Our Offense vs. Nebraska (Long)

bshaw28

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I rewatched the game - just our offensive plays. My main reason was to figure out wtf is going on with Stacey Coley, but here's my comments overall.

James Coley:
The Good - I thought it was a really well called game. He involved the TE and Duke in the passing game. He used the middle of the field. The plays made sense for the down/distance/situation. No random "what were you thinking???" calls. He didn't shackle Kayaa, and didn't ask him to do too much either.

The Bad - Substitution patterns (I get into that below). Too many bubble screens (8 total). The "BS" worked a little better when Walford was split out wide, but most of the time it's Dorsett or Berrios trying to be lead blockers (unsuccessfully). The 2 minute offense...I'm not sure we have one. We got the ball down 17 with 4 minutes left and all 3 timeouts. Highly unlikely we come back, but you at least try, right? We never hurried and still looked to the sidelines for plays. At least run the 2 minute drill so Kayaa gets experience with it. I have a feeling if we had the ball down 5 with 2 minutes left, our offense would've looked like a circus.

Offensive Line
Played pretty well. Gregory is a beast so you can't hold him down the whole game, but Kayaa had time to throw. There were holes in the running game, more so in the 1st half than 2nd, but I never thought the OL got manhandled.

Kaaya
The Good - He could end up being special. I've heard the "We have our QB!" line before - Wright (FSU 05), Harris (FSU 09), Morris (He's gonna be a 1st round pick!) - but I believe this one. He's gaining confidence. He already has the things that you can't teach (size) or are hardest to teach (accuracy, poise, reading defenses, making progressions), and will continue to get better. He was on the money almost all night and the two picks - I thought Walford could've fought harder, and the 4th & 4 was just a tough situation/bad read.

The Bad - He doesn't have the strength to throw a good deep ball yet IMO. We went long twice - 1 was a duck (Dorsett blew right past the CB), and the other a jump ball (Dorsett made a great play - but jump balls aren't really any of our WR's strength). I know he hit Dorsett twice against Ak St. & FAMU, but one was late and hung up there for too long. Throws over 20 yards down field, lack accuracy and zip at this point IMO. I saw some small mistakes still - backfoot throws, not throwing the ball away, not watching the play clock - but experience and physical maturity will solve those things.

Wide Receivers
Stacey Coley - He lined up for 4 Offensive plays. Just 4. 3 bubble screens thrown to him, and another bubble screen where he was a decoy. The shoulder was still bothering him after the first one he caught. He was on the field for a 2 plays in our last drive, but so was Yearby for the first time all game, so I chalk that up Coley's wtf 2 minute drill.

So for the stupid "Coley hasn't done anything" and "Coley has regressed" comments that will pop up this week, here's a couple things - 1) He's been hurt the last 2 games 2) He got the ball 3 out of the 4 times he was on the field and 5 of our first 10 passes at Louisville were intended for Coley (we know we need to get him the ball). He's still our 2nd best playmaker behind Duke, so I expect Coley to blow up as soon as he's healthy again.

2 WR Sets - This was almost exclusively Dorsett and Berrios. Dorsett and Lewis was the only other combo.
3 WR Sets - This was always Dorsett/Berrios/Lewis (Walford was split wide too pretty often)
4 WR sets - Waters was mostly the 4th WR, but he only got in when we used 4 WR's. Coley was the only other WR used.

This is just weird to me. Berrios almost never left the field and was the first option probably more than any other WR. My assumption is that Kaaya is most comfortable with Berrios, who I like, but don't think should be getting THAT much playing time at this point. Seems hard to believe he's already jumped ahead of Lewis and Waters. Walford was probably split wide as a WR more than Waters saw the field. It worked, but I think Herb needs to see the field more, and we should switch up the WR combos. All played a really good game (outside of the Berrios drop).

Running Backs
Duke is Duke - our best player/weapon/leader by far, and he's fighting hard as **** out there. I still think the extra weight has taken away some speed & agility. Not saying he's slow, he's still fast as ****, just not AS fast or AS quick. But I understand he needs the weight....because Coley is going to run his *** into the ground again. If Duke is going to get 25-30 touches a game, Coley HAS GOT to start mixing in other RB's earlier and more often. It'll keep Duke fresh for the 4th quarter of games, and help him stay healthy for the full season. Duke is not a 230 lb. workhorse. Which leads me to...

Gus/Yearby/Gray - I don't care who you prefer, but 1 of them has to start getting more carries. In the 1st half of our 4 games, Gus has 2 carries and Yearby has 1 (don't get me started on Ron Regula). That just can't happen. Duke can't only come out when he's physically exhausted (which he is on a lot of plays where he's still in). It's going to get him hurt again if we never rotate in another RB.
 
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The limited utilization of Stacy Coley has been strange but can be explained by injury. I can buy that. The real mystery to me is WTF is going on with Herb Waters? His disappearance is troubling to me. Outside of Coley he is our most well rounded WR. Waters can be used in a variety of ways and can run every route but the coaches are keeping him off the field. Makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Must be a product of the Al Golden clown show. I don't know how else to explain it.
 
Count me among the crowd who can't understand why Waters doesn't get more action ... Especially over Berrios.

With Coley hurt, Berrios playing in the 4 WR sets makes sense. But for 2-3 WR sets, it should either be Coley or Lewis in the slot.

Berrios doesn't have special size or speed, so I'm not sure why there's a rush to get him on the field. Seems a bit of favoritism is going on. And his play hasn't justified it ...

And to the game ... Somebody help me understand how we don't get the ball to #8 on either down, with the game still in the balance and only needing to gain 4 yards???
 
Waters and Berrios don't play the same position so you can't compare playing time but Herb is so explosive and has some shake so if Coley is hurt then Herb needs touched

My only complaint with James Coley was the 3rd and 4 which led to 4th and 4 INT.

You know u have two downs to get 4 yards and Duke Johnson isn't touching the ball either time? We ran the ball well. Duke should have gotten the ball twice. I would have rather got stopped twice that way.
 
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Berrios is too good to be kept off the field. That's why he's running with the 1s. He had 1 drop. It was bad. Other wrs have done that here if you recall. Dorsett looks great. Malcolm looks great. I loved how we looked out of the shotgun. A decent staff would realize we should never have a fullback on the field and spread teams out. I love Kaaya in the shotgun.

Lots of encouraging stuff on offense I thought.
 
Can I get a RB screen?

This was the best I've seen us use Duke in the passing game: had over 80 yards receiving and they were getting him in space. I only think 1 was a screen but sure hope to see more of this moving forward.
 
Abdullah is basically the same size as Duke, and he carried the ball 35 times against us, and had 5 other touches. Herb is tied for 3rd on the team with 10 catches.

offense is getting better.
 
Can I get a RB screen?

This was the best I've seen us use Duke in the passing game: had over 80 yards receiving and they were getting him in space. I only think 1 was a screen but sure hope to see more of this moving forward.

Duke shouldn't be getting 20+ carries a game running between the tackles. His carries should be in the mid to high teens. He should get 4-8 touches in the passing game every game. Out of the backfield, from the slot, out wide, screens... He's a walking mismatch.
 
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I had been critical of Coley in the past but I am starting to think his play calling was being limited by Golden. He did call a good game and I see continued improvement in the offense and Kaaya.
Actually I think the offense is starting to gain confidence. The skirmishes they had toward the end of the game showed some toughness I have not seen here in a while. Perhaps they're developing an attitude and identity on offense.
 
Can I get a RB screen?

This was the best I've seen us use Duke in the passing game: had over 80 yards receiving and they were getting him in space. I only think 1 was a screen but sure hope to see more of this moving forward.

Duke shouldn't be getting 20+ carries a game running between the tackles. His carries should be in the mid to high teens. He should get 4-8 touches in the passing game every game. Out of the backfield, from the slot, out wide, screens... He's a walking mismatch.

I don't agree with that at all. If your not going to get him more than 22-25 touches in the totality of a game then you **** well better be using him on returns. Abdullah had 35 carries and he was still returning kicks, and I have a feeling Duke is in good enough condition to handle the load. And I bet if you asked him he would tell you he wants the ball that much. The simple fact that he has only had one game of 20 plus carries is a complete waste of use for your best player.

As for Herbs, ten catches like 6 came on one drive late in the Louisville game. Herb has shown some explosion and I think we need to see more of him. I also would like to see us be a bit more creative with Dorsett.. How about a crossing route? I mean just think of what that does to bracket coverage, it runs TWO guys across the field, I would think that would leave some openings for other guys. I wish we would NEVER run an out pattern on 3rd or 4th down. How many did we run to Hurns and EVERYONE on the field knew where it was going, there is a reason the safety was standing there PRE snap.....

I see a lot of plays being made by playmakers, no necessarily good play calls. Kaaya is doing a good job as a freshman... but we are going to undoubtedly have a couple of plays that will cost us games this year. That pick on fourth and four was a serious blow for us at that point.

Speaking of that drive, how the **** does Duke not get the carry BOTH downs? I don't care what you want to say, when the game is on the line your best player gets the ball, and its not Kaaya right now. That should have been a 4 wide draw on third down, and then again on fourth.
 
I tire of the "duke is too small to get x number of carries" bs that gets regurgitated over and over. He's not. This is college. There are an endless number of rbs in the size range of duke who have been the feature back and carry the ball a ton. NFL? Probably not going to happen. College? Shouldn't be a problem.

The problem with duke running between the tackles isn't duke, it's the oline. When we try to play power football the guy has to juke 3 defenders just to get back to the line of scrimmage. That's the main thing that should dictate how we use duke. Scrap the power sets and go 3 and 4 wide and run the ball with him out of spread so he's not getting demolished 1 nanosecond after receiving the handoff. Also, continue to throw the ball to him any way we can, that was very encouraging. We seemed to get away from that later in the game in my opinion. Even something as simple as a swing pass to duke is probably going to be a positive play because 9 times out of 10 he's going to make that first guy miss.
 
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Berrios is too good to be kept off the field. That's why he's running with the 1s. He had 1 drop. It was bad. Other wrs have done that here if you recall. Dorsett looks great. Malcolm looks great. I loved how we looked out of the shotgun. A decent staff would realize we should never have a fullback on the field and spread teams out. I love Kaaya in the shotgun.

Lots of encouraging stuff on offense I thought.

Noticed the same thing. Kaaya looks way better out of the gun than he does from under center. He's able to see the field better and has more time to think.
 
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