I'm overall pleased with the direction of the program. I'm convinced that the defense is going to be substantially better next year based on players and coaching changes. However, I'm not sure what to expect with regards to offensive improvement. What changes for next year will most help our play calling? Were we limited by personnel? Is it all on the coaches (that are the same)? I can pick out poor and predictable play calling, but I'm not sure that I'm enough of a "football guy" to identify the root cause...
1) Having your entire OL back as we do for 2013 will 95% of the time make your offense better. Smith may not use his medical RS, but Malone started 8 games in his place last season anyway. To have all 5 of those guys back working as a cohesive unit is huge for us. And they pass protected extremely well this past season- even with as long as Russell held onto the ball.
2. Having all your RB's returning is big- plus we add a guy in Shumpert that may or may not redshirt. He redshirts if Griffin is healthy- we arent going to waste his Freshman year for 30 carries in garbage time. Perkins and Josh Robinson should have good seasons. Robinson really looked good in spurts, but made some Freshman mistakes. He will be nothing but better in 2013, we know what we have in Perkins.
3. WR is the question mark. Can Robert Johnson and Joe Morrow finally figure out the offense? Can Malcolm Johnson stay off scooters? What impact does Fred Ross, Deonte Evans, Fred Brown, and Jeremy Chappelle have? Lots of questions here.
4. Rumors that we actually ran more of what Les Koenning wanted to do in 2012 have surfaced. Mullen is scrapping that supposedly and going back to what he knows best- run first, pass second. More TE-FB involved in the run game and less zone stretch ****. Gonna run the zone read and if a QB gets hurt- he just gets hurt and we'll go to the next one. May be ********, may not- I dont know. There has to be something done here with scheme AND playcalling. I'm curious as well to see what we do here.