I was until tonight. I'm beginning to lose faith in the playbook Butch brought with him. I know to Butch it seems extensive, but every play looks almost exactly the same. We don't run a lot of different sets. I thought last year it was because of youth, but I'm beginning to think this is it. It's going to be hard to win consistently when you expect your team to line up week after week and physically dominate your opponent. This is the SEC, and that ain't going to happen.
Its the worst offense I've ever seen. You know what All Shotgun All The Time will get you? Beat, thats what.
I'm not sure Butch and Debord are paying attention to what other teams are doing, but even NFL teams
know you cant run every friggin play from the shotgun, New England for example takes a direct
snap on 1/3 of their plays, and the data shows that these QBs are more efficient when taking a direct
snap. This is from 2013, but look at the QB rating shotgun/center snap. Quite a difference.
Brady 77%/107%
Manning 111.6/129.7%
Wilson 93.7%/114.1%
Rogers 100.5%/120.6%
There's more but in summary 6 QBs posted a rating of over 100, the highest being 116. Under center
11 players had ratings over 100, Manning being the highest. Hell even Case Keenum had a 99.0 from
under center.
And yes, our offense is very vanilla and very predictable. We're limited to 3 running plays, we
dont use slants or crossing routes, and without a real play action, there's not really much to show
in the way of disguise. Slow developing running plays and predictable routes make our offense easy to defend.
When Butch was hired he promised that he was going to run a "pro style" offense, and we all know
thats bunk. And I said this last year, that if we didnt see Worley under center for 20%+ of the snaps,
that we were in for more of the same, and guess what.
The least Butch and his offensive gurus could employ are some plays out of the pistol for cryin out loud.
I mean this is just so basic its beyond belief that they keep doing the same old thing expecting different
results, then blaming good ole EXECUTION for our failures.
Rant over. Sorry Joe, none of that was directed at you.