Hey Coach 34 (and others) - how about this?

[Dawgheadcheese]

I don't claim to be a football coach, but I wanted your (and others) opinion on this. The early read on our OL seems to be that they are average. But it is also obvious that have tall receivers that can make plays down the field - more depth in this area than I can ever remember having at MSU. Against the upper tier SEC teams, we must find some ways to keep opposing DLs from just pinning their ears back and stacking the line / blitzing. So then, wouldn't it set up well for us to have a number of plays in which we run our stud receivers on deep routes (clearing space) and use some of our quick / smaller receivers and running backs on short dump passes or short crossing routes that enable Prescott to make quick, high percentage passes capable of gobbling some yards while taking pressure off our running game and quarterback? It seems that if we were to have some success with that, it would put those opposing defensive lineman in a more cautious frame of mind and help out our OL significantly.

In the past, we would have had a much more difficult time doing this due to our lack of big, playmaking receivers. And now we have those small, quick guys that can catch the ball well on short routes.

What do you think?

[codeDawg]

That's exactly what Freeze did with Treadwell in the slot last year.

[starkvegasdawg]

One of the best ways to keep d linemen honest is a well orchestrated screen pass. You let them get burned a few times on a screen pass and they become much more tentative.

[msstate7]

One of the best ways to keep d linemen honest is a well orchestrated screen pass. You let them get burned a few times on a screen pass and they become much more tentative.

I'd love to see some screens to jrob and even Malcolm Johnson

[LiterallyPolice]

I don't claim to be a football coach, but I wanted your (and others) opinion on this. The early read on our OL seems to be that they are average. But it is also obvious that have tall receivers that can make plays down the field - more depth in this area than I can ever remember having at MSU. Against the upper tier SEC teams, we must find some ways to keep opposing DLs from just pinning their ears back and stacking the line / blitzing. So then, wouldn't it set up well for us to have a number of plays in which we run our stud receivers on deep routes (clearing space) and use some of our quick / smaller receivers and running backs on short dump passes or short crossing routes that enable Prescott to make quick, high percentage passes capable of gobbling some yards while taking pressure off our running game and quarterback? It seems that if we were to have some success with that, it would put those opposing defensive lineman in a more cautious frame of mind and help out our OL significantly.

In the past, we would have had a much more difficult time doing this due to our lack of big, playmaking receivers. And now we have those small, quick guys that can catch the ball well on short routes.

What do you think?

I'm no football expert, but it seems to me that a key factor in success at any level of football is being able to dump off to the RB/Slot WR in the case of a blitz or broken play. To your point, I think that doing this successfully is absolute must for an above average season.

[engie]

We aren't going to get beat very often how we got beat in that USM game IMO. Mainly -- we will cut every "elite" DL we come up against. As Mullen has said many times -- it's easy to take an elite pass rusher out of the game if he doesn't have tremendous talent(s) next to him. I expect us to be in much better sync against UAB...

People are going to be surprised by USM's DL this year IMO. I had heard a good bit about it in reports leading into our game -- and they were mostly as advertised. Easy to look at their record over the past 2 and imagine that they suck everywhere -- but that's not what I actually saw at all...

[Political Hack]

I wouldn't be shocked to see Malcolm catch a screen pass come LSU... I doubt we throw one before then, but I promise they're in the playbook. If the coaches think our OL can put a hat on other teams LBs five yards downfield, it'll happen. otherwise we could go Bo Dirt and sling it towards the sidelines.

Dak's so much better on 3 count passes than he was before I don't think we'll need to resort to only 1 or 2 ways to slow down the OL. Snap, set your feet, throw... they can't get to him that quick and it forces the DL to react to the passes because they're only 5 yards downfield. I think our short passing game is as good as it's been with this WR group... and if they don't take the top off Bear, they can go for the land of milk and honey. Too many options for us to be overly concerned about having a middle of the pack SEC OL.

[Coach34]

Absolutely.

One thing you have to remember is that we were very vanilla with the O and didn't do much in the way that we would normally do to help our OL either. We are better on the OL than people think

We ran for 200 yards and had over 300 passing- I'm not worried about anybody stacking the box vs us

[HoopsDawg]

Absolutely.

One thing you have to remember is that we were very vanilla with the O and didn't do much in the way that we would normally do to help our OL either. We are better on the OL than people think

We ran for 200 yards and had over 300 passing- I'm not worried about anybody stacking the box vs us

We weren't vanilla. Dak didn't run the ball, but we weren't vanilla. We ran our offense.

[msstate7]

We weren't vanilla. Dak didn't run the ball, but we weren't vanilla. We ran our offense.

Well isn't dak running a big part of our offense?

[Coach34]

We weren't vanilla. Dak didn't run the ball, but we weren't vanilla. We ran our offense.

soooooo- the guy that will run the ball 15-20 times per game in SEC play ran it twice- but we weren't vanilla? And that was just Prescott.

Sometimes i I think you just wait for me to post so you can argue

[HoopsDawg]

Well isn't dak running a big part of our offense?

That's no secret that we are hiding. We aren't going to catch LSU off guard by letting Dak run the ball. It drives me crazy when posters say, well, we are saving that for later in the season. We were vanilla on offense, b/c of this game or that game.

[War Machine Dawg]

Absolutely.

One thing you have to remember is that we were very vanilla with the O and didn't do much in the way that we would normally do to help our OL either. We are better on the OL than people think

We ran for 200 yards and had over 300 passing- I'm not worried about anybody stacking the box vs us

Exactly. We'll be just fine on the OL. Day probably had the worst game of his career on Saturday night. I think we can all agree there's no way he'll be that bad again this season. Another factor is we took the read out of our zone read running game almost the entire night. Putting that back in will help tremendously. We've still got PLENTY of wrinkles left on offense and on the OL in particular.

The one thing I WOULD change: Start Clayborn and make Beckwith the swing G. Clayborn is a damn man and Gabe Jackson clone. We NEED his road grading style up front. There's no reason for him to be playing fewer snaps than Beckwith at this point. Honestly, Beckwith was the weakest link of our line against USM. I'm giving Day a mulligan based on his track record.

[tcdog70]

we didn't run plays for DAK or Tubby. we didn't run the diamond--did we? Dylan Bradley will have plenty of sacks this Year. wish we had signed Him.

[HoopsDawg]

soooooo- the guy that will run the ball 15-20 times per game in SEC play ran it twice- but we weren't vanilla? And that was just Prescott.

Sometimes i I think you just wait for me to post so you can argue

Honestly, you are one of the few posters worth engaging in convo over here.

[SallyStansbury]

I agree fully with Coach here.

This is a good post. Everyone spent time bitching and moaning about what went wrong at the goal line, who was to blame, subbing in the second team, whahahahahah. I was glad to see Dak only run the ball a few times the entire game. That is a complete victory in my book. Who gives a shit if we score there, the score was 49-0. We are going to punch it in more times than we don't.

Credit to Dan Mullen for NOT running the shit out of Dak.

Now fix special teams kicking.

[Coach34]

In addition to not running the zone read, power trap, or the counter- we didn't run any crosses or what I call "in and out" routes where Tubbs looks like he is going to cross but breaks it back out

no diamond either as Old Man TC said.

Lots left in the bag

[Pollodawg]

In addition to not running the zone read, power trap, or the counter- we didn't run any crosses or what I call "in and out" routes where Tubbs looks like he is going to cross but breaks it back out

no diamond either as Old Man TC said.

Lots left in the bag


This is the money right here. That's pretty much the basis of our entire offense, and we left it out Saturday.

[DudyDawg]

We weren't vanilla. Dak didn't run the ball, but we weren't vanilla. We ran our offense.

We didn't run anything new, not many fakes or tricks. We lined up in a basic I down at the goal line. Didn't run many (if any) screens. We were pretty vanilla

[Tough Dawg]

Too hard to gauge our OL after week 1. Still a lot of moving pieces in place. But yes, you can def game plan around the weaknesses of your OL and I'm sure there will be some better identified weaknesses going into the South AL game.

[TrapGame]

In addition to not running the zone read, power trap, or the counter- we didn't run any crosses or what I call "in and out" routes where Tubbs looks like he is going to cross but breaks it back out

no diamond either as Old Man TC said.

Lots left in the bag

THIS.

Dan ain't showing shit until LSU!

[Political Hack]

that's a squirrel route... and we stopped running them down the stretch last year too. I will never know why though.

[engie]

was that not what Jameon torched Rice with in the bowl game?

[HoopsDawg]

THIS.

Dan ain't showing shit until LSU!

LOL! We won't be breaking out any new plays vs LSU. We may run the diamond formation that everyone loves 3 or 4 times. But we all know and all the coaches know what our offense is. Mullen brought back tempo and the cat is out of the bag on that one. Dak will run more. We won 49-0 so of course the play-calling will be different. I just laugh when people think we are going to break out and run a wide open offense against LSU. We should all know what to expect and some of the play-calling will be very conservative. Personally, I hate designed QB runs.

[Westdawg]

Hoops, the offensive play calling was VERY VANILLA on saturday. The only way i can think that you would believe otherwise is to not have known this offense....which i believe to be the case. I have run this exact same offense for 6 of the past 8 years that i coached. I studied it before then. Love this offense. yes, it works at its best with a North/South running QB, but it is built upon the opportunity to involve your TE more than most would know. We are VERY well off at TE this year. We saw very basic "read" plays in the running game, that almost always took the read more east & west than you should see. This was part of the game plan. I hated to see it, but the coaches knew as we all ended up seeing that we could neutralize their DEs more and not take a huge pounding while still being very effective. There were some basic calls along the OL that were nothing spectacular. yes, Beckwith got beat a lot, but i think that DT that he faced is going to be playing on Sundays in the not too distant future. Was as good as we will see for most of the year i believe. There was not much shown from our playbook last saturday, and nothing that would or could give any idea what the offense can do. Now, that is not to say that we will run what is supposed to be run with this offense, but i honestly believe that Koenning was more to blame there than many assumed was on Mullen. Far too often, you could see Mullen screaming into the headset at Les. The playbook was not what Les preferred and was evident. I am really hoping that with the addition of Brian as QB coach will bring this back into the realm of what the offense is really supposed to do. If there was anything that was less than vanilla, that is what we would have been saturday because what we saw was barely a hint of what can and should be done in Mullen's offense

[Political Hack]

was that not what Jameon torched Rice with in the bowl game?

I think he ran some crossing routes and post patterns, but not any squirrel/option routes that I can remember. He didn't need to I guess...

[Westdawg]

LOL! We won't be breaking out any new plays vs LSU. We may run the diamond formation that everyone loves 3 or 4 times. But we all know and all the coaches know what our offense is. Mullen brought back tempo and the cat is out of the bag on that one. Dak will run more. We won 49-0 so of course the play-calling will be different. I just laugh when people think we are going to break out and run a wide open offense against LSU. We should all know what to expect and some of the play-calling will be very conservative. Personally, I hate designed QB runs.

as for the first bolded statement ----- ?!?!?! most of the conference saw what LSU has in the bag with them having to overcome such a deficit in their game in order to win. I will say that if you want to know what this offense may do come conference time, go back and watch our first Gator Bowl season. Add in to that tebow's championship year as starter, and then sprinkle in just some of a multi-back pistol set with motion and you may get more of a flavor for what this offense can do. The only thing that we are really missing is a true fullback. Those just don't come around much anymore. High schools don't use them much and those athletes that are good enough usually are placed at LB or want to be the feature back. The TE is the most important player in this offense short of the big running QB. If you have those two things, it opens up the entire playbook. That we have now in both with multiple options at both as well. If Shump can and is willing to take on that other role, look out.
at for the second bolded statement.............it must suck for you to have watched this offense ever since Mullen came to town. If you don't want a designed QB play within this offense you either A) hate this offense B) you have no idea what this offense is really designed to do ( which may explain option a) or C) you just cannot believe that there is more to this offense than what you saw on Saturday, which in all honestly, after Mullen being here for 6 years now, you are either clueless. or too lazy and have not attempted to read up AT ALL during this time about it OR you are just plain dumb. At this point, ignorance really cannot be an option because of the time that Mullen has been here.

[tcdog70]

In addition to not running the zone read, power trap, or the counter- we didn't run any crosses or what I call "in and out" routes where Tubbs looks like he is going to cross but breaks it back out

no diamond either as Old Man TC said.

Lots left in the bag

We don't see eye to eye on roundball-but right with you on the gridiron. When I first heard Dan speak-he said the beauty of His offense was he didn't need 5 star OL-to win. he said he could take smart OL and use them to zone block and His offense would work just fine.

[LiterallyPolice]

as for the first bolded statement ----- ?!?!?! most of the conference saw what LSU has in the bag with them having to overcome such a deficit in their game in order to win. I will say that if you want to know what this offense may do come conference time, go back and watch our first Gator Bowl season. Add in to that tebow's championship year as starter, and then sprinkle in just some of a multi-back pistol set with motion and you may get more of a flavor for what this offense can do. The only thing that we are really missing is a true fullback. Those just don't come around much anymore. High schools don't use them much and those athletes that are good enough usually are placed at LB or want to be the feature back. The TE is the most important player in this offense short of the big running QB. If you have those two things, it opens up the entire playbook. That we have now in both with multiple options at both as well. If Shump can and is willing to take on that other role, look out.
at for the second bolded statement.............it must suck for you to have watched this offense ever since Mullen came to town. If you don't want a designed QB play within this offense you either A) hate this offense B) you have no idea what this offense is really designed to do ( which may explain option a) or C) you just cannot believe that there is more to this offense than what you saw on Saturday, which in all honestly, after Mullen being here for 6 years now, you are either clueless. or too lazy and have not attempted to read up AT ALL during this time about it OR you are just plain dumb. At this point, ignorance really cannot be an option because of the time that Mullen has been here.

I get where HoopsDawg is coming from. As I stated earlier, I'm no football expert. But I do know we got burned with the "vanilla" talk in 2012. I believe without a doubt we will run Dak more when is necessary. But I don't believe there is some secret playbook we are saving for LSU.

[msstate7]

We don't see eye to eye on roundball-but right with you on the gridiron. When I first heard Dan speak-he said the beauty of His offense was he didn't need 5 star OL-to win. he said he could take smart OL and use them to zone block and His offense would work just fine.

Maybe so, but it worked really, really well with the pounceys upfront

[HoopsDawg]

as for the first bolded statement ----- ?!?!?! most of the conference saw what LSU has in the bag with them having to overcome such a deficit in their game in order to win. I will say that if you want to know what this offense may do come conference time, go back and watch our first Gator Bowl season. Add in to that tebow's championship year as starter, and then sprinkle in just some of a multi-back pistol set with motion and you may get more of a flavor for what this offense can do. The only thing that we are really missing is a true fullback. Those just don't come around much anymore. High schools don't use them much and those athletes that are good enough usually are placed at LB or want to be the feature back. The TE is the most important player in this offense short of the big running QB. If you have those two things, it opens up the entire playbook. That we have now in both with multiple options at both as well. If Shump can and is willing to take on that other role, look out.
at for the second bolded statement.............it must suck for you to have watched this offense ever since Mullen came to town. If you don't want a designed QB play within this offense you either A) hate this offense B) you have no idea what this offense is really designed to do ( which may explain option a) or C) you just cannot believe that there is more to this offense than what you saw on Saturday, which in all honestly, after Mullen being here for 6 years now, you are either clueless. or too lazy and have not attempted to read up AT ALL during this time about it OR you are just plain dumb. At this point, ignorance really cannot be an option because of the time that Mullen has been here.

I didn't read your whole post, but the Gator bowl offense used a FB/HB. For some reason, Mullen has taken that out of our offense. I would love to have a Patrick Hanrahan to help with our running game. I think Mullen's offense would be outstanding if he hadn't eliminated this position. People keep saying the TE is important. We have 1 TE, and he is just a guy that is too slow to play on the outside. We don't ask him to lead the way too often in the run game. Also, I like Dak running the ball in the read option, but I hate the designed runs where he takes the snap and picks a hole. He usually gets 2 yards and takes a beating.

[shrimp]

was that not what Jameon torched Rice with in the bowl game?

Corner route is what he did the most damage with against Rice.

[Coach34]

I get where HoopsDawg is coming from. As I stated earlier, I'm no football expert. But I do know we got burned with the "vanilla" talk in 2012. I believe without a doubt we will run Dak more when is necessary. But I don't believe there is some secret playbook we are saving for LSU.

Nobody is saying there is a secret playbook- but we left alot of our offense out Saturday. In 2012- it was just hard to believe our offense was so basic and shitty with Russell at QB

[Coach34]

Corner route is what he did the most damage with against Rice.

corner and deep crossing routes...we exploited the Safeties in coverage and slow LB's

[gravedigger]

That's no secret that we are hiding. We aren't going to catch LSU off guard by letting Dak run the ball. It drives me crazy when posters say, well, we are saving that for later in the season. We were vanilla on offense, b/c of this game or that game.

And your definition of the difference probably will make a difference whether you belong here, the pack or genes page.

Please. Elaborate

[MarketingBully01]

Nobody is saying there is a secret playbook- but we left alot of our offense out Saturday. In 2012- it was just hard to believe our offense was so basic and shitty with Russell at QB

The scary thing to me is Dak ran Tyler's offense on Saturday better then Tyler ever did it. When you add in Dak's run game to his already improved passing along with our receivers, you get an offense that is balanced to the level of Auburn and that is scary.

[MarketingBully01]

Wiscy exposed a lot of weaknesses in LSU's game last Saturday. Their weakness (believe it or not) is on their DLine. We need to run run run and run some more against them. We also can pass much better then Wisconsin and they will quickly find out we are a bad match up for them.

[engie]

Corner route is what he did the most damage with against Rice.

I distinctly remember most of those routes being double moves. They weren't straight corner routes...

[War Machine Dawg]

I distinctly remember most of those routes being double moves. They weren't straight corner routes...

Yeah, Rod Gilmore was gushing over Tubby beating the Rice D with double moves and couldn't figure out why they didn't move one of their top 2 CBs inside to cover him.

[engie]

Yeah -- and several bigtime NFL scouts/gurus completely blowing up twitter about the routes Jameon was running. He put himself on a bunch of radars for sure...

[sandwolf]

If you go to the 4:20 mark of this video it shows a few of Lewis' catches.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJYbKY89Rqk