What Type of Offense Does Holtz Run?

[94BULLGRAD]

Wondering about how it would work with BJ Daniels? Stats?

[Danm1983]

It's a bit similar to ours, it's probably considered a spread. I haven't see them much this year, but I know they had a decent running back, and their QB Patrick Pinkney was able to run. I don't recall if they were using zone read or just designed QB runs.

[Kyle0614pirates]

We did mostly power run and short passing this year.

Our defense is were it counted the most with players like CJ Wilson and Van Eskridge.

We had 393 total yards against Arkansas, and if we had a better kicker we would have won that bowl game, but we only lost by 3 points in OT. Jesse Palmer on espn was predicting a blowout and so was everyone else. Even his confidence rating was 33 on 1-34 scale 34 being the highest. We controlled the bottom dweller SEC the whole game until two INT's which led to a field goal and a pick 6, other than that we had it. Keep this in mine, our defense held VT to its lowest score of the year with only 16 points, sure we lost but we had some horrible officiating in that game.

We pretty much handled everyone in C-USA except SMU. We lost to UNC, WV, VT, SMU and Arkansas.

I can think of more situations this season but I'm ready to move on with a new HC if this deal goes down. Hope this helps with your question.

[macphisto]

It's a bit similar to ours, it's probably considered a spread. I haven't see them much this year, but I know they had a decent running back, and their QB Patrick Pinkney was able to run. I don't recall if they were using zone read or just designed QB runs.

I think they use a zone read.  Holtz likes the duel threat QBs, though he doesn't seem to want them running to quickly.  I don't think he's big into running back by committee either.  He'll likely want Daniels to get better passing the ball and using the pass as on out, running a bit more selectively.

The stats indicate that ECU runs a pretty balances passing/running attack.

[Danm1983]

http://web1.ncaa.org/football/exec/rankingSummary?year=2009&org=196

Here are the team stats for ECU this year. Don't pay attention to the national ranks much, because CUSA does not get the usual pipeline of high talent coming in, but they still get some great players and compete very well. I have to say CUSA is pretty deep within itself, and save for 2-3 teams (1 of which fired it's coach), most of the teams are decently in the hunt most of the time.

Anyways, it's still hard to gauge, but if Holtz can turn a program around like he did, and recruit with "leftovers" from having 4 BCS schools within a few hours of him, he's doing darn well.

The one stat I noticed that isn't on that particular link, is ECU was 90th in penalties at around 7 per game for ~57 yards. USF was 95th in the nation at around 7 per game (higher in the decimals), and a yard or two higher on avg (~58)... say 60 yards divided by 7 penalties is roughly 8.5 yards per penalty. I bet a breakdown would show ECU's penalties are holds and false starts, i.e. smaller penalties, compared to USF's reputation for late hits and very undisciplined penalties. I have faith he can keep the discipline in order compared to Leavitt, though every team will have a few flags on em, but if we can minimize it to smaller penalties, it won't be so frustrating. It seemed every time we got a good offensive gain this year or a great defensive stop, we had some stupid uncalled for penalty.

Looking at the conference stats, ECU led or was in the top 3 in CUSA in:

2nd in Pass Efficiency D (behind only SMU) - means they can cover well underneath and long, and breakup passes

2nd in Rushing D (behind only UCF) - a great stat to be good in, esp later in the season and when going up North

3rd in Total Defense

1st in Scoring Defense - props to the DC for teaching guys to be ball hawks

1st in Net Punting (with Alvarado gone, we'll have to address this)

3rd in kickoff returns

1st in turnover margin

3rd in tackles for loss

1st in sacks allowed - protecting the QB is key, though if they were a run-first team with QB zone reads, there may not have been huge emphasis on having to protect him for very long while he waited for receivers to go deep.

Their lowest ranking in conference was 9th for passing efficiency, which seems from the aforementioned post, that they don't pass alot and it wasn't their strength. They weren't great with total offense, coming in 8th, but with their defense, they paralleled USF in the fact they could ride their defense, and do just enough on offense to win.

Nationally, they were 7th in net punting, 9th in turnover margin, and 10th in sacks allowed. Pretty good rankings for those stats, as field position, getting turnovers, and protecting the QB can go a long way.

I'm thinking with the talent USF has and can bring in, Holtz would and should do well at disciplining this team and having the right staff to make USF a valid contender past Week 5.

[Danm1983]

By comparison, USF ranked pretty well in conference for the most part (minus sacks, punt returns, and kickoff returns), and were in the top spot or top two in most of the defensive categories, but didn't rank higher than tied for 19th nationally...and that was in scoring defense. A few other defensive categories were in the 20's, but most other categories were very low ranked, with us being 108th in the nation in sacks allowed (side note: they do count any QB keeper getting stopped behind the scrimmage as a sack i think, and BJ went down alot).

If USF has supposed better talent, those numbers shouldn't be so pitiful.