4th Down Aggressiveness

[TheUpperHand]

7 minutes ago, USFBulls12 said:

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.

For the first two years, Taggart insisted on implementing the Stanford offense, which we didn't have the offensive line for. He also tried forcing pre snap motions which did more harm than good and resulted in many false start penalties. We went 6-18 the first two years. Harlan made it publicly known at the end of 2014 that he would be having a conversation with Taggart about the direction of the program. Taggart fired OC Wulff and DC Bresnahan and hired Joe Kinnan as a consultant to build the GCO. We started 1-3 in 2015 and there were rumors Taggart would be canned if he lost against Syracuse. The switch flipped in that game and we went 7-2 to end the season. If Taggart would have stayed the course and forced the Stanford offense in 2015, he'd be gone.

[GoBulls84]

19 minutes ago, USFBulls12 said:

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.

IIRC all the TDs we scored in that game were defense and special teams too. Think it was a blocked field goal and a pick six. Same for the next game against UConn. Our only two wins that year came with ZERO offensive TDs. Made no sense.

As for Goach and this offense, we need more playmakers that can get themselves open and we need to hit a deep ball or two to loosen up the D and this offense will take off.

[jchem1995]

57 minutes ago, Bulls On Parade said:

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.

Misdirection worked well.

[Rocky Style]

1 hour 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 wouldn't normally, but running it up the middle on 2nd and 3rd and long in sequence has happened since the WKU game.

[beefy620]

3 minutes ago, Rocky Style said:

I wouldn't normally, but running it up the middle on 2nd and 3rd and long in sequence has happened since the WKU game.

Maybe we're saving those better 2nd and 3rd down calls for conference play? ...Mostly just kidding. 

[Mister Armstrong]

1 hour ago, Bryson W said:

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.

CAG needs to be diverse with his play calling period,if he was more diverse against Alabama and W.Kentucky they're likely undefeated and ranked.

 

[Brad]

20 minutes ago, Rocky Style said:

I wouldn't normally, but running it up the middle on 2nd and 3rd and long in sequence has happened since the WKU game.

Don't worry about it.  Voodoo5 has been armchaired for over a decade...

[smazza]

2 hours 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.  

you need to call smart plays and execute them

[olafberserker]

14 minutes ago, Mister Armstrong said:

CAG needs to be diverse with his play calling period,if he was more diverse against Alabama and W.Kentucky they're likely undefeated and ranked.

 

I don't know about that.  Let's see how we do the next couple of weeks when we are playing against defenses with similar speed and talent levels

[olafberserker]

2 minutes ago, smazza said:

you need to call smart plays and execute them