BR, I respectfully disagree regarding your "definitions" of an Air Raid offense.t's fairly clear what Stoops wants. He hired 2 different Air Raid OCs. He has said that he wants to run a more flexible Air Raid offense.....similar to what Oklahoma State runs. Brown ran it at TTU. Holgorson ran it at Oklahoma State....which is why Stoops hired Dawson (who studied under Dana)
Understand that the Air Raid to many conjures up thoughts of throwing it 70% of the time. The modern Air Raid is more balanced.....but still incoporates the Air Raid concepts. And thus still is technically the Air Raid offense. Brown threw the ball about 58-60% of the time at TTU. Oklahoma State has done about 50-60% of the time depending on what the personnel allows.
The problem is that we can't execute the desired offense right now. We can't pass protect, can't catch, can't run precise routes, can't read defenses, can't throw, etc. What we could do was utilize our good RBs. Boom was one of the elite in the nation for yes/attempt this yr. Jojo was up in the top 50-ish this yr as well. It's no wonder why we ran the ball so much this yr. The staff was just trying to do whatever would work to win as much as they could.
The notion that Stoops wants a power rushing offense is an excuse offered up by those who either lack knowledge about what is happening or haven't analyzed what's really going on.
Now, the QB running thing. That's Dawson. I've seen that with my own eyes in practice. I don't know if Stoops cares or not but I know that Dawson has gotten into Towles several times for scrambling.
Wow you could do a name substitution and it would sound like they were writing about our program.
I liked your post, It got my attention when you mentioned Stoops had probably never thought much about the offensive side of the ball except finding a way to stop it. You may be right about that. but I tend to disagree with that theory.BR, I respectfully disagree regarding your "definitions" of an Air Raid offense.
The fundamental and most accepted definition of the Air Raid offense is a decidedly unbalanced, pass heavy offense. It is not about the Mumme/Leach patterns (many of which come from LaVell Edwards passing game concepts at BYU). It is about an offensive mindset to throw the ball anytime, anywhere on the field and to do so very frequently. To say a team which incorporates some classic Air Raid patterns (mesh, Y-Sail, etc.) in their passing game is an Air Raid offense is not unlike saying a shotgun set team is really a Single Wing offense because they both use the direct snap.
This past season only 1 team threw the ball more than 58% of the time. Not surprising that was Mike Leach's WSU team which threw it on 74% of their plays. That is a pretty big drop off from #1 WSU and #2 IL (58%). I think what you are seeing is the coaches that came from the Mumme/Leach Air Raid tree (actually a pretty small tree) are now convinced that a more balanced offense is a better offensive system overall.
To be perfectly honest I have no idea of "what" CMS wants in an offense. This is his first gig as an HC and, other than stopping one, he has probably never thought about offense before in his career. That said, "defensive guys" often seem to gyrate to a balanced, ball control style of play as that usually best compliments their defense. Not only that, but when listening to DCs talk about opponents, unless playing a WSU or GA Tech type team, they usually cite "balance" as the thing that makes a offense difficult to defend. Brother Bob was one of the few defensive guys that bucked this ball control trend and has gone with a wide open offensive style his entire time at OU.
I personally believe that style-wise Dawson was a good replacement for Brown; both seem to have similar philosophies but Dawson did not run the QB as did Brown. But, overall, I'm still not sure "what" the Cats want to do offensively. One thing is for sure, with Barker and Phillips as the main contenders at QB, they will not feature a QB run offense. All of course, JMO.
Peace
Perhaps I should have said he thinks about offense with a defensive perspective. Wait, I think I did say that. [winking]I liked your post, It got my attention when you mentioned Stoops had probably never thought much about the offensive side of the ball except finding a way to stop it. You may be right about that. but I tend to disagree with that theory.
Being a defensive minded person most of his coaching career figuring out ways to stop certain offensives he had to know what made the formations or plays work.
So I'm led to believe he thought about it and probably knows more than we think...