Not directly relayed to the Iowa sequence which was arguably vastly too conservative but one of the things that irritated me most about MSJr was his stubbornness on running on first down, even when teams we’re begging him to pass. First down should be a great time to pass the ball based on every statistical analysis I’ve ever seen. It bothered me so much I calculated the run/pass ratio for 2021 versus 2019 - and Ciarocca himself is not an air raid aficionado but took advantage of first down much better. Does someone here want to defend Sanford’s philosophy?
rush percentage by down
2021:
1st 82%
2nd 47%
3rd 60%
2019:
1st: 66%
2nd: 64%
3rd: 54%
Replacement, we’ve seen this numerous times. Before a coach gets fired for incompetence many fans can be convinced with the notion passing on first down 18% of the time makes sense.
After they’re fired yep, he sucked.