With the afterglow of the victory over Boise State still shining brightly, it's the perfect time for me to criticize something about Leach's offense that really bugs me.
I would never profess to know more about football than any coach, let alone Mike Leach, but I'll be dammed if I couldn't design a better goal line and short yardage package than the one we used on Saturday. The sickness in the pit of my stomach as I watched us run plays out of the shotgun on the 1/2 yard line was similar to how I felt about Mike Price's dreadful "jumbo" package back in the day.
Yea, I get that we're an air raid team, and I get that practice reps are limited, but with our (supposedly) strong offensive line and the stable of running backs we have, you HAVE TO run the goal line offense with the QB under center on 1st and 2nd down.
The entire stadium knew we were going to try and run the ball, and there was Hilinski, receiving shotgun snaps 3 yards deep and running delayed runs. We might as well have told Boise what we were planning on doing.
Enough of that crap. Line the freaking QB up under center and change things up. Run the sneak. Run a dive play. Have Hilinski play-action. Any of those options are better than having the ball at the 1/2 yard line, and essentially issuing yourself a 3 yard penalty by having your QB field the snap at the 3 or 4 yard line.
I don't care if you're an air raid, west coast, spread, or option program, every team needs to know how to execute basic QB under center, short yardage offense.
I would never profess to know more about football than any coach, let alone Mike Leach, but I'll be dammed if I couldn't design a better goal line and short yardage package than the one we used on Saturday. The sickness in the pit of my stomach as I watched us run plays out of the shotgun on the 1/2 yard line was similar to how I felt about Mike Price's dreadful "jumbo" package back in the day.
Yea, I get that we're an air raid team, and I get that practice reps are limited, but with our (supposedly) strong offensive line and the stable of running backs we have, you HAVE TO run the goal line offense with the QB under center on 1st and 2nd down.
The entire stadium knew we were going to try and run the ball, and there was Hilinski, receiving shotgun snaps 3 yards deep and running delayed runs. We might as well have told Boise what we were planning on doing.
Enough of that crap. Line the freaking QB up under center and change things up. Run the sneak. Run a dive play. Have Hilinski play-action. Any of those options are better than having the ball at the 1/2 yard line, and essentially issuing yourself a 3 yard penalty by having your QB field the snap at the 3 or 4 yard line.
I don't care if you're an air raid, west coast, spread, or option program, every team needs to know how to execute basic QB under center, short yardage offense.