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Thread: The Current Status of MSU Football As I See It

  1. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by Coach34 View Post
    Good post. To act like Leach hasnt been humbled some this season is being disingenuous
    Maybe he should have been, but it's actually the exact opposite. He is telling people that this is the exact blueprint he had had at tech and wazzu. He also told Cohen in January there would be massive roster overhaul just like he had at wazzu. Bold strategy, we will see if it pays off.

  2. #22
    Senior Member ShotgunDawg's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by confucius say View Post
    Maybe he should have been, but it's actually the exact opposite. He is telling people that this is the exact blueprint he had had at tech and wazzu. He also told Cohen in January there would be massive roster overhaul just like he had at wazzu. Bold strategy, we will see if it pays off.
    I understand the doubt, but he's certainly headed in the right direction IMO

    Leach is basically a new GM that takes over a team & sells all the old talent & find a young, controllable core to build around.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Coach34 View Post
    Just score. We are Croom at 17.4 per game. 13th in the SEC
    Agree. We ain't accomplished anything yet. We play a decent team close (we still lost) and all of a sudden we are an offensive juggernaut??

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    Quote Originally Posted by ShotgunDawg View Post
    I understand the doubt, but he's certainly headed in the right direction IMO

    Leach is basically a new GM that takes over a team & sells all the old talent & find a young, controllable core to build around.
    I agree

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    Quote Originally Posted by R2Dawg View Post
    Agree. We ain't accomplished anything yet. We play a decent team close (we still lost) and all of a sudden we are an offensive juggernaut??
    Georgia? So top 12 teams are described as decent? Cool

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    Quote Originally Posted by Coach34 View Post
    Just score. We are Croom at 17.4 per game. 13th in the SEC
    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 . . . .

    Quote Originally Posted by Coach34 View Post
    Good post. To act like Leach hasnt been humbled some this season is being disingenuous
    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:

    So how did BYU stop Leach's . . . high powered air attack[?] [S]imple, drop eight into coverage, and hope that Jeff Tuel wouldn't beat them on tough throws . . . .

    You'd think that the air raid has a built-in outlet for the super-conservative defense, but frankly, the air raid's purpose was to get defenses to go INTO zone, not out of it. With more time to make reads, the air raid QB could be a surgeon all game throwing the ball into windows, for big yards. Every air raid QB before Tuel was carefully trained specifically for analyzing and destroying zone coverages, especially with time to throw against three-man rushes.

    Unfortunately, Tuel and the WSU offensive line weren't up to the challenge against a really solid BYU team that dared Leach's offense to succeed, but they couldn't respond with anything. Underneath passes were gobbled up by a swarming defense, run plays ruled virtually useless, and any of the pre-organized concept that Leach likes to use were thwarted by the excessively crowded secondary.
    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.

  7. #27
    Senior Member ShotgunDawg's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Prediction? Pain. View Post
    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.
    This is an Elite post. Absolutely correct. It couldn’t be anymore clear what’s happening and where we’re headed
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  8. #28
    Senior Member Todd4State's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Prediction? Pain. View Post
    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.
    Well this is top shelf as usual.

    And I'll make a not so bold prediction- next year once we have this system down pretty good and Leach gets the rushing totals back to what his typical norm is the critics will be crowing about how they were right about Leach having to run the ball to be successful- when the reality is that's always been what it typically is.
    Last edited by Todd4State; 11-25-2020 at 02:41 AM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Todd4State View Post
    Well this is top shelf as usual.

    And I'll make a not so bold prediction- next year once we have this system down pretty good and Leach gets the rushing totals back to what his typical norm is the critics will be crowing about how they were right about Leach having to run the ball to be successful- when the reality is that's always been what it typically is.
    You may see some of that rushing come back the next few weeks. The OL is playing better and Johnson is maturing as a rb.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Prediction? Pain. View Post
    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.
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    Senior Member War Machine Dawg's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by R2Dawg View Post
    Agree. We ain't accomplished anything yet. We play a decent team close (we still lost) and all of a sudden we are an offensive juggernaut??
    And we didn't even score 30 points. To win consistently in modern college football you've got to average at least 28 PPG. Now granted, that average means you'll score a few less against a team like UGA, but you should put up 35+ against Vandy. We all know how that game went. I'm still skeptical this offense is going to work in the SEC without adjustments.

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    Quote Originally Posted by War Machine Dawg View Post
    And we didn't even score 30 points. To win consistently in modern college football you've got to average at least 28 PPG. Now granted, that average means you'll score a few less against a team like UGA, but you should put up 35+ against Vandy. We all know how that game went. I'm still skeptical this offense is going to work in the SEC without adjustments.
    Hear ye hear ye.... 30 pts is the almighty number.... joke ass post

  13. #33
    Senior Member ShotgunDawg's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by War Machine Dawg View Post
    And we didn't even score 30 points. To win consistently in modern college football you've got to average at least 28 PPG. Now granted, that average means you'll score a few less against a team like UGA, but you should put up 35+ against Vandy. We all know how that game went. I'm still skeptical this offense is going to work in the SEC without adjustments.
    We'll average more than 30 next year.

    What stands out to me about this offense & why it's going to help take us to the next level is that we don't have to match up bicep bicep with a blue blood to win & we force them into very predictable schemes since no one wants to run man defense vs us.

    We're getting there. I'm excited about this weekend & will very disappointed if we don't score at least 35 vs Ole Miss. We're still very young, so I'm not positive we can execute well enough to score 40+

    Now, you'll say "well South Carolina scored 40 on Ole Miss" and that's true, but ground and pound won't work against top level, super recruiters. You've got to able to throw the ball around to score points on them and that's what we'll be elite at soon
    Last edited by ShotgunDawg; 11-25-2020 at 11:14 PM.
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    Quote Originally Posted by confucius say View Post
    You may see some of that rushing come back the next few weeks. The OL is playing better and Johnson is maturing as a rb.
    I agree. Our running backs just need to get stronger and mature which will happen since they are just freshmen right now. Bright days ahead.

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    Senior Member Todd4State's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ShotgunDawg View Post
    We'll average more than 30 next year.

    What stands out to me about this offense & why it's going to help take us to the next level is that we don't have to match up bicep bicep with a blue blood to win & we force them into very predictable schemes since no one wants to run man defense vs us.

    We're getting there. I'm excited about this weekend & will very disappointed if we don't score at least 35 vs Ole Miss. We're still very young, so I'm not positive we can execute well enough to score 40+

    Now, you'll say "well South Carolina scored 40 on Ole Miss" and that's true, but ground and pound won't work against top level, super recruiters. You've got to able to throw the ball around to score points on them and that's what we'll be elite at soon
    Yes- that's the thing...we're going to force people to have to play us a certain way. And for some teams that isn't how they want to play. The thing is that strategy only works against us if we're really bad at executing that day or you have an elite defensive line that can get pressure with three.

    It levels the playing field because teams are basically hoping that we have a bad day or that they can just outscore us.

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    Senior Member ShotgunDawg's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Todd4State View Post
    Yes- that's the thing...we're going to force people to have to play us a certain way. And for some teams that isn't how they want to play. The thing is that strategy only works against us if we're really bad at executing that day or you have an elite defensive line that can get pressure with three.

    It levels the playing field because teams are basically hoping that we have a bad day or that they can just outscore us.
    Was listening to Bo Bounds this morning & he was interviewing former Ole Miss DL Jesse Mitchell.

    Bo asked Jesse about defending Leach's air raid when Ole Miss played Texas Tech in the Cotton Bowl & Mitchell talked about how hard the air raid is against DL.

    - Said you watch film and see the wide splits & believe you're going to have field day, but once the game starts, you realize they're getting the ball out so fast that you can't get there.

    - Secondly, he said facing the air raid is the most tired he's ever been because as a DL, you rush the passer, they get it out quick on a dump off, & you have to turn around & chase the pass catcher. Said he's never had to run so much in a game. Rush, turn, & chase the pass catcher. Over and over & over.
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    Senior Member Todd4State's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ShotgunDawg View Post
    Was listening to Bo Bounds this morning & he was interviewing former Ole Miss DL Jesse Mitchell.

    Bo asked Jesse about defending Leach's air raid when Ole Miss played Texas Tech in the Cotton Bowl & Mitchell talked about how hard the air raid is against DL.

    - Said you watch film and see the wide splits & believe you're going to have field day, but once the game starts, you realize they're getting the ball out so fast that you can't get there.

    - Secondly, he said facing the air raid is the most tired he's ever been because as a DL, you rush the passer, they get it out quick on a dump off, & you have to turn around & chase the pass catcher. Said he's never had to run so much in a game. Rush, turn, & chase the pass catcher. Over and over & over.
    I can totally see that. For us as MSU fans we just have to be a little patient unfortunately and get a few more pieces in place and just allow Leach to do his thing.

    The other thing is I think Leach will be able to attract DC's like Arnett here and that will give him something that he didn't consistently have at Texas Tech or Wazzu.

  18. #38
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    Quote Originally Posted by Todd4State View Post
    Yes- that's the thing...we're going to force people to have to play us a certain way. And for some teams that isn't how they want to play. The thing is that strategy only works against us if we're really bad at executing that day or you have an elite defensive line that can get pressure with three.

    It levels the playing field because teams are basically hoping that we have a bad day or that they can just outscore us.
    That is one thing I do like about the Leach offense and what I expect it to become over the next couple of years. A lot of teams in this league (Auburn, LSU, UGA, A&M, etc) really like to play in your face man coverage.

    They will end up almost exclusively dropping a bunch of guys in zone against us, which is totally against their identity. I saw someone post after the UGA game that you could tell the UGA players hated the defense that they were being asked to play, and all I could think of was ?well yeah, is that not the point? As an offense we should strive to take more talented defenses out of their comfort zone and make them play on their heels.?

    It?s why I think we have a great shot against Auburn in Starkville on 12/12, if we continue progressing.

  19. #39
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    Both sides of this discussion have fair points.

    I would love to see this offense develop a zone read/QB draw element with a mobile QB to keep DEs honest. And adding a counter/trap to take advantage of stunting DLs and over aggressive LBs. It would give the defense something else to prepare for and make this offense more difficult to defend.

    At the same time, it is asinine to think that this offense has been totally rendered useless and archaic. In 2018/2019 WSU led the Pac 12 in both total offense and scoring, when looking at conference only games. In years 7 and 8 of his WSU tenure (his 17th and 18th as a P5 HC), Leach has had the best offense in a league where he has the least amount of talent to work with. That is absolutely crazy when you think about it. Almost like Kansas having the best offense in the Big 12 two years in a row, at their current talent level.

    As that article from 2012 pointed out, Pac 12 teams started dropping eight into zone coverage in game 1. But yet in years seven and eight, he had the best offense in the league.

    And do not start with the ?SEC talent is way different? talk. We just watched this offense struggle mightily against one of the least talented defenses in all of P5. Then two weeks later against the most talented defensive roster in the country, the offense performed better than anyone has all season, outside of Bama and Florida. Yeah the SEC has more talented defenses top to bottom, but if this talent difference is what will make Leach?s offense struggle, why did we perform better against the most talented defense in America than we did against one of the least talented defenses in America?

    It all comes down to repetition and execution. We committed to Will Rogers and he got all the practice reps for two weeks. We got our OL back from COVID, and they clearly blocked better against UGA than they did against Vandy. My hope is we continue to progress just like that as we get more reps these last three weeks of the season.

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    I can promise you this, as long as our RBs catch the ball the drop 8 is dead against our current QB. UGA played about 20 different coverage variations (that is from a player believe it or not do not care) to try and slow us down.

    OM is just throwing stuff against the wall and hoping it works defensively. If we show up with the same mindset we had against UGA and Eiland healthy at LG we will score. A lot.

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