My main issue with Enos is that some of the concepts he wants to run look great on a whiteboard, but we aren't executing them well enough to trot them out in a game yet. He's not recognizing that, and shelving those plays until they're ready for primetime like he should be. Instead, he's running a little of everything, and we aren't executing it all well enough. What he needs to do is recognize what we're doing best, and who his best personnel is...and stick to those things....and blend in the other stuff when it's ready. Two things were working with great success on Saturday: running Deejay downhill, and finding the TE's. We should have ran Deejay like crazy, and continued to throw to Mallory/Jordan until they showed they could stop either one or both. Instead, we got cute w/too much playaction and slower developing plays at that. I don't understand why after the first drive, he didn't come back with almost exactly the same script as the first drive to see what adjustments (if any) CMU had made.
As an offensive playcaller, Enos seems like he tries to be the smartest guy in the room at all times when keeping it simple would work better. Take the situation when we were backed up inside our own 15 against CMU...why run playaction on 3rd down that close to your own endzone? Take a straight dropback, or line up in the gun. Give Jarren a chance to get the ball out on 3rd and long. One thing that CMU in particular was doing was defending the sticks on 3rd and long. They weren't dropping super-deep. They were trying to keep us from getting the first down...and giving us opportunities to throw the deep ball over their heads...and we never tried to take advantage. How many deep shots did we take? 1 or 2, if that? That's far from enough.
Recognize that running slow developing traps/counter treys in the run game wasn't working as well, and start giving Deejay/Harris the ball on running plays where they can hit the holes quickly. CMU's DL was being fast/aggressive - use that against them. In the running game in particular, we've seen multiple times how our OLs pulling are getting in the way of our RBs. Either coach the OLs to move their asses better so they don't gum up the works for the RBs, or teach your RBs to press the hole longer and wait on the OLs to get their block set up. OR EVEN BETTER - it's ******* CMU. Go hat on a hat and let Deejay/Harris hit the holes hard on quicker design run plays.
The ultimate thing that I'm upset with Enos and really the whole staff about is that I'm not seeing week-to-week improvement. I'm seeing us find new ways to make the same mistakes. Penalties, lack of execution, missed assignments, etc. That's the sign of a team that doesn't have any football IQ being taught to them in practice. Some guys have natural awareness (see Jaquan Johnson), and don't need to be taught that you can break up a pass w/o riding the receiver with your off-hand, drawing a PI flag...for example. I'm seeing WRs not running routes past the sticks on 3rd down. I'm seeing OL playing with sloppy, passive techniques far too often. The staff should be correcting these things when they occur in practice or in the game...and it doesn't look like that's happening, because we're seeing regression instead of progression week-to-week.