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X's and O's Why Are We Playing In a Phonebooth So Often?

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AUcane said:
This. I’m no guru but it’s clear that condensed sets is conducive to running mesh.

KC chiefs love running condensed sets, fwiw
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I was thinking the same thing about the Chiefs.


Anyways.
Beck ran a lot of "phonebooth" plays at UGA when they were kicking some major **** with TEs, RBs and a big ole offensive line.
Might as well keep it going and provide him what he is most comfortable in.
 
I said this last year and got killed on this board. The fact is we can almost call out when it’s a run or pass. We are making it too easy on the defense. It may not hurt us against lesser teams but if we happen to make playoffs I feel it will be our undoing.

The third quarter Td when we went down the field and made fsu defend sideline to sideline was magical. FSU was confused. Passing and running lanes wide open. Not sure why those play calls aren’t the standard.
 
flips said:
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It's because we've become one of the best and most efficient (apologies @JHallCanes ) rushing teams in the country last year and so far this year using those formations.

Since 2014, the only other time we ranked in the 75th %ile or better in rushing efficiency was the Richt 10-win season. Even when we had NFL running backs (Duke, Walton, Homer, Dallas) we were still very inefficient running the ball.

Last year there was no tradeoff. We were still one of the most explosive passing teams in the country, despite the condensed formations. Cam obviously should get most (all?) the credit for that, and it remains to be seen whether we will be able to recreate the explosive part of the passing offense we saw last year (so far not so good, in that respect!)

You're asking whether we'd be better at running the ball if we ran less out of condensed sets and more out of spread? We aren't outnumbered in the pic you posted. They have 8 men in the box and we have 8 guys to block them (5 OL, TE, 2 WR). We also aren't outnumbered in the Lashlee pic (5 OL & 5 guys in the box). Not sure that's the best example for the question you're asking, since we have no RB in formation in that screenshot.

The thing is we are very effective running in the A-gap, often out of condensed sets. We just averaged 6.5 ypc against USF running in the A-gap and they sure knew what was coming. I believe we averaged ~5.5 ypc all last year running in the A-gap. I don't think we can expect to do much better than that, spread or condensed.

Sometimes (often on 3rd/4th and short) we'll be outnumbered. Coach doesn't care. We aren't looking to gain 80 yards (if it happens, cool) on those plays just get one or two. He thinks one of the blockers will be able to get to a second guy or the running back will be good enough to fall forward/break a tackle against the free runner. He's usually right.

I think folks get hung up on the occasional drive that stalls/goes 3 & out because Dawson will just keep calling the same plays till they prove they can stop it. Eventually they sell out to stop it (or someone missed a block or the running back does something silly) and we have to punt.

Like, before the 3 & Out on our third drive our RBs (Fletcher except for 1 Brown carry) had been averaging over 5 ypc. I don't think Dawson was wrong to think we'd end up better than 3rd & 7 or whatever it was after two Brown runs. We had also scored 2 TDs in 2 possessions prior to that point, and we scored another TD (3 plays for 75 yards the next drive), with Fletcher housecalling a run. That's extremely good and efficient offense from my perspective. Mind you we had 1 completion of more than 20 yards in those 3 TD series, yet we went 75/85/75 yards on them.

Specifically against USF when our running game struggled it had much more to do with Orlando calling crazy sell-out calls (didn't work out great for him considering we scored 49 and could have scored more if we wanted to), and also because Brown didn't have a good game running the ball. We obviously don't trust Pringle early in games yet, and with Lyle still not playing we have Fletcher and Brown, and Fletcher has to rest occasionally.

As we've discussed a bunch already Lofton has struggled blocking this year and Bauman is a downgrade relative to Old Man Cam as a blocker. We've still run the ball okay, but there have been some issues. I think they have much more to do with some suboptimal blocking from the TEs and not having a healthy Lyle except for his first 3 carries against ND, than any formation issues.

All that being said, I do think it would be beneficial if we ran outside a bit more, but I don't care whether we do it out of spread or a condensed set - please just pull CiCi and Cooper and get 1000+ lbs blocking along the left edge. Think Lyle getting hurt has affected the diversity in the run game. I don't think Brown's strength at this level is running outside the tackles. We've run Fletcher outside the tackles with a fair amount of success so far. Lyle will give us a more dynamic option on those runs I think.
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I feel like you've been waiting your whole life to make this post. It's fantastic.
 
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