It amazes me how little football knowledge people have. They run zone schemes almost all the time (as do most teams in college and the NFL). The ball is held out the way it is on purpose. The defense flows to the ball and, if the OL does their job, there are cutback lanes available. The RBs need to find those lanes. I saw at least three opportunities to cut back that the RBs missed. The scheme is not the issue.
As for where they run, you need to think that through as well. If you run outside every time, the LBs will just line up wider and flow to the ball. They need to "pound the rock" inside in order to open up the outside. They did that, but the RBs missed some spots. Still, they were effective enough in all of this to open up the passing game later on.
Do your homework before you start bashing to work of professionals.
You need a base play. The play you can run and beat any defense. You can tell them you are running it and you still execute it. It could be the quick pitch off of zone or man blocking. In the Syracuse game, they used a zone scheme. In the fall practice man. But twice they have run the pitch sweep successfully to the right behind Carufel, Wills, & Tow Arnett. The sweep is run in the alley between the tightend and the pulling guard or sideline. And when you pound the rock, you run it again, and again, and again, and again until they stop it. Then you insert the counter off a pitch sweep right. That's play progression. You also run Hoese on a fullback trap off Pitchsweep action to keep linebackers honest. Maybe an Iso. Maybe sprint draw. Then back to another version of power pitch right.