4th Down Aggressiveness

[beefy620]

So far I'm really enjoying the aggressiveness of the offense through 3 games on 4th down.  Pretty sure during the presser Golesh said he'd look at some of the calls specifically during the Bama game.  In real time I was pumped (and a bit bizzed) to be going for them.  After the game, with hindsight and all, I think a couple of the calls were not well thought out.  

 

I haven't seen a lot of discussion on this unless its buried in other threads, just curious everyone else's takes.  My only other take is if you're going to be that aggressive on 4th why not also on 2nd down.  

[SANJAY]

4th and 16 was a bit much. Although a punt would have only netted 9 yards.

Also, I thought the fake punt was too aggressive because it was too far against their team speed.

I think CAG did not adjust some of the calls to appreciate that the game was a field position game and Bama could not really get going. We kept giving them decent field position and ourselves poor field position and a few more punts may have swung that the other way.

[Bulls On Parade]

Bama Is a tough team to be aggressive with on 4th down and if you are you better be creative which we weren't but one time I recall and it worked. 

Offense needs to get more creative with misdirection.

[Rocky Style]

3 minutes ago, beefy620 said:

My only other take is if you're going to be that aggressive on 4th why not also on 2nd down.  

I agree with this logic. no need to run it up the middle in 2nd and 3rd and long just to go for it on 4th and 6th.

[USFBulls12]

1 minute ago, beefy620 said:

So far I'm really enjoying the aggressiveness of the offense through 3 games on 4th down.  Pretty sure during the presser Golesh said he'd look at some of the calls specifically during the Bama game.  In real time I was pumped (and a bit bizzed) to be going for them.  After the game, with hindsight and all, I think a couple of the calls were not well thought out.  

 

I haven't seen a lot of discussion on this unless its buried in other threads, just curious everyone else's takes.  My only other take is if you're going to be that aggressive on 4th why not also on 2nd down.  

There is a still a method to play calling that should be adhered to to some degree. You can achieve success of gaining yards, first downs, TDs, etc without being wildly aggressive on an early down. When it comes to 4th down aggressiveness, it's a different mindset where it's an all or nothing mentality. You either get to continue your drive or you're stopped. Being "conservative" on a 4th down typically entails punting away any chance you have of continuing your drive. Being "conservative" on a 2nd down could be picking up a yard or two to get a 1st down or being forced to move onto 3rd down for another try. I'd be okay with aggressiveness on 2nd down more often if we had the talent and have proven we can throw and catch passes. We haven't done that yet. Hope that my rambling makes sense.

[beefy620]

4 minutes ago, USFBulls12 said:

There is a still a method to play calling that should be adhered to to some degree. You can achieve success of gaining yards, first downs, TDs, etc without being wildly aggressive on an early down. When it comes to 4th down aggressiveness, it's a different mindset where it's an all or nothing mentality. You either get to continue your drive or you're stopped. Being "conservative" on a 4th down typically entails punting away any chance you have of continuing your drive. Being "conservative" on a 2nd down could be picking up a yard or two to get a 1st down or being forced to move onto 3rd down for another try. I'd be okay with aggressiveness on 2nd down more often if we had the talent and have proven we can throw and catch passes. We haven't done that yet. Hope that my rambling makes sense.

Definitely understand the POV.  It makes sense.  Maybe lack of creativity on 2nd down would be more appropriate here.  Definitely a learning curve for this team early on. 

[BDYZR]

It's a learning curve that Golesh has admitted to. It's also a whole lot easier to arm chair the decisions after the fact.

[USFBulls12]

9 minutes ago, beefy620 said:

Definitely understand the POV.  It makes sense.  Maybe lack of creativity on 2nd down would be more appropriate here.  Definitely a learning curve for this team early on. 

1 minute ago, BDYZR said:

It's a learning curve that Golesh has admitted to. It's also a whole lot easier to arm chair the decisions after the fact.

I like to think back to Taggart's first couple of seasons. It wasn't the greatest until all of a sudden the switch just flipped in that Syracuse game in year 3 and we were off to the races. The most we scored in year 1 was 26 pts in a win at home over Cincy but in many games that season we failed to score more than 10. Year 2 we scored in the 30s twice (1 was against Western Carolina in the opener) but that was the season of hitting the 17 pts wall five times - so frustrating for me. Most of our games were less than 20 pts. Year 3, game 5, everything changed. SO MANY POINTS from there on out. Perhaps it'll take some time, maybe we need to recruit a few more specific types of guys Coach wasn't able to get this time around..I'm definitely leaning toward optimism and that's a good thing.

[beefy620]

I hope he keeps going for it on 4th downs.  This is a new team, and if we're going to win some game we'll probably need to steal a possession/score or two via 4th downs throughout the season.  Unrelated but also glad he doesn't fear using his timeouts.  

[Bryson W]

I liked the idea of going for it on 4th down but some of the playcalls were predictable. We need to do more rollouts kinda like the Weston Wollf play on 4th. Also I did not like the fake punt, but other than that we should keep doing it.