Agree totally that scoring's what matters at the end of day. But the Croom references are kinda over the top, aren't they? We hashsed this out in a thread a few days back, but Croom's offenses (like Jackie's last one in '03) were abominations for five years in a row. Besides, you don't need to go back to Croom. It'd be easier just to say that we're Mullen in years 2 and 3, when we averaged 18.9 and 18.1 points per game in SEC play, good for 11th out of 12 and 9th out of 12. Moorhead's first scoring offense was right there with Mullen's second and third and Leach's first, too, averaging 19.3 points per game in SEC play, good for 12th in the league.
The point's still valid that this may end up being one of our worst offensive teams in the past decade. There are still a few games left to see where this unit stacks up against 2011, which might be the previous low mark. And it's lame that it's come to that. I wish this wasn't how things were rolling right now, though that brings us to the next point . . . .
Maybe he has. He's likely faced more NFL talent in our seven games so far as he did in any entire single season at WSU.
But do you think he's more humbled now than he was early on at WSU? The year before Leach got there, WSU was in the Top 10 nationally in passing yards per game, was middle-of-the-pack in the PAC-12 in scoring and total offense, and was in the Top 50 nationally in advanced stats offensive ranks. Leach burned that to the ground in a single year. They were 11th in the PAC 12 in scoring offense, scoring 9.4 points per game less than they had in 2011. (We've dropped by 6 points per game from last year, for what it's worth.) They were 102nd -- repeat: 102nd -- nationally in the FEI rankings out of 124 teams. (They were 44th the year before.) His offense improved some in his second year at WSU, but it still wasn't quite as good as it was before he got there. It took till his third year for them take the next step offensively, and even then it wasn't necessarily a sea change. In year 3, they were still middle of the pack in scoring offense in the PAC 12 and had roughly the same FEI offensive rank as they did the year before he got there.
I mean, the dude was coming off 10 straight winning seasons and 10 straight bowl games, he was at .500 or better in conference play for 9 of those 10 years (he was 12 - 4 in conference during his last two seasons at Tech), and the last offense he coached ended up in the Top 10 nationally in both scoring offense and total offense. And then he just lays a thunderous, colossal turd in the PAC 12, and did so with an offense that the previous year was very similar statistically to what he likes to do. Wouldn't that be just as humbling to Leach as what's happening to our team this year, even without all our other off-the-field crap and roster insanity?
To make the point a different way, consider his debut at WSU in 2012, which was against BYU. WSU lost 30 - 6. But WSU sucks, so whatever, right? Well, Mike Leach's offense was bad even for them. For the first time in over 40 years, WSU failed to score a TD in a season opener. They had 224 yards of total offense, averaged 3.7 yards per play, and rushed for -5 yards against BYU. Now, BYU was a decent team that year, finishing 7-5. But with no wins over ranked opponents and only two wins over Power 5 opponents, BYU wasn't exactly super stiff competition, either. How did this happen? Presto! BYU solved the riddle -- it was that vaunted west coast
drop-8 coverage:
Sound familiar? I guess they don't play zone defense in Texas like they do in Utah . . . .
So yeah, Leach could be humbled. But seems just as likely to me that he's just doing what he does. Not saying that wrecking a previously mediocre offense is my preferred method as a fan. Again, it's lame and I'd prefer this not to be part of his process. But he's here and we're doing this, hopefully with the same ultimate results he achieved elsewhere. If not, bummer, we'll move on. But in the meantime, given that this is exactly what happened at his last coaching stop in a different conference, I can't just assume that first-year offensive discombobulation is and can only be SEC domination over an entire system of offense, even without taking into account that some of those other less-than-stellar offenses we've been comparing this one to never, at least in my recollection, played back-to-back (and likely back-to-back-to-back) games with around 50 available scholarship players and underclassmen out the wazoo or proceeded with a season without spring practice despite the fact that they were changing decades' worth of run-first mentality to the air raid at the drop of a hat.
TL;DR: I spend way too much time reading and thinking about college football.
Originally Posted by Prediction? Pain.
Agree totally that scoring's what matters at the end of day. But the Croom references are kinda over the top, aren't they? We hashsed this out in a thread a few days back, but Croom's offenses (like Jackie's last one in '03) were abominations for five years in a row. Besides, you don't need to go back to Croom. It'd be easier just to say that we're Mullen in years 2 and 3, when we averaged 18.9 and 18.1 points per game in SEC play, good for 11th out of 12 and 9th out of 12. Moorhead's first scoring offense was right there with Mullen's second and third and Leach's first, too, averaging 19.3 points per game in SEC play, good for 12th in the league.
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