With the season beginning how it has, I think the natural reaction is to try and find something that works. That usually means the thought of doing the opposite or near opposite of what a team is currently doing. While I can understand the logic of that, I don't think that is a path we need to go down. That's not to say make minor tweaks within the system and make personnel changes, in fact I think making personnel changes as long as they benefit the long term of the team and don't really effect another area make sense. But for this team, and particular the offense, repetition is the key and we have to stick with the core of our offensive and defensive philosophies for the rest of the season and next season.
On defense, it is a little bit hard to say what the core philosophy is. Of course you could boil it down to stopping the offense, but how we stop the offense I think is a little bit tricky. If we play a run heavy team, I think the we do need to handle things differently than a wide open spread team. By nature, defense has to be a little bit more flexible to change it's core philosophy, so it is hard to say what the team should and shouldn't focus on the rest of this year in order to make them prepared for next year and beyond.
Now on offense, it is a different story. There are so many different offensive philosophies that it is easy to say if one thing doesn't work they could have done this. Play calling may be the easiest thing in the world football wise to use hindsight to critique. But I think this is where it is critical to not make any wholesale changes - repetition this year will help us in the more important years down the road. We are getting ready to see this with our own eyes. Baylor is a well oiled machine on offense, but they weren't always this way. Now that's not to say Baylor won't make tweaks to their system as they do. One particular tweak I think we should keep an eye on is how Baylor uses their 400 lbs TE. He isn't really a TE - he is just an extension of their OL. Which really relates to us now because I huge concern, and understandably so, is how will the OL keep people off of Willis? From the moment last week that they put McCauley at TE, it was clear to me this was going to be a focus for the offense. You don't move a true freshman OL to TE unless you are trying to help the OL.
Now if it works is another story, but it is interesting to me to make a move like this. At first, it doesn't really seem like something an air raid team would do...except Baylor is doing it. I don't think adding another OL (or technically TE) changes the core philosophy of our offense. Against Tech, I saw Baylor moving their 400lbs TE around in the formation, sometimes lining up in the backfield and other times on the LOS, so there is some flexibility here. With McCauley playing TE, I could see them going 4 wide and him near the LOS being an extra blocker, I culd see him in a single back set being moved around as a lead blocker for Kinner, and I could even see him lined up out wide being a blocker on WR screen plays (or decoys). So that is an example to me of a personnel change that doesn't impact the core of the offense. It sucks being patient, and again when something isn't working I understand the idea to change, but I think it is important for changes to be controlled in a sense and be done purely within the system we run and also be done to help us not just for this year, but years down the road...
On defense, it is a little bit hard to say what the core philosophy is. Of course you could boil it down to stopping the offense, but how we stop the offense I think is a little bit tricky. If we play a run heavy team, I think the we do need to handle things differently than a wide open spread team. By nature, defense has to be a little bit more flexible to change it's core philosophy, so it is hard to say what the team should and shouldn't focus on the rest of this year in order to make them prepared for next year and beyond.
Now on offense, it is a different story. There are so many different offensive philosophies that it is easy to say if one thing doesn't work they could have done this. Play calling may be the easiest thing in the world football wise to use hindsight to critique. But I think this is where it is critical to not make any wholesale changes - repetition this year will help us in the more important years down the road. We are getting ready to see this with our own eyes. Baylor is a well oiled machine on offense, but they weren't always this way. Now that's not to say Baylor won't make tweaks to their system as they do. One particular tweak I think we should keep an eye on is how Baylor uses their 400 lbs TE. He isn't really a TE - he is just an extension of their OL. Which really relates to us now because I huge concern, and understandably so, is how will the OL keep people off of Willis? From the moment last week that they put McCauley at TE, it was clear to me this was going to be a focus for the offense. You don't move a true freshman OL to TE unless you are trying to help the OL.
Now if it works is another story, but it is interesting to me to make a move like this. At first, it doesn't really seem like something an air raid team would do...except Baylor is doing it. I don't think adding another OL (or technically TE) changes the core philosophy of our offense. Against Tech, I saw Baylor moving their 400lbs TE around in the formation, sometimes lining up in the backfield and other times on the LOS, so there is some flexibility here. With McCauley playing TE, I could see them going 4 wide and him near the LOS being an extra blocker, I culd see him in a single back set being moved around as a lead blocker for Kinner, and I could even see him lined up out wide being a blocker on WR screen plays (or decoys). So that is an example to me of a personnel change that doesn't impact the core of the offense. It sucks being patient, and again when something isn't working I understand the idea to change, but I think it is important for changes to be controlled in a sense and be done purely within the system we run and also be done to help us not just for this year, but years down the road...
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