Lashlee and TVD were a great match. that kind of offensive system + TVD's arm strength and overall talent is going to equal a ton of yards and points in college football. it's really just that simple.
the trade that we are making with Cristobal is relinquishing an offense that pushes the ball downfield for explosive pass plays in exchange for a team that is overall more physically prepared to play high level, championship contending football. whether we were 7-5 last year because we couldn't convert third and short feels like not seeing the forest for the trees. we will probably be better in short yardage this year but that will be a symptom of just having a team and program that is, on a macro level, much more ready to compete -- the fact that our defense last year couldn't tackle feels related to the fact that our offensive line couldn't get push in short yardage. all this stuff should be better this year because we have a coach that thinks a certain way, and that also influences his offensive POV.
if you look at how guys like Saban, Kirby, Urban coach, there is a correlation (for whatever reason) between recruiting at a certain level -> having a team that looks a certain way athletically/physically -> playing a brand of offensive football that keeps hyper-explosive, pass-happy offenses at arm's distance. Saban of course has loosened his offenses up, but title winning teams in the last 10-15 years have generally had balanced, even run-heavy offenses. I guess the thinking is that if you can mash people and be hyper-efficient running the ball, you might as well do that. it's important to note that there have been teams who have done it differently -- 2019 LSU had probably the best offense in the history of the sport and they were throwing the ball all over the place. they also had what may end up being an NFL Hall of Fame QB and two Hall of Fame WRs.
ultimately, stylistically speaking, we hired a Nick Saban not a Lincoln Riley. we'll see how the results play out, but if Mario recruits at a certain level the success should be there.
as for Lashlee, we should keep in mind he was getting hired by SMU regardless. so we would have had a new OC anyway, probably a similar system/vision but the exact offense we saw last year was never coming back. I also had issues with how he coached against teams like Clemson -- the Malzahn and Briles systems are based on simplicity, and I never felt like Lashlee was coming into those games with a team-specific game plan. he very much wanted to run his stuff, which with those systems is going to work almost every time against the average college football team. but we have higher aspirations now.
