Offensive Coaching

[usfgrad84]

Here are some tidbits from Greg's Blog.

I think they really hit the nail on the head about some aspects of how poorly coached the offensive unit is.  Poor clock management was a factor at the end of the first half as well.  I thought these were great observations to show that the problems run deeper than just playcalling:

I was surprised how little I heard Jessie Hester's name called until the final two drives.

-- Time to beat dead horses. USF's first five drives to the Cincy 25 and deeper resulted in three turnovers and two field goals. This is a team that does not finish drives with any punctuation, and that goes back to not having a conventional running game. The defense was huge in the second half, pitching a shutout and holding Cincy to 106 yards, but they gave up too many big plays in the first half Matt Grothe accounted for 95 percent -- all but 24 yards -- of USF's 481 yards of total offense. You add that burden to the frustration of having five turnovers and it's astounding Grothe can execute a last-minute drive that well. Again, that last drive is like a centerfielder who makes an amazing, diving catch, but only because he made a bad jump when he first read the ball and had to make up for it.

-- As thrilling as the final drive was, it was a hurry because of a lack of urgency on the previous touchdown drive. I understand Cincy was giving USF the middle of the field, but it just took the Bulls too long. Grothe hit Carlton Mitchell for a huge fourth-and-11 conversion -- that play didn't even make my game story -- to put USF on the 35-yard line with four minutes to play. I don't think USF stopped the clock by going out of bounds on the next five plays -- Ben Williams needs to understand finding the sideline is more important than finding two extra yards on a drive like that. Short gains of 8, 5, 5 and 5 7 yards, then Grothe taking a 2-yard loss, put the clock at 2:04 left before the touchdown throw. If the Bulls can cut 30 seconds off that 2-minute span, they have twice as much for that last drive. Again, great play just to make it as close as it was, but I didn't see the urgency of a team down 11 with four minutes to play.

These are all coaching issues.  Either in preparation or decision making.    These are just a few issues that have surfaced over and over all season long.  There are quite a few others as well.

http://blogs.tampabay.com/usf/

[bulls96go]

i hope this gets better

solid experienced oline will help

[USF_Grouper]

Certainly an experienced and less injured o-line will help, especially with the running game.  Still no o-line is going to stop the all out blitz.  We have to add some plays that we can execute that keep teams from sending everyone.

[usfgrad84]

i hope this gets better

solid experienced oline will help

This is at least the third game I can remember that we took our time down the stretch.  Then when we need to run the clock out we snap the ball  with 15 seconds left on the play clock or pass the ball and kill the clock.  We did that against WVU and FAU and it cost us points both times.  That is all about preparation and coaching.  It has nothing to do with Oline help.

I just watched the first half again.  Are our RBs fast enough to even run most of the running plays we call?  Is Grothe allowed to change the play if a blitz is coming?  His first 2 INTs were forced throws when the blitz was coming.  

What happened to the unbalanced line we ran at the beginning of the year?  What happened to using 2 backs in the offense that we ran the first few games?  Why no 3 backs in the backfiled down by the goal line yesterday?  

There are just more and more questions that come about from watching the last three games futility on offense.

[BleacherBull]

I agree . . . the coaching was definitely offensive.   ;D   Too predictable.  Opponents still believe we can be fooled on special teams.  Loss of personnel to injuries and lack of a bye week during the meat of our schedule leave us no time to change up our tendencies.  We just have to fight thru it and hopefully we can heal up prior to a bowl.  I'd let Grothe call his own plays at this point.  It would speed up the no huddle and his improvisation is most of our offense anyway.

[usfgrad84]

I agree . . . the coaching was definitely offensive.   ;D   Too predictable.  Opponents still believe we can be fooled on special teams.  Loss of personnel to injuries and lack of a bye week during the meat of our schedule leave us no time to change up our tendencies.  We just have to fight thru it and hopefully we can heal up prior to a bowl.  I'd let Grothe call his own plays at this point.  It would speed up the no huddle and his improvisation is most of our offense anyway.

There is nothing wrong with predictable if you don't run idiotic plays.  I can guarantee that Ray rice will run 40 times a game straight up the middle.  Try to stop him.  Then throw in a screen, draw or play action and you are controlling the game offensively.  our offense is just plain idiotic.  Why do most of our runs seem to be delays that go 15 yards sideways before the backs turn up the field.  Nothing wrong with going 4 and 5 yards up the middle.

[Jake_Ryan]

What is idiotic is that out stud QB is our leading rusher.  I saw a quote from him recently where he talked about the pounding he is taking running the ball.  It just makes no sense to run Grothe that much.  A few times a game to keep the D honest is fine, but let the running backs do the work.  And I can't agree more - run right at the D, not this east-west stuff.

[BrahmanBulliever]

What is idiotic is that out stud QB is our leading rusher.  I saw a quote from him recently where he talked about the pounding he is taking running the ball.  It just makes no sense to run Grothe that much.  A few times a game to keep the D honest is fine, but let the running backs do the work.  And I can't agree more - run right at the D, not this east-west stuff.

    Running right at the D-Line is a lot easier when your O-line is playing well. When it isn't you bunch the d-line up and try to run around them. The loss of W. Walker has been huge for us. You're right though, until we can get their D to respect that we could run it up the middle they can blitz us all day. When Mike Ford was in the game they respected our run game more and it opened other things up for us.

[DouBULL]

What is idiotic is that out stud QB is our leading rusher.  I saw a quote from him recently where he talked about the pounding he is taking running the ball.  It just makes no sense to run Grothe that much.  A few times a game to keep the D honest is fine, but let the running backs do the work.  And I can't agree more - run right at the D, not this east-west stuff.

     Running right at the D-Line is a lot easier when your O-line is playing well. When it isn't you bunch the d-line up and try to run around them. The loss of W. Walker has been huge for us. You're right though, until we can get their D to respect that we could run it up the middle they can blitz us all day. When Mike Ford was in the game they respected our run game more and it opened other things up for us.

DING!!  We have a winner!

Correct on all counts.