Paul Rhoads true colors beginning to shine through
- Thread starter CYcoFan
- Start date
Not sure this is true. The kicker slipped on the first kick that went out of bounds and went off the field limping. I think Rhoads may have been hoping that forcing an injured kicker to re-kick would give us better field position (and maybe even aggravate the injury that might be significant later in the game).
I don't see how making them re-kick is desperation? I see it as playing the percentages, we had almost busted a couple earlier kicks so why not make them re-kick and take the chance on busting one? I liked the call.
I have watched them practice that hook-in ladder play in practice and it has been ready to use all year. 4th down and long, with no time to throw the ball and the d-backs playing deep quarters was as good of time if any to call it.
And don't get your hopes up I will bet a lot of money Rhoads doesn't make a change at OC nor does he need to.
I bet he doesnt make a change either but I still question if Mess was a good idea. He was a head scratcher at a very pivotal time in our building process.
Curt, in your opinion why should Messingham stay on the staff? I'm one who questioned the hire and hoped for an OC hire outside the program of someone with experience. Imo our offense has under-achieved. Am I wrong? If I am wrong when/how are we going to produce enough points to win games that will put us at .500+ in the Big 12? I don't have the experience or football knowledge to recognize the positives from Messingham's play calling. Can you or someone smarter than me explain how my concerns aren't valid? Thanks.
In my opinion yes Mess should stay as OC and I supported his promotion. I don't disagree that the offense hasn't lived up to what everyone has expected it too, but to many people forget that Mess wasn't the QB coach and/or the OC in past years so to blame the past offensive issues on him is completely unfair.
IMO I don't think his play calling isnt all that bad, do I agree with every play he calls no, but he does have a game plan. Heck when I was playing I would question Loney's playcalling and I question Mess's when he runs stuff I don't agree with. The positives with Mess's playcalling imo are that most of the time the plays are there, but one person makes a mental mistake (OL misses a block, RB misses a cut, WR runs wrong route, QB makes the wrong read) and then the play breaks down. Yes I know this is on the coaches to teach them, but at some point the players need to execute what they are taught.
I don't think the offense is really that far away, we have seen flashes (See the Baylor game, and don't give me their defense is garbage argument because their defense played really good the second half of the year) and what can happen when the players limit the mental mistakes.
Like I said this is my opinion and others are entitled to theirs.
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The offense does good things, sometimes great things when the plays are scripted. Just look at the first quarters of most of our games this season. We execute the scripted stuff really well but when it comes time to make adjustments afterwards we are not good at doing that. That comes with coaching and preparation which we were sorely lacking in this game.
Baylors defense is garbage. Mess doesn't seem to have any sort of philosophy. There's no , "if they do this, then we are going to do this to attack this." It's just "we're going to do this whether it works or not. Oh, it worked? Let's do nothing like that again." It just a grab bag of play calls. How many times did we go back to the play that got us the Brun TD? How many times did we run that action at least? My next play would have been the exact same one if they wanted to hold the edge with safties. If they stop it, fine. If they don't, better. There seems to be no thinking like that. Spread offense isn't about beating the defense. It's about taking what they are going to give you because with that much space, you are always giving something. Once they give it up, players will cheat. When they cheat, you take what they cheated on. This is why our defense is successful from a point standard. They don't usually cheat so they just make offenses keep doing the same thing. OCs aren't wired that way. They always are trying to find a way to take a bunch. When they do that, we are there and make a play or get off the field somehow.
Next time you are at practice watching how they prepare let me know and I'll say hi.
The Brun play was a TE wheel route, similar to the RB wheel route James White scored on against Okie State last year, it's not a play "you keep running til they stop it", it's a situational play you call and in order to take advantage of something you are seeing.
I love your posts because you always think you have such a great offensive mind, so when you finally get that OC job at a BCS school let me know and then I will believe you know as much as you think you do.
And Baylor's defense is not great but it's not garbage, they held some pretty decent offenses in check especially towards the end of the year.
This...and thats my biggest issue with the playcalling. It's like once we run out of the handfull of plays that worked we just go back to the same stuff over and over, regardless if it is still working or not. Other teams adjust, we don't. Part of it makes me wonder if Mess was trying to hard to tailor his gameplan to each QB, rather than the offense as a whole. The playcalling, even certain formations were very different for each guy. I get playing to your QB's strengths but I think this was responsible for Mess not getting into a "groove" playcalling with each guy. Which led to our offense not being able to develop much of an identity.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not calling for CPR's job, but the QB situation was handled very poorly the last year and a half. That's the only thing I really question about what he's done so far, he made the QB controversy in to way too big of a deal in the middle of the season. I dont mind the open competition but IMO it turned into a side show that impacted the offense negatively.
What do you mean? Don't you remember when Hall of Fame (in my book, anyway) Coach Yost called timeout, gathered the defense around, and screamed at them? "I don't want them to gain another yard. We blitz ALL NIGHT! If they get the ball over the line of scrimmage, I'm taking every last one of you out."
And wouldn't you know? That other team will remember, forever, the night they played the Titans.
When I can see great preparation reflected in games I will believe that everyone is greatly prepared. I know what the Brun play was. Did we even show that look again? Did we show that look and run the ball? Did we run that play to see how that safety was going to react next time? Nope. Once Messingham gets something out of a play he never leverages it. Jarvis West makes that run for a TD against OU and we don't see anything like that again for the rest of the game. We aren't talented enough not to use those plays in the future either as themselves or as leverage. It also doesn't help that it looks like no one has any confidence in the interior line. Also, where did our outside screen game go?
Fine, Baylors defense is mediocre. We had one good offensive game against a mediocre defense.
This might be the worst thread I've seen on here. Criticize Rhoads all you want for not preparing the team as well as the should've, but every single example of "bad" coaching cited in the OP weren't bad at all but GOOD coaching decisions. Clearly the OP is lacking in football IQ.
Did we get the "simplified" playbook that we expected this season? Does it need to get more simple? It seems to me that we have to emphasize execution and get rid of mistakes before we can move to more complicated plays.
They were better at the end of the season. I believe they held 3/4 below season averages.
