Snowflakes Thread: Offense Vs. Cincinnati

Submitted by LSAClassOf2000 on

This will be the snowflake thread for the thoughts on our offense in the game versus Cincinnati.

Benoit Balls

September 9th, 2017 at 4:13 PM ^

at one point I was wondering about Evans as well. Last year he was the guy who WOULDNT run into the line and fall over. Now this year, it seems as thats all he does.  I dont understand how RB's get slower once they show up on campus. It's happened for many years now (at least it seems like). Even Anthony Thomas seemed slower as a junior and senior than he was as a freshman and sophmore. Its been a handful of RB's over many coaching staffs and offensive styles.  I dont understand, but it's been a quiet voice in the back of my mind for years

nappa18

September 9th, 2017 at 4:06 PM ^

Sorry, didn't like him last year in the biggest games and have no confidence in him this year at Madison, Happy Valley, and home against Ohio. Stiff looking when he throws, overthrows often, just don't see him as a"championship" qb. Wish I did. 9 win ceiling, possibly 8 if they lose one when favored.

nappa18

September 9th, 2017 at 4:06 PM ^

Sorry, didn't like him last year in the biggest games and have no confidence in him this year at Madison, Happy Valley, and home against Ohio. Stiff looking when he throws, overthrows often, just don't see him as a"championship" qb. Wish I did. 9 win ceiling, possibly 8 if they lose one when favored.

Benoit Balls

September 9th, 2017 at 4:17 PM ^

a buddy of mine did that once (someone Ive been frieds with for 20+ years), and brought her back to his place from the clubs in downtown Cleveland. I was visiting from out of town that weekend and staying at his house.  Once she came clean and told him he wanted money, I figured he'd kick her to the curb, but he asked me to borrow the $100 he was short.  I told him no and she ended up leaving. I bust his balls about it to this day

UMForLife

September 9th, 2017 at 4:08 PM ^

It felt like they were determined to limit the play calls and not put some plays in there such as RB out of backfield. It also seemed like they wanted Speight to get as much rep as possible with different throws.
It seems to me that Speight is still practice mode and needs a lot of reps. I don't know what he was doing in summer and fall. He improved long ball but did not develop touch on short throws.
I am ok with play calling if they wanted save some plays. But Speight needs a lot of coaching. He may not be able to get any better.
I pray the backup QBs get better soon or Speight improves in a few weeks. Otherwise we are going to have a season like last year or worse.

AZBlue

September 9th, 2017 at 4:11 PM ^

This team is young.

This team is young/inexperienced

Speight!!?!??!??

This team is young..

This team is young..

Speight must think DPJ is tacopants because I cannot remember a throw less than 3 feet over his head.

bronxblue

September 9th, 2017 at 4:13 PM ^

I am very underwhelmed by the receivers and offensive line.  I think Speight is fine, but like last year this team is going to struggle when they can't block and their receivers can't get open.  Speight needs to be more accurate, but everyone keeps blaming him because that's the narrative, not necessarily the truth.

redwhitemgoblue

September 9th, 2017 at 4:21 PM ^

You can't be serious? He overthrew the ball on every possession. Caused a fumble and had to burn a timeout because he wasn't ready at the line. He was pretty bad today. The sad part is... he's the best we got and that's on Harbaugh for not getting the other guys ready. I see plenty of true freshman QBs starting and Peters still can't sniff the field in his 2nd year with the team. What the hell is going on???

bronxblue

September 9th, 2017 at 4:37 PM ^

To me, all of this pearl-clutching around him is hyperbolic.  It's easy to complain about the QB because it doesn't take a lot of analysis or thought.  And it's always based on this insane strayman people generate in their heads about what a great QB looks like.  People wanted to tar and feather Rudock for most of the year; at the end, everyone talked about him as an elite college QB at Michigan.  And he looked WAY worse than Speight has this year, and while he was new to the offense he was definitely not new to college football and being a starting QB in the conference.  

Speight wasn't pefect; I said he was fine.  He was.  He finished the day with 60% completion percentage, 7.6 ypa, for 221 yards and a TD.  He was fine.  But that fumble to Crawford was as much on Crawford as Speight; he bobbled the handoff and has showed a bad tendency these couple of weeks to not get his hands securely on the ball and/or make body catches.  But the offensive line somehow gave up repeated pressure to the Bearcats; they gave up 5 TFLs here, after giving up 11 TFLs to Florida last game.  Speight overthrew a couple of guys; it was also clear guys weren't getting open way more frequently than you would have thought against a bad defensive secondary.  And nobody could run the ball save Isaac.

Again, it's a bad game by a good team.  It isn't a great offense right now, and that is a whole-team problem.  Bitching about the QB while ignoring the rest is just reactionary.

bcnihao

September 9th, 2017 at 5:06 PM ^

People complained about Rudock during the first half of his season here, and nothing showed those complaints to be unreasonable.  People here also gave props to Rudock during the second half of that season.  

In his second season as the starting QB, Speight is routinely overthrowing receivers on medium passes (and throwing late on long passes).  Given all of Speight's experience in the system, it doesn't look as if it's a matter of growing pains, as it was for first-half-of-season Rudock.

bronxblue

September 9th, 2017 at 7:31 PM ^

He is not routinely overthrowing receivers; he's had some bad throws.  He's also thrown some really nice balls into tight spaces and hit receivers downfield.

The growing experience is as much to do with the team around him.  His entire receiving corps had something like 40 catches coming into the year in their careers, and most of those were by Perry.  The offensive line has 3 new starters, with the added bonus of his center now being his left tackle.  None of these games are played in a vacuum, and so that's why I get tired of people blaming all the struggles on Speight because he's the QB and pointing to Onwenu not picking up a blitzer or Crawford constantly body-catching balls instead of cleanly with his hands, or DPJ fair-catching punts instead of letting them bounce wherever, is harder because it requires you to view the game in its totality.  

Ghost of Fritz…

September 9th, 2017 at 4:15 PM ^

mediocre and poor teams Speight in 2016 looked decent, like he possibly could develop over time into an all-conf QB. 

Today he looked much worse than against similar opponents in 2016.  He was never super in 2016, but he really did not have nearly as many high overthrows and/or just complete missed throws against lesser teams in 2016 as he had today.

There were some excellent throws also.  But too many very bad throws and a lot more bad throws than in any game last year.

I wonder if he has develped a bit of a head problem.   Trying to hard to makke a big jump.  That or maybe his shoulder is still not great after the injury/surgery. 

7words

September 9th, 2017 at 4:15 PM ^

F-  on offense.   All i heard about was that we had a bunch of weapons on offense.  Offense looks slow and unimaginative.  We talk about "how couldn't a tight end want to come play for Harbaugh?"  Well the tights ends had what, 3 catches today?   

TheCool

September 9th, 2017 at 4:17 PM ^

I don't want to overreact to the good (last week) or the bad (today). He turnovers and goal line fumble ruined the early momentum.

It's pretty sad that Speight is our best QB.

It's OK to have a bad game against weak competition and still win by 22.

MGlobules

September 9th, 2017 at 4:19 PM ^

from joining the anti-Navarre crowd. But the time for him to show he can carry this team through complete games has to be soon. Otherwise I want to see my other two QBs can handle gameday pressure. 

Lots to build on from today, and my hunch is that Fickell was game-planning for us all off-season, just like we were planning for FL. Hope the coaches learned what they needed to today.

We all assumed that the goals were to get past FL and build toward PSU and OSU. Last week inflated expectations, but that's what we've got.  

Michology 101

September 9th, 2017 at 4:22 PM ^

I'll admit that I'm kinda disappointed that Peters isn't apparently ready to be our starter. I mean, that was the plan... him being our highly-regarded top QB recruit and hopefully starting by year two.

Many top QB recruits have won the starting job by year two, when they don't have to wait behind a good steady upperclassman QB.

I know it's still early for Peters, but for him to not be able to beat out a suspect QB like Speight by year two, makes me wonder if McCaffery is the one we're going to have to hope on.

MileHighWolverine

September 9th, 2017 at 4:21 PM ^

I would like to see Drevno leave...our OL have not improved since he got here and his play calling isn't creative. He has strengths he doesn't use and force so plays to our weaknesses. Dumbfounding.

MileHighWolverine

September 9th, 2017 at 6:02 PM ^

My grip is fine, thanks. Kalis was a 5 star player with 2 (maybe 3) years of Drevno coaching and made no serious improvement.

And his play calling leaves a lot to be desired. Do you think it's pure coincidence Frey was hired this year for OL work and Pep brought in to implement more creative spread plays? If Drevno could handle it, these other guys would not have been brought in.

MC5-95

September 9th, 2017 at 6:58 PM ^

Play calling is split between Harbaugh, Drevno, and Hamilton, just as it was split between Harbaugh, Drevno, and Fisch.

Kalis was a Hoke recruit who's not on the team anymore, and I don't know how anyone could think anyone's had 3 years under Drevno when everyone knows this is Year 3 of Harbaugh.

To say that OL line play hasn't been improved from the Hoke years--an era of tackles for loss and blown assignments--is a silly hot take.