Game Strategy

Donate To GopherHole
nsmike

nsmike

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 20, 2009
Messages
3,159
Reaction score
256
Points
83
Against EIU we basically played a vanilla offense against a similar defense front to TCU's. When victory is pretty much assured; why should the coaches tip there hands? TCU is the big challenge! we need to keep that in mind. It might drive us as fans crazy but it's the right call.
 

nsmike said:
Against EIU we basically played a vanilla offense against a similar defense front to TCU's. When victory is pretty much assured; why should the coaches tip there hands? TCU is the big challenge! we need to keep that in mind. It might drive us as fans crazy but it's the right call.
Click to expand...

By showing what? a 10 yd sideline pass? A deep post pattern? A quick slant pass? A reverse? These are not secret plays.

There's not quite as much 'cloak and dagger' as some of you think.
 

station19 said:
By showing what? a 10 yd sideline pass? A deep post pattern? A quick slant pass? A reverse? These are not secret plays.

There's not quite as much 'cloak and dagger' as some of you think.
Click to expand...
Completely agree. Anyone who watched the game knows the execution of the QB in the passing game is the reason we aren't "tipping our hand".
 

I'm more referring to blocking schemes and running wide. Mitch was also better in the second half but the calls were dialed back to just some plain vanilla confidence passes. If you want to really dissect the game there was a couple of times that it looked like Fruechte didn't make the adjustment Leidner expected. It'll be interesting to see next week if Wolitarsky plays.
 

station19 said:
By showing what? a 10 yd sideline pass? A deep post pattern? A quick slant pass? A reverse? These are not secret plays.

There's not quite as much 'cloak and dagger' as some of you think.
Click to expand...


I do agree they are not "secret", but route combinations by certain receiver line ups are what DB coaches are paid to study. If we are running a 2 WR and 2 TE set, having a TE (Max for ex) run a 10 yard out with D Jones running a deep post is giving something away. It's a tendency. Max/Jones/Leidner may give something away that pre-snap or initially in the route allows a Cover 2 Safety to jump the post or even more so, make the cover 2 the select call out of that personnel ID. Having been a collegiate DB, this is literally all we do in film session.

Vanilla really means vanilla because
 


gophervet said:
I do agree they are not "secret", but route combinations by certain receiver line ups are what DB coaches are paid to study. If we are running a 2 WR and 2 TE set, having a TE (Max for ex) run a 10 yard out with D Jones running a deep post is giving something away. It's a tendency. Max/Jones/Leidner may give something away that pre-snap or initially in the route allows a Cover 2 Safety to jump the post or even more so, make the cover 2 the select call out of that personnel ID. Having been a collegiate DB, this is literally all we do in film session.

Vanilla really means vanilla because
Click to expand...

And they have tapes of last years games.
 

gophervet said:
I do agree they are not "secret", but route combinations by certain receiver line ups are what DB coaches are paid to study. If we are running a 2 WR and 2 TE set, having a TE (Max for ex) run a 10 yard out with D Jones running a deep post is giving something away. It's a tendency. Max/Jones/Leidner may give something away that pre-snap or initially in the route allows a Cover 2 Safety to jump the post or even more so, make the cover 2 the select call out of that personnel ID. Having been a collegiate DB, this is literally all we do in film session.

Vanilla really means vanilla because
Click to expand...

This is what makes reading GH worth while. Drama. Knowledge. Clarification. Insight.
 

station19 said:
And they have tapes of last years games.
Click to expand...

And the year before that and the year before that and the year.......

Kill and Limegrover have been together forever. Their offensive strategy is very well established and there is little to nothing they can hide from an opposing staff at this point outside of gadget and trick plays. This whole idea that we are holding things back in order to hide them is crazy. All last year we kept hearing how they were going to open up the playbook, it was only a matter of time till they opened up the playbook.

Like it or not this is our offense and it will be our offense as long as Kill/Limegrover are at the helm. Sure they will add a wrinkle or two and I would bet they have a few gadgets in there to try and take advantage of Edwards speed that they will not show, but at this point in the Kill tenure there really is little to no mystery left to what we are going to do on the offensive side of the ball and this vanilla offense we see week in and week out is not just there for the preseason it is just our offense. At this point it is just a matter of whether or not we have the playmakers and especially the QB to execute things.
 

So no one on here thinks the way we added all the shifts and motion for the NE game last year made a difference? We could have done it all year and it wouldn't have been easier for NE to handle? That no teams we played after NE had an easier time adjusting because they had tape from the NE game to watch?

Football strategy is way more complicated than some folks here seem to think. Holding things back may not make a huge difference, but it can give slight edges. You are naive if you think everyone knows the Gophers "strategy".
 



gophervet said:
I do agree they are not "secret", but route combinations by certain receiver line ups are what DB coaches are paid to study. If we are running a 2 WR and 2 TE set, having a TE (Max for ex) run a 10 yard out with D Jones running a deep post is giving something away. It's a tendency. Max/Jones/Leidner may give something away that pre-snap or initially in the route allows a Cover 2 Safety to jump the post or even more so, make the cover 2 the select call out of that personnel ID. Having been a collegiate DB, this is literally all we do in film session.

Vanilla really means vanilla because
Click to expand...

Tendencies are great and all, but the idea that running one pass play with a specific route combo is showing a tendency is far too broad to make that statement. We have not, to this point, run enough routes in one game for an overall tendency for this team to be established. Therefore the idea that running a few of our passing route combos would tip our hand to a college coach is a little crazy. All it does at this point is show it is an available option. Heck if the case was that one or two plays made a tendency that was stuck to, there would be DB's picking off 3/4 of the passes thrown.
 

Spoofin said:
So no one on here thinks the way we added all the shifts and motion for the NE game last year made a difference? We could have done it all year and it wouldn't have been easier for NE to handle? That no teams we played after NE had an easier time adjusting because they had tape from the NE game to watch?

Football strategy is way more complicated than some folks here seem to think. Holding things back may not make a huge difference, but it can give slight edges. You are naive if you think everyone knows the Gophers "strategy".
Click to expand...

that, imo, was different in that we hadn't run motion really at all prior to that. What people are suggesting is running some different routes and letting Mitch get live game practice throwing the 10 yd out or back shoulder throw wouldn't really tip anything as it's a play that everyone has in the playbook that you will practice for as a defense regardless. The motion was an entirely different wrinkle that I'd put along the lines of the wildcat when it came into the league as it adds the entirely different perspective of not having practiced where guys will be lined up at.
 

For those that think everything is on video how many 4-2-5 defenses have we played? I'm sure the coaches have a plan to attack a 4-2-5 defense but they are sure as heck not going to show it against EIU.
 

Additionally, just because it has happened before in the last years, does not mean that it is at the forefront of the players film studies. Regardless of coaching efforts, the opposing players have to react and defend to what they learned in film study. Usually the most recent games are the first analyzed films because of the most recent tendencies of the players and coaches adjusting for their current personnel. Would it make a lot or sense for MTSU to watch extensive film of freshman Max Williams and freshman D Jones (and WR for two months) receiving passes from Philip Nelson last year? Answer, it could help with route combinations but the subtleties that are needed to read and react to those combinations will not be the same. Different story for a team with same staff, same 4 year QB, and all experienced receiving cores, but that is rare in CFB.
 



upnorthkid said:
that, imo, was different in that we hadn't run motion really at all prior to that. What people are suggesting is running some different routes and letting Mitch get live game practice throwing the 10 yd out or back shoulder throw wouldn't really tip anything as it's a play that everyone has in the playbook that you will practice for as a defense regardless. The motion was an entirely different wrinkle that I'd put along the lines of the wildcat when it came into the league as it adds the entirely different perspective of not having practiced where guys will be lined up at.
Click to expand...

Oh, so if it disproves your agenda then it doesn't count? Got it. That wasn't a 'strategy', it was a 'wrinkle'. LOL.
 

Spoofin said:
So no one on here thinks the way we added all the shifts and motion for the NE game last year made a difference? We could have done it all year and it wouldn't have been easier for NE to handle? That no teams we played after NE had an easier time adjusting because they had tape from the NE game to watch?

Football strategy is way more complicated than some folks here seem to think. Holding things back may not make a huge difference, but it can give slight edges. You are naive if you think everyone knows the Gophers "strategy".
Click to expand...

You are 100% correct that you need to hold some things back and come up with new strategies like the shifts that have taken college football by storm in the past year or so. But the basic idea of our offense doesn't change, we are going to be a run first team that runs a very safe conservative passing game.
 

Spoofin said:
Oh, so if it disproves your agenda then it doesn't count? Got it. That wasn't a 'strategy', it was a 'wrinkle'. LOL.
Click to expand...

Not at all what I was saying. I don't view route combos (everyone runs the smash route, everyone runs the out with a post. they are common route combos i would be willing to be every team has in the playbook) on the same level as a motion or a wildcat. They are entirely different schemes than a route combo. D backs will always know about those route combos. But the idea that some guy is coming at you with full speed in motion is, again imo, wildly different than the idea that you've never seen this one specific team run an out and up. IMO, if you've seen one team run the smash, you've seen them all in that the route combo is established because it puts the DB on an island. That's why it's always been run. I've played plenty of DB and watched plenty of film. Yeah there are going to be routes you sit on as a DB, but it's influenced by so many more things than just tendency of the offense. It has to do with the coverage you are in personally, where the LB's are sitting, if you have help over the top, if you're blitzing. That's why personally, I don't see the issue with running a ten yard out. Every team has that route in the playbook. You, as a DB, know the out could be a possibility at any time out of any formation. Motion is different in that it can change who you are covering, who could get the ball, what the potential blocking scheme for the offense is; and that is why I view at as being a much more major thing to show where as a route combo is an established thing you know and have a set way you are playing it coming in. Just my 2 cents from my experience and from film study.

You are entirely in your power to view it differently and I have no issue with that.
 

MNVCGUY said:
And the year before that and the year before that and the year.......

Kill and Limegrover have been together forever. Their offensive strategy is very well established and there is little to nothing they can hide from an opposing staff at this point outside of gadget and trick plays. This whole idea that we are holding things back in order to hide them is crazy. All last year we kept hearing how they were going to open up the playbook, it was only a matter of time till they opened up the playbook.

Like it or not this is our offense and it will be our offense as long as Kill/Limegrover are at the helm. Sure they will add a wrinkle or two and I would bet they have a few gadgets in there to try and take advantage of Edwards speed that they will not show, but at this point in the Kill tenure there really is little to no mystery left to what we are going to do on the offensive side of the ball and this vanilla offense we see week in and week out is not just there for the preseason it is just our offense. At this point it is just a matter of whether or not we have the playmakers and especially the QB to execute things.
Click to expand...

The funny thing about your last paragraph is that the offense we saw against EIU is absolutely not the offense we've seen under Kill/Limegrover. Leidner ran the ball 7 times in 3.5 quarters. That would have been the lowest number of QB rushes in a game last season. We barely ran the read option, except with Streveler in the game, so that he could have game reps running the offense we actually will run, should he ever be tapped for significant game action. If you break down an offense into a dichotomy between run and pass, then I suppose the EIU game "will be our offense," as we ran the ball more frequently than we passed it.

In addition, they barely moved the pocket on our passing plays. Our passing offense generally isn't a 5-step drop, pocket passing scheme. We roll out a lot and move the pocket, which we barely did against EIU. (When we did, Leidner found Maxx for his couple of big gains. Funny how our bread-and-butter offense seemed to work well.)

The offensive game plan seemed pretty clear to me:
1. Keep Leidner healthy.
2. Challenge Leidner on some pocket passing.

Leidner struggled with sitting in the pocket, which was a bit of a bummer. But, I don't think anybody was expecting him to be an ace pocket passer. Hopefully he'll improve in that regard. And I think we'll see huge strides in Leidner's game when we actually run our normal offense.
 

SonOfTheVarsity said:
The funny thing about your last paragraph is that the offense we saw against EIU is absolutely not the offense we've seen under Kill/Limegrover. Leidner ran the ball 7 times in 3.5 quarters. That would have been the lowest number of QB rushes in a game last season. We barely ran the read option, except with Streveler in the game, so that he could have game reps running the offense we actually will run, should he ever be tapped for significant game action. If you break down an offense into a dichotomy between run and pass, then I suppose the EIU game "will be our offense," as we ran the ball more frequently than we passed it.

In addition, they barely moved the pocket on our passing plays. Our passing offense generally isn't a 5-step drop, pocket passing scheme. We roll out a lot and move the pocket, which we barely did against EIU. (When we did, Leidner found Maxx for his couple of big gains. Funny how our bread-and-butter offense seemed to work well.)

The offensive game plan seemed pretty clear to me:
1. Keep Leidner healthy.
2. Challenge Leidner on some pocket passing.

Leidner struggled with sitting in the pocket, which was a bit of a bummer. But, I don't think anybody was expecting him to be an ace pocket passer. Hopefully he'll improve in that regard. And I think we'll see huge strides in Leidner's game when we actually run our normal offense.
Click to expand...

Correctomundo.

I found myself wondering, while watching the game, if Leidner actually had some kind of penalties tied to a number of rushing attempts; tuck and run it more than 3 times, 50 pushups, wind sprints, etc. He ran it a few times, but only when he couldn't help himself
 

Ogee Oglethorpe said:
Correctomundo.

I found myself wondering, while watching the game, if Leidner actually had some kind of penalties tied to a number of rushing attempts; tuck and run it more than 3 times, 50 pushups, wind sprints, etc. He ran it a few times, but only when he couldn't help himself
Click to expand...

this would be actually kind of comical if it played out on a time when there was a wide open lane to the end zone. I can picture it in my head lol
 

upnorthkid said:
this would be actually kind of comical if it played out on a time when there was a wide open lane to the end zone. I can picture it in my head lol
Click to expand...

It did on their first TD.. You could see Leidner thinking, " I am not supposed to run it." ( and then ran through a wide open lane)
 

nsmike said:
Against EIU we basically played a vanilla offense against a similar defense front to TCU's. When victory is pretty much assured; why should the coaches tip there hands? TCU is the big challenge! we need to keep that in mind. It might drive us as fans crazy but it's the right call.
Click to expand...

Practice makes perfect, but in this case practicing our plays and gameplan against live bullets in our "preseason" games makes a ton of sense to me. We're not good enough to just unleash hell when we decide o roll out our our entire arsenal after just working on it during practice, we need to work on it now during these games and polish our O gameplan and plays so that we can come out and execute at nut crunching time.
 

Indi1006 said:
Practice makes perfect, but in this case practicing our plays and gameplan against live bullets in our "preseason" games makes a ton of sense to me. We're not good enough to just unleash hell when we decide o roll out our our entire arsenal after just working on it during practice, we need to work on it now during these games and polish our O gameplan and plays so that we can come out and execute at nut crunching time.
Click to expand...

We still have time. This was just one game.
 

Fans are funny about this kind of stuff. What we saw against EIU was our offense, aside from the lack of read-option plays. Here's a secret: Our Offense Is Vanilla! And that's fine with me. What concerns me is the fact that defenses have continually been able to get away with single man coverage on the outside, allowing them to bring lots of pressure on both run and pass plays. Find a receiver who can get separation on the outside and this "vanilla" offense becomes a whole lot more fun.
 

M&G BUSt said:
Fans are funny about this kind of stuff. What we saw against EIU was our offense, aside from the lack of read-option plays. Here's a secret: Our Offense Is Vanilla! And that's fine with me. What concerns me is the fact that defenses have continually been able to get away with single man coverage on the outside, allowing them to bring lots of pressure on both run and pass plays. Find a receiver who can get separation on the outside and this "vanilla" offense becomes a whole lot more fun.
Click to expand...

Won't matter if the QB can't make the throw to the open receiver.
 

GopherInPittsburgh said:
Won't matter if the QB can't make the throw to the open receiver.
Click to expand...


True, but I don't remember any plays against EIU where Leidner missed easy passes to wide open receivers. I'm sure someone will correct me. Leidners probably not going to pick apart a defense, but he's got a strong arm, and can put a ball on a receiver in a high percentage type pass play. A couple people said they were concerned with the way he played in the pocket, to that I say where was there a pocket? Between all the blitzing and the missed blocking between the o- line and running backs, there weren't many plays where he could sit back for 5 seconds, step up and throw.
 

I don't really care what we do against the weak opponents so long as we beat them. However, the last two years we looked really sluggish when we first saw real competition, so I will be annoyed if we aren't ready to hit the ground running against TCU and the conference schedule.
 


Indi1006 said:
If given proper protection he will make the throws most if the time. Schemes generate open receivers too it's not all on the receivers.
Click to expand...

I've never been highly critical of our offensive scheme, but it seems like a lot of the pass plays we run I would not consider to be high percentage type passing plays.
 

M&G BUSt said:
True, but I don't remember any plays against EIU where Leidner missed easy passes to wide open receivers. I'm sure someone will correct me. Leidners probably not going to pick apart a defense, but he's got a strong arm, and can put a ball on a receiver in a high percentage type pass play. A couple people said they were concerned with the way he played in the pocket, to that I say where was there a pocket? Between all the blitzing and the missed blocking between the o- line and running backs, there weren't many plays where he could sit back for 5 seconds, step up and throw.
Click to expand...

Only one that comes to mind was Jones wide open deep that would've been a TD with the ball on target.
 


You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom