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After struggling mightily with the offense all year, we all know what happened against CC, but I'm not sure how much to take from it.

CC didn't prep at all for the under-center TO and spent most of the afternoon trying to adjust, and indeed they got somewhat better as the game went on. Army had about 60 yards above the season average in total offense and dominated the Time of Possession.

Still the offense scored 21 points. That is just 1 point above the season average. The difference in winning or tying came from the blocked punt and was scored by special teams.

Limiting factors to the offense were the same as they've been all season: untimely turnover by a running back enabled CC to get to within 7 and an offensive hands-to-the-face penalty ended another drive. Clearly the O Line did better against a shocked Defense.

Really enjoyed watching the O work early in that game. I'm just not sure how much difference it made in the W-L column beyond surprising CC. Would we have dominated the first half if they had been preparing for the TO? Will be interesting to see what all JM and staff make of it going forward.

The offense scored 21 point off touchdowns. I can assure you our season average of offensive TDs is not 3. And if you take out the 8 TDs we scored against Del State it’s even worse. We are terrible at scoring TDs from the Gun.

Gotta look at time of possession. This game was 40 minutes to 20. Umass was 30 30, troy was 30 30

The longer we sustain drives, the better we are

Coastal Carolina was also one of the better teams on our schedule and we managed to score 21 points. Imagine if we used the option against ULM or UMass. We scored significantly more points against those teams last year with the old offense. I don’t think we can even consider after what we saw Saturday keeping this experiment going.

Here's what kills the gun: Tackles for Loss or no gain.

It was clear before the switch and is blindingly clear now. What holds the gun back is pretty simple. It produces way more negative plays because they start deeper and throwing it more results in more zero yard gains due to incomplete passes.

The #1 statistic to stop drives from scoring is NEGATIVE Plays or Tackles for loss.

Twitter: How Negative are Negative Plays?

In fact I would argue that with the talent deficit that negative plays have a greater impact at Army than most other schools.

Being under center significantly improves that stat because of how fast the plays develop. And that's why we sustained drives on Saturday.

For example:
ULM
12 Total Possessions
- 5 Possessions ended in Turnovers
- 4 Possessions ended in Punts
- 3 Possessions attempted FGs, we made 2 and missed 1
- Every possession but 1 had a negative or zero yard gain play
- Out of 65 total plays 17 were for no gain or negative yards


In just the first half of ULM in game 1 we had 10 plays that were for a loss or no gain. We had 5 possessions that included a fumble, an interception, a punt and a missed FG-37yds, and a made FG.

Coastal Carolina:
8 Total Possessions
- 4 Possessions had no negative or zero yard gain plays and 3 touchdowns and the end of game drive.
- 2 Possessions had no negative or zero yard gain plays but ended in Turnovers, the Interception before half and the fumble by T Rob
- 1 Possession had 1 incomplete pass and resulted in a punt
- 1 Possession had 1 play for no gain and it was the 4th and 1 stop and turnover on downs
- Out of 45 plays vs Coastal and only 2 were negative and those 2 drives ended as a punt and turnover on downs.

Monken said in the post game presser he thought we'd get better and be able to control the game in the gun. And that failed over and over this season. The data certainly supports that under center limits negative plays.


I haven't done every game but here's a rough look at several games:

ULM: 17 out of 65 (26%) plays for no gain or negative yards
UTSA: 10 out of 86 (12%) plays for no gain or negative yards
Syracuse: 11 out of 68(16%) plays for no gain or negative yards
BC: 7 out of 47 (15%) plays for no gain or negative yards
Troy: 19 out of 69 (28%) plays for no gain or negative yards
UMASS: 12 out of 64 (19%) plays for no gain or negative yards
Coastal: 2 plays out of 64 (3%) for no gain or negative yards

Now this is just a look at non productive plays. Add in penalties, turnovers, missed FG, bad punts, and any other situational challenges and it compounds.

Bottom line for Army Offense to be successful we have to have consistent postive yard plays. Then minimize mistakes outside of that. That's much harder 5 yards deep and passing more often vs a strong power run game.

PD

Q.E.D. (for all those old grads)

IDK. The ULM game is not a good comparison: first game out with a new offense, versus surprising CC with an offense Army was really familiar with.

I continue to believe the stretch there with UTSA, BC and Syracuse was the most representative of what the potential of the gun formation represents. And I'll continue to believe that the O line play was never coached well enough to enable moving the ball on the ground. A significant part of that problem was guys getting across the line looking for someone to block while the runner was receiving the handoff, rather than creating/sealing the hole at the point of attack to create a running lane. Ultimately, we were leaving huge holes for the defense to capitalize on behind the blocker who had gotten out of position quite often. That's the O line coaches' job and it simply wasn't done well.

So yeah, getting Viti to coach RBs Saturday was good. Having Turley call the under-center plays was great because that's what they know.

Again, we surprised CC. Had they prepared for the TO and stopped Army one more time than they did last Saturday, Army likely loses in OT. Frankly given how good they are, the likelihood that a prepared CC gets one more stop is pretty high.

At the end of the day, when you get in a position where you have to be able to pass because of a penalty, lost yardage, etc., the QB has to be able to hit a receiver downfield. We just don't have that at the moment. What we seem to have is the ability to hit a pass about 50% of the time when the D isn't expecting pass. That works under any offense.

Right there with folks on TOP, but the limited number of drives we have under center also means mistakes are even more critical and harder to overcome.

Just don't think we can hope that everyone shows up surprised by the under-center game plan and fail to fix the O line coaching problem we've been seeing for three+ years due to confirmation bias coming out of one game. We know what we were doing for two years wasn't working. We know what we've done this year wasn't working. The problem on both accounts is not scheme. It is a combination of blocking, penalties and turnovers. And it would be nice to have a QB who can complete a pass at 66% or so.

Probably shouldn't forget we had only one negative play (penalty) against Navy in the first half last year and still only had one first down.

Don’t underestimate the surprise factor vs. CC. I expect that we will see a fair amount of gun vs. Navy. Navy has a good D and knows how to stop a TO offense.

To kfan12:

Judge Chamberlain Haller: Mr. Gambini?
Vinny Gambini: Yes, sir?
Judge Chamberlain Haller: That is a lucid, intelligent, well thought-out objection.
Vinny Gambini: Thank you, Your Honor.
Judge Chamberlain Haller: [in a firm tone] Overruled!




(Just seemed funny. I actually agree that we need a real, live, O line coach)

Well ok pick any game you like but the data is what the data is. The negative and zero gain plays were bad at ULM and continued to be bad throughout the season. I'll remind you we lost to UMASS and fought for our lives vs FCS Holy Cross. Thatcher's system doesn't work for a litany of reasons. But you lay it out, guys busting through the line to make tackles. NO JOKE. Because the O line has to hold blocks "LONGER" due to the deep start of the play.

As for passing. We don't need it. It's a totally flawed mentality. If you play in the NFL yes. If you are Elite like Bama or UGA or OSU then yes because you are often playing elite on elite. But at Army, with the size and talent and depth disparity that same logic doesn't hold and never has.

Here's one more quick "QED" for the Old Grads:

Season by season FBS 3rd Down Efficiency Ranking for Army
2016 #21
2017 #1 (yes 1st in all FBS)
2018 #1 (yes again 1st in all FBS)
2019 #26
2020 #15
2021 #12
2022 #39 (Viti first year O line Coach)
2023 #67 (Drinkall and Viti and Thatcher's new offense)

Now more importantly, below is the Pass Attempts per game ranking across those same seasons:

2016 #128 9.3 passes per game
2017 #130 5.3 passes per game
2018 #130 7.8 passes per game
2019 #129 10.2 passes per game
2020 #127 6.2 passes per game
2021 #129 8.8 passes per game
2022 #130 10 passes per game
2023 #131 14.3 passes per game

In fact you could argue our best years are correlated with fewer and fewer passes. And I would in fact argue that.

The advantage at Army is a physical disciplined methodical offense that "ADVANCES THE BALL FOR POSITIVE YARDS EVERY PLAY". It's a very simple formula.

The point is this we haven't passed a ton more this year but we have passed more about 1 every other possession or so. But when you add in the passes that are incomplete, and then you add in a few plays for no gain or a loss that you have dramatically decreased our chances to win especially when it's a 1 score game. See Boston College or UMASS or ULM. All 3 winnable games. And could be 8-3 going into Navy and playing for the CIC and a Bowl Bid.

There is a thin line between winning and losing and you can see it all over the offensive data. Now clean this up. Maintain longer drives and your defense will look different as well because they are less exposed and well rested. Which makes it easier for them to make big plays like TFLs. This formula is exactly what we saw at the peak in 2018 with the offense and defense rolling each week.

PD