• The KillerFrogs

Speaking of the offense

Limp Lizard

Full Member
New topic, huh? :rolleyes:

Anyway getting off how bad our receivers, OL, or QB were last year. The last three years, something, has been wrong. I don't know what, but I feel there was some sort of locker room dynamic or team dynamic that just wasn't right. Maybe the offenses coaches didn't get together well. Or a player that disrupted the offensive cohesiveness. Interesting that GP said "no" to Meacham earlier citing "chemistry" or some such, but after Luper and Thomsen left it was great to bring Meacham back. Maybe it was someone/something else.
There was something wrong from the beginning, with the offense especially the last two years that seem to supercede x's and o's or player technique.
 
Indeed, the causation of offensive ineffectiveness could have been a single entity or quite possibly a combination

of components. Hopefully, it has been dispatched.....whatever the culprit might have been.
 

4th. down

Active Member
New topic, huh? :rolleyes:

Anyway getting off how bad our receivers, OL, or QB were last year. The last three years, something, has been wrong. I don't know what, but I feel there was some sort of locker room dynamic or team dynamic that just wasn't right. Maybe the offenses coaches didn't get together well. Or a player that disrupted the offensive cohesiveness. Interesting that GP said "no" to Meacham earlier citing "chemistry" or some such, but after Luper and Thomsen left it was great to bring Meacham back. Maybe it was someone/something else.
There was something wrong from the beginning, with the offense especially the last two years that seem to supercede x's and o's or player technique.

Yes, all that plus better hands needed. If we would have completed 50% of the dropped passes, we go to a decent bowl even with all the offensive confusion.

Less passing, better hands, more running and moving the chains as we slowly move back to a Fuente type of offense. And.......before anyone says the 36-3 record of all that was because we played inferior competition, yes we did, but we recruited and played with players that are not on our level now for the most part with a few exceptions. BYU and Utah were not IMO, inferior competition and certainly Wisconsin wasn't.

We probably will never know what really happened in the locker room or in GP's office but Meach left, not Sonny, and now Meach is back and probably will be the play caller and Sonny was adamant about being the play caller in the past. I can understand Luper leaving but not Thomsen.
 

Eight

Member
Yes, all that plus better hands needed. If we would have completed 50% of the dropped passes, we go to a decent bowl even with all the offensive confusion.

Less passing, better hands, more running and moving the chains as we slowly move back to a Fuente type of offense. And.......before anyone says the 36-3 record of all that was because we played inferior competition, yes we did, but we recruited and played with players that are not on our level now for the most part with a few exceptions. BYU and Utah were not IMO, inferior competition and certainly Wisconsin wasn't.

We probably will never know what really happened in the locker room or in GP's office but Meach left, not Sonny, and now Meach is back and probably will be the play caller and Sonny was adamant about being the play caller in the past. I can understand Luper leaving but not Thomsen.

frogs easily had the best talent in the mwc and when you look at the 12 players drafted in the 2009-2011 seasons that surpasses by a good margin the combined numbers of utah and byu.

realistically, during that stretch of the big 12 byu had been left behind as they just didn't have the speed to keep up on either side of the ball. utah had some athletes, but they didn't have the guys in the trenches on both sides.

that to me has been the biggest difference since the frogs have joined the big 12. no coincidence that the frogs best two years almost paired out when they had their best overall talent in the offensive and defensive lines.

i would also say the rose bowl was an effective game plan in that the frogs got out early, but when you go back and look at the numbers the offense really didn't do much after the fast start. frogs ran less than 50 total plays that game and barely broke 300 yards of total offense.

i do agree that we will never truly know in a forum like this what truly happened on the offensive side of the ball in 2016, why meacham left, if he truly did give away information about the defense to big 12 opponents, who opposed him coming back, and those who do know aren't going to post it.

time only moves in one direction and gary isn't going to reset his entire offensive staff at this time so hope changes are made, consistency is found, and the play is better
 

Limp Lizard

Full Member
I don't buy the run the ball more bit. We ran 1.29 as often as we passes. We were #27 in the county in run plays/game, #55 in pass plays/game. Kinda average (median) on both counts. So basically we were a run team, it seems. We just did neither very well, although our passing was worse (#38 in yards per carry, #111 in yards per pass attempt). The only reason we had so many pass plays is we were playing catch-up after the defense got worn out after so many three-and-outs. Actually the 1:1.3 is fine, as long as you are effective. And lots of teams did a lot better throwing the ball more. In other words, I certainly don't see how running more would have helped except slow down the game, but we still lose.

My purpose, which seems to have been hijacked, is the problems were not play calling, etc., but what seemed a morale thing the last 3 years. Hopefully all the changes will turn that around.
 

Eight

Member
I don't buy the run the ball more bit. We ran 1.29 as often as we passes. We were #27 in the county in run plays/game, #55 in pass plays/game. Kinda average (median) on both counts. So basically we were a run team, it seems. We just did neither very well, although our passing was worse (#38 in yards per carry, #111 in yards per pass attempt). The only reason we had so many pass plays is we were playing catch-up after the defense got worn out after so many three-and-outs. Actually the 1:1.3 is fine, as long as you are effective. And lots of teams did a lot better throwing the ball more. In other words, I certainly don't see how running more would have helped except slow down the game, but we still lose.

My purpose, which seems to have been hijacked, is the problems were not play calling, etc., but what seemed a morale thing the last 3 years. Hopefully all the changes will turn that around.

i do agree with your thought that there has seemed to be something wrong on the offensive side of the ball that extended beyond the field and as i wrote above i don't think we will know exactly what was happening.

think the hope for most is those issues are behind this team.

i don't completely agree that play calling, scheme design etc.. were not part of the problem as i think there really hasn't been a part of this offense that past two years that hasn't had issues and inconsistencies.

i also think the running numbers you site were a bit skewed because they also include rushing yards gained by max via broken plays/scrambles as well as a few big runs.

the two big biggest problems to me in the frogs run game last year and it all fits this entire theme of something not quite right first is the frogs could not consistently run the ball when they needed to in games.

if the frogs wanted to gain control of the tempo of a game they couldn't do that running the ball and more importantly their was nothing in their passing game that was built off their run game.

each part seemed to inconsistently function or malfunction apart from each other and in some way that reflects to me the feeling there just hasn't been something right on that side of the ball the last two years.
 

4th. down

Active Member
i do agree with your thought that there has seemed to be something wrong on the offensive side of the ball that extended beyond the field and as i wrote above i don't think we will know exactly what was happening.

think the hope for most is those issues are behind this team.

i don't completely agree that play calling, scheme design etc.. were not part of the problem as i think there really hasn't been a part of this offense that past two years that hasn't had issues and inconsistencies.

i also think the running numbers you site were a bit skewed because they also include rushing yards gained by max via broken plays/scrambles as well as a few big runs.

the two big biggest problems to me in the frogs run game last year and it all fits this entire theme of something not quite right first is the frogs could not consistently run the ball when they needed to in games.

if the frogs wanted to gain control of the tempo of a game they couldn't do that running the ball and more importantly their was nothing in their passing game that was built off their run game.

each part seemed to inconsistently function or malfunction apart from each other and in some way that reflects to me the feeling there just hasn't been something right on that side of the ball the last two years.

^^^^^^^^^^^
Don't believe it can be better stated.
 

PO Frog

Active Member
Stats in general are continuing to show that passing is more efficient than running on most downs and distances, and the frogsowar breakdown i read yesterday, after stripping out turnovers, and even our lowly passing attack was more efficient than our running game last year. The game has changed and if we want to be in the conversation for NY6 and even championships, we need to abandon the ball-control, run-dominant, save our precious defense dream and get better at passing. Ohio State dominated Clemson in the running game last year in the playoff and it just doesn't matter all that much in today's game because of explosive plays. Likewise in the title game - Clemson was clamping down the LSU offense for the early part of the game, but you just cannot do that for 60 minutes any more. Even GP with Clemson recruits wouldn't be able to do it.
 

jake102

Active Member
My take:
-- We had an inconsistent OL at best, terrible at worst
-- We had an inconsistent freshman QB
-- We had WRs who may or may not get open and may or may not catch the ball.
-- Our two RBs were used in such a fashion that depending on down/distance and who was on the field, it was a pretty easy pass/run clue
-- We set our offense 5-10 seconds before snapping the ball, giving the defense another strong clue.

Add it all together and there were a bunch of defenses who were more than willing to let us try to beat them on intermediate and deep routes. The odds the OL held up against a 3 or 4 man rush, the QB found/hit the receiver, and the receiver caught the ball were low enough to take the risk. Press all our WRs, take away even the easiest of throws and try to guard the run.
 

Eight

Member
My take:
-- We had an inconsistent OL at best, terrible at worst
-- We had an inconsistent freshman QB
-- We had WRs who may or may not get open and may or may not catch the ball.
-- Our two RBs were used in such a fashion that depending on down/distance and who was on the field, it was a pretty easy pass/run clue
-- We set our offense 5-10 seconds before snapping the ball, giving the defense another strong clue.

Add it all together and there were a bunch of defenses who were more than willing to let us try to beat them on intermediate and deep routes. The odds the OL held up against a 3 or 4 man rush, the QB found/hit the receiver, and the receiver caught the ball were low enough to take the risk. Press all our WRs, take away even the easiest of throws and try to guard the run.

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