Leach “We might need to purge some malcontents.” Link
- Thread starter CougPatrol
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Yes. He was also the third best back on those teams. That's not a knock on Wicks but a compliment to Boobie and Jamal.
Interesting comments from Patrick Mahomes after Buffalo dared the Chiefs to run the ball:
When Patrick Mahomes saw how the Buffalo Bills were defending him and the Kansas City Chiefs in Monday night's 26-17 win, it caused him to flash back.
"It takes me back to my college days at Texas Tech, when we're getting [eight defenders in pass coverage] and the linebackers are 6, 7 yards deep,'' Mahomes said. "If teams are going to do that, we've got to run the football until they come up, and when they come up, we're going to throw the football again.
"Once we saw how deep their linebackers and safeties and corners were playing, we knew that we had the run game. So we really just stayed with it, and if teams are going to play us like this, you're going to see us run the football, and we have the guys that can do it.''
Despite having arguably the best passing game in the NFL, the Chiefs ran the ball for 245 yards with more running plays than passing plays. Clyde Edwards-Helaire ran for 165 yards himself. This also happened with two starting offensive lineman out with injuries. Mahomes and Andy Reid obviously saw the benefits of running the ball when the defense drops 8.
Glad Cougar
When Patrick Mahomes saw how the Buffalo Bills were defending him and the Kansas City Chiefs in Monday night's 26-17 win, it caused him to flash back.
"It takes me back to my college days at Texas Tech, when we're getting [eight defenders in pass coverage] and the linebackers are 6, 7 yards deep,'' Mahomes said. "If teams are going to do that, we've got to run the football until they come up, and when they come up, we're going to throw the football again.
"Once we saw how deep their linebackers and safeties and corners were playing, we knew that we had the run game. So we really just stayed with it, and if teams are going to play us like this, you're going to see us run the football, and we have the guys that can do it.''
Despite having arguably the best passing game in the NFL, the Chiefs ran the ball for 245 yards with more running plays than passing plays. Clyde Edwards-Helaire ran for 165 yards himself. This also happened with two starting offensive lineman out with injuries. Mahomes and Andy Reid obviously saw the benefits of running the ball when the defense drops 8.
Glad Cougar
Hey, I’m right there with some of the criticisms of Leach’s offense, but outside of that, we won a Hell of a lot of blowout conference games during his tenure.
I was thinking about that tonight. We couldn’t get past UW, but we laid the wood on a few conference opponents every season. I’m talking about some serious beat downs. We did that under Price during some of his good seasons, but Leach did it every season outside of 2012.
I was thinking about that tonight. We couldn’t get past UW, but we laid the wood on a few conference opponents every season. I’m talking about some serious beat downs. We did that under Price during some of his good seasons, but Leach did it every season outside of 2012.
Swing passes, 3 to 5 yard crossing routes, slants, WR screens, Halfback, RB, TE screens, Shovel Passes, Bubble screen passes, etc, are all LIKE runs, pretty much the almost the same exact things as runs, and serve the same purpose as runs.
So why dont WR screens, swing passes, which are 2 of the things I named above, why dont those 2 or more things work for Leach, WSU Air Raid?
1. You have to mix it up. You have to use, do all the things I mentioned above, and not just only 2, etc.
2. You have to go in different directions, aka sometimes go right, sometimes go left, sometimes go center, sometimes go short(2,3,4 yards), sometimes go 5,6,7 yards, sometimes go 8,9,10 yards.
3. You have to try to sell it, hide it
4. You cant do it all the time, over and over.
5. You have have your WR's, OL, etc, run block well.
6. You have to rep it enough times to properly execute it
7. You have to hand off the ball to RB about 11,12,13,14 times per game.
8. You have to STRETCH the field with some 13 to 33+ yard pass plays.
9. You need to pass sideline to sideline.
10. When your WR, RB, TE, etc, catches the ball, they have to catch it, hold onto the ball, eveb if hit HARD, and RUN AFTER THE CATCH, by either making the defender miss, or by speed, outrunning them, or by running thru them.
11. You have to have your QB hit, throw the ball to the WR, TE, RB, IN STRIDE, not to hard, not too soft, in order to help the WR, TE, RB, etc, making the catch, be able to GET YARDS AFTER THE CATCH.
Leach's Air Raid at WSU didnt do those things CONSISTENTLY.
IF those things are done, it will be successful.
The Run and Shoot, and Mike Price's offense, and the NON Mike Leach, but still Air Raid offenses did those things successfully.
I have often thought that if you combined the Run and Shoot, Mike Price Offense, Non Mike Leach Air Raid into 1 offense that you would get:
3,4 WR, 5 OL, 1 TE, 1 RB, 1 QB max pass protection, max run blocking.
You would pass about 2.5 times out of about every 3.5 plays, downs, and run it about 1 time per every 3.5 plays, downs.
You would pass it about 67% on 1st down, and run it about 33.333% on 1st down.
You would run it about 17% on 2nd down, and pass it about 83% on 2nd down.
You would run it about 8% on 3rd down, and pass it about 93% on 3rd down.
You would run it about 50% of the time on 2nd and 1,2,3 yards to go, etc
You would run it about 66.5% of time on 3rd, and 1,2 yards to go.
On passes you would pass short, about 3 to 8 yards, about 67% of time.
Also on passes you would pass mid depth, about 14 to 23 yards about 39% of time.
Also on passes you would pass deep, about 29 to 39, about 18% of time.
Also on passes you would pass very deep about 40 to 60 yards, about 7 to 10 to 13% of time.
And the passes would be a MIX of Slants, Curls, Drags, Picks, Crosses, Screens, Swing Passes, WR, TE, RB, bubble, screens, shovel passes, swing passes, etc.
And the passes would go a mix of all directions, left, right, center, etc.
And the runs would would be a mix of: Tosses, Sweeps, Delayed Draws, Traps, Counter Gap, Cutback, RB, hand offs, WR runs, hand offs, Jet Sweeps, reverses, double reverses, QB runs, QB Sneaks, run rights, run lefts, run centers.
The idea is to use a MIX of pass, run plays, being less predictable, using misdirection, using the whole field and every blade of grass, and making the defenders confused, not know whats going to come next, making the defense guess. Making the defense defend the whole field, every blade of grass. Making the Defense SPREAD out. Making the Defense winded.
In such a offense the defense is not going to be able to account for both the runs, passes, catches, etc, of WR's, TE, RB, QB.
That would be the perfect evolution , combination, of the Run and Shoot, Mike Price Offense, Air Raid, all combined together into 1 offense.
Would love it for a WSU coach to have that kind of offense at WSU, because it would work so good.
And such a offense, altho it would take the right kind of talented players, wouldnt have to have the best talent, recruits, etc.
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Once Leach gets his own guys in place and playing well, the simple "drop 8" only works when you have defensive talent that allows pressure on the QB with only three guys combined with players who understand "space" on the field and know what to anticipate on routes. Teams that don't have the discipline and talent will find that the Air Raid gets tougher to defend once a Leach coached team is performing at a high level. However, the point above about knowing when to run is very important.
Too bad he'll get Alabama, Auburn, LSU, Georgia, Florida, A&M and others in conference. Half the teams in the SEC, especially the West, have Top 20 rosters year in and year out.
But as you said, he can make things easier on himself by being open to the run.
He gets four cupcake OOC games and he'll get several bottom feeder SEC teams each year. He'll do what he's always done...win 7-9 games out of 13 with one brilliant season sprinkled in. By then, he'll be burned out at that school and ready to move onto the next.
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