right now is that if we're in a critical 4th and 1 or 2 situation, my confidence is 50/50 at best that we'll convert by pounding it forward. Last year, I feel like we were nearly impossible to stop in that situation.
Our running backs as a whole are very young, we haven't had a lot of impact freshmen running backs in our history.
I wouldn't give up on the future of what we have at running backs just yet. Look at the improvement in Holloway, he is getting better. Shump is the one that hasn't shown the improvement, jury is still out with our youth at Running Backs.
Even if you give a pass on not having a senior RB b/c Robinson went pro, we have a junior, sophomore, and freshman RB class and are not playing an every down back that is a legitimate run threat. Either you think Mullen is being a dumbass and not playing the best players, or we have missed in recruiting. Doesn't mean that neither Lee nor Williams will ever be good, but you've got to be able to have one run threat you can trust out of players that have been on campus more than a year, even if you lose one to the draft, just like you have to have a legitimate run threat that you can trust even if you lose one to injury.
It's just like I said....Mullen says teams are spying Dak and giving us a pass friendly look. Naturally, Shump is going to be in more bc of his good hands in catching the ball, but more importantly his pass blocking. It's hard for a true freshman to be a good pass blocker. Show me some around the SEC not named Nick Chubb or Leonard Fournette who were really good as true freshman. There's a few, but not many and you'll most likely name people who rushed for a lot of yards, but won't watch their film to see how good they were at picking up the blitz.
When teams start giving us different looks that favor the running game, I think you'll see more of Williams, Lee and Holloway getting carries.
When teams start giving us different looks that favor the running game, I think you'll see more of Williams, Lee and Holloway getting carries.
From the "Imagine if" department....... Imagine if J-Rob had stayed for his Sr. year with Dakota.
I agree for the most part, but I do think we need to get more big plays out of our passing game. We're averaging 6.4 yards per attempt against SEC teams right now (granted the sample size is small). That's 1/2 of what #1 Texas A&M is averaging, and the other teams around us are Missouri, Florida, and South Carolina.
It's going to be difficult scoring 28 points if we're having to drive the ball on SEC teams on 8 to 12 play drives with 75% of the snaps being pass plays.
It's going to be difficult scoring 28 points if we're having to drive the ball on SEC teams on 8 to 12 play drives with 75% of the snaps being pass plays.
I've always viewed "Balance" as doing what you want to do, when you want to do it. Some nights the run works and you don't throw much, whereas on other nights you throw more than you run. Balance is being able to take what the other team gives you and go.
Lee and Williams are not true freshmen. Again, we've had one RB go pro and have 4 RBs on the roster that have been on campus for more than a year. If you can't put an everydown back on the field that is a legitimate running threat in that situation, it means you missed on recruiting. There's no coach that would admit that their RB commits turned out the way they wanted but out of three classes, he lost one RB to the draft and that was the only everydown back he had that was a running threat.
Your right. It is an incredibly small sample size. A & M will probably have good numbers on the year but their one conference game was against the worse passing defense in the league as well. Auburn and LSU are 3 and 4 in passing defense yards/attempt for conference so far. But it's just been us playing each other so it gets skewed. Really need some more games to get a more accurate picture.
its more the OL losses
J-Rob was a good player but just by him returning, I don't think you would see 2014 all over again. The OL departures have been missed in the run game
J-Rob was a good player but just by him returning, I don't think you would see 2014 all over again. The OL departures have been missed in the run game
Exactly, if we were doing this air raid thing and putting up 30+ points every week I would be fine with it. So far we have yet to break 20 against either of our SEC opponents. Defense has been great keeping the other teams out of our end zone or we would be 0-2 in the SEC.
A lot of our passes are "long handoff" type passes though. That accounts for our yards per attempt. I think it's Dans way of work around our ground issues.
It's not the fact that we aren't running it. It's the fact that we continue to use Shumpert as our main back -- whom I love, but the dude couldn't see a hole if he fell into it.. I mean, against Auburn I saw the guy have a perfect interior lane set up, the o-line couldn't have blocked much better on the play.
What does Shump do?
He danced and bounced it outside for a one yard loss.
Dan just has a problem with his loyalty. Shump has paid his dues and put in the work and we know Dan loves his veterans/seniors. Shump is usually one of the first guys to the ball on special teams, he just isn't a good running back. He lacks vision.
We need to pull out of the Shump station and ride the D and A Trains all the way to the endzone (or first down marker)
What does Shump do?
He danced and bounced it outside for a one yard loss.
Dan just has a problem with his loyalty. Shump has paid his dues and put in the work and we know Dan loves his veterans/seniors. Shump is usually one of the first guys to the ball on special teams, he just isn't a good running back. He lacks vision.
We need to pull out of the Shump station and ride the D and A Trains all the way to the endzone (or first down marker)
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