I see a lot of you questioning Leach's decisions.....

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Originally Posted by Cowbell

When a team regresses for three weeks in a row, fans are certainly fair to question the guy getting paid $5 mil. Calling for his job is foolish. But discussing concerns is fair. Don't get the two groups of people confused.

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Great point.

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Originally Posted by thf24

We can't realistically expect much in-game when the adjustments that need to be made right now are 5 OL blocking 3, QB making decisions faster, and WR's sitting down in the right spots. Tuning a machine isn't going to give you anything significant if it's barely running in the first place.

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A lot of truth here. If 5 linemen can't figure out how to block 3, it doesn't matter about your QB, playcalling, etc. It's a numbers game. Five players have to be able to beat 3 players due to numbers. Now it could be talent, coaching, technique, effort, scheme, etc. as the reason that they can't right now. But 5 have to win against 3 or no system will work.

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Originally Posted by HoopsDawg

I'm not going to trust Leach until he solves the 3-8.

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You are acting like this whole drop a bunch of guys into zone and just rush a few strategy is some silver bullet that Leach has never been able to solve. It is probably the best way to defend this offense because it limits the big plays, but the scheme can still work. Leach beat it all the time in the Pac12.

Take this game against Stanford in 2016. I think I counted about two plays in the entire video where Stanford rushed more than four. Everything else was rush 3-4 and drop 7-8 into coverage. They mixed some man and zone to try confusing the QB. WSU still put up 42 points against a team that finished 18th nationally and 2nd in the Pac12 in scoring defense. Stanford 2016 is better than any defense we have faced this year, and Leach shredded their drop 7-8.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hJ0RpmCYPXE

If we are still having these issues into next year, I?ll be right there on the adjustments need to be made train. But it?s a little ridiculous to judge this as a finished product, given the circumstances we are dealing with (no spring, weird fall practice schedule, etc). Give this offense a chance to succeed before deeming it a failure.

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Originally Posted by Mobile Bay

He only solved that for 20 years, but whatever you say bub.

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3-8 with good athletes he hasn't. That is what he will face in literally every single conference game.

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Originally Posted by Lord McBuckethead

3-8 with good athletes he hasn't. That is what he will face in literally every single conference game.

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Agreed

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Originally Posted by HoopsDawg

I'm not going to trust Leach until he solves the 3-8.

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The answer is simple to solve the 3-8 defense. The OL just has to block better, problem solved.

How hard is that going to be is the question. New players, or the ones you got actually learning. We had no spring and these guys are just now learning this system. We 4 game in, relax.

My goodness folks.. NO offense will work if you can't block 3 with 5.

Yes, it's harder against better athletes but he can get better OL here too or the ones we have can learn. They aren't chopped liver, there is a lot of talent on that Oline room but they are being asked to do stuff they have not grasped as of yet.

Again, we are 4 weeks in... relax a littel

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Originally Posted by messageboardsuperhero

You are acting like this whole drop a bunch of guys into zone and just rush a few strategy is some silver bullet that Leach has never been able to solve. It is probably the best way to defend this offense because it limits the big plays, but the scheme can still work. Leach beat it all the time in the Pac12.

Take this game against Stanford in 2016. I think I counted about two plays in the entire video where Stanford rushed more than four. Everything else was rush 3-4 and drop 7-8 into coverage. They mixed some man and zone to try confusing the QB. WSU still put up 42 points against a team that finished 18th nationally and 2nd in the Pac12 in scoring defense. Stanford 2016 is better than any defense we have faced this year, and Leach shredded their drop 7-8.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hJ0RpmCYPXE

If we are still having these issues into next year, I?ll be right there on the adjustments need to be made train. But it?s a little ridiculous to judge this as a finished product, given the circumstances we are dealing with (no spring, weird fall practice schedule, etc). Give this offense a chance to succeed before deeming it a failure.

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You said it yourself. Stanford is rushing 4 some. They are dropping 7 some. They are playing man some. That's not what teams are doing to us. They are dropping 8 nearly every play. They are playing zone every play. They are basically never blitzing.

It's true, other teams in the Pac 12 have tried the 3-8. But those teams couldn't get pressure with their 3. Also, their drops were too shallow either b/c they were dropping Dlinemen or their LB's didn't have the atheticism that the SEC teams have. It's not just the SEC dlinemen, its the LB's and extra DB's that these SEC teams have. And the SEC teams don't have to put in pass rush specialist so they can still stop the run with their Down 3 plus 1 LB.

This 3-8 scheme completely takes away all the mesh series of plays that Leach loves. It takes away all the deepr routes. Everthing has to be checked down underneath, and SEC players don't miss tackles like some of these soft Pac 12 defenses other than Washington.

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Originally Posted by Mobile Bay

He only solved that for 20 years, but whatever you say bub.

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The last three games tell a different story

ETA: The PAC-12 hasn?t been worth a damn in years so whatever he did against Stanford has a very low probability working against an SEC team

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Originally Posted by Hot Rock

The answer is simple to solve the 3-8 defense. The OL just has to block better, problem solved.

How hard is that going to be is the question. New players, or the ones you got actually learning. We had no spring and these guys are just now learning this system. We 4 game in, relax.

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Block better? Haha, that sounds nice. Here's the reality: these defenses are forcing the QB to have to wait for receivers to get open because they have 8 guys covering 5. So that is allowing these elite athletes in the SEC, every team has at least one, to get pressure. Remember, due to the wide splits our OT's are one on one.

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Originally Posted by Lord McBuckethead

3-8 with good athletes he hasn't. That is what he will face in literally every single conference game.

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I understand the frustration, but you guys that keep saying this sound like the politicians on tv. You have made up your mind that no matter how many times it gets posted, you will ignore the fact that it was ONLY Washington that shut this offense down, and the fact that the talent difference between WSU and Washington is like the difference between USM and Bama. Almost every team he faces ran the 3-8 or similar.
Bama and Georgia will probably always shut it down, but what's new??? They've always shut us down.

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Originally Posted by HoopsDawg

You said it yourself. Stanford is rushing 4 some. They are dropping 7 some. They are playing man some. That's not what teams are doing to us. They are dropping 8 nearly every play. They are playing zone every play. They are basically never blitzing.

It's true, other teams in the Pac 12 have tried the 3-8. But those teams couldn't get pressure with their 3. Also, their drops were too shallow either b/c they were dropping Dlinemen or their LB's didn't have the atheticism that the SEC teams have. It's not just the SEC dlinemen, its the LB's and extra DB's that these SEC teams have. And the SEC teams don't have to put in pass rush specialist so they can still stop the run with their Down 3 plus 1 LB.

This 3-8 scheme completely takes away all the mesh series of plays that Leach loves. It takes away all the deepr routes. Everthing has to be checked down underneath, and SEC players don't miss tackles like some of these soft Pac 12 defenses other than Washington.

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It doesn't take SEC talent to get pressure with 3 if multiple OL aren't even touching anyone half the time. Until the OL are executing correctly, you can't conclude it doesn't work in the SEC. Same for the coverage.

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Originally Posted by thf24

It doesn't take SEC talent to get pressure with 3 if multiple OL aren't even touching anyone half the time. Until the OL are executing correctly, you can't conclude it doesn't work in the SEC. Same for the coverage.

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Isn’t this obvious?

Amazing how many can’t understand this

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Originally Posted by ShotgunDawg

Isn’t this obvious?

Amazing how many can’t understand this

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There are a couple of things that are obvious:

1. We haven't done jack 3 straight games on offense
2. If a defense is going to rush 3 and drop 8, you run them out of it. You don't pass your way out of it. Your run your way out of it. And that is painfully obvious to the posters on here with football knowledge and to all of Mike Leach's disciples.

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Originally Posted by HoopsDawg

There are a couple of things that are obvious:

1. We haven't done jack 3 straight games on offense
2. If a defense is going to rush 3 and drop 8, you run them out of it. You don't pass your way out of it. Your run your way out of it. And that is painfully obvious to the posters on here with football knowledge and to all of Mike Leach's disciples.

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Our OL hasn't executed any better blocking for the run than the pass. Maybe it's as simple, at this point, as lining them up closer together and letting them do what they're used to; maybe it's not. Either way, it's amazing how it's so much more clear to the wealth of football knowledge we have on this board than the guy who's been doing it for 30 years with a lot of success.

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Originally Posted by ShotgunDawg

Isn’t this obvious?

Amazing how many can’t understand this

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It's not hard to understand.

What is hard to understand is why there have been no real adjustments made.

And I don't mean run the ball more or anything like that. Specifically on not addressing the unblocked opponents running into a sack basically untouched.

Granted, turnovers have murdered us too. Maybe more than the OL. But OL very likely could've helped prevent some of those. Not all though.

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Originally Posted by thf24

Our OL hasn't executed any better blocking for the run than the pass. Maybe it's as simple, at this point, as lining them up closer together and letting them do what they're used to; maybe it's not. Either way, it's amazing how it's so much more clear to the wealth of football knowledge we have on this board than the guy who's been doing it for 30 years with a lot of success.

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eta: Look, no one's denying that modern day SEC talent and speed could very well present some unique challenges that will require Leach to adapt or fail in the long run. The issue right now though is that we are executing so poorly in so many facets, due to novelty, lack of normal preparation time, suboptimal skillsets, and every other bizarre challenge this calendar year has thrown at us, that we can't possibly know if or to what degree that's going to be true at this moment. Expecting Leach to start making effective adjustments before the scheme is running anywhere close to the way he intends is a huge reach at best.

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Originally Posted by thf24

We can't realistically expect much in-game when the adjustments that need to be made right now are 5 OL blocking 3, QB making decisions faster, and WR's sitting down in the right spots. Tuning a machine isn't going to give you anything significant if it's barely running in the first place.

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I completely disagree.

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Originally Posted by thf24

Our OL hasn't executed any better blocking for the run than the pass. Maybe it's as simple, at this point, as lining them up closer together and letting them do what they're used to; maybe it's not. Either way, it's amazing how it's so much more clear to the wealth of football knowledge we have on this board than the guy who's been doing it for 30 years with a lot of success.

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Maybe he should "coach" them up a little - he is a coach. Or maybe find ways to divert some of this pass rush ... with all of that experience I'm sure he should be able to come up with something other than waiting on next year and different players.... And it's 19 years - not 30

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Originally Posted by thf24

eta: Look, no one's denying that modern day SEC talent and speed could very well present some unique challenges that will require Leach to adapt or fail in the long run. The issue right now though is that we are executing so poorly in so many facets, due to novelty, lack of normal preparation time, suboptimal skillsets, and every other bizarre challenge this calendar year has thrown at us, that we can't possibly know if or to what degree that's going to be true at this moment. Expecting Leach to start making effective adjustments before the scheme is running anywhere close to the way he intends is a huge reach at best.

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Do you think he should do nothing to try and win now?