Offense

Topic

How are we feeling about our offense? Back to back mediocre performances. Our best game was against AZ (who just gave up 400 yards rushing to CU). Our Rb “stable” is deep but let’s be honest, all of our backs are average at best. Not sure any of these guys are starters on other teams in the pac. Morris at QB is a gamer but super limited on deep throws and is consistently not putting the ball in place for our receivers to run after the catch. The scheme didn’t seem terrible to me today besides some of the try hard trick plays that weren’t set up well. Jimmy talked about having an explosive vertical attacking offense in the off season. My question is, where is it?

Replies

When you have 4 running backs (or now 3 with Newton in pergatory) you have none.

Today we tried Mcgrew who is the least equipped to run power into a pile between the tackles. His game is getting to corner in space.

And to throw more rain on the parade.

For a team that wants to “run the damn ball” we are actually better by a good clip at Pass Pro than run blocking.

Even worse, I trust this offense (w/ all it’s issues) infinitly more than the defense at this point.

We had the tying TD called back on a hold (even though we still needed the 2 pt conversion).

Redzone is a problem but we only had 7 possessions.

We need to score earlier and not get shut out in the first half obviously.

But the red flag to me is the defense.

To me this season more than ever the recruiting misses at RB are starting show. We do not have a game changer at that position. It blows my mind when I hear the media talk about how stacked this room is. Again tell me which one of these backs would be starting on other pac 12 teams rosters right now

The offense looks good considering the circumstances. Morris continues to impress me as just a RS Freshman and the true Freshman receivers stepped up big-time given the absence of Puka and Terrell.

O-line run blocking needs to be cleaner. I’d like to see Troy Fautanu get some run at LG.

We need a stud like Austin Jones getting the bulk of the carries at RB. That was the difference between the two offenses today. Why can’t UW just give Cam Davis 25 carries and see what happens? It would probably be better than anything McGrew and Pleasant can do with those carries.

Overall, I can see the potential this offense has next season and this loss doesn’t change my mind at all about JD being a good hire.

Also, those back-to-back holding calls that took the Ty Jones TD off the board and moved the offense back were bullshit. As if Stanford’s O-line doesn’t hold every play. Stanford’s D-lineman throw their arms up in the air to try to bait the refs into calling non-existent holds and they got them when they needed them the most. Hate seeing a game potentially decided by the refs. Unless it’s obvious, you swallow your fucking whistle and let the players decide who wins the game. Calls like that are never made in SEC games. That was a great play design and call by JD. Jones was wide open.

Yeah that call was bs and didn’t affect the play.

I still thought we would stop them and get it back anyways.

The offense is being run like you have five 5 star offensive linemen up front. I’m guessing that the large majority of the time the first down call is a run between the tackles that gains 1-3 yards putting you immediately in a second down hole. The run schemes have little to no imagination to them so defenses don’t have to worry about taking any false steps. The best running play we had was a counter pitch to McGrew yet we continue to blast shit straight up the middle. We were lucky to score one of our touchdowns because Ty Jones makes an all world catch that is just an incomplete pass 99% of the time. I have no bias against John Donovan. I just want to see some acknowledgement on his part that he is competing in 2020 and run an offense that is not so easy to compete against. The ultimate purpose of this program is to make the playoffs. Running this garbage against OSU or Alabama or Clemson would be horrifying.

If you think our running backs are not good you simply do not know the position.

The issue is the OL run blocking. We have a big OL but they are showing that they
aren’t fast and in football speed often negates size as you saw by MJ Ale getting
beaten numerous times yesterday.

Huff is going to have to move towards a smaller more athletic lineup.

Nip8 wrote:

The offense is being run like you have five 5 star offensive linemen up front. I’m guessing that the large majority of the time the first down call is a run between the tackles that gains 1-3 yards putting you immediately in a second down hole. The run schemes have little to no imagination to them so defenses don’t have to worry about taking any false steps. The best running play we had was a counter pitch to McGrew yet we continue to blast shit straight up the middle. We were lucky to score one of our touchdowns because Ty Jones makes an all world catch that is just an incomplete pass 99% of the time. I have no bias against John Donovan. I just want to see some acknowledgement on his part that he is competing in 2020 and run an offense that is not so easy to compete against. The ultimate purpose of this program is to make the playoffs. Running this garbage against OSU or Alabama or Clemson would be horrifying.

Quote

Nip8 wrote:

The offense is being run like you have five 5 star offensive linemen up front. I’m guessing that the large majority of the time the first down call is a run between the tackles that gains 1-3 yards putting you immediately in a second down hole. The run schemes have little to no imagination to them so defenses don’t have to worry about taking any false steps. The best running play we had was a counter pitch to McGrew yet we continue to blast shit straight up the middle. We were lucky to score one of our touchdowns because Ty Jones makes an all world catch that is just an incomplete pass 99% of the time. I have no bias against John Donovan. I just want to see some acknowledgement on his part that he is competing in 2020 and run an offense that is not so easy to compete against. The ultimate purpose of this program is to make the playoffs. Running this garbage against OSU or Alabama or Clemson would be horrifying.

Quote

Bingo. And if Jimmy truly wants to run the Stanford offense, he better have 5 OL guys that play at Tre sophomore, Caleb Junior/Senior year snap 1 game 1

Additionally, His WR’s need to look like Ty Jones with 15 more lb’s but can catch like Pettis and Tight Ends that look like ASJ but have hands like Cade where they just phsically win over the smaller DB’s.

DawgDaze71 wrote:

If you think our running backs are not good you simply do not know the position.

The issue is the OL run blocking. We have a big OL but they are showing that they
aren’t fast and in football speed often negates size as you saw by MJ Ale getting
beaten numerous times yesterday.

Huff is going to have to move towards a smaller more athletic lineup.

Quote

Size means nothing on the O-line unless you have the foot speed to go with it. Ale doesn’t have good foot speed and either needs to lose weight and get faster or be replaced.