I think Coach Nuss had his regrettable moments at times in the LSU and TAMU games, but on the balance he has done a lot for the offense this season. He shows far more agression in his playcalling than McElwain. I think Nuss has been an overall improvement on our offense but every once and a while a good coach will have games like TAMU where they over-think things and get away from the team's strengths too much. I didn't really like the LSU gameplan outside the second quarter (without considering the planned out 2-minute scenario they had for LSU). The TAMU game was more of the same: too much passing on early downs in the first quarter, got back into the game with the run in the second, then abandoned it again in the second half.
Lets not forget McElwain, for as good as he had been for us in SECCG and BCSCG settings, had some real stinkers in the regular season too: '09 Tennessee, '11 LSU, etc. Even Saban has a bad day at the office every once and a while and the coordinators are no different. Nuss was probably just a little slow on realizing the adjustments teams were making against our passing game. He got in a mental lock that teams were going to stop at nothing to prevent the run and assumed passing would be open all day. More teams have been playing with less guys around the LOS lately because we've legitimized the vertical threat and we needed to do what we did to UGA to open up the down field passing.
I hope against Notre Dame that we'll come out in power looks early and get a gauge on how they will play us. Starting the first quarter in spread-like looks has almost become expected by the opponents and it is not producing the same effects it once did.