Recruiting Forum: Football Talk XI

[NMVol]

Dobbs will break out sooner or later: wheels.

 

[TriCitiesVol]

UT Vols' Corey Vereen working to be defensive force | Mobile TFP

 

[Dust10]

Guess the first matchup to be thrown into the circle of life today. I'm gonna go with Jakob V. Helm with Jakob whooping dat @ass. I think they are gonna send a message to Helm that its grown man football time.

 

[MikeDVol]

Guess the first matchup to be thrown into the circle of life today. I'm gonna go with Jakob V. Helm with Jakob whooping dat @ass. I think they are gonna send a message to Helm that its grown man football time.

I don't know why you assume Jakob would dominate but ok.
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[wU-Tang Vol]

First matchup: Owen Williams vs Summerhill

 

[TNrockytop4ever]

Anyone care to explain the circle of life drill for those of us who don't know?

 

[Aesius]

I don't know why you assume Jakob would dominate but ok.
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Because dreds.

 

[Dust10]

I don't know why you assume Jakob would dominate but ok.
Posted via VolNation Mobile

More of a prediction than an assumption. I believe Wolf is the stronger of the two TE's and maybe the coaches want to show Helm he has some catching up to do in that aspect of his game.

 

[WriterVol]

Have to disagree with your overall conclusion. I think we called less than half a dozen screens to the RB all year. Less than a dozen slants. Those are just two examples of plays that don't require elite talent, build confidence, and would allow Worley to be his inaccurate noodle arm self and still have successful plays.

Bajakian takes the blame for poorly coaching on keeping the zone read too, which Worley almost never did.

And my whole life I have never been able to predict play calls for any team at any level, not even high school. Fairly often last year I could guess exactly what kind of play we were running, so you know actual DCs were easily diagnosing us if my blind ignorant self could get it right once in a while.

There have been worse offensive rosters than we had last year that did significantly better than we did.

His past success in an inferior conference buys him a little time, but to say he couldn't have done a LOT better last year is letting him off too easily IMO.

A slant or a screen sounds easy enough, but have we seen what they did with them in practice? Did anyone outside of the coaches chart how successful the ones we used in games were?

I don't remember this team being able to run a successful screen for a number of years now--any kind of screen.

I hear the slant argument so often, I wish a journalist would just straight ask Butch about it. Based on what I've seen of our screens, I can easily see why more of those weren't called. I'm guessing that's going to change with new personnel.

 

[Dust10]

Anyone care to explain the circle of life drill for those of us who don't know?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBYI6pQ-L78

Cue discussions of wasted potential.

 

[Big Orange#1]

Have to disagree with your overall conclusion. I think we called less than half a dozen screens to the RB all year. Less than a dozen slants. Those are just two examples of plays that don't require elite talent, build confidence, and would allow Worley to be his inaccurate noodle arm self and still have successful plays.

Bajakian takes the blame for poorly coaching on keeping the zone read too, which Worley almost never did.

And my whole life I have never been able to predict play calls for any team at any level, not even high school. Fairly often last year I could guess exactly what kind of play we were running, so you know actual DCs were easily diagnosing us if my blind ignorant self could get it right once in a while.

There have been worse offensive rosters than we had last year that did significantly better than we did.

His past success in an inferior conference buys him a little time, but to say he couldn't have done a LOT better last year is letting him off too easily IMO.

We discussed this earlier in the thread. At Cinci under Butch and CMB the slant was a staple of their offense. I think they would love to throw slants. But the route has to be run perfectly by the receiver and thrown accurately by the QB or it is an interception. We had neither the QB or the receivers to throw the slant route last season.

 

[jave36]

A slant or a screen sounds easy enough, but have we seen what they did with them in practice? Did anyone outside of the coaches chart how successful the ones we used in games were?

I don't remember this team being able to run a successful screen for a number of years now--any kind of screen.

I hear the slant argument so often, I wish a journalist would just straight ask Butch about it. Based on what I've seen of our screens, I can easily see why more of those weren't called. I'm guessing that's going to change with new personnel.

Almost Every slant I saw and every RB screen I saw from us was successful. I'm no coach, so maybe there is a legit reason why every other of the 125 teams in college football can run them more often and we couldn't, but logic suggests it just needed to be called more.

All screens are not created equal. There are plenty we never even tried, we just kept running the same couple every time except the few very successful RB screens (not smart enough to know what those are called, sorry.)

 

[jave36]

We discussed this earlier in the thread. At Cinci under Butch and CMB the slant was a staple of their offense. I think they would love to throw slants. But the route has to be run perfectly by the receiver and thrown accurately by the QB or it is an interception. We had neither the QB or the receivers to throw the slant route last season.

Yet every other program in the country can? I doubt we had the worst QB/WR roster in the country, not even in the conference.

 

[SouthKnoxVOL]

im really confused at what our strengths were on offense last year

we had virtually no QB experience and the one w/experience was not an elite talent - he may turn out to be a serviceable college starter but he is no elite talent

we had virtually zero WR experience - the only 1 that looked like a legit SEC WR was North who was a FR

we might have had the worst production from the TE position I have ever seen at UT

our OL had some real talent - only problem is they were much better pass blockers than run blockers - and if you look at the QB/WR/TE issues passing wasnt a great option

if you looked at the scouting report there just wasnt a lot for other teams to be scared about

You say play call to your strength - that is tough to do when you don't have a strength

You lost a NFL QB junior (or borderline NFL talent at QB), NFL WR 1st round pick junior, NFL 2nd round pick junior, NFL TE in Rivera - the well was pretty dry in 2013

Oh my God.........common sense!!

 

[YorkVol]

im really confused at what our strengths were on offense last year

we had virtually no QB experience and the one w/experience was not an elite talent - he may turn out to be a serviceable college starter but he is no elite talent

we had virtually zero WR experience - the only 1 that looked like a legit SEC WR was North who was a FR

we might have had the worst production from the TE position I have ever seen at UT

our OL had some real talent - only problem is they were much better pass blockers than run blockers - and if you look at the QB/WR/TE issues passing wasnt a great option

if you looked at the scouting report there just wasnt a lot for other teams to be scared about

You say play call to your strength - that is tough to do when you don't have a strength

You lost a NFL QB junior (or borderline NFL talent at QB), NFL WR 1st round pick junior, NFL 2nd round pick junior, NFL TE in Rivera - the well was pretty dry in 2013

Good post. I think that is why Butch decided to just continue to push his system rather than flex it to the players. He realized he couldn't make the outcome much better if he adapted to try to fit the players, so he decided to build toward the future. Now we have players who are truly in the second year of the system, rather than having to adjust off a hybrid.

 

[YorkVol]

Yet every other program in the country can? I doubt we had the worst QB/WR roster in the country, not even in the conference.

When Bray was a freshman everyone kept saying we should keep the passes out of the middle to avoid the interception threat. Most of the passes were back shoulder away from the DB and it wasn't until he had some experience that we started going over the middle. And that was with a couple of Senior WRs and TE and a gunslinger QB.

 

[SCvol333]

Yet every other program in the country can? I doubt we had the worst QB/WR roster in the country, not even in the conference.

I am not familiar with every school in the country but I think our WR/QB/TE combo last year compared to the caliber of competition it went up against had to be among the worst in the country

i mean south alabama's may have been worse - but we didnt play S.bama's scheduled - so comparable to schedule i'd say ours was pretty darn close

yet we still found a way to go to OT vs GA and beat a really really good USCjr team

give them a year to get their system in, develop/select a QB, and to actually get some weapons at WR/TE/RB and let's judge the OC then

 

[WriterVol]

Almost Every slant I saw and every RB screen I saw from us was successful. I'm no coach, so maybe there is a legit reason why every other of the 125 teams in college football can run them more often and we couldn't, but logic suggests it just needed to be called more.

All screens are not created equal. There are plenty we never even tried, we just kept running the same couple every time except the few very successful RB screens (not smart enough to know what those are called, sorry.)

I can't recall the slant one way or the other, which might bolster your claim that it wasn't run enough. On the other hand, if not run correctly, you're throwing over the middle of the field. If it's high, it's trouble.

On the screens though, I remember them having a ton of trouble with them. Maybe it's just the WR screens I'm thinking of, but they sure did have trouble with them. Any screen where a lineman or two were out there was just awful looking from my memory.

Again, lack of numbers makes this a recollection war (not that this discussion is even at the level of an argument at this point).

Either way, I'll definitely be watching the screens and slants this coming season.

 

[govols09]

I have to side with Jay on this one.

A slant is your most basic throw as a quarterback. If you can't complete that you don't belong on the field. We ran plenty of routes much ore complex and subject to turnovers.

One of my biggest gripes was the predictability of play calling based on formations and motions. There were many times throughout the season where Pig would go in motion and I knew the play and where the first read was. That is not acceptable and should be corrected based on self scouting.

 

[KnoxVillain]

Anyone care to explain the circle of life drill for those of us who don't know?

Two guys line up in a 3 point stance and go head to head lineman style. The whole team surrounds them and they cheer for their respective side of the ball.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBYI6pQ-L78[/youtube]

 

[SCvol333]

I can't recall the slant one way or the other, which might bolster your claim that it wasn't run enough. On the other hand, if not run correctly, you're throwing over the middle of the field. If it's high, it's trouble.

On the screens though, I remember them having a ton of trouble with them. Maybe it's just the WR screens I'm thinking of, but they sure did have trouble with them. Any screen where a lineman or two were out there was just awful looking from my memory.

Again, lack of numbers makes this a recollection war (not that this discussion is even at the level of an argument at this point).

Either way, I'll definitely be watching the screens and slants this coming season.

im not sure our OL was suited to run a lot of screens - we also had terrible TE play - so if your TE's can't block - your WR's are young, and typically young WR's don't block well - also the ability to run after catch is huge for calling screens - we had no CP or VP last year

now these factors vary in importance depending on the type of screen you are doing but not sure this was the elixir some on here make it out to be

from a strategy standpoint the basic idea of a screen is to take advantage of a D being too aggressive and bringing too many people up - im not sure why an opposing DC would have done that against us - maybe they did, i dont have data on how much the LB's blitzed or anything of that nature - but i would have played us vanilla and made us drive the ball - which we wouldnt have done and we then would have punted

 

[jave36]

I can't recall the slant one way or the other, which might bolster your claim that it wasn't run enough. On the other hand, if not run correctly, you're throwing over the middle of the field. If it's high, it's trouble.

On the screens though, I remember them having a ton of trouble with them. Maybe it's just the WR screens I'm thinking of, but they sure did have trouble with them. Any screen where a lineman or two were out there was just awful looking from my memory.

Again, lack of numbers makes this a recollection war (not that this discussion is even at the level of an argument at this point).

Either way, I'll definitely be watching the screens and slants this coming season.

We only ever ran one screen play consistently, and it rarely worked. If you're not a good enough coach to teach a team how to run a different screen play properly, that's a problem.

I agree the personnel was well below average, and I don't think bajakian should be fired (yet), but all this talk about how it's 100% on the talent level is way too generous for what I think was a below average job of teaching a new offense and play calling during a game. Players were still looking clueless at the very end of the year. Unless our roster is exceptionally dumb, the coaches have to eat the blame on that.

 

[NashVOL93]

So many people complaining about the playcalling, yet we had our best rushing season since 2004. It's always something with some of you people.

 

[jave36]

I have to side with Jay on this one.

A slant is your most basic throw as a quarterback. If you can't complete that you don't belong on the field. We ran plenty of routes much ore complex and subject to turnovers.

One of my biggest gripes was the predictability of play calling based on formations and motions. There were many times throughout the season where Pig would go in motion and I knew the play and where the first read was. That is not acceptable and should be corrected based on self scouting.

I've never played QB, so i didn't want to say definitively that a slant is an easy throw, but my gosh it's 5 yards.

Totally agree on predictability.

 

[WriterVol]

im not sure our OL was suited to run a lot of screens - we also had terrible TE play - so if your TE's can't block - your WR's are young, and typically young WR's don't block well - also the ability to run after catch is huge for calling screens - we had no CP or VP last year

now these factors vary in importance depending on the type of screen you are doing but not sure this was the elixir some on here make it out to be

from a strategy standpoint the basic idea of a screen is to take advantage of a D being too aggressive and bringing too many people up - im not sure why an opposing DC would have done that against us - maybe they did, i dont have data on how much the LB's blitzed or anything of that nature - but i would have played us vanilla and made us drive the ball - which we wouldnt have done and we then would have punted

I thought it was pretty clear that the OL wasn't suited to block for screens based on the last few years. They seemed extra slow on those. And the TE position last year was pretty bad and injury-ridden on top of that.

Good point on the coverage. In my limited experience, if they're playing any type of man, and your blockers aren't very good in space, screens don't usually work.