Bearing FRUIT....what does the "fruit" show?

[Eric Nies Grind Time]

Its Fred Brown- he can fly. And why not throw it deep to Wilson? Give him a shot to make a play

I feel like early last season we threw it deep to Wilson knowing that he would at least get a defensive pass interference call. I want to say we got 3 or 4 calls doing that....not sure what is going on with this conservative nonsense.

[BulldogBear]

I have to wonder, if we can sit there and predict "here comes Holloway up the gut on 2 and 10...." are opposing coaches able to do the same thing with our WR routes? Are we running the exact same stuff from the exact same positions on the field? Coach34 alluded to this the other day comparing what we do to Kiffin at AL and his offensive variation/creativity. If so, that allows defenders an advantage which allows them to clamp down on our WR's. Dan complains about WR executing, running routes, blah, blah...but with defenders jumping/anticipating these routes, and not respecting the deep ball maybe we are banging our head against the wall expecting different results. It is awful to watch Lee run head on into a run blitz.....painful. Maybe you see Bear sulking because he is effectively doing the same thing making it difficult for him to do his thing? I am not a coach / didn't play / but ask others who may know more about route running if this is the case?

I don't see why not. They do this for a living and although all coaches sometimes miss stuff that's obvious to a fan, it's usually philosophy oriented matters. On Xs & Os, they are gonna see more than folk most times.

ETA: reading that last sentence, one can tell I've been watching Firefly recently.

[Coach 57]

If you guys can't see that we are actually getting open, you just don't know football. This isn't MRA Vs Steens County where there is busted coverage all over the field and it's so evident that anybody can see it. This is the SEC, where a step is 3 car lengths and 2 steps is a mile. We've got the playmakers. Wilson, Brown, Ross, Gray, Walley and Myles. Not to mention guys like Dear and Holloway out if the backfield. The issue is a combo of weak play calling and (possibly compounded by) no protection. Warren got worked by USM's DE more than a few times in that game. The problem is not many were watching. Don't always look at the ball! Actually look at the OL and see how many times Dak has bailed them out. It's not that difficult to see.

I don't think CDM is in trouble or needs to lose his job but I will make this suggestion: if he doesn't submit and hire a OC that he will actually LET call plays and oversee the offense CDM will be eating games like this his whole career. He has helped usher in a new era of football here, and for that I am grateful but unless he gets over being stubborn with this our program has reached it's peak. And honestly I'm okay with the ceiling for right now, because of where we've been. But he needs to stop talking about SEC west championships because as long as he is stubborn we won't beat the LSU's, Bama's & aTm's because of it on a consistent basis.

[AROB44]

Really enjoy you insights, Coach 57. Very informative and well presented.

[SallyStansbury]

I will make this suggestion: if he doesn't submit and hire a OC that he will actually LET call plays and oversee the offense CDM will be eating games like this his whole career. He has helped usher in a new era of football here, and for that I am grateful but unless he gets over being stubborn with this our program has reached it's peak. And honestly I'm okay with the ceiling for right now, because of where we've been. But he needs to stop talking about SEC west championships because as long as he is stubborn we won't beat the LSU's, Bama's & aTm's because of it on a consistent basis.

So what do you propose Stricklin do when he tells(asks) Dan to demote McCorvey, I mean Hevesy, and consider himself stepping aside as OC to allow someone new to improve play calling? and Dan tells him to eat a dick, that he invented football and created sustained success at MSU and that we should be happy to get 7-8 wins most years.....that talented olinemen love playing for Hevesy and it is merely coincidence that we continue to fail to find blue chip Olinemen to play for that guy!

It is a touchy situation, but should we as MSU fans be happy with 7-8 wins and a bowl game? Maybe we should?

[Coach007]

See seen steady improvement on the offense. Fact is we are making proper attempts now. Remember I posted a couple of weeks ago that we were next to last in attempts.

Now we are attempting due to the growth in the ol...... And we are now finding the backs that can help that Ol.

During this whole time, we have had the ability to win those lost games. We will put it together, and I don't think we will drop another game.

[Maroonthirteen]

The biggest problem I see....is speed....lack there of. Yeah, Dak is getting a small window to throw into...but we don't get enough separation for big YAC. We don't make people miss and out run folks when we do make a catch. Take the winning TD in UFvUT. That guy caught that ball standing flat footed, back to the endzone with 3 UT defenders around him. He alluded one and out ran the rest. We just don't have a guy with that type of quickness or speed. But I will agree on the homerun....we don't even attempt the deep ball. Hell, last week we lined a flanker up over the DE to help Warren on numerous plays. Take a chance there....throw it deep.

Our backfield....is the same situation. Sure, Dear should be the starting RB. That is mismanaged. But you still have one player with speed. He is 5-7 150....maybe. We create some holes, at times but our RB is late getting there and doesn't burst through, break tackles and make people miss. Also, anytime Dak saw that DE stay home last week, he gave the ball. He knew he couldn't beat the guy 1v1 in open field. If we could have gotten that DE in space and beat him....5-10 yard gains every time. But we gave the ball into a mass of humanity in the middle.

It's a talent problem. Maybe the play calling could be better but.......I don't think it would have mattered Saturday and it won't matter when we play Bama. But I bet cha our play calling is fine the next 3 weeks.

[Coach 57]

To address one thing at a time: to "Coach", our last 6 SEC games (minus MRA aka Vandy) we've scored 17, 20, 17, 19, 17 & 17. How do YOU see improvement? I'm not talking about yards, the offense we run is predicated on being good/decent between the 20's. I'm talking about actually scoring TDs which is what we MUST do vs SEC teams to take that next step. The team that took the field Vs LSU in Baton Rouge was a down the field stretching offense. We were throwing deep routes to Wilson (as someone posted) even if it didn't equate to much, we did it as a threat. But we haven't done that much if any.

To "Maroon13" speed is great, but you don't always HAVE to have it. There are dozens of WRs faster than Cooper last year but it's not always about speed. It's honestly about route running and hands. We have guys that do those things in Ross, Brown and Wilson. We also have a great WR coach in Billy. This is our best WR core we've ever had, but they are being under utilized & handcuffed by the almost west coast style routes we are running.

[Mjoelner34]

The biggest problem I see....is speed....lack there of. Yeah, Dak is getting a small window to throw into...but we don't get enough separation for big YAC. We don't make people miss and out run folks when we do make a catch. Take the winning TD in UFvUT. That guy caught that ball standing flat footed, back to the endzone with 3 UT defenders around him. He alluded one and out ran the rest. We just don't have a guy with that type of quickness or speed. But I will agree on the homerun....we don't even attempt the deep ball. Hell, last week we lined a flanker up over the DE to help Warren on numerous plays. Take a chance there....throw it deep.

Our backfield....is the same situation. Sure, Dear should be the starting RB. That is mismanaged. But you still have one player with speed. He is 5-7 150....maybe. We create some holes, at times but our RB is late getting there and doesn't burst through, break tackles and make people miss. Also, anytime Dak saw that DE stay home last week, he gave the ball. He knew he couldn't beat the guy 1v1 in open field. If we could have gotten that DE in space and beat him....5-10 yard gains every time. But we gave the ball into a mass of humanity in the middle.

It's a talent problem. Maybe the play calling could be better but.......I don't think it would have mattered Saturday and it won't matter when we play Bama. But I bet cha our play calling is fine the next 3 weeks.

One thing I've noticed keeping our YAC down is that we throw a lot of (if not most of) our passes right along the sidelines where the receiver either has to tip toe to get his balance and more yards or he is lead out of bounds by the route/pass.