Here is a question I've been wanting to ask...

maroonmania

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Feb 23, 2008
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it seemed like in the Spring game we saw a LOT of short dumpoffs by Russell to Lewis or the TEs or to the RBs (Perkins in particular) as he was hitting them as safety valves or screens or quick developing plays. During our four regular season games we have had virtually NO throws to RBs or short dump off passes as designed plays or as safety valves to blitzes. THAT is one of the main reasons Russell is getting hit so much. Every pass is a down the field pass that takes time to develop and Russell is waiting until the last possible second to release the ball. I can't for the life of me figure why when we go 5 wide and the defense brings a rusher off the edge that we can't block we don't hit a hot route in the area he just vacated but we don't. Just can't figure why we either aren't calling any short dropoff passes or Tyler just hasn't been willing to throw any? Not every pass needs to be 15+ yards downfield. If we keep this strategy up I can almost guarantee Russell won't make it through the season without missing a game due to injury.
 

Sutterkane

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Jan 23, 2007
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We had several quick throws against Auburn didn't we? That first drive seems like we dink and dunked all the way until Marcus got hit in the face with a pass on 2nd down.
 

maroonmania

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Feb 23, 2008
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I agree that the Auburn game had a little bit more of the shorter routes mixed in I guess because we knew Auburn's pass rush was pretty good. And we do still throw the occassional bubble screen but I still really haven't seen hardly any quick slants, swing passes to the RBs out of the backfield or short passes to the TEs or RBs beyond the LOS or heaven forbid a screen play.
 

HueFreeze

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Aug 22, 2012
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I am under the impression that you only show when you have to show.

If you can beat someone with a base 4 man rush; then, you drop 7 rush 4
I also think some of this base planning is why our team on offense and defense seem like they are going through the motions.
the 1's are going through the motions and 2's-3's don't have experience/talent to dominate other teams 1's
 

maroonmania

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Feb 23, 2008
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I am under the impression that you only show when you have to show.

If you can beat someone with a base 4 man rush; then, you drop 7 rush 4
I also think some of this base planning is why our team on offense and defense seem like they are going through the motions.
the 1's are going through the motions and 2's-3's don't have experience/talent to dominate other teams 1's

So a dump off pass to a safety valve RB or TE would be "showing" something?
 

CadaverDawg

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Dec 5, 2011
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So a dump off pass to a safety valve RB or TE would be "showing" something?

In a way, I guess it would maroonmania. I'm not sure if we're doing that on purpose, but I hope we are. Maybe Mullen is wanting the better teams we play to focus their preparation on downfield routes and lots of passing, so that it opens up the run game and short passing game that we are better at. Meanwhile, we are trying to get better at the downfield stuff by practicing it against poor compeptition...therefore gaining confidence (even though that hasn't gone as planned). Think about it....if we had been running lots of short routes and running plays against the bad competition, the better teams are going to know they can put more guys at the line of scrimmage because we aren't going downfield much. So, doing the opposite will hopefully put a little less pressure on the O-line and allow us to establish a run game early against the good teams. We'll see

Just a thought, and I really hope that's what we're doing.
 

HueFreeze

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Aug 22, 2012
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I don't think safety valves to flats are showing anything, but I am hoping that Russell knows those are there and is just taking shots at lesser efficient defenses, while he has the chance, because he knows he has time to make those reads and give his wr time to get out of those breaks... every qb wants the big play

the screens or quick developing plays was more towards what I was talking about, not wanting to show anything

i am hoping right now that we are taking the approach of we have to be ball controlled to beat these teams, if we get up by 2 scores or so then we can become lax with our play calling and be more aggressive; all the while mixing in 2nd and 3rd teams

I think we can all see we aren't playing it as lets put teams away and then get our starters out, some of our backups are in on the 3rd plays of the game ...to me I would rather see josh robinson carry vs 1st def and win; rather than be up 35 with 6mins to go with #34 running against the 2nd team defense when everyone knows he is running it.
 

Todd4State

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Mar 3, 2008
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I hope the staff is doing it on purpose

Because Les sometimes has a bad habit of calling the same plays over and over again.