Football Rutgers offense, meet explosive plays
- Thread starter ChrisNalwasky
- Start date
True the #s were not good, but it wasn't like we tried for explossive plays that much. Even with third and long we were running into the line last year. The year before we were throwing behind the line. They were give up plays. McNulty is right about trying to put the ball down the field. It will help the RB's too.
Just the fact that we are sending guys on intermediate and deaper patterns will help short throws too. Running 5 guys to the same level last year was just asinine
I don’t understand what you’re trying to say. What’s wrong with pounding the rock behind a weak, small and slow Oline when you’re facing 3rd and 12?
That seperation issue is way overblown. Most of if has to do with the types of patterns being run or how they are run. Most of the time our patterns were just straight down the field or stops at the same level.
Three deffenders can cover those 5 to 7 yard stop patterns were every is at the same level because of narrow or non exixtant passing lanes close to the LOS. When we sent guys deaper, they were almost always going straight down the field. Any unskilled DB can run with that. There was zero creativity in the passing game. That was on the coaches.
Every once in a while we would run guys deaper and drag someone over the middle. That's almost impossible to cover, but our receivers either were not taught to or did not have the instincts to know when to sit down in a seam between dropped LBs. They would just keep running or drift into the next guy in the drop. They made it impossible to throw to them at times. That's a mistake in how the pattern was run.
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Honestly we have a more weapons on offense then we've had in a long time. McNulty has the opportunity to be very creative with the play calling. We have two very good tight ends who could be best friends for a freshman qb, a speed demon WR in Melton and Blackshear might have some of the best hands on the team. If Shameen Jones and Eddie Lewis are as solid as we are hearing, this offense is going to be fun to watch.
Call me optimistic but I also really liked what I've seen from Isaiah Pacheco. Dude is built like a tank and looks extremely explosive. I predict he becomes the main RB by the end if the season.
Of course it all depends on our Oline. We have some promise there as well.
I could be completely wrong and we could suck again. But I have a hard time seeing how this offense is last or second to last in the FBS again...
Call me optimistic but I also really liked what I've seen from Isaiah Pacheco. Dude is built like a tank and looks extremely explosive. I predict he becomes the main RB by the end if the season.
Of course it all depends on our Oline. We have some promise there as well.
I could be completely wrong and we could suck again. But I have a hard time seeing how this offense is last or second to last in the FBS again...
Which begs the question, do you think the OLine will be better or at least competent to protect the QB long enough to allow plays to develop or open up holes in the run game...no matter who the QB, RB and WRs are...all unproven by the way, without an at least average OLine, nothing else gets accomplished...
We did what we had to do. It worked against some teams. Big plays don’t just happen. We play some great Defenses and negative plays or turnovers are also a possibility against these teams. Give up plays suck on the surface but they’re better than what I mentioned above. Without the two Punt returns against WA and Nebraska we may poll one or both of those games out with the style we played.
This year we will take shots down the field but we won’t just be throwing the ball all over the place like some teams do. We have more grown men at WR and TE and the OL should be able to protect. Let’s see.
This.
The pieces are in place for a big step up in Offensive Production this year.
A proven OC, nice combo of TEs { Washington, Griffin} and WRs { Melton, Jones, Lewis, Wormley, etc.}, one-two RB punch of Hilliman and Blackshear, an experienced OL with Cole, Seymour, Jonah Jackson, etc. , a new dynamic QB with an Arm.
Me thinks we all will be happier than our performance last season.
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Once again, I really hope Gio starts the first two games. The team should win the first game and I just don't want the true freshman starting against OSU. We need him for the games against Kansas, Maryland, Indiana, Buffalo and Northwestern.
Agree, but I wouldn't mind he get a series against TS. TS is no MEAC, but I still expect a convincing win by > 10 points, so it'd be good to insert him for some real game experience early.
I like how people just throw out comments regarding the offensive line such as:
" and the OL should be able to protect"
What evidence is there that would make anyone think this at this point? Coming off a season in which the O line struggled to protect anyone, and is returning only 2 of 5 starters from the first game of last year ?? No evidence to me that the O - Line, the most important part of the offense, is going to be improved . You can have all the skill players in the world, but if you cant win up front, it will make everyone else look like they are to blame.
One of the benefits from sitting upstairs is watching how passing plays develop, and boy did they just stutter last year. The route selection made next to little sense. The bulk of the time there were just a cluster of our guys all in the same area. That's fine if you are trying to move guys together and then get someone else out on the other side of the field but that rarely happened. It seemed most of the time our receivers instead of looking for soft zones, just kept running towards the next defender.
Prove to me they will not protect this year. I have no evidence they will not with a vertical passing game to keep the D honest.
At what point did the OL show “they could not protect anyone last year?” We barely threw down field at all. I don’t think we have up that many sacks either.
Plus we are returning 3 starters and 5 who have played a fair amount.
Explain your thought process here.
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The gameplan was altered to limit how long the OL had to block for passing plays. When you don't go deep, and keep everything super short to check downs and safety valves that OL only has to do so much.
Yes Rutgers was 32nd in the Nation only giving 1.5 sacks per game, however in terms of Sack % per Passing Attempt, Rutgers was 70th, where in passing situations the OL gave up a sack 6.23% of the time.
This is what boggles my mind... these guys are getting paid a few hundred grand to do a job that most arm chair QBs can plainly see as moronic and ineffective. Are they really just on that next level in their thinking and what they have to work with, or did I just pick the wrong career.
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I quoted the wrong post from you. To your last post:
Perhaps but it was pretty well known we did not have the ability to throw deep or get open deep. We also wanted to keep our D fresh and that is why we ran the hall more and threw safe passes to give ourselves the best chance to win games. Now we have a couple of young guys who can throw deep, we have more mature but still young Wts. The OL is not our biggest issue. They should be able to give the QB time. They did a great job run blocking last year.
Also the two stats you show mean very little. We threw mainly on passing downs for one thing and we played against some of the top D’s in the country as well. So giving up sacks when it’s 3rd and long against Top teams is what it is. The first stat means little because we did not throw downfield very often which I said already in the prior post. Army was #1 which tells you all you need to know.
I’m in agreement with your comments pretty much but disagree with Skyler that they did not protect anyone last year. That is just not true. Then to say we only return 2 starters is also incorrect since 4 guys started and are returning. We lost two guards. I think the OL could be a strength but we play some very tough D’s. All hands on deck boys.
I quoted the wrong post from you. To your last post:
Perhaps but it was pretty well known we did not have the ability to throw deep or get open deep. We also wanted to keep our D fresh and that is why we ran the hall more and threw safe passes to give ourselves the best chance to win games. Now we have a couple of young guys who can throw deep, we have more mature but still young Wts. The OL is not our biggest issue. They should be able to give the QB time. They did a great job run blocking last year.
Also the two stats you show mean very little. We threw mainly on passing downs for one thing and we played against some of the top D’s in the country as well. So giving up sacks when it’s 3rd and long against Top teams is what it is. The first stat means little because we did not throw downfield very often which I said already in the prior post. Army was #1 which tells you all you need to know.
I’m in agreement with your comments pretty much but disagree with Skyler that they did not protect anyone last year. That is just not true. Then to say we only return 2 starters is also incorrect since 4 guys started and are returning. We lost two guards. I think the OL could be a strength but we play some very tough D’s. All hands on deck boys.
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They were not effective last year but not because of weak, small and slow...
Who knows if you ever will find out but we are pretty much only talking about depth guys here.
If Art is going to be the man this year...you start him regardless of the opponent. If Gio or Lewis is the starter in game 1 and 2, then we hope they have a great season and Art redshirts.
I can't judge the OL until they have a few series where they only have to block 4-6 guys. Not the constant 7-9 guys they have had to block over the past 2 years. Over the past 2 years, we could have had the 05-08 OL's and they may have looked average at best.
Watched a little bit of the Nebraska gme the other day. Protection was fine and they were playing base D for the most part. They rushed 5 a couple of times and we picked it up. Only threw one deep ball but Bolin was hitting on the 8-15 yard passes pretty well. It’s a small sampling but protection was fine.
EXACTLY! No defense was made to protect any deeper part of the field. Maybe in the first games of the season they played a more balanced D.. but in every game by the time the 1st QTR was over, the safeties knew they could play in front of them... never backpeddle... and that applies to CBs too. They could jump the bubble screens.. its not like a WR as going to sprint behind them.
Later in the season teams could do this from the first play, because they had a whole season of game tapes to tell them that the deep third was a no-go zone for us.. it made it harder to complete short and intermediate routes which made it harder to run.
Its a Flood issue that somehow was inherited by Ash. I'm sure young DM envisioned a Joe Montana style offense... without Joe Montana and Jerry Rice and he never trained up the players to EXECUTE with precision.... which means you can complete a pass like that even when the guy is covered.. because its about angles and precision and throwing guys open. Without that, you need balance.. you need to stretch the field.. you need "doubt" in the minds of the defensive players to give you that room you need. And I think occasionally we had the idea to just run the ball because the RBs were good... less risk of turnovers.. work clock, make games closer... but without showing the possibility of a deep ball, you're playing O with one hand tied behind your back.. if not both hands.
Seems like a chicken and egg scenario. They couldn’t get separation, but it’s hard when you run 5 yard outs all game and the D sits on them. Even if they don’t connect, throwing the ball down field at least puts it in the mind of the D.
Absolutely Cali. And then with nobody open it's just a matter of time before the rush gets to the QB. I think McNulty will pressure the whole field. Then getting Blackshear open in the flat will be even more productive. Of course, one of the receivers has to become a Carroo or Sanu type, where the QB knows on 3rd down or in the 4th quarter they will make the play.
Can't let opponent D's stack the box every freakin' play!
I have faith in the Rutgers legacy, Bo Melton. He is going to have a break out year!
He did that on plays where there were 8-9 in the box. No doubt he was a beast for us. On plays were the opposition were on a base D we had some holes to run through.
I think Bolin was doing that early in the season. We were determined to grind it out no matter what when he got benched. We sprinkled in some nice pass plays but we were a heavy run team. The OL did a nice job there IMO.
