Hurd just simply doesn't fit this offense ...

[Thou]

I think everything works better in our offense when Dobbs is able/free to run anytime he see's his option open. At least game 1 & 3 I am sure orders were to only keep it when games were on the line.

 

[Darth_Shiveman]

This. So much, this. People automatically assume that our offense would be better with Hurd running out of the I. But getting away from the spread would take Dobbs' legs and so many other dimensions away from our offense. Besides, if our O-line can't block for a scheme that requires a lot of pulling and chipping and only a split second of blocking, then how the h*ll do you expect our offense to be better if that same oline has to hold their blocks for 3 or 4 seconds? (Which is required in the I formation.) Maybe what the proponents of the I are saying is that Hurd is a better fit in an I Formation and not the rest of our offensive personnel. But to take our personnel and try to make them run the I, would be a disaster.

The bolded part here isn't exactly true. You can use different blocking schemes and runs out of the I formation. If you go back and look at the runs we had out of the offset I against Northwestern, our blocking schemes were exactly the same as other run plays we'd been executing all year.

The only difference was that there was no read option for Dobbs and Hurd had a chance to build up more momentum before hitting the hole.


I agree that using this look too much would take away some of the threat of Dobbs' legs (which would be bad). However, it is a wrinkle that could have some good uses for us, especially in short yardage situations. Also, there are some ways we could use that formation and wrinkle to take advantage of Dobbs' legs with rollouts, bootlegs, etc.


I think it's something we should be doing 5-10 times a game (depending on the matchup) in order to get Hurd running downhill and set up some easy play action passes for Dobbs.