Never forget…

[RABBLE]

I cannot ever remember any coach changing his entire offense because of a rule change.
This was the reason that JM used to change the system.
I am not a coach but to me it was an overreaction to that rule change.
Would not it have better to adapt the system we already had to this rule change? We already had the personnel that was used to the TO. These guys we already had known the TO but they had to learn something entirely foreign to them. The learning curve in the short time they had was obviously too short to pull it off in spring and fall camp. We are now seeing the results on the field of play. Poor offensive execution.

[kfan12]

IDC what offense we or anyone else runs, if the O line doesn't understand how to execute the blocks as a unit, it will not be successful week in and week out. I think the under-center option enables the running attack, especially the 1-4 yard gain, but this offense has the potential to get more long plays. Neither will work consistently if we can't reliably block more than two people on each down.

[neumanna1]

2 things can be true. The offense probably did need to evolve. They haven't really run the Option as effectively as they need to since Bradshaw and then Hopkins left. There was almost no pitching the last few years so it was all FB dives or QB runs. Even without the rule changes they've cited, some modifications were in order.

But this current offense is such a departure. The fact they NEVER go under Center, even on 4th and 1, really takes away what always used to be a strength of the team- the ability to use 4 downs instead of 3 pretty much anywhere on the field, since the short yardage game was so strong. Now they have an offense that's in the shotgun every play, but still wants to only throw is 8 or 9 times a game (up from 2 or 3 in prior years). They're trying to run up the middle constantly out of a spread formation.

I'm willing to see what it looks like once they get some guys in there who were recruited with this offense in mind, but right now its neither fish nor fowl. Maybe a more gradual transition was a smarter way to go.

[PrideandDream]

Well Rabble you don’t have to be a coach to see that.

Personally I believe Monken did this for reasons other than to be more competitive. We aren’t goi g to recruit radically different players. We didn’t do that under Berry or Ross or Ellerson. Monken has been our best recruiter by far and I might argue even his classes have begun to slip.

There is no precedent to think we will get different players to fit this system.

What we need are better coaches with expertise and understanding of what we have and how to win with it. That her Drinkall Viti Powers and smith do not possess the individual or collective skills and experience to make this work. That’s why we are not any better in game 10 than in game 1.

PD

[USMAPAFAN]

Another aspect of the new offense which is difficult to watch is how often we get “behind the chains”. We used to only need 3 yards a play and would then go for it on 4th and short. It was like clockwork. Yes we would have negative plays or get stuffed once in awhile, but now we routinely have plays of zero or negative yards. To this point the new offense has not proved adept at making up for those negative plays, which is why we punt more often and have no advantage in TOP.

[hammerdown]

It was a nice surprise Saturday to see Army run 3 plays under center.
I believe 2 runs for 3 and 5 yards and the pass to Robinson, who
was open, but the throw was off. JM said in his post presser that
the QB under center plays were run to make the D adjust to a
different look. It would be interesting to see if they mix
more under with shotgun, if the O would be more productive.

[wpgrad]

Well Rabble you don’t have to be a coach to see that.

Personally I believe Monken did this for reasons other than to be more competitive. We aren’t goi g to recruit radically different players. We didn’t do that under Berry or Ross or Ellerson. Monken has been our best recruiter by far and I might argue even his classes have begun to slip.

There is no precedent to think we will get different players to fit this system.

What we need are better coaches with expertise and understanding of what we have and how to win with it. That her Drinkall Viti Powers and smith do not possess the individual or collective skills and experience to make this work. That’s why we are not any better in game 10 than in game 1.

PD

We ARE going to recruit different players. See: Center Small, who is able to start as a center because he has experience snapping into the shotgun. It took bryce holland, as good as it gets, 3 years to be a starter. As we recruit players that are playing this type of system in high school, there will be far less transition.

Also, don't kid yourself for a second and think there aren't high school kids out there who don't want to run army's "cute triple option wierd wishbone thing." This new offense WILL be a better recruiting tool

Pick a side, though. Either you love monken or you don't. You sit around and continually criticize a guy who must be an idiot since he has bad assistants while the same time the guy is 10-4 in his least 14 service academy games which is only the best ever in history.

[PrideandDream]

Don't worry I'll line up against Monken as his record deserves it.

Right now he's 4-6 and looks awful. And he doesn't advocate for change then we will have to change him.

He's done great things but this has been a bad bad decision.

BTW you don't know much about snapping a football do you? The shotgun snap is in many ways easier to teach and execute than under center. It ain't rocket science. In fact I believe they taught all the o lineman how to snap in the off season if I remember correctly. Mostly because it's easy to do so. I've taught it both ways to high school and youth kids.

Look I watch a ton of high school football here in Georgia. There is no shortage of kids dying to play at an FBS school regardless of scheme. We might try to recruit different kids but we aren't going to get the ones you think we will. Monken knows this.

At the end of the day this offensive switch was to help us compete better and be more productive offensively.

Through 10 games it is extremely less effective than the old scheme. From a running perpsective it's not even close.

Monken and this team are what the record says they are 4-6 with a loss to ULM and to UMASS and damn near to Holy Cross.

PD

[Dong Fong '09]

Well Rabble you don’t have to be a coach to see that.

Personally I believe Monken did this for reasons other than to be more competitive. We aren’t goi g to recruit radically different players. We didn’t do that under Berry or Ross or Ellerson. Monken has been our best recruiter by far and I might argue even his classes have begun to slip.

There is no precedent to think we will get different players to fit this system.

What we need are better coaches with expertise and understanding of what we have and how to win with it. That her Drinkall Viti Powers and smith do not possess the individual or collective skills and experience to make this work. That’s why we are not any better in game 10 than in game 1.

PD

i don't follow recruiting as closely as some, but I do remember all last year a bunch of recruits stating that they chose us over other SAs because of this new system. We are starting a freshman running back and center. Anecdotally it seems like we might be recruiting better players.

[kfan12]

One other data point:

AF, running their flexbone offense, scored no TDs against us and only one vs. 3-7 (now 4-7) Hawaii. AF was in the red zone 4 times in the second half and got one FG. Perhaps their success this year has been due to the level of competition and not their offense.

Air Force QB was overamped and probably impacted HI game as well. That and Playing at UH is like playing a team that has its own referees on direct payroll IMO. AFA is neither as good as their 8-0 record said they were nor as bad as the 9 or so turnovers they've had the last two weeks.