There was no way you could make a read in 2 seconds. The sacks I saw weren’t the QB’s fault.
Some of the routes and blocking schemes require you to make a pre-snap read and throw/block to pre-determined points. Other routes like the extended hand off outside the numbers requires you to release as soon as the snap is secured. This is one reason why it takes years for the WRs and OL to learn the offense. This isn’t the backyard where the QB takes the ball and sits in the pocket and waits to read where to throw. And that’s reason #346 why this offense belongs in high school not college. High school freshman can be told to lift weights and learn for two years. Exactly ZERO would be college freshman today want to hear that if they have other options.
Some plays, not all, involve the offensive line not even pass blocking at all, and the QB throwing to points on the field where the defense cannot be because they must defend the run that the offensive line is showing by the way they line up and their individual stances. If they do try and defend those points, then the rear third of the field is open. If you think back over the previous two years and the few times we’ve tried to throw on first down after a long run that ends around midfield and the result of the play is what you think you see is the OLine struggling to pass block, chaos resulting, and Skipper in particular struggling to scramble for a count or two then launching a ball haphazard 60 yards and a WR being two steps short to get under it, what you were seeing was what I am describing above. The sack you saw “weren’t the QBs fault” but they were not the OLine’s fault either. Not always, but sometimes, most of the time in some games, what you saw was BY DESIGN. We were trying to throw out of runblocking and the line was trying to stop backfield incursion from an intentional physical disadvantage made in the name of disguise/deception. And to try and stop that incursion for three counts not six or as long as they could. We were putting enormous pressure on a line to show run, try to pass block, in the name of making the defense adjust their secondary and open up passing opportunities. Trouble is, we have been unable to recruit players who can throw the ball to those opportunities or catch the ball when it arrives, because our staff is unable to convince kids to sit on the bench for three years to learn their gimmick offense.
It also explains why we look semi competent at throwing the ball inside one minute to play with Boomer back there or when we have nothing to win or lose. It’s because our OC is actually trying to pass block when we are trying to throw the ball. We aren’t hardheadedly trying to make SMU defend all 80 yards of the field against both run and pass in the name of our gimmick arsed veer offense schemes when they don’t have the talent to defend forty yards of field and we don’t have talent to throw it forty yards or the speed to get under it outside 30 yards. But when we are trying to make them defend seven yards of field, and we slant on 3rd and 6, and we’ve got a long body like Keyarris, that portion of the offense works because they don’t have the talent to stop it. That’s the difference between 2016 and 2018.
I’ve said it one hundred times on here, if you take the time to read the few books available on this offense and watch the videos of people who have stopped it, we are beating our heads against the wall. What we are trying to do will not work at this school. Mostly because it’s the opposite of our previous culture and philosophy of acknowledging our recruiting disadvantage and finding and developing players who can succeed at a pro prospect level at certain aspects of a passing offense but aren’t complete players (Smith, Mills, Culton, Kinne, Burnham, etc.) and a serviceable defense to squeeze out select wins on our schedule towards 7 to 10 wins, depending on how we’ve scheduled. In the Malzahn years we simply expanded the number of offensive players/opportunities by manipulating the rules to allow us more chances to score. Through that and inducing fatigue, we could counter our defensive deficiencies and overall talent mismatch against our opponent.
Good back and look at this offense at Baylor, in particular the RGIII years. It was an effing nightmare until they brought in all those defensive mercenary players that Briles dismissed as “bad dudes” after learning a few them had a hobby of gang rape and/or exploitation of emotionally vulnerable women. RGIII had one good year, it was marked by a sizeable improvement in defense, not offensive numbers alone.
Switzer’s triple option was the same way. He didn’t win when the defense went south.
Briles knew that, it’s why he didn’t kick any of those guys out and continued to locate defensive players he knew or should have known might struggle to control themselves in the culture he was creating. He had to have elite defensive talent to make his offensive ego tick. And he knew it in high school too when he looked the other way at several sexual assault allegations and continued to play those defensive players.
RGIII was also a world class track athlete who was at Baylor not for football but also football and track and Jesus. He was a unicorn. We’ve had maybe two, maybe two, unicorns in 100 years. Being dog crap like we have been for two years now will only continue until we locate a unicorn, somehow get him on campus, then build a defense around him. Now I ask you, do you think a G5 school with our recruiting budget can do that, like a P5 program with virtually unlimited booster resources like Baylor had during their heyday, can do that? Do you think it’s wise to try and do that and build that defense in a rules environment forty years divorced from the veer/option philosophy this offense is based on where a premium on passing, catching, and scoring is promoted by design?
You know the answer. You know I’m right. You know this was a mistake made by people that didn’t know exactly what they were buying. You know it’s time to end it one way or the other and get back to our core identity.
I hope we win 12 games this year, if not all of them. That would be great for the school. And that’s all I want. And then maybe he packs up his stuff and gets out.
