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Plays that excited me, Plays that scared me

CANE1775 said:
Redoing since my post disappeared.

My biggest concern is the simplicity AND the predictability. Now granted I do have to take into consideration that we won't have a dose of uga, bama, and lsu on the schedule every year, but if Lashlee keeps up with Malzahn's mo we're not going to see much different than what we saw last night. If you think certain aspects of Baker (with regards to predictability) drives you crazy, then the Rhett Lashlee that I'm familiar with is going to cause you to drink. I realize last night was one game, this season/offseason is like no other, and Lashlee has branched off to learn other philosophies/systems, so I'm trying not to jump the gun, but we shall see. In a nutshell and not trying to take over the thread so we can discuss a bit more in another thread, there are 3 things that I'm watching with Lashlee.

1) simplicity/predictability/tendency
2) WR route tree
3) QB recruiting - recruiting QB's that don't fit what works best for the offense. Ask any Auburn fan if they are surprised that we seem to be infatuated with Jake Garcia and I guarantee the response will be, mini-Gus is just doing what big-Gus taught him. :)

With that said, we will have some offensive explosions. We will have many games where we rush for 300+ yards. I also wouldn't be shocked to see games where we score on the first drive and then never score again. Gotta crawl before you walk though I guess.
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That's a **** of a post. We'd have an awesome time watching a football game. Appreciate the nuance in your insight.

If you scroll up to post #35 in this thread, you'll see I'm well-aware of the Malzahn effect. I've always been fascinated by his ascension and how he's settled into CFB, so I've watched an unnecessary amount of his playcalling. To be perfectly clear, I'm not expecting that much different than last night.

I am, however, expecting way more RPO. The route trees are going to be exactly what they have been for Lashlee across all his stops. But little playcalling wrinkles will begin to pop up in the passing game, too. For example, we didn't do almost anything with the HBack yesterday. In the run game, we almost overemphasized inside zone when I know and have watched Rhett call the counters to it. Didn't see a jet sweep, but hinted at it with Pope, for example.

I'm with you. I expect predictability. What frustrates me about Baker isn't so much his predictability. It's his reliance on predictable things that have evidence of not working (certain DB blitzes, certain DL games and blitzes). I know Malzahn has sometimes been crucified by fans for this, but you said it perfectly: we play different opponents. Simplicity on what works is better for us than the alternative.
 
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LuCane said:
I think your 50/25/25 scenario is a safe prediction. I think you're slightly underselling the potential volume, though. Ha.

Everyone needs to put their arms around the fact Lashlee is a Malzahn disciple, but like maybe THE disciple. I know he has other experiences, but dude is going to run the ******* ball. And, that's a very good thing.
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He definitely wants to run the ball. And he's going to run the ball. Either they stop it, or they don't. Honestly, you'll be able to look at the stat line and know if we won the game. If we rush for 300+, we won. If we rushed for about 125 or less, we lost. It's funny because if a team averages **** near 200 yards per game you'd think that's good, but not with a Malzahn type offense. If we aren't averaging well over 200 yards per game, there's a problem.
 
Loved both freshmen backs but as long as Cam is healthy enough to go you absolutely don't replace him and I don't see him getting passed up as the starter. He's not the receiving threat that Homer and Dallas were but he's a better runner than both of them were. With that said I like the rotation we had to change pace and keep them all fresh
 
motorcitycane said:
schematically on defense this tends to jump off the screen a lot. Something is broken there. Miami does enough with its aggression to win.....but some of these things are easily defensed.

We have great players on the DL. I wonder what it would look like to just let them eat 1 on 1 and play man coverage.

**** yeah. Knighton and Chaney both getting busy. I can live with that.
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motorcitycane said:
schematically on defense this tends to jump off the screen a lot. Something is broken there. Miami does enough with its aggression to win.....but some of these things are easily defensed.

We have great players on the DL. I wonder what it would look like to just let them eat 1 on 1 and play man coverage.

**** yeah. Knighton and Chaney both getting busy. I can live with that.
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"We have great players on the DL. I wonder what it would look like to just let them eat 1 on 1 and play man coverage."

I do too...I thought I was only one thinking this. Like the Blake Baker method of let me stand my D Ends up etc etc isn't a MD defense. I get Manny wants to give him some latitude but he's not some hotshot D Coord that was highly coveted turning down offers from major P5 programs. Cover 2 Man defense vs this QB with a little zone was all we needed last night.
 
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LuCane said:
I think we were doing exactly what Gus Malzahn does. If the opponent's hands are low, keep hitting him in the chin with the jab. With such little prep time (in terms of spring game, game-like scenarios, etc.), it's a bit odd so many people expected us to be the KC Chiefs during game 1. Whether we were "saving" stuff or not, I don't know. We obviously have way more RPO stuff than we saw.

We have:

- A new QB getting timing down (with his WRs/TEs) in game scenarios
- An almost entirely new OL architecture
- A new offense
- A non-traditional spring and fall practice setup
- Our most talented players right now are our QB, RBs, TEs
- Our OL clearly still has holes pass-blocking

It's just math. What I like about Lashlee's approach, like I do about Malzahn, is that they're practical playcallers most of the time. They may have other issues, but that's for another post. Put it this way, if we're using last year's evidence, Enos would have somehow gone away from what worked. It's just way too early to judge the offense on anything more than "****, we somehow lined up for 78 plays...not bad."
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Agree with you on all accounts. I’ve always been of the mindset you keep doing what works until the defense stops you, and we pounded the rock all game. Was just disappointed in the usage of Jordan and Mallory, feel like they need to be a much bigger part of the plan moving forward.

also feel like if this was an Enos led offense we would have lost the game last night.
 
LuCane said:
That's a **** of a post. We'd have an awesome time watching a football game. Appreciate the nuance in your insight.

If you scroll up to post #35 in this thread, you'll see I'm well-aware of the Malzahn effect. I've always been fascinated by his ascension and how he's settled into CFB, so I've watched an unnecessary amount of his playcalling. To be perfectly clear, I'm not expecting that much different than last night.

I am, however, expecting way more RPO. The route trees are going to be exactly what they have been for Lashlee across all his stops. But little playcalling wrinkles will begin to pop up in the passing game, too. For example, we didn't do almost anything with the HBack yesterday. In the run game, we almost overemphasized inside zone when I know and have watched Rhett call the counters to it. Didn't see a jet sweep, but hinted at it with Pope, for example.

I'm with you. I expect predictability. What frustrates me about Baker isn't so much his predictability. It's his reliance on predictable things that have evidence of not working (certain DB blitzes, certain DL games and blitzes). I know Malzahn has sometimes been crucified by fans for this, but you said it perfectly: we play different opponents. Simplicity on what works is better for us than the alternative.
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Good post. There will definitely be wrinkles. Good call on the jet sweet. That will definitely come into play. I'm trying to give Lashlee a chance and honestly will admit that I'm at the stage of madness mostly because of Malzahn. Dude will call one helluva game and you're like Ok here we go and then BAM, fat dude watching from the stands will know the playcalls ahead of time. Like I said earlier, though, guys like Chaney and Knighton are going to make a lot of **** plays as long as Lashlee is here. They have what you just can't teach. With all of that said, thank God that football is back!!
 
Canesfan1899 said:
Agree with you on all accounts. I’ve always been of the mindset you keep doing what works until the defense stops you, and we pounded the rock all game. Was just disappointed in the usage of Jordan and Mallory, feel like they need to be a much bigger part of the plan moving forward.
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When we run a PA inside handoff and Mallory comes across the formation to catch a wide open pass in the flat, just know it was saved for that moment. I watched like 20 Lashlee games this offseason and saw it repeatedly with his HBack. Side note: i think Hodges is really good for that role.
 
brock said:
Go watch some of the throws he made in that post I posted That charter every throw, of course he was off a few throws and had a few throws but the ball placement was on the money for majority of his throws
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I’m gonna rewatch the game when I get a minute, so any comments I’m making are just off watching it live. The reason inaccurate is in my head may just be that he missed a few times early. But his completion % in the 4 games he played last year wasn’t good either. 59% I believe.
 
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LuCane said:
When we run a PA inside handoff and Mallory comes across the formation to catch a wide open pass in the flat, just know it was saved for that moment. I watched like 20 Lashlee games this offseason and saw it repeatedly with his HBack. Side note: i think Hodges is really good for that role.
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Great mention! One thing that I will give Malzahn (and Lashlee) credit for is their persistence will open something up at the best possible time and as a fan you're like, "that's my f**kin coach right there!" LMAO
Then he'll try the same thing again and you're like, "this mutha............!"
 
I know that it has been mentioned, but with UAB stacking the box, we still managed to run for over 300. That is one thing that stood out to me. I am not crowning the OL , just saying I see hope!
 
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CANE1775 said:
Great mention! One thing that I will give Malzahn (and Lashlee) credit for is their persistence will open something up at the best possible time and as a fan you're like, "that's my f**kin coach right there!" LMAO
Then he'll try the same thing again and you're like, "this mutha............!"
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It's almost stupid to say, but message board discussions have had an actual impact on my perspective. A long time ago, there was a fantastic poster on Grassy and Canestime (the source of how and why we spun off this site) named "Dynasty." If I'm not mistaken, he had played college DB. More than just played the position, he was a really insightful dude.

Back then, I was obsessed with zone blitzing. I was a fascinated by everything about it. Of course, that was a different era of offense. Zone blitzes were a perfect remedy to what teams tried to do 12-20 years ago. He would always encourage me to advocate for less blitzing, less exotic calls, more simplicity - especially in the college game. As Bill Young's college concepts (and some NFL guys') started to get carved by some spread teams, I collected info. Anyway, that background is to say that, as the field started to be spread more and more in college (first) and then widespread in the pros, I used that new information to adjust my perspective:

If your options are (a) complex with big upside, but unreliable outcomes (think Enos) or (b) simpler with less upside, but reliable outcomes against certain opponents, you take (b) every time and move on.

This program is at the point where we need (b). Badly. We need to run the ball. We need to beat "lesser" teams consistently. We may not open things up now or have the talent to do what we all want to do, but these are college players who need "simpler" with some wrinkles.
 
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I said it prior to the season. The defense is eventually going to give out. It’s becoming more apparent with the way we run things under baker.

Yea yea yea I get it... our goal is havoc, but when our line backers are not reading keys and just picking a random gap they are washed out of the play. This is totally unacceptable and it’s no wonder why our LBs never got better over 4 years.

Against a competent OC and a power 5 QB... they easily put up 35 on us last night.

Holes were open all night. TE misdirection was there all night.

UL is gonna scalp this defense. I hope I’m wrong, but I’m not encouraged with what I saw defensively. I’m getting really tired of these stubborn coaches.
 
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There are actually people here who think that Blake Baker is a HC candidate? I hope that most agree he is underwhelming.

good post, btw.
 
@LuCane great post and insight as usual...you make the board a better place

Anyone else excited about our kicker not missing a 25 yard kick by 17 yards? It's the little things, folks
 
djciombor said:
@LuCane great post and insight as usual...you make the board a better place

Anyone else excited about our kicker not missing a 25 yard kick by 17 yards? It's the little things, folks
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Ha. Thanks.

Re: the Kicking: I'm actually just excited for us, as fans. I didn't feel the need to clench every time we kicked an extra point. Don't want to jinx it, but it was really just nice to not have your heart rate jump up to 150 when attempting a mere extra point.
 
KWCOWBOYFAN said:
I know that it has been mentioned, but with UAB stacking the box, we still managed to run for over 300. That is one thing that stood out to me. I am not crowning the OL , just saying I see hope!
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We are in a era where guys are seeing teams light up the field when it comes to passing.

I will take 300 yards rushing per game every game for the rest of the season tbh.

King could pass for only 2500 yards and we still have a great year.

Running the ball so much is why that game was so short. Run play defense and kill the clock. I’ll live with that.
 
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