New Plays on Offense

I know the leading blocker argument has been kind of beaten to death lately, but I wanted to point out that on the drive that ended in the 101 yard pick6 was almost entirely I-form. I need to watch the game again, but I think that it may have been all all running until that one pass, if not all I-form runs.

The real point that I wanted to make with the post is that in the first 3 games of the season, we seemed to be getting a new wrinkle/formation/package in offense every game. And then it stopped. Completely. Did any one else notice this? We have been running the exact same plays on almost every down. I feel like RR was trying to do the Remember the Titans thing where they run 5 plays, but hasn't been able to get them to run it perfectly.

I guess this could be blamed on "lack of execution" but when are we ever going to be able to execute the same 5 plays if the opponent sells out to stop these plays every time? All I am saying is that we need to add some more plays to the play book. Try that quick pitch to odoms that opened up the RR era again. Try that play that we used in last year's Illinois game where Arrington had the option to keep or throw and he threw for the TD. Mix in I-form with shotgun spread and try a bootleg pass every once in a while.

What really made me realize our lack of diversity in our play calling was when I was watching the Memphis v. Louisville game. I started watching it to see how English was doing, but I was intrigued by the Memphis offense (the early game version). Three plays stick in my mind. The first was when they were in shotgun with a fullback. They brought the receiver in motion and did an option play. It looked like the QB was going to pitch it to the fullback but he did the backside pitch to the receiver. The QB and FB both layed down blocks and  they got some good yardage on the play. The second was when the QB lined up under center on the 1 yard line with a TB in the backfield. The QB fakes a TO call which loosens up the defense and they snap it to the TB who runs for a TD. The third was the handoff which was then passed back to the QB for another TD.

The first play was something that seemed exactly like something RR would run. The other two were trick plays, but those types of plays lead to points, confidence, and momentum. All three would be extremely useful in the latter half of our season.

I am not a fair-weather fan and I wear my M hat every day, but I still want to see my team win. I have said all season long that I expect 6-6 so that if/when we go over that I would be pleasantly surprised. Well, we need 4 more wins for that to happen and I think 5 of our last 6 are winnable if our offense can execute. I don't think that will happen unless we mix it up a bit. I am not talking about ditching the spread for the rest of the season for the sake of our bowl, but it seems stubborn and counter-productive to ONLY use an offensive pattern that is blowing up in our faces. My biggest gripe with Lloyd Carr was that he seemed to mold players around a system instead of the system around his players and now RR is doing the same thing.