Execution vs. Playcalling

[markenk]

Agreed. The 2003 season gets a bye because of the lack of depth, but I included it because, if by some chance you have game tape of the 2003 season, you'll find that the formations and the playcalling have remained essentially unchanged since that season. People talk about CMS's short amount of time in order to implement the offense...but just watch the USF game. We still run the same plays we run now! We still run the counter to the right. Our "motion" still mostly consisted of the tight end shifting from left end to right end, or vice versa, our run plays consisted of the draw play up the middle out of the I, the counter to the right out of the I, the occasional fullback up the middle, and Shaud up the middle out of the 3 reciever set, (we implemented that counter play where the tight end seals the end and the guard pulls in 2004), we still had a knack for missing the deep ball (Zach Fletcher against Oklahoma?), and occasionally hitting it (Dre Fulgham against Arkansas), we still didn't hit any screen passes (we did hit a couple I recall against Auburn towards the end of the game to make the score closer), we didn't have any rollouts, no moving the pocket, we still ran on the occasional playaction pass out of the I to Tim Castille...I'm just saying...I'm sure the offense has changed...surely it's changed in 4 years! But the formations...the plays...the philosophy of the passing game and the running game were essentially the same.
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Exactly...they are inferior programs that (for the most part) do not expect to realistically win national championships. So why should it be acceptable for programs like this to have superior offenses year in, year out compared to Bama? 22 points a game at programs like this would not cut it, because their defenses are not good enough (again, a couple of exceptions) to save the team every game.

I agree. It's nice to have a civilized discussion about the state of the Alabama offense. Hopefully I got all of those quotes right...:rolleye2:

You want a predictable offense? Here is one. Our option offense under Franphony is the perfect example of a predictable offense.

First down, we run option
Second down, we run option
Third down, we run option

We know it, the other team knows it, everyone in the stadium knows it, fans watching it on TV knows which play is coming next.

The difference between that to what we have now is the execution. Tyler Watts was a great option QB, and one of the smartest QBs we ever had. He took that predictable offense and ran it to the near perfection. That's execution. I figured this is a good comparision and perhaps may give you a different perspective to look at the situation.

The number of formation we use in a game day doesn't really matter because it all depends on how the defense reacts. Not many college teams bring out their entire play book to the game day and run it 100%. Not even Spurrier's Florida team did that. Teams study the game film and they pick out the plays that give them the best chance of success. Your complaining about the lack of variety in formation is really a moot point as it has nothing to do with how productive an offense really is. We've been using I-formation since day one because #1 our FB is the one of the best offensive players, and #2 that's what we practice everyday. Now, if CMS decides to abandon the I-formation all of sudden and go with the singleback formation, then that should raise some eyebrows.

As I said, the number of formations in a game doesn't matter. What you need to look at is how many different plays we run from that same formation. One of the things we normally do is lining up as singleback then shifting to I-formation, then sending a man (either TE or FB) in motion. Depending on which defensive player reacts to it, it allows our QB (if passing play) or RB (if running play) what defense they are facing and where the blitz is coming from. The point is that just because motion looks all the same on TV screen doesn't necessary mean it's a bad thing.

As for the offensive philosophy, don't be surprised if you see some new wrinkles that we haven't seen in previous years. With Brodie our offense was heavily geared to stretch the defense as vertically as we can. I expect that to change now that we have a new QB who can do some of the things that Brodie wasn't so good at. For starters, we've already seen roll outs, getting TEs involved in passing game, or how about those toss sweeps out of Trips?

Do I think our offense is capable of scoring more points? Yeah you betcha. Am I disappointed that we could only muster 13 points against Vandy? Sure! But do I think it's time to overhaul the entire offensive schemes? Hell no. That's where the main difference is between yours and my thinking. After watching the past two games, I'm more than satisfied with how our offense moved the ball at will. Not to mention our offense compliments well to our defensive philosophy of "bend but don't break". We are inches away from being a good potent offense in the SEC. Just inches. Kind of like how Brodie would always miss that TD passes by inches. Our offense is very close to being good. Sooner or later it's going to start clicking, and once it starts rolling there is no turning back.

The last thing we need is turning over the offensive duty to someone else.

 

[BAMARICH]

Just got in on this today... but a couple of things that were not mentioned in the thread that stands out to me.

In 2004, our offense averaged 42.7 points per game until Brodie got injured.
After that point on, our offense averaged 18.5 points per game. In 2005, our offense averaged 29.6 points per game until Prothro got injured. After that point on, our offense averaged 16.4 points per game. Those are the facts. Whether you like you or not, whether you want to admit it or not, injuries did have a major part in our team over the past two years. Coach Shula, of course, never used that as an excuse, but I can. So can most of these fans who still remember what happened in those years.

You cannot view everything in the past three years as "normal" because of two things: injuries and depth problems due to probation.

Yes. 42.7 points per game in 2004 against Utah State, Ole Miss, and Western Carolina...come on. Yes, it is 42.7 points a game, and it looks gaudy, but when you score 48 against Utah State and 52 against Western Carolina...that has the tendency to skew statistics.

Duck... as strongly as you feel (and I understand being passionate) about things, if we were averaging 42.7 right now (against Hawaii/Vandy), would you be saying the same things? I doubt you would... when you add 04 & 05 up before the major injuries, realize that we were legitimately in the game on offense. The problem right now... we've only scored an average of 19 in the first two this year. However, if you add only one TD/PAT per game (conservative estimate based on our mistakes/reversals), we're averaging 26 at this point... IMO, very acceptable with what we're working with on offense right now.