CWT's Bus: who's on, off, undecided?

[DELdaBull]

Coach Bull Dozer dropping knowledge.

[USFbulls24]

 

 

 

 

 

On.

The ridiculous expectations of this fanbase sicken me. The cupboard was beyond bare(now made obvious by 50% of the 2-deep being Fr and So) when he got here. Constantly changing coaches every 3rd year makes it impossible to build something. Coach T is building something.

I don't think it is obvious that 50% of the 2-deep being Fr and So means the cupboard was bare. What it means is that Taggart was unable to adjust his philosophy to the players that were here to play a different system. The question is whether he can get the players he wants and be successful. Doesn't mean a more flexible coach couldn't have won with what was here.

This.

Long-term you recruit the Jimmies and Joes to fit your X's and O's, but short-term you adjust schemes to get the best result out of the players you have.

College football is part of the entertainment budget.

Entertain or you don't get budgeted.

With the dumpster fire we had at QB last season I'm not sure what offense we could have adapted towards. Floyd and Eveld were nice kids but had no business as starters at the FBS level, Bench can run a bit but has poor accuracy throwing the football, and White was a twig of a true freshman with slightly better accuracy than Bench. Then throw in how awful our offensive line was and I'm stumped how we adapt to the situation we had on offense. Maybe we run a little more read option with Bench but he couldn't stay healthy last year without that upped work load and I don't think he's explosive enough as a runner for that to translate to more wins. Spreading it out and tossing it around isn't an option due to poor accuracy at the QB spot and the fact we needed to max protect to even give our Qbs a chance to get rid of the ball. I'm waiting to hear a legitimate scheme we could've used last year to get more wins considering the dumpster fire we had on offense. People love to throw that argument around but never have a realistic suggestions about what could've actually been done. My thinking is if you have a throw away year (which anyone with a lick of sense knew it would be) you install your system and immerse the players in it so it's second nature by the next season.

 

 

We had to max protect because we're only sending out 3 guys to catch a pass..

 

If you're the defensive coordinator and you know you' have to guard a TE, 2 WR, and a RB out of the backfield what are you going to do on 2nd or 3rd and long? You're going to bring pressure. You bring 5 or 6 guys and you still have 5 or 6 to drop back and  cover 4 possible pass catchers. With bringing those 5 or 6 guys the QB is going to have to get rid of the ball quick which most likely means if the ball is completed it'll be before the first down so no harm done. 

 

I can't argue that our QBs are really accurate, but in a spread offense there are quick plays that accuracy shouldn't be an issue for any qb who ever played college football. Bubble Screens, Slants, pick plays, etc. On plays like that you need to hold protection for a second or two. But what am I saying. Western Carolina tried this against us and.... oh yea... 

 

I've said for awhile, implement your power offense, use it the majority of the game, but on 3rd and longs or a 2 minute offense or when the game dictates, run some spread. When your offense was AS BAD as ours was last year, why not?! You can't possibly think it would've been worse for our offense scoring wise. Would it have been the same? Maybe, but we don't know that. Use some different looks until you have everything you need to run your wonderful power offense instead of watching the offense get destroyed every Saturday.

Please notice I did not say to run the spread the entire game. Please note I did not say he should've ran spread from the second he got here. I understand his philosophy is not going to change. But this is not the NFL. You're not rewarded for going 2-10 with a high draft pick. We should be doing everything and anything to win on Saturdays. If you think him changing things up and running a few plays in a spread formation with 4 or 5 WR on the field last season when it would make sense would mess up his entire rebuild that's nonsense.

 

 

Did you see what Eveld did in the spread?  He was around 50% completion percentage and had an awful YPA even with all of those easy throws in the Holtz bubble screenfest and barely moved the offense when he was on the field pre-Taggart  Floyd couldn't take a **** snap and turned into a deer in head lights when he got in, so nope no bubble screens saving the day there.  White was still raw and still has questionable accuracy and sees to have issues under pressure, again no certainty we are better on offense by running the spread.  Bench is somewhat interesting because he can run a bit but again he's pretty bad accuracy wise, even on easy throws.   I don't know how anyone with a sane mind can look at those kids and think gee if we just would run the spread we could put up points.  We had ZERO QB's that were goo enough to start as FBS starters last season.  

 

This doesn't even even touch on the OL who we scheme to max protect with because they couldn't block anyone last season.  The OL was probably one of the worst I've seen at USF, Including the pre BCS days.  We weren't scheming to max pro tech because we wanted to send just 3 guys out there, it was out of necessity.  We had the same problems under Holtz as far as pass protection goes but BJ masked/mitigated a lot of those issues with his elite scrambling ability and athleticism.  If you look at the games after BJ got hurt you saw exactly what we had up front when you took away an elite scrambling QB, a OL that leaked like sieve.    

 

Listen Taggart isn't immune to criticism but to sit here and pretend that  a few bubble screens and spread elements mixed in was fixing anything or getting us any more wins is just ignoring what we had on the field.  Let's not even get in to the lack of quality depth at RB last season (we had no real difference makers behind Shaw) and the fact that the cupboard was bare at WR besides Dre.  We did have some talent at TE but both MacFarland and Price were/are wildly inconsistent. Heck if you want to go back to why two TE's were on the field so often it's probably because Price and McFarland were better than anyone we had at WR besides Dre. Does Taggarts play calling deserve some scrutiny? Yes, it does, but acting like we were going to be saved by the spread offense when we didn't even have a viable FBS quality QB, the worst FBS offensive line in the country, only ntwo quality players between the WR and RB units, and two talented but wildly TE's is just completely unrealistic.  Take of the green and gold goggles, this offense was severely lacking talent last season and has taken a step forward with some of the new additions (Adams, Mack, Swanson, Bronson) but most of the talent is still young and we still have an even bigger need for more quality kids at every unit.  You don't just turn a historically bad offense (anyone paying attention after BJ went down knew exactly what we were getting into on offense last season) around over night, no matter how many bubble screens and screen elements you use.  

 

 

I saw how bad our offense was with Eveld/Floyd running the Holtz spread. Nowhere did I say the spread would fix anything or get us more wins. "I said when our offense was as bad as ours was last year, why not run some spread (when the situation makes sense)?!" Not sure if you took what I said the wrong way or if I chose the wrong words. 

 

My point was, our Offense was absolutely god awful last season. Yes, you're 1,000% correct. We lacked talent everywhere including the most important position on the field, QB (and still do). However, I don't think there is 1 good reason to not try something different at different spots in a game when your offense is ranked 124 out of 124. Do I think it's a bad idea to run something different a lot or the majority of the time. Absolutely. Taggart needed to install his offense and he did, but if you want to sit here and tell me we couldn't of had even a tiny bit of success every now and then when Western Carolina could against us, I'm sorry. I can't agree with that. Once again, not saying it fixes anything, but last year a few first downs would've been an improvement!

 

I think we agree on quite a bit, but for some reason you think trying anything else would've just been ridiculous even for 1 play? Why not?!? I do not think we should've ran the spread much. Less than 10% of the time I think would've been worth a try (again, in the situations that called for it). Running a few spread plays on 3rd and long, or down a few possessions in the 2nd half wouldn't' have hurt anyone. It would not have slowed the learning of the power run because the majority of the game that's what was run, that's what you practice all week, that's the mindset. You'd just teach a few basic spread plays. 

 

I am not calling for Taggart's head. I do not think he's the worst coach in college football for not trying something different like a few spread plays here and there. Do I question why not? Absolutely. After looking at the stats our offense put up last year why wouldn't you? I don't think Taggart enjoyed losing last year or enjoyed seeing his offense be so bad, but I think he just had the attitude of oh well, it is what it is. I get it, he had no talent and Holtz was the worst thing that ever happened to our program, and Holtz didn't recruit well, Holtz left us nothing to work with etc. etc. etc. I just don't understand not trying something different when things ARE THAT BAD. Run the dadgum triple offense, run the wild cat for a few plays, run anything else for a few plays rather than watch your offense fail over and over and over and over and over and over and over.

 

It is what it is at this point. He did it his way, and his offense is now installed. Still drives me nuts that we still have such a long way to go and Holtz does take some blame for the lack of talent for that, but if there is not an absolutely incredible jump next season in this offense that's a major red flag. We are currently 121 out of 124 this year in total offense. So we have improved 3 spots from last year through 5 games of this season. Not exactly encouraging...

Edited October 7, 2014 by USFbulls24

[SANJAY]

We did change it up as the year went on last year.

- less pre snap motion

- some read option with bench until white started playing

- more shotgun and pistol to give qbs time to read play

- more max protect to help tackles in pass protection

Not much of it was very effective. I think you'll see the offensive rank move up this year as we move into conference play. Partially just because the other teams are horrible on defense.

[SANJAY]

As for this year we've seen a number of changes:

-pistol formation (partially due to White's injury)

- end around and sweeps attacking the edge

- screens and passes to backs in the flat

- wheel routes from TE and RB positions

- a lot more Fullback and less 2 TE than last season

There's a lot of little execution issues which result in drives never getting started. Inopportune holding, Welch stone hands or Swanson fumble.

[USFbulls24]

We did change it up as the year went on last year.

- less pre snap motion

- some read option with bench until white started playing

- more shotgun and pistol to give qbs time to read play

- more max protect to help tackles in pass protection

Not much of it was very effective. I think you'll see the offensive rank move up this year as we move into conference play. Partially just because the other teams are horrible on defense.

 

You're correct. However, less pre snap motion was not the reason our offense was awful. It was a reason for many penalties, but not the reason we couldn't put points on the board. We did go to some pistol, but running the same play out of a pistol formation vs. an I formation is basically the same thing. 

 

We did run some read option with Bench. I'll give you that. Bringing in max protection isn't really trying something different when talking about the scheme or what I was really speaking to.

 

Taggart better hope that offensive ranking moves up because improving 3 spots isn't enough.