My one criticism of Mullen...

[DowntownDawg]

....is that even though we all agree (including him, I would think) that we don't have an SEC caliber qb, we continue to put our qb in a position to get us beat by making bad decisions. I realize that much of it is just inherent in the system, but I think we should modify that. Jackie rarely had good quarterbacks, and he was terrible at developing them, but one thing that he knew how to do was to keep the quarterback from getting you beat.

Against LSU on 4th down, if the called play is a toss sweep instead of an option (causing Lee to make a split second decision), we win the game. Against Houston, on the first drive, we come to a 3rd and 2 and line up in an empty back field. We tried to throw a little quick pass and can't complete it and end up punting and netting 20 yards or whatever. On a crucial late 4th quarter drive, we run all over them, going down the field, and then we decide to get cute and drop Lee back to pass. He makes a poor decision and doesn't get rid of the ball, taking a twelve yard sack. On 3rd and long, he makes another poor decision and throws a horrible interception when there were receivers open. This is not to mention the fumbles on the zone read play. Even if the runningbacks share some fault, there is obviously some indecision going on.

Simply put, we are asking Lee to think and do to much, and it has gotten us beat two of the last three weeks.

I think this is a young coach's mistake. Mullen's had Alex Smith, Chris Leak, and Tim Tebow. All of these guys were extremely polished and good decision makers. Not only is Lee a walkon, but his first year of SEC football was basically a total wash. He played half the season in a totally different offense and gained very little meaningful experience. He is basically playing as a freshman in this system and looks like it.

 

[DowntownDawg]

....is that even though we all agree (including him, I would think) that we don't have an SEC caliber qb, we continue to put our qb in a position to get us beat by making bad decisions. I realize that much of it is just inherent in the system, but I think we should modify that. Jackie rarely had good quarterbacks, and he was terrible at developing them, but one thing that he knew how to do was to keep the quarterback from getting you beat.

Against LSU on 4th down, if the called play is a toss sweep instead of an option (causing Lee to make a split second decision), we win the game. Against Houston, on the first drive, we come to a 3rd and 2 and line up in an empty back field. We tried to throw a little quick pass and can't complete it and end up punting and netting 20 yards or whatever. On a crucial late 4th quarter drive, we run all over them, going down the field, and then we decide to get cute and drop Lee back to pass. He makes a poor decision and doesn't get rid of the ball, taking a twelve yard sack. On 3rd and long, he makes another poor decision and throws a horrible interception when there were receivers open. This is not to mention the fumbles on the zone read play. Even if the runningbacks share some fault, there is obviously some indecision going on.

Simply put, we are asking Lee to think and do to much, and it has gotten us beat two of the last three weeks.

I think this is a young coach's mistake. Mullen's had Alex Smith, Chris Leak, and Tim Tebow. All of these guys were extremely polished and good decision makers. Not only is Lee a walkon, but his first year of SEC football was basically a total wash. He played half the season in a totally different offense and gained very little meaningful experience. He is basically playing as a freshman in this system and looks like it.

 

[DowntownDawg]

....is that even though we all agree (including him, I would think) that we don't have an SEC caliber qb, we continue to put our qb in a position to get us beat by making bad decisions. I realize that much of it is just inherent in the system, but I think we should modify that. Jackie rarely had good quarterbacks, and he was terrible at developing them, but one thing that he knew how to do was to keep the quarterback from getting you beat.

Against LSU on 4th down, if the called play is a toss sweep instead of an option (causing Lee to make a split second decision), we win the game. Against Houston, on the first drive, we come to a 3rd and 2 and line up in an empty back field. We tried to throw a little quick pass and can't complete it and end up punting and netting 20 yards or whatever. On a crucial late 4th quarter drive, we run all over them, going down the field, and then we decide to get cute and drop Lee back to pass. He makes a poor decision and doesn't get rid of the ball, taking a twelve yard sack. On 3rd and long, he makes another poor decision and throws a horrible interception when there were receivers open. This is not to mention the fumbles on the zone read play. Even if the runningbacks share some fault, there is obviously some indecision going on.

Simply put, we are asking Lee to think and do to much, and it has gotten us beat two of the last three weeks.

I think this is a young coach's mistake. Mullen's had Alex Smith, Chris Leak, and Tim Tebow. All of these guys were extremely polished and good decision makers. Not only is Lee a walkon, but his first year of SEC football was basically a total wash. He played half the season in a totally different offense and gained very little meaningful experience. He is basically playing as a freshman in this system and looks like it.

 

[Xenomorph]

*

 

[thunderclap]

could have possibly imagined all the bad **** Lee would do over and over from the 30-in. I'm with you, also, in that from now on, once we get to the red zone, I tell him exactly what to do. No options. Either hand it to this guy or that guy or look for this guy on the post and if he's not open, don't look around, throw it in the stands. That alone would have won 2 out of the last 3 games.

 

[Rabid]

On each one of those plays that you mention there were wide open options. Tyson made poor choices. Furthermore, I don't think the coaches are putting Tyson "in position" to fumble the ball. He does that on his own.

I don't think your criticism of Coach Mullen is valid.

 

[Foronce]

C'mon that is all execution... 6 games into the year you ought to have enough snaps to throw a quick pass and the 4th down was a bad read not a poor call.

 

[DowntownDawg]

...critical 4th down play of his life. All we have to do is hand off against Houston, and instead we drop back and take a sack. Tyson makes poor decisions at important points in the game. There is ample evidence of that out there. Figure out a way to keep him from hurting you.

Go look at how Jackie handled Wayne Madkin when he was a young player. Just don't let him get you beat.

 

[patdog]

you'd be bitching that Mullen didn't give Lee the option to make the easy play up the middle. Mullen made two good calls at the end of that game. As for Jackie, he's the one who always said that players have to execute. Not to mention that he had a hell of a lot more to work with around Wayne Madkin than Mullen does with Lee.

 

[Rabid]

And a first year head coach.

Jackie Sherrill was at least in his 50s when he had Madkin, had been a head coach for years and had coached a QB named ... umm ... Marino?

Not a good comparison.

Even so, the plays that Mullen called had wide open options. You said as much yourself. They were good plays. Just poorly executed. I'm not one to beat up on Tyson, but it is what it is.

 

[DowntownDawg]

...I think an option on 4th down in that situation is just too much going on. Pitch it and if they stop it, they stop it. I'd rather just be stopped than get beat because my quarterback has been given 5 things to think about in half a second and can't make the right call.

We were crushing Houston running the ball. There is no excuse not to have the ball in a runningbacks hand, especially in the 4th quarter.

 

[AzzurriDawg4]

Dixon was open on that play because of the option.

 

[DowntownDawg]

...he didn't execute. And really, at that point against LSU, he had done a decent job of executing. However, at this point, it's time to keep him from making decisions that hurt us, especially when we have a capable offensive line and 4 capable runningbacks.

And I am not sure what you are saying about Jackie. My point was that Jackie was terrible at developing qb's, but he could keep them from getting you beat.

 

[DowntownDawg]

...Dixon would've made the corner. Ducre was out in front to block, and he didn't have anybody to touch. He would've made the corner, but it doesn't matter now.

 

[drunkernhelldawg]

And I want to say that Tyson made some great plays in the Houston game. He may not be as tall as your average SEC QB but he did a great job on his option runs in the second quarter and he also threw some very good passes. Your characterization of the empty backfield as "getting cute" is spot on. That's the way I look at the goal line against LSU, which continues to be defended. I'm truly amazed by the usually astute poster who says we'd be bitching if AD had been stuffed three times from the six inch line. When has AD been stuffed three times in a row?What percentage of his rushes have gone for no gain or a loss? Very low I think.

 

[DowntownDawg]

...and definitely gives us the best chance to win. His passing is getting sharper and he is pretty effective at running as well. His decision making is killing us. Quit asking him to make decisions and we win.

 

[patdog]

He said the reason Dixon was so open out wide was because they bit on the inside option. If it's a toss sweep like you now (2+ weeks later) say you wanted called, there's no inside option for them to bite on.

 

[DowntownDawg]

...which is why I said I disagreed with it. I think a toss sweep scores if we block it well without a fake. LSU was bunched in there tight to begin with. Ducre takes away the first guy and Dixon has a head of steam and gets to the corner. Or, just tell Lee to fake it and pitch it if you prefer. And to be fair, we didn't have the body of work then that we do now. Including that play and over the past 2 games, it's become clear that Lee's decision making is hurting us.

I really didn't have a problem with the call at the time, and there's no point in dissecting it now. I really think it was a good call. The problem with it, in hindsight, is that we asked our quarterback to make the decision. As hindsight is 20/20, three weeks later, a pattern has emerged. Lee makes bad decisions. He is not a bad player. He is actually a capable quarterback and makes plays that move us up and down the field. Just quit asking him to think and we'll be ok.

 

[Agentdog]

Downtown, I think you are all over it. When the game is on the line, You put the ball in your best player(s) hands. If they stop you, they were just better. You do not put the ball in one of your lesser talent hands and try to fool the opposition.

 

[patdog]

But on the other hand, we're averaging 27.5 points per game (6th in the SEC) even with all the turnovers and mistakes. With our talent, if we scale the offense down too much, it's going to be hard to score that many points.</p>

 

[LR1400]

Does he make calls that some of us deem questionable...sure. Does he make mistakes...sure.

But second guessing certain plays that have been successful when we have previously run them and wondering why he ran it again is BS.

 

[FlabLoser]

The option against LSU is one thing that keeps the safety in. It was a factor in Dixon being wide open for the pitch which should have been made.

Can't fault Mullen for the play-action against LSU. It was wide freakin open. If the play is wide open and the throw is an easy one to make, it was the right call. If we expect our QB can't make a play action lob pass to a wide open player, we might as well just take a knee. But if we run that play 10 more times, it works 10 times.

Alex Smith was not polished. He was a nobody. Utah was a nobody. They became great with good coaching.

Has Lee even started 10 games yet? I wonder how good Alex Smith was on his 10th start.

 

[DerHntr]

Rule #7. Comments on coaching and or playing are welcome no matter what your experience level in any sport.

i don't care what dan's left nut knows and how much more it knows than downtowndawg about X's and Os.

 

[AzzurriDawg4]

nm

 

[DowntownDawg]

...for instance, I have been thinking about the zone/read play. That play calls for Tyson to decide whether or not to keep the ball or hand it off. The announcers in the LSU/Florida game in the first half kept talking about how Florida was running that play, but that they were called dives. In other words, Tebow was going to hand it off no matter what. They really didn't have much success with it, and that's because if the defensive end is crashing in and you hand it off, the play basically gets stopped.

Tyson had a couple of great runs out of that play, but then fumbles it twice. The net effect is going three and out and punting, so I am sort of at a loss, except to say that against Houston, we could've run on them all day without doing anything remotely dangerous. That doesn't necessarily work against SEC defenses.

At the end of the day, even though Lee is a senior, he is playing his first real year of SEC football in a new system. And it's showing. I just think Mullen is used to Smith, Leak (who was a very experienced SEC player when Mullen got him), Tebow. I actually think that if you took away the fumbles, we'd all be very proud of Tyson's play. We'd probably be 4-2 right now.

I also think alot of this is inherent in the system. You've got to have a mentally tough qb to run this. That is why I am not anywhere near writing Russell off. I really don't think he is a less capable runner than Lee, and from what I have seen of him, he is very mentally tough. That's also why Relf will never be the answer.

 

[LR1400]

....is that even though we all agree (including him, I would think) that we don't have an SEC caliber qb, we continue to put our qb in a position to get us beat by making bad decisions. I realize that much of it is just inherent in the system, but I think we should modify that. Jackie rarely had good quarterbacks, and he was terrible at developing them, but one thing that he knew how to do was to keep the quarterback from getting you beat.

Against LSU on 4th down, if the called play is a toss sweep instead of an option (causing Lee to make a split second decision), we win the game. Against Houston, on the first drive, we come to a 3rd and 2 and line up in an empty back field. We tried to throw a little quick pass and can't complete it and end up punting and netting 20 yards or whatever. On a crucial late 4th quarter drive, we run all over them, going down the field, and then we decide to get cute and drop Lee back to pass. He makes a poor decision and doesn't get rid of the ball, taking a twelve yard sack. On 3rd and long, he makes another poor decision and throws a horrible interception when there were receivers open. This is not to mention the fumbles on the zone read play. Even if the runningbacks share some fault, there is obviously some indecision going on.

Simply put, we are asking Lee to think and do to much, and it has gotten us beat two of the last three weeks.

I think this is a young coach's mistake. Mullen's had Alex Smith, Chris Leak, and Tim Tebow. All of these guys were extremely polished and good decision makers. Not only is Lee a walkon, but his first year of SEC football was basically a total wash. He played half the season in a totally different offense and gained very little meaningful experience. He is basically playing as a freshman in this system and looks like it.

While some of your criticisms have some merit, who the hell calls a toss sweep on a 4th down play with ANTHONY DIXON! Someone like McCluster maybe maybe. Dixon would have gotten crushed and then you would be saying, "why the hell did we run a toss sweep on 4th down on the goal line!"

I cannot remember a time when someone did call a toss sweep on a 4th down on the goal line against a true SEC defense, which LSU is. Even when bunched up you cannot usually beat guys to the corner, especially not Dixon. If you could you would see it all the time and you don't. One half *** block on a DE or OLB on a toss sweep gets you a 4 yard loss.

 

[DowntownDawg]

...except that a fake to the fullback and a pitch to Dixon draws the safety in too. Just make it the coach's decision, not the qb's. Other than that, I have no problem with the call. And I have never complained about the play action. Great call, poor execution.

And I have made the point at least 3 times in this thread that Lee is still very inexperienced at this. He played a meaningless year last year and is basically playing in year one in a new system. To make it more difficult, everybody else is too.

 

[LR1400]

...for instance, I have been thinking about the zone/read play. That play calls for Tyson to decide whether or not to keep the ball or hand it off. The announcers in the LSU/Florida game in the first half kept talking about how Florida was running that play, but that they were called dives. In other words, Tebow was going to hand it off no matter what. They really didn't have much success with it, and that's because if the defensive end is crashing in and you hand it off, the play basically gets stopped.

Tyson had a couple of great runs out of that play, but then fumbles it twice. The net effect is going three and out and punting, so I am sort of at a loss, except to say that against Houston, we could've run on them all day without doing anything remotely dangerous. That doesn't necessarily work against SEC defenses.

At the end of the day, even though Lee is a senior, he is playing his first real year of SEC football in a new system. And it's showing. I just think Mullen is used to Smith, Leak (who was a very experienced SEC player when Mullen got him), Tebow. I actually think that if you took away the fumbles, we'd all be very proud of Tyson's play. We'd probably be 4-2 right now.

I also think alot of this is inherent in the system. You've got to have a mentally tough qb to run this. That is why I am not anywhere near writing Russell off. I really don't think he is a less capable runner than Lee, and from what I have seen of him, he is very mentally tough. That's also why Relf will never be the answer.

The reason why it didn't work is just as you say, LSU knew Tebow was not going to take the ball on a called run that game due to the concussion. Had it been another game you can damn well guarantee Tebow would have kept ANYTIME the DE crashed to the back.

 

[DerHntr]

</p>

 

[LR1400]

Dixon was open on that play because of the option.

100% CORRECT

 

[thatsbaseball]

nm

 

[AzzurriDawg4]

Thank you.

 

[Rabid]

It reads like: "How dare you tell me that I can't talk because I don't know ****?! I have RULES to protect me!"

ha ha

 

[patdog]

as Dan Mullen does. But that doesn't mean he doesn't make mistakes or that nobody on this board can recognize his mistakes when he does make them. He's not immune from criticism.

 

[Rabid]

I just think it's funny how Der protests.

 

[DerHntr]

it is easier to simply post a basic rule rather than responding with "your and dubmass" or "FAIL" or "i can say what i want" because the poster i am responding to will then have some other stupid response and then we go back and forth until someone points to the rules. it gets there eventually. why not go ahead and get it overwith? the rules are pretty basic and hence are easier to copy and paste. i am all for less dubmassedry and more easiness. clearly you are for more dubmassedry.

 

[dawgstudent]

who says we don't know ****?

 

[saddawg]

I can't believe you are criticizing Mullen's offensive plan when you spent a lot of time last year taking up for Croom.

Hell, you and I were at war for a week over it.

You said running the spread wouldn't matter last year.

If State scores 18 points this weekend they will equal last years total for the year.

Excuse me if I don't pay much attention to your thoughts on offense.

 

[DowntownDawg]

...and I was dead wrong. I admitted that long ago.

If it makes you feel any better, I don't pay much attention to your thoughts on anything.

 

[saddawg]

You can always learn something new.

I'll listen to you on anything but football.