MSU Snowflakes Thread: Coaching
October 18th, 2015 at 8:54 AM ^
you would have thought with his experience that Baxter would have told the gunners to move in to block if they didn't have anyone back. I think Blake knew he would have no margin for error because of the unblocked players and lost his composure when the snap was low. I'm sure the coaches warned him to fall on it but sometimes the mind does strange things under pressure.
October 18th, 2015 at 6:05 AM ^
October 17th, 2015 at 7:58 PM ^
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October 17th, 2015 at 8:09 PM ^
...there is not.
If a player elects to drag the ball underneath himself or dive on the ball, he is then required to immediately knock the ball clear of his possession (a player is no longer in possession if he is not laying on the ball or the ball is not within his grasp) or correctly dispose of the ball.
October 17th, 2015 at 7:59 PM ^
October 17th, 2015 at 8:47 PM ^
At the very least--and I'm trying very hard not to second-guess such an unlikely happening--it might be nice to have the old-fashioned protection available for situations where there isn't much advantage to getting everybody off the LOS and into coverage quickly. We didn't need the big roll-out kick; all we needed was foot-meets-ball.
I had a flashback to the rivalry game at my HS a few years back. Drove the ball to the goal line in the final minute, down 4. (To fully appreciate this, we'd lost the rivalry game 45 straight years.) Had four downs to punch it across from a foot away.
On first down the center tore his ACL and had to come out.
On second down the backup center, who hadn't played there all year, snapped the ball about 20 yards over the QB's head and the other team picked it up and ran it the length of the field as time ran out.
Other team's coordinator came running down out of the press box behind me and through our fans yelling 46! 46! (It's still a rivalry, apparently.)
I asked somebody later why they didn't just line up under center and QB sneak for those last few inches, especially once the regular center was out. And was told it was because in an entire season and pre-season of practices they had never, not once!, put the QB under center, even just to practice snapping it that way. Quarterback wouldn't have known where to put his hands. Center wouldn't have known how to get the ball there.
There's something to be said for being multiple. Or at least preserving necessary fundamental skills.
October 17th, 2015 at 10:00 PM ^
October 17th, 2015 at 10:42 PM ^
Clark had graduated the year before--no karmic payback involved.
October 17th, 2015 at 10:22 PM ^
October 17th, 2015 at 8:00 PM ^
if anyone decided to torture themselves and rewatch it, was the snap low or did O'Niel just drop it.
October 17th, 2015 at 8:05 PM ^
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October 18th, 2015 at 12:22 AM ^
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October 17th, 2015 at 8:01 PM ^
October 17th, 2015 at 8:24 PM ^
You cannot put an average QB in 3rd and 7 all day. We were beating our heads against a wall running the ball what seemed like 75% of 1st and 2nd down plays. Big fail on the play calling. Harbaugh is the right guy, but 3rd and 7 isn't our down.
October 17th, 2015 at 8:36 PM ^
That MSU was lined up in the neutral zone on the last play?
October 17th, 2015 at 10:03 PM ^
October 17th, 2015 at 11:29 PM ^
One of these things is not like the other
October 17th, 2015 at 9:02 PM ^
Baxter is 1,000 times better than his predecessor, but on the final play, we had a gunner wide left, even though there was no one back to return and no MSU player playing that gunner. Look at the overhead shot available now on ESPN. Seems to me the right coaching call is to have your punt team in max protect formation if MSU is going for the block with no returner.
October 17th, 2015 at 10:08 PM ^
October 17th, 2015 at 8:56 PM ^
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October 17th, 2015 at 9:51 PM ^
October 17th, 2015 at 9:05 PM ^
Why even send anybody to cover when MSU wasn't going to bother returning it? Could have a full on max protect on, and even assuming the worst still happens you have guys back who can possible recover the fumble/bring down the MSU player.
October 17th, 2015 at 10:32 PM ^
...it's right as a general principle, but you're only allowed four in the backfield and the guys at the LOS aren't available to recover a fumble 15 yards behind the line.
It was a gaffe; I'm not sure it was decisive. Once the punter drops the snap, we've got a problem. Actually I think Reader71's on the right track here--in an old-fashioned protection the interior of the line is holding their blocks until the ball's kicked. In the new protections they're letting the rushers go at some point, trusting the shield to hold, and releasing downfield. There's no point to that here, and MSU sure did have a lot more guys around the fumbled snap than you ever see near the punter in a pro-style protection.
October 17th, 2015 at 10:51 PM ^
Shouldn't we snap the ball with 1 or 2 seconds left on the play clock rather than stop it at 1 second? Those couple seconds were the difference between msu having no time to run even 1 play after a change of possession, and the worst possible scenario we saw play out...right? What am I missing strategically?
Also, what about some slower developing plays (sweeps, draw play, etc)? I mean, if we're not even TRYING to gain 1st down yardage, why not use more clock?
Can some coachy types explain why Harbaugh did or did not use the clock correctly on our last possession please?
October 17th, 2015 at 11:02 PM ^
What? Harbaugh called the TOs because that was the way to get as much time off the clock as possible. How does snapping the ball with 1 or 2 seconds left take more time off the clock than a TO with 1 second left?
October 17th, 2015 at 11:12 PM ^
As I said, I guess I'm missing something, but your explanation fell a bit short of enlightening me. Thanks for trying?
October 17th, 2015 at 11:22 PM ^
Since the clock starts on the snap after the TO, the only time you could possibly gain by not calling timeout is the time between the moment you didn't call timeout and the snap. Since the timeouts came with 1 on the play clock, that's a fraction of a second at most. And the closer you press that "at most" to get that fraction of a second, the more you've signaled to the defense precisely when the snap's going to come.
Doing it this way means you can snap the ball at your leisure with no risk of the defense jumping the snap. That, in exchange for maybe half a second of clock time, seems a good trade to me.
October 17th, 2015 at 11:34 PM ^
Then there was my 2nd point about slower developing plays rather than dives up the middle if you're not seriously trying to get a 1st down... aren't there plays that would cause more time to elapse while getting the same basic result - which was virtually no gain?
October 18th, 2015 at 11:01 AM ^
I had never really thought that part of it through before last night, but I realized as it was happening that maybe it made sense to do it this way, at least against MSU who's been successfully timing our snaps and shooting the A gap for almost a decade. I was more worried they'd blow up a play in our backfield and cause a fumble than I was worried about the couple of seconds. I couldn't see any way to fully run out the clock in any event--it was just a question of whether you're punting with 8 on the clock or 4.
October 17th, 2015 at 9:57 PM ^
October 17th, 2015 at 10:53 PM ^
October 17th, 2015 at 10:25 PM ^
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October 17th, 2015 at 10:56 PM ^
October 17th, 2015 at 11:09 PM ^
I had a bunch of people at my place watching the game and I said it seemed as if LLoyd was calling the game. Playing not to lose instead of trying to win. Use your athletes and make plays.
October 17th, 2015 at 11:27 PM ^
But I agree on the coaching. Aside from getting Jabrill his 1st snaps on O, very little was "saved" for msu. Nothing really creative, nothing "punishing" them for being overly aggressive. I'm guessing we got badly out-RPS'd in this one.
And Cook was fantastic, constantly challenging Jourdan and successfully fitting it in verry small windows. THAT'S playing with confidence.
Oh well, playoff talk in year one was probably getting ahead of ourselves...
October 17th, 2015 at 11:07 PM ^
The coaches can only work with what they have, and they don't have a very good quarterback. People can point to his zero turn-overs, but I'd argue that's a function of the play calling. They don't trust Rudock to throw down the field and to be honest, they have no reason to. There are only so many play calls that work when the entire defense is 5 yards off the line of scrimmage. I think people expect way too much from the play-calling and the OL. When you can't threaten down the field, and you aren't a running QB option team, it's goddamn hard to get an effective running game going. I thought the OL looked fairly good in pass protection, but often Rudock holds the ball too long. When he doesn't, he looks to throw short, which plays into the defense's strategy. When he does throw long... well, it ain't really pretty. I'm impressed that the offense looks at all functional when even shitty secondaries are able to stack the box.
October 17th, 2015 at 11:40 PM ^
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October 17th, 2015 at 11:46 PM ^
Go out on 4th down w the offense and at least make Sparty think about defending instead of pinning ears back and flying. Jake could have easily pooch kicked it. Also, get the first down.
.2% chance to win
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October 17th, 2015 at 11:59 PM ^
October 18th, 2015 at 1:30 AM ^
October 18th, 2015 at 12:03 AM ^
October 18th, 2015 at 12:40 AM ^
October 18th, 2015 at 12:41 AM ^
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October 18th, 2015 at 9:04 AM ^
Like somebody above said -we should have run plays that burned more time.
We also should have saved a TO for the 4th down play, to make sure we were prepared. Tell Rudock after the first TO - to snap the ball with a couple sec left on play clock every time
Our party group was saying "you know there coming to try & block the punt". I guess our special teams coach didnt think of that. Major fail with what he sent out - when you see our formation screen shot above. .
October 18th, 2015 at 9:13 AM ^