Revisiting Old WSU Thread

[messageboardsuperhero]

When the news of Leach coming here broke, a Washington State fan came here and answered some questions. It’s crazy how prophetic some of it is:

https://forums.sixpackspeak.com/showthread.php?209070-WSU-fan-here&highlight=Washington+state

“(How long does it take) to install his offense? About a week. To perfect it? A couple years.”

 

[Ralph Cramden]

Spot on so far

 

[M R DAWGS]

That guy was speaking truth.

 

[philduckworth]

that guy killed it.

 

[IBleedMaroonDawg]

Reminding us of the days when we would all draw up inside because the WR would just drop the pass.

Yah I remember.

 

[CadaverDawg]

Very prophetic indeed.

2 things that stood out that scare me, and are why I feel Leach won't succeed here...

1. Lost 8 straight to UW bc they recruited well on defense, and could rush 3/drop 8 and still get pressure on the QB

- Every team we play recruits on D equally or better than UW, and to no surprise most of them are rushing 3/dropping 8 and shutting us down while pressuring the QB with 3.

2. WR's lack big play ability

- Seems we struggle with that too. And when #1 is what it is, it makes it harder to score when you can't do #2 and hit big plays every now and then.


Honestly I didn't love reading that. But I may just be looking at it through a negative lense.

 

[PineGroveBully]

I think our receivers/RBs are perfectly capable of making bigs chunk plays if we would just put them in position to do so and/or Will recognizes when we have the matchups to do so.

 

[Dawg1976]

Very prophetic indeed.

2 things that stood out that scare me, and are why I feel Leach won't succeed here...

1. Lost 8 straight to UW bc they recruited well on defense, and could rush 3/drop 8 and still get pressure on the QB

- Every team we play recruits on D equally or better than UW, and to no surprise most of them are rushing 3/dropping 8 and shutting us down while pressuring the QB with 3.

2. WR's lack big play ability

- Seems we struggle with that too. And when #1 is what it is, it makes it harder to score when you can't do #2 and hit big plays every now and then.


Honestly I didn't love reading that. But I may just be looking at it through a negative lense.

Me either. I think about all we can hope for is 6-6 seasons with him in the SEC and hope like hell Kiffin leaves OM soon.

 

[Leeshouldveflanked]

Me either. I think about all we can hope for is 6-6 seasons with him in the SEC and hope like hell Kiffin leaves OM soon.

I don’t think Kiffin is going anywhere anytime soon. Cohen held all the cards 4 years ago and Ole Miss was a sinking ship and Cohen blew it.

 

[msugolf]

Jimmy Lake at UW laid the blueprint of what you have to do. Go back and look at stats of whenever Leach played an above average D (UW and Utah) and you will see similar stats to what we’ve seen so far, lots of yardage on high pass attempts but few points scored…and losses.

Good Defensive coordinators must love when game week against our offense shows up. There is very little film work to do and they know what defense to play 95 percent of the game. And vice versa, anytime you know the defense alignment teams are going to play for the entire game and you still struggle to score then your offensive philosophy is broken.

One and a half more years of this is what we have to endure.

 

[messageboardsuperhero]

Very prophetic indeed.

2 things that stood out that scare me, and are why I feel Leach won't succeed here...

1. Lost 8 straight to UW bc they recruited well on defense, and could rush 3/drop 8 and still get pressure on the QB

- Every team we play recruits on D equally or better than UW, and to no surprise most of them are rushing 3/dropping 8 and shutting us down while pressuring the QB with 3.

2. WR's lack big play ability

- Seems we struggle with that too. And when #1 is what it is, it makes it harder to score when you can't do #2 and hit big plays every now and then.


Honestly I didn't love reading that. But I may just be looking at it through a negative lense.

1) I’m going to have to see more before I agree with your first point. We just went up against arguably the best pass rush in America this weekend (at least to this point), and our OL made their 3-4 guys rushing a non-factor. And even did a good job in the run game.

Our OL struggled A LOT early last season but has quietly been improving steadily since then. Let’s see how the season plays out, but our offense has really not been “shut down” in the same way that UW shut down WSU since early last season. Auburn late last year and NC State this year were successful against us, but those teams actually played a lot of man and NC State didn’t put up much of a pass rush.

2) Our WRs aren’t super explosive, but it’s hard to be explosive when the QB isn’t pushing the ball down the field as much as he probably should. Then when he did against LSU, our guys didn’t make the plays.

To me, it is more of a consistency issue with our WRs than an explosive issue- whereas our QB is pretty consistent but not very explosive. I think our WR and QB play is going to get better this year and into next year.



All in all, nothing that the WSU guy posted made me feel bad. It was just confirmation to me that this is still a work in progress. Year 1 was always going to suck, and we should have seen it coming. Year 2 you show improvement but still have some struggles. After that, you are much better and basically have a good-to-elite offense every other year he’s here.

I don’t love the fact that it takes this long, but it’s what Cohen signed us up for. You can’t throw the baby out with the bath water while you’re going through the growing pains. Especially considering what we are going through now is identical to WSU and TTU.

 

[oxfordrebel22]

Very prophetic indeed.

2 things that stood out that scare me, and are why I feel Leach won't succeed here...

1. Lost 8 straight to UW bc they recruited well on defense, and could rush 3/drop 8 and still get pressure on the QB

- Every team we play recruits on D equally or better than UW, and to no surprise most of them are rushing 3/dropping 8 and shutting us down while pressuring the QB with 3.

2. WR's lack big play ability

- Seems we struggle with that too. And when #1 is what it is, it makes it harder to score when you can't do #2 and hit big plays every now and then.


Honestly I didn't love reading that. But I may just be looking at it through a negative lense.

I read a lot of it, and that UW comment on the drop 8 stood out to me, too. But, I will say Washington had some elite defenses with a lot of NFL talent under Peterson. I’d say most years they’d have been a Top 3-4 SEC defense.

 

[8dog]

Saying he is recruiting proof is depressing. Probably why the staff doesnt quite get it. He isnt running any magic routes. We need to recruit.

 

[57stratdawg]

It’s tougher on WRs than we give them credit for. The spacing involved in this offense in everything. There was a former WSU WR who wrote a piece or two on MSU 247, and he talked about how he learned on deeper routes to fight for outside leverage even if the DB was giving you a free inside release. That’s because his route is as much about removing coverage as it is about getting open. By taking that free inside release, that boundary DB isn’t removed from coverage which means everything else is harder to execute.

I think we’re running into this in year two. We have a chance to be pretty damn good next year. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it click in the 2H of this year.

 

[Smoked Toag]

Saying he is recruiting proof is depressing. Probably why the staff doesnt quite get it. He isnt running any magic routes. We need to recruit.

He said the offense is recruiting proof. Big difference.

Of course he also said crootin isn't Leach's strong point. But that could be because he was at schools that weren't good crooters. That hasn't changed now at MSU, so best we can hope for is to stay in the mid-20s and slowly move up as we have more success.

 

[CoastDawg18]

Well, reading that kinda sucks. He nailed everything. If a fan can predict things that well how do you think opposing coaching staffs are going to do?

 

[Choctaw Dawg]

Him saying Tuel was a pretty decent QB his Sophmore/Junior year before Leach got there and then looking like a deer in the headlights for the air raid his senior year should have been prophetic for what was coming with Costello

 

[johnson86-1]

Very prophetic indeed.

2 things that stood out that scare me, and are why I feel Leach won't succeed here...

1. Lost 8 straight to UW bc they recruited well on defense, and could rush 3/drop 8 and still get pressure on the QB

I think anytime we are playing a defensive line that can consistently get pressure rushing 3, we are probably going to be 17ed no matter what system we run. Certainly Leach could do better adapting to it, but I'm not sure how much difference it's realistically going to make if the talent disparity in the DL and OL is that big.

- Every team we play recruits on D equally or better than UW, and to no surprise most of them are rushing 3/dropping 8 and shutting us down while pressuring the QB with 3.

EVery team recruits as well or better than UW, but we recruit better than WSU. We'll see if he can develop OLs that can consistently block 3 against top tier SEC DL's, but I'm encouraged so far by how much progress we've made this year.

2. WR's lack big play ability

- Seems we struggle with that too. And when #1 is what it is, it makes it harder to score when you can't do #2 and hit big plays every now and then.

Can't argue with this. The positive spin is that some of that is probably Will not pushing the ball as much as he should and also us still not being dialed in as far as running the offense. A little bit better execution could open up bigger plays and also improve our ability to score in the red zone.

Honestly I didn't love reading that. But I may just be looking at it through a negative lense.

I think that is just looking at it through a negative lens. That basically just emphasized the same unknown questions we had from last year. (1) Can we put together an OL that can consistently block 3 against elite SEC defenses (or even good SEC defenses). (2) If we can block 3, can we be consistent enough on offense to force people out of the drop 8 coverage.

I'm encouraged on the first question. I'm not sure we'll be able to block elite DL's, but I think we can do at least as well as we did under Dan, which is have 10 games a year where our OL play doesn't doom us before the start. I'm less encouraged on the second question. We can force people out of the drop 8 by (1) running (which would be my preference but seems to be off the table), (2) getting big chunks even against drop 8 coverage (not sure this is realistic), or (3) just convincing DC's that we will score consistently in the red zone, which turns it into a bend, then probably eventually break, which will make it much less enticing to DCs. With how high octane offenses are now, I'm not sure we're going to get TD's consistently enough in the red zone to convince teams to abandon the drop 8. I think 10 or maybe even 5 years ago, we could have taken a lot of field goals and that would have been enough scoring to win. I'm just not sure FGs are enough with today's offenses.

 

[messageboardsuperhero]

- Every team we play recruits on D equally or better than UW, and to no surprise most of them are rushing 3/dropping 8 and shutting us down while pressuring the QB with 3

Also, this is not true at all. Not even remotely true.

https://247sports.com/Season/2021-Football/CollegeTeamTalentComposite/

Per 247 team talent rankings, only Alabama, LSU, A&M, and Auburn are on the same or higher level as UW, USC, Stanford, or Oregon. Georgia and Florida are too, but we only play them once every every six years. Schedules will be shaken up soon, but this is what we have right now.

Leach routinely lit up USC, Stanford, and Oregon like a Christmas tree. UW did kill Leach’s offense because they could dominate the LOS with three guys, but guess what? We just saw arguably the best pass rushing DL in America and totally neutralized them.

Again, all of our fans act like every defense with an SEC patch on their chest is the 85 Bears when that is not the case. Look at our schedule in a given year. More than 50% of those teams recruit at a lower level than what teams Leach demolished at WSU.

SP+ had the SEC ranked as only the third best defensive league in the country last year. I don’t necessarily buy that, but the defenses in this league are not invincible like some claim.

 

[Smoked Toag]

Also, this is not true at all. Not even remotely true.

https://247sports.com/Season/2021-Football/CollegeTeamTalentComposite/

Per 247 team talent rankings, only Alabama, LSU, A&M, and Auburn are on the same or higher level as UW, USC, Stanford, or Oregon. Georgia and Florida are too, but we only play them once every every six years. Schedules will be shaken up soon, but this is what we have right now.

Leach routinely lit up USC, Stanford, and Oregon like a Christmas tree. UW did kill Leach’s offense because they could dominate the LOS with three guys, but guess what? We just saw arguably the best pass rushing DL in America and totally neutralized them.

Again, all of our fans act like every defense with an SEC patch on their chest is the 85 Bears when that is not the case. Look at our schedule in a given year. More than 50% of those teams recruit at a lower level than what teams Leach demolished at WSU.

SP+ had the SEC ranked as only the third best defensive league in the country last year. I don’t necessarily buy that, but the defenses in this league are not invincible like some claim.

You are doing an excellent job of exposing the ED idiots today. Bravo.

 

[Ralph Cramden]

Facts hurt

 

[The Peeper]

The Pac12 has been all about parity for the last decade or so. While it certainly lacks the top end programs the SEC features, there really aren't any gimmes either.
So how much of Leach's success was due to not having elite programs......

Ding Ding Ding, you're not playing teams in the weak arse Pac12 anymore Coach

 

[messageboardsuperhero]

Ding Ding Ding, you're not playing teams in the weak arse Pac12 anymore Coach

Our offense last year against an SEC only schedule and with no spring was no worse than WSU’s offense in year 1 of the Pac12. We’ll see how this season plays out, but our current offensive results are pretty similar to what WSU did in Leach’s second season there too.