Did the same thing happen at Florida

[ShotgunDawg]

Have been thinking for the past few days about the similarities between our offense over the past 7 games and what happened at Florida when John Brantley became the QB. It's actually a very good comparison since Tebow and Relf were similar "style" QBs and John Brantley and Russell are "similar" style QBs. Furthermore, Urban Meyer was the head coach for Florida for the entire Tebow era and one season of the Brantley era. Below is a chart that I created that will clearly illustrate that Urban Meyer, who is considered to this day, one of the best head coaches in college football couldn't figure out how to run his offense with a pro style QB. This chart will also make it even more clear that Meyer's/Mullen's offense needs a mobile QB in order to be successful.


Leak Tebow Tebow Tebow Brantley Brantley Driskel
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 Year
3305 3286 2995 3305 2396 2414 1902 Passing
2240 2602 3235 3105 2165 1859 2440 Rushing
5545 5888 6230 6410 4561 4273 4342 Total Yards

Sorry, its just not formatting correctly. Figure it out.

[KB21]

In short, yes. Look at the rushing output Florida had with Leak as well, and this was with Tebow being packaged in at times.

The key to the entire offense is the ability to establish the inside run, and for whatever reason, Urban and Dan really struggle at establishing the inside run in their system when the do not have the mobility threat at the quarterback position.

The rushing output for Florida from 2009 to 2010 dropped 30% with the switch to Brantley. In their first year at Florida, Florida's rushing output was 38% lower than what Urban was able to accomplish at Utah in 2004. Chris Leak only had 81 yards rushing in 2005.

[SignalToNoise]

Good comparison. I had forgotten about the drop in production of Tebow to Brantley.

[ShotgunDawg]

I thought it was really interesting because everyone, including myself, is blaming Mullen for something that Meyer couldn't figure out either. The cases are very similar.

[DownwardDawg]

I thought it was really interesting because everyone, including myself, is blaming Mullen for something that Meyer couldn't figure out either. The cases are very similar.

So who's fault is it? Serious question. Not being a smartass.

[slickdawg]

They ran the zone read for three straight years, recruited players for the zone read, didn't recruit QB's after Tebow or they didn't work out (Cam), then abruptly switch to a dropback passer in Brantley. Yes, the parallels are eerily familiar.

[SignalToNoise]

So who's fault is it? Serious question. Not being a smartass.

It's Mullen by default. He is the HC. If something isn't working, he is tasked with fixing it. Bring in an OC, plug into the Matrix and have new offensive schemes programmed into your brains, hope that you get abducted by aliens and they teach you how to use a QB like Tyler, whatever. The buck stops with him.

He ran off Torbush and he ran off Wilson. Since he doesn't want to fire himself for a shitty offense we are stuck with what we have.

[KB21]

It's Mullen by default. He is the HC. If something isn't working, he is tasked with fixing it. Bring in an OC, plug into the Matrix and have new offensive schemes programmed into your brains, hope that you get abducted by aliens and they teach you how to use a QB like Tyler, whatever. The buck stops with him.

He ran off Torbush and he ran off Wilson. Since he doesn't want to fire himself for a shitty offense we are stuck with what we have.

This is the same offense fans were dying to have when we hired Dan back in 2009.

Look at what Dan was able to accomplish on offense with Chris Relf at quarterback. Chris was very much a below average quarterback. He gave his all, but he couldn't pass for anything. We weren't explosive on offense with him, but we were consistent and cohesive on offense. Dan Mullen basically squeezed milk out of a turnip with Chris Relf.

The fact that he can't seem to adapt the scheme to a drop back passer is something that everyone who has run this offensive system has struggled with.

[KB21]

I will add this as well. After that 2010 season, many fans at Florida were ready to run off Urban Meyer. Urban is probably the 2nd best coach in college football and the only coach that can rival Nick Saban, IMO, and their fans wanted to run him off. Look at what he is doing at Ohio State. He's got his type of quarterback in Braxton Miller. He's got big, in between the tackles runners. He's got a strong defense. He's got the only program that is going to challenge the SEC.

If this offense takes off with Dak Prescott at quarterback, the meme will suddenly change on Mullen.

[HancockCountyDog]

I will add this as well. After that 2010 season, many fans at Florida were ready to run off Urban Meyer. Urban is probably the 2nd best coach in college football and the only coach that can rival Nick Saban, IMO, and their fans wanted to run him off. Look at what he is doing at Ohio State. He's got his type of quarterback in Braxton Miller. He's got big, in between the tackles runners. He's got a strong defense. He's got the only program that is going to challenge the SEC.

If this offense takes off with Dak Prescott at quarterback, the meme will suddenly change on Mullen.

Urban ran away from Saban as fast as he could, like a little bitch.

Urban is the ultimate, cheat at Solitaire type coach. He can't handle losing, and he knew that without Tebow and Cam, that he couldn't beat Saban, so he got the **** out of there. Now he is in the big 10, with really no competition, and he is happy again. Right up until Bama or some other SEC team beats the shit out of OSU in the BCS game.

[SignalToNoise]

I'm sure plenty of coaches have struggled it. Mullen isn't the first and won't be the last, but the blame has to fall somewhere. I'm not saying he is a retard and needs to be fired, but am saying he doesn't know how to use Tyler effectively. We are saying that he is the brains behind the offense. Well, the brains behind the offense can't figure out how to use a immobile passing QB, so therefore, it is his fault.

I'm sure things would be a lot smoother right now with the Relf Coast offense, and I don't think anyone is disputing that, but that doesn't absolve our HC of the blame for our offense being Croomesque right now.

[quickstrike2]

I think Meyer and Mullen just need a mobile qb to make their type of offense work. I think Tyler is a good guy and seems to want to be a leader, but at the end of the day just isnt that good when going against above average talent. Factor that in with our inexperienced receivers and Tyler not being able to make anything at all happen when the pocket breaks down, it leads to an awful offensive showing. And that is what happened in Houston.

[codeDawg]

This is the same offense fans were dying to have when we hired Dan back in 2009.

Look at what Dan was able to accomplish on offense with Chris Relf at quarterback. Chris was very much a below average quarterback. He gave his all, but he couldn't pass for anything. We weren't explosive on offense with him, but we were consistent and cohesive on offense. Dan Mullen basically squeezed milk out of a turnip with Chris Relf.

The fact that he can't seem to adapt the scheme to a drop back passer is something that everyone who has run this offensive system has struggled with.

Somebody on 247 made a great post about how the difference between the Relf-ense and even the Lee-fense was that it was considerably simpler than what we are trying to run today. It was line up, take what the D gave us with one of 5 plays, and execute. When we could execute, it worked consistently.

Dan's entire offensive philosophy is based on outnumbering at the point of attack by reading the defensive execution. You run the ball until they have to bring an extra guy into the box and either hit them over the top if they brought the safety down, or in the slot if they didn't move anybody over.

Without the run threat from the QB, they don't have to bring the extra guy to cover him. We are outnumbered in the running game and in the passing game. It's a lose / lose. It seems like the offense is a lot more complicated as a result to try to get good matchups in other ways, but it's not working.

OSU did give us a lot of options and we did not take them. They played off the slot receiver and Tyler didn't get it to him. As Wyatt pointed out, where were the screens and bubble screens to open up the box? Just bad, bad, bad play calling. If we are going to use Tyler, we can't call the game like we have Relf in there.

It's time to simplify and run the offense Dan came here to run.