OT: West Virginia's offensive woes
Football Study Hall has an article up on West Virginia's offensive woes. I thought it relevant to MGoBlog because the question the author asks is quite similar to the questions being asked about Michigan and Borges: what is the problem with the offense? Who is to blame?
His conclusions, based on his analysis of the Kansas game, will sound awfully familiar to us:
The lack of inside running or downfield passing meant that, apart from the first and last two drives of the game, the Mountaineers had no effective base plays off of which they could build big-play constraints. Holgorsen and Dawson attempted to reassert the ground game in the second half, but poor line play and the inability of the offense to punish cheating defenders rendered this strategy almost dead on arrival. Short gains on first down led to repeated second-and-long and third-and-long situations.
His conclusion is that Holgorsen shouldn't be fired, that the schemes are sound but that
An accumulation of lackluster recruiting, graduated players, and injuries have depleted West Virginia’s roster. The current mishmash of players lacks consistency more than anything else, making Holgorsen’s job a difficult one. That said, he must work on the run game for the rest of the season and the off season in order to overcome his depth issues.
Again, this sounds familiar, albeit with some small tweaks. But certainly the lack of consistency has been one of the chief symptoms of Michigan's current offensive ills.
For me, what's interesting is that Holgo is the architect of a very trendy offense -- the Air Raid -- that comes Smart Football-approved, but ultimately he has the same problems that a more traditionally-oriented Al Borges offense does: can't run inside, can't pass downfield.
This isn't an exoneration of Borges, of course, because one could always argue that Holgo is working with much less than Borges is (WV's recruiting rankings have been in the low 20s and low 40s over the past four years). On the other hand, it does tend to illustrate that bad offenses can share the same problems even when they're diametrically opposed in terms of their philosophies.
November 20th, 2013 at 2:19 PM ^
Thanks for posting. Not being able to do your 'base' plays well seems like a recipe for disaster for any offense.
I am too much of a moron to know if this means coaching is bad or just mediocre when this occurs coupled with bad/inexperienced/injured players.
November 20th, 2013 at 2:26 PM ^
Just not much you can do scheme-wise when you can't block the interior or protect the pocket.
I suspect at the end of the day Holgorsen has some credibility in the account from the past couple of years that he can fall back on now. Very tough to say there's a scheme issue with a guy who has shown the ability to give his side the proverbial "decided schematic advantage."
When was the last time we watched a Michigan game and thought our OC was just plain outfoxing the other guys? Maybe for a brief glimpse at the end of 2011, and in the bowl against South Carolina, which I thought was Borges' best game plan to date, but that's about it.
November 20th, 2013 at 2:50 PM ^
I've been watching UM football closely since 1971 and I can honestly say that the number of times we've won by truly "outfoxing" a strong(er) opponent can be counted on the fingers of one hand. We've always gone into big games, whether regular season or bowl game, thinking that if we just execute what we've already been doing all season, our talent will be enough.
Because of our talent advantage over most teams, we've won most of our games, but against top-flight opponents the record is very different, and not very good.
In particular, I challenge anybody to find an account of a bowl victory when our opponents say "Boy, Michigan really threw us a fast one today—they changed up what they normally do and we weren't ready for it."
November 20th, 2013 at 2:55 PM ^
But I don't recall any others off hand.
November 20th, 2013 at 3:06 PM ^
To me at least, that is the ideal offense. Not gimmicky but diverse as hell.
November 20th, 2013 at 3:35 PM ^
November 20th, 2013 at 3:49 PM ^
A few of the wins over Ohio State during the John Cooper era had to have been due to coaching. Judging by the number of Cooper-coached players who made it to the NFL, Cooper never had any trouble stocking up on talent, but he would get outcoached by Carr/Moeller in The Game.
God, I miss those days.
November 20th, 2013 at 4:14 PM ^
Cannot stress this enough! My dad (a former player) and I talk about this all the time. When is the last time Michigan beat a team based off of the gameplan?! When Michigan wins its mostly because they have better talent. And most of the games they lose they have better talent and get out gameplaned. I can't remember the last time Michigan either a) had better talent and a better gameplan or b) had lesser talent but a better gameplan.
November 20th, 2013 at 4:36 PM ^
long, time.
November 20th, 2013 at 2:52 PM ^
November 20th, 2013 at 3:36 PM ^
The beauty of that game is that Michigan didn't even execute all that well. They turned the ball over four times and didn't force any Florida turnovers, yet they still won. It was a bit frustrating to watch, because that offense came totally out of nowhere and left everyone wondering why Lloyd Carr waited until his farewell game to deploy a gameplan like that.
November 20th, 2013 at 5:39 PM ^
In the off season Michigan had Tom Moore (Peyton Manning's OC at the time) come in and consult. The plan was to run that offense the entire season, but injuries to Henne, Hart, Manningham, and others derailed the plan. The bowl game was the only time they were healthy enough to run the offense. Sigh.
November 20th, 2013 at 7:10 PM ^
Wow, didn't know that. That really puts things in perspective. I've often wondered why Carr and DeBord didn't try to engineer a more explosive offense in '07, considering the sheer number of offensive weapons they had on that team. I guess they tried, but the injury bug got in the way. That further rehabilitates Carr's image in my mind.
November 20th, 2013 at 3:46 PM ^
And say any OC is just really out-foxing that guy? Or is it usually "man, they're making less mistakes/have a lot better players...."?
Every fan of every team thinks their coaches are being outcoached when they lose.
November 20th, 2013 at 4:03 PM ^
The 2007 Fiesta Bowl in which Boise State beat Oklahoma was a textbook example of a game in which a team with superior talent lost because they were outcoached. Boise caught Oklahoma flat-footed on every one of those trick plays that they used to win the game.
The 2010 LSU-Tennessee game was a textbook example of two coaches out-derping each other at the end of the game. LSU needed a touchdown and badly mismanaged the clock during their two minute drill. They apparently came up just short of the endzone on the final play, but they were bailed out when Tenessee was flagged for having 13 men on the field because Derek Dooley tried to make too many substitutions.
November 20th, 2013 at 2:44 PM ^
"His conclusion is that Holgorsen shouldn't be fired, that the schemes are sound but that..."
I call shenanigans. If a recently successful team is not able to find success with the players they currently have on roster, the scheme is no longer sound (in the short term at least). A coach should not be so obsessed with his offense that he is more willing to kowtow to defeat in the trenches rather than modify it in pieces to work with his existing personnel's skillset. That is the mark of a worthwhile offense year in and year out: The ability to adapt in interim without completely withdrawing your offensive vision.
College football for programs with historic or sustained current success must abide by a win now mentality. Simply prepping your ill-equipped team for the future by basically allowing other teams to plow over them in their current, ineffective strategy is counterproductive as you may scare away recruits, alienate the fanbase and lower the morale/esteem of current players. Adapt, baby, adapt.
November 20th, 2013 at 2:45 PM ^
You gotta be able to run the football, and you gotta be able to stop the run. If you can't do either, you're in big trouble. If you can't do one or the other, still trouble. Little did we know way back when we were pissed at Bo because his offense was boring.
November 20th, 2013 at 2:49 PM ^
First, I was never pissed at Bo. But second, it doesn't really matter how you run the football. If you've got a precision passing offense, teams will be forced to empty the box to stop it, allowing you to run (the Peyton Manning model of offense, and what we tried to force Notre Dame to do this year). And whether or not you can run the football is scheme-agnostic, really. (At least it is if your scheme is sound).
November 20th, 2013 at 2:49 PM ^
Bring back Pittsnogle
November 20th, 2013 at 3:40 PM ^
After taking a step back and looking at it through non rage glasses. We're young in the middle of the OL. That's tough. It will get better. Nobody should be FIRED! because that will just shake up something that in all honestly just needs some continuity.
November 20th, 2013 at 4:35 PM ^
November 20th, 2013 at 5:05 PM ^
is in the NFL, that's why
November 20th, 2013 at 5:10 PM ^
It is an interesting article, and thanks for sharing it. I was sort of intirgued by WVU's rushing woes in particular.
What I find fascinating really, when you look at some of West Virginia's averages, is how little they run overall. They are 112th in Division I in % Rushing Plays at 44.94% and 101st in average rushes per game at 34.6 - they get 4.1 yards per rush on average. Michigan, by comparison, averages 57.06% rushing plays per game (33rd in Division I), 41.6 rushes per game (38th in Division I), but as we play better rushing defenses, the 3.3 yards per carry raises us to 109th in FBS. I have to wonder what the Mountaineer rushing game would look like in our conference.