Because the head coach wants to run a slow, ball-control offense. The 82-27 days are long gone.
Could be a whole other reason.
Tempo is great and all, but if you can't check the progressions, you can get clipped bad by a big defensive line that can crash in and free the Sam or Will or even DE to play off.
So maybe they want to make sure that Max can solidy walk before he can run, in a passing manner so to speak. It was the same with Boykin, they had to slow it down some.
That said, if you leave Hunt and JR in there, and quit changing personel so much, that gives Max some comfort on great targets, and tempo while up, can still be managable. And you can still have ball control. Heck, by next year, Sonny could probably have the kid running tempo/RPO with ease. Which is what I am starting to (total guess here) think maybe they are trying to get him on top of. Because the Frogs seem to be fighting against an air raid, which would be easy for them. But you gotta running back that you need to run protect for. It's a split situation.
We loss some stars from last year. Others were injured. But some players have been in the system enough to know it, so there was no excuse for some stuff on Saturday.
This might be a multi year process, unfortunately. Max has already grown some, so maybe it is getting better. There were so many things that went wrong at ISU. DA having his hand cut and out for the first 3 or so drives, also impacting his ability to block. Not picking up QB power runs out of the TE set until way late in the game. Then DBs giving up on plays after they got rubbed into each other's path from Post/Wheel and other combos. I'm sure their td on the left side where 6 just stalled and, i guess, assumed someone was behind him for the tackle, will come up in the film room in a very direct manner.
We know we can pass the ball. If it has to be tempo, let's do it and fix some other items.