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The offense
Posted on 11/26/13 at 8:28 pm
Posted on 11/26/13 at 8:28 pm
So, we all know that our offense has put up the numbers the last two years. High octane, fast scoring, and hard to defend (maybe not recently). I have lots of concerns and questions though.
It blows my mind our refusal to establish any sort of running game. Yes, we have one or the greatest player of all time in our roster. Is it that McKinney is calling plays in order to maximize Johnny's numbers and just ride out your Heisman winner? Or is this what we would expect from McKinney moving forward? I think its a combination of both.
Last game was bizarre, just ridiculous. I couldn't believe our pitiful "attempt" to run the ball, especially when weather conditions (wet field/wind) are not optimal. This is the RUNNING BACKS coach. What the frick is he thinking? YES, give the ball to JFF, but you cannot give up on running the ball just because you got 2-3 yards on an attempt!! We are talking about the guy that sees Trey Williams go to work everyday. He has very good YPC and is a player waiting to explode.
I am not sure what the frick is going on with our receivers and Johnny recently. I take that they were covered by the LSU secondary most of the game? All the passing plays seemed to be long routes and you got Johnny sitting back there looking for the big play every time. Ever notice how the check down down is almost always open? The RB on the flat? That is on Johnny, but he is not that type of player. This will change next year. Where were the screens, misdirection, zone read, Tra Carson (????), and just plain innovation to come up with something that can get you positive yards?
Kliff Kingsbury may have been a hipster, but frick, we miss his genius. The guy had the first couple of drives of each game already planned out I believe. He did an excellent job in mixing things up and just being so un-orthodox that we would have success. Prime example…3rd and 9 on MSU territory during last years game. We line up and run the ball; Michael waltzes in for a score. That is gone this year. Hell, our tempo has slowed down since last year. McKinney needs to get his shite together. Next year will be a true test for him without Johnny.
It blows my mind our refusal to establish any sort of running game. Yes, we have one or the greatest player of all time in our roster. Is it that McKinney is calling plays in order to maximize Johnny's numbers and just ride out your Heisman winner? Or is this what we would expect from McKinney moving forward? I think its a combination of both.
Last game was bizarre, just ridiculous. I couldn't believe our pitiful "attempt" to run the ball, especially when weather conditions (wet field/wind) are not optimal. This is the RUNNING BACKS coach. What the frick is he thinking? YES, give the ball to JFF, but you cannot give up on running the ball just because you got 2-3 yards on an attempt!! We are talking about the guy that sees Trey Williams go to work everyday. He has very good YPC and is a player waiting to explode.
I am not sure what the frick is going on with our receivers and Johnny recently. I take that they were covered by the LSU secondary most of the game? All the passing plays seemed to be long routes and you got Johnny sitting back there looking for the big play every time. Ever notice how the check down down is almost always open? The RB on the flat? That is on Johnny, but he is not that type of player. This will change next year. Where were the screens, misdirection, zone read, Tra Carson (????), and just plain innovation to come up with something that can get you positive yards?
Kliff Kingsbury may have been a hipster, but frick, we miss his genius. The guy had the first couple of drives of each game already planned out I believe. He did an excellent job in mixing things up and just being so un-orthodox that we would have success. Prime example…3rd and 9 on MSU territory during last years game. We line up and run the ball; Michael waltzes in for a score. That is gone this year. Hell, our tempo has slowed down since last year. McKinney needs to get his shite together. Next year will be a true test for him without Johnny.
3
Posted on 11/26/13 at 8:45 pm to Palooza11
I put a lot of it on McKinney but I just don't know. Is he calling screens and runs and JFF is checking out of them or did they just give up and decide to go for the homerun on every play. Next year will be telling that's for sure.
Posted on 11/26/13 at 8:47 pm to Agforlife
quote:
I put a lot of it on McKinney but I just don't know. Is he calling screens and runs and JFF is checking out of them or did they just give up and decide to go for the homerun on every play. Next year will be telling that's for sure.
A lot of it was LSU seeing us struggle in the passing game and daring us to throw it. We have a system that is take what the defense gives you, and they were giving us the pass all day.
Posted on 11/26/13 at 9:09 pm to TeLeFaWx
quote:
We have a system that is take what the defense gives you, and they were giving us the pass all day.
Yeah but when the pass ain't working why not at least try and run the damn ball. That's all I'm asking
Posted on 11/26/13 at 9:45 pm to Palooza11
quote:I have to give credit where credit is due in regards to the LSU secondary. Mike Evans was taken out of the game by a freshman.
I take that they were covered by the LSU secondary most of the game?
The WR corps did not rise to the occasion and bail out Johnny when he clearly wasn't performing to his abilities.
quote:Apparently KK was more than just eye candy.Scoring an opening touchdown in nearly every game certainly spoiled this Aggie.
Kliff Kingsbury may have been a hipster, but frick, we miss his genius.
That type of success has not been repeated this year.
Posted on 11/27/13 at 8:04 am to Palooza11
quote:
Ever notice how the check down down is almost always open? The RB on the flat? That is on Johnny, but he is not that type of player.
This. So fricking this. One of our staple plays is Mesh. Both inside receivers run a drag and they run very tight across the middle. It's essentially a pick play and it's devastating to teams trying to play man vs this offense. It's the play that we dumped it to Quiv just before the TD to Walker. The whole point is to get the ball in space to players like Quiv and let them make something of it.
Leach ran it like a 5-yard handoff vs Slocum back in the day every single time we blitzed. He probably ran it 25 times one year against us. But 2013 A&M barely uses it. Why? Because when we run it, Johnny looks first to Evans and then Walker. Instead of a ball control, high percentage pass, his tendencies turn it into a deep ball and the play loses it's effectiveness.
We also run a variation of jet sweep where the motion player stops wide. We actually flipped it to him on the first play one game early in the season. I think it was Sabian Holmes and it went for like 30 yards. We've probably run that 2-3 times per game since and I don't think Manziel has even looked at the jet. I noticed Auburn I think didn't even bother to cover him and Johnny still never looked that way. LSU clearly noticed this as well because they also chose not to cover him. At all. The one play I noticed everyone went deep and the closest player to Quiv on it was like 20 yards away. It was a no-brainer 15+ yard play and Manziel never once looked at him.
As to the backs, they have to be frustrated. They block block block but when they don't have a blitz pickup, they have a pattern. About half of all plays they go out in pattern but other than screens, they never get a look. Ever. I'm sure we all remember the play in the Arky game where it was 3rd and 5 or whatever and Malena just stood there all alone. Manziel finally threw it his direction after scrambling around for 5 minutes and ended up putting it in the turf. A simple checkdown can go a long way.
I don't want to pick on Manziel. He's a gunslinger. And we're scoring so well with the way he plays. But if he would learn to be a game manager at times, we'd be a much better team. Taking us down the field in 5-yard bursts can lift spirits when the offense is struggling and can be absolutely ruthless when you are winning.
Posted on 11/27/13 at 8:06 am to TeLeFaWx
quote:
A lot of it was LSU seeing us struggle in the passing game and daring us to throw it. We have a system that is take what the defense gives you, and they were giving us the pass all day.
they did this before we even struggled. LSU had a good defensive gameplan. They knew the exact look to show to get us to check out of running plays and then they'd drop out of it once Manziel picked the play. That's two years in a row that Chavis abused us. At least last year we had a great gameplan and he made great adjustments to it. This year our offensive gameplan was stale and we also played poorly.
Honestly our offensive gameplan has been stale all year. There is very little innovation to it like what the Pirate, KK, or Holgorsen are all doing. Their teams suck, but their schemes are creative. Generally I think we execute better than any of them at least but the OMG plays aren't there like last year. Last year when we pulled out the QB counter Arky just stood in awe. When we abused Saban with Y-Stick, he had no fricking answer because it meant redesigning his entire defense on the fly. When we ran boundary speed option vs Auburn it was fricking amusing watching a team totally unprepared. This season we seem to be running our playbook like it's fixed.
This post was edited on 11/27/13 at 8:08 am
Posted on 11/27/13 at 10:11 am to tmc94
Very good points. Johnny still has improvements he can make on the "game manager" part of his role.
He needs to be patient and take what the defense gives him.
He needs to step up in the pocket more instead of bailing out to either side.
He needs to quit taking sacks where he holds the ball way too long and we are not in a 3rd down situation where we are trying to convert. Throw the ball away and keep the down and distance manageable.
He needs to understand when burning time and just converting first downs is more important than scoring more points quickly.
These are all things he will get better at with more experience. He will fail in the NFL if he does not master these skills.
He needs to be patient and take what the defense gives him.
He needs to step up in the pocket more instead of bailing out to either side.
He needs to quit taking sacks where he holds the ball way too long and we are not in a 3rd down situation where we are trying to convert. Throw the ball away and keep the down and distance manageable.
He needs to understand when burning time and just converting first downs is more important than scoring more points quickly.
These are all things he will get better at with more experience. He will fail in the NFL if he does not master these skills.
Posted on 11/27/13 at 12:44 pm to tmc94
Good post! I agree with everything.
Posted on 11/27/13 at 1:54 pm to tmc94
quote:
Honestly our offensive gameplan has been stale all year. There is very little innovation to it like what the Pirate, KK, or Holgorsen are all doing. Their teams suck, but their schemes are creative.
All of this. Get out of ma head.
And the check down to our rb's, couldn't agree more. Get those guys the ball.
Posted on 11/27/13 at 4:11 pm to betweenthebara
OMG did you hear the press conference for this week? McKinney said that Trey's role has been in the goal line, and that there wasn't many of those opportunities so thats why he didn't play much against LSU. He said some other stupid shite, but I can't recall.
I have serious doubts about him going forward as OC. We shall see next year
I have serious doubts about him going forward as OC. We shall see next year
This post was edited on 11/27/13 at 4:12 pm
Posted on 11/27/13 at 4:34 pm to Palooza11
I wouldn't make too much out of the pressers. McKinney in particular says absolutely nothing. I think he's still not comfortable with what he can say and what he can't but his interviews are pretty worthless imo.
One of the other questions he was asked was about Johnny's hand and his response was the first I've heard of him possibly having a thumb injury was your question. It was such an obvious lie because (1) Sumlin had just gotten done saying it's an issue they've been dealing with for a few weeks, and (2) McKinney was the first person to mention thumb as Sumlin was not at all specific.
My point I guess is if Tra is still banged up and they limited him because of that, CM wouldn't say it. He'd make some awkward comment just like he did. I don't know but can imagine they didn't want him to get banged around too much this week unless specific situations (like goalline) came up.
To your other point, I'll be a little surprised if there isn't a mild shakeup on our staff. I don't think we'll send anyone packing but Sumlin has to see the issues we do. And he's not the type to just hope it gets better. We'll probably lose a coach in the offseason and it wouldn't shock me if we brought in a big hitter with a title like Pos Coach/Asst HC and give him de facto OC (esp if Holgorsen gets fired - though I don't think he will be).
One of the other questions he was asked was about Johnny's hand and his response was the first I've heard of him possibly having a thumb injury was your question. It was such an obvious lie because (1) Sumlin had just gotten done saying it's an issue they've been dealing with for a few weeks, and (2) McKinney was the first person to mention thumb as Sumlin was not at all specific.
My point I guess is if Tra is still banged up and they limited him because of that, CM wouldn't say it. He'd make some awkward comment just like he did. I don't know but can imagine they didn't want him to get banged around too much this week unless specific situations (like goalline) came up.
To your other point, I'll be a little surprised if there isn't a mild shakeup on our staff. I don't think we'll send anyone packing but Sumlin has to see the issues we do. And he's not the type to just hope it gets better. We'll probably lose a coach in the offseason and it wouldn't shock me if we brought in a big hitter with a title like Pos Coach/Asst HC and give him de facto OC (esp if Holgorsen gets fired - though I don't think he will be).
Posted on 11/27/13 at 6:29 pm to tmc94
quote:
tmc94
I agree with everything you have posted. I am just frustrated that ee really seem to be getting one deminsional. Like I said earlier I don't know if it's play calling or Johnny checking out of every run or what. But it needs to be addressed.
Posted on 11/28/13 at 7:33 am to tmc94
CM is a terrible interviewee 
Posted on 12/18/13 at 5:40 pm to tmc94
quote:
I'll be a little surprised if there isn't a mild shakeup on our staff. I don't think we'll send anyone packing but Sumlin has to see the issues we do. And he's not the type to just hope it gets better. We'll probably lose a coach in the offseason and it wouldn't shock me if we brought in a big hitter with a title like Pos Coach/Asst HC and give him de facto OC (esp if Holgorsen gets fired - though I don't think he will be).
just saying
Posted on 12/18/13 at 5:42 pm to tmc94
Posted on 12/18/13 at 5:46 pm to ShaneTheLegLechler
and for those that don't know since it's on the rant and not here
quote:
@BFeldmanCBS
Jake Spavital promoted to #Aggies OC & playcaller. He's 28. Will be surprised if he's not an FBS head coach by 32.
Posted on 12/18/13 at 5:49 pm to tmc94
Well lets hope this helps. Will be hard to compare with Johnny gone but I think it's the right move.
Posted on 12/18/13 at 5:52 pm to tmc94
I expect some formation variety with Spav calling the plays. Maybe some diamond/pistol sets.
Posted on 12/18/13 at 6:01 pm to Palooza11
Yeah I wanna see some running from the offense too. We got rather predictable this year.
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