Tate's Option on Zone Read
First off, I am not claiming to know whether Tate has been making good/bad reads on the DE about whether to hand off to the RB or keep it himself on the option read. The point that I'd like to make is that early in the season it did not seem like he was making much of a read at all, but just deferring to the RB most of the time. The first time I noticed him reading the DE and keeping the ball himself was during the last drive at MSU, when he broke off several big runs while the MSU was scrambling after the RBs.
Pat White made a living at WVU from confusing defenses on the Zone Read about whether he or Steve Slaton was going to gash them up. The running game last week at MSU was significantly ineffective for 3 1/2 quarters, and I think that is because they knew that tate wouldn't keep the ball himself and they keyed the RBs. Once he did start making the correct reads, MSU had no answer for him or the offense.
My hope is that RR will address this issue with Tate this week at practice and film, in order to fully utilize the running game, and keep Iowa/future opponents off balance on defense.
October 7th, 2009 at 2:55 PM ^
Alot of those aren't necessarily reads as much as called run plays. I think it was the EMU game, but could have been the ND game, but Magee was mad at Tate for keeping it too much on his reads. Coming out at halftime, they called specific designed run plays with no read. They look the same, there is just no read.
Now I'm not saying he didn't have the read in the MSU game early on, but he has been getting harped on for keeping too much, even to the point where they had to take it from him. Bottom line, there is no real way to say whether Tate was misreading or the plays were just called that way.
October 7th, 2009 at 5:38 PM ^
that RR didn't want to see his QB's running quite as much as they were. He said he wanted to see about 1/2 as many QB runs per game as what was happening at one point. Don't know after which game that was. But I do remember him talking about it after one of the games. Something like 20 QB runs comes to mind and the implication was that they wanted to see 10-12 instead.
October 7th, 2009 at 3:06 PM ^
If you look at the 2nd to last play Koger went by his blocker for possibly a pass and the end sucked in so Tate could have walked in for a td or passed it to Koger for a td I wonder if that was a read or not because he screwed up big time if it was a read.
October 7th, 2009 at 3:10 PM ^
And therefore had the advantage of watching turf-shredder- extraordinaire Rasheed Marshall run Rodriguez's read spread option attack with reckless abandon, putting opponents heads on a swivel (or was it a stick?) play after play.
How do you place a value on that sideline season for Pat White?
I'm convinced that White's redshirt year observing and learning from Marshall and QB coach Rod Smith were what made him excel so much in 2005 as the RS Freshman starter for WVU. His fakes were very smooth and convincing. We may not see anything quite like it again.
Tate and Denard don't enjoy that same luxury this year.
But both should be much, much better at just about everything in 2010 assuming they don't get their heads taken off by some Big Ten defensive end or free safety.
October 7th, 2009 at 3:13 PM ^
That being said Tate has not been good on the read, keeping it way to much.
I thought MSU had the snap count down, again this year, and were beating our guys before they hardly took a step. Plays like that blew up at least 2 drives on first down. That cant happen.
October 7th, 2009 at 3:14 PM ^
I think another issue is the variety of ways that teams have defensed the zone read. As Brian pointed out with his scrape exchange analysis, sometimes the right read for one defense isn't the right read for another. I think it takes the coaches some time to figure out what the defense is doing so they can adjust the proper read accordingly. That is really hard to do in a game like the State one where we just don't have the ball long enough to really see what they are doing defensively.
October 7th, 2009 at 3:30 PM ^
I don't know if they were reads or designed running plays, but Forcier at least had a couple of mean fakes on that last drive. He fooled me both times. I was like "Shit, run for no gain. Oh wait. GO TATE! WOOO!"
October 7th, 2009 at 3:33 PM ^
They had been crashing the safety on the scrape with the D end playing the run, in that last drive they backed that safety off so the zone read was more open?
October 7th, 2009 at 3:47 PM ^
the crack BTN camera crew. When they bothered to come back from a ROTEL commercial in time for the play.
October 7th, 2009 at 5:52 PM ^
Be careful. Tate's moxie is sponsored by RO*TEL.
October 7th, 2009 at 9:58 PM ^
With a frisbee in his hand could fake out the BTN crew. "Here, Wayne! Here, Wayne! Get the frisbee!" (Fake throw, Wayne turns his head toward the empty space where he expects the frisbee to be.) "Ha, ha! Gotcha, Wayne!"
October 7th, 2009 at 4:58 PM ^
exactly what MSU was doing against our run for us to have a chance this Saturday. A win this weekend would go a long way in getting the momentum back for our team. It's going to be a big game on a big stage. Go Blue!!!
October 7th, 2009 at 6:42 PM ^
I dont know how many runs we actually had in the first half but it seemed like half the time a guy flat out quicked one of our lineman to blow up the play.