re: Official Fall Camp Discussion Thread - Who Wants to Wear Out That Trojan arse?

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correlation does not imply causation

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It doesn't, but the trend does exist.

It'll be interesting to see who the team responds to

well he sure wouldnt be the first player to get scared of the competition this summer.

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If we do that this year, we're taking a much larger gamble.

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I disagree. With our Oline being monsters who need to gel, running downhill should be what they're best at early in the season. Concordantly, USC's biggest weakness is their Dline (and maybe front 7 as a whole). Our gameplan should be to run it.

All. Day. Long.

Seriously, USC's Dline should be the worst unit we see all year amongst our Power5 foes. We should throw only to keep them from seriously stacking the box, and that ain't much. As a matter of fact, of all of our neutral site openers under Saban, this is the game where being run-heavy is the lowest gamble.

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And with Cooper's scouting report,if you're SC, you load the box and take your chances over the top with your corners on an island.

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I don't care if Brandon Avalos is the QB: stacking the box as your default gameplan to stop Kiffin and this group of WRs is just stupid.

Pre att, if that's true about USCs DL, then Bateman gets the start no matter how good or bad he looks tomorrow and the other two guys are just playing for #2. We can't go through our whole schedule successfully with that strategy though.

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And with Cooper's scouting report

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This drives me nuts. Why do so many fans think that the only way to prevent a D from "stacking the box" is to throw deep balls? You know what prevents a team from stacking the box? A 13-yard curl. A 10-yard out. Slants. A 15-yard cross. A TE drag.

All of these routes Bateman is very accurate on. His only knock is the DEEP ball. Deep balls only take the top off the D and back up the safeties. Short routes thrown accurately prevent stacking the box very effectively.

Conservative, run heavy offense....sounds like a great opportunity to get Hurts' feet wet

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Nobody should be hoping a Bama player stinks it up. I'm hoping they all have great days but someone - and I don't care who - just shows themselves to have that extra little something that elevates them from good to great.

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I think that the sentiment comes across differently than it is intended. I think everybody wants all three QBs to be great, but I think some of us are concerned that if Bateman performs passably while the other two show out, Bateman will still get the nod because he's a more conservative option.

The people who are saying that they hope he stinks it up on Saturday are probably saying that under the conditions that:

1) Barnett and/or Hurts show out again and can be dynamic starters for us if given the chance

and that:

2) Bateman is legitimately flawed in such a way that starting him would put the team in a worse position.

Until we lost to Ole Miss last year, I felt like we had been playing games not to lose most of the time for the last few years. Even in 2012 we sort of played that way, even though we won a national championship in the end. If Bateman can play ball, great. But if he's just the conservative option, I feel it sets the wrong attitude for the program.

Full disclosure: I didn't think Bateman played all that poorly last season, especially in the short passing game. His deep throws are concerning though, and it would be nice if we had a QB who could make the safeties respect the deep ball.

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Four downvotes?

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It wouldn't let me downvote it more than once.

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The more I think about it, the more I disagree.

If you think you can beat them by lining up and just blowing them off the ball, that is the perfect time to start a young QB. The pressure won't be on him and you can bring him up slowly all the while building his confidence.

Of course, I'm still waiting on Nick to ask me my thoughts on the matter so I'm not certain that my opinion matters too much......

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The important thing running the ball like that is getting the right call and making sure everyone is lined up right. That would favor a QB who has been in the system the longest, which would be Bateman.

I would be very surprised if Bateman didn't start against USC.