I think we need to jettison the Air-Raid. That offense has run its course and for whatever reason, our coaches and QB's have never solved the drop 8 into coverage dilemma. We need to go back to the R&S or maybe implement a more RPO/Spread style offense. The Air-Raid in particular, IMO, confuses our O-Line consistently and many of our plays get blown up. Time to scrap it because it's not working as intended.
When Arbuckle jets
- Thread starter CougInSpain
- Start date
In general I’m in agreement with you but I’m not sure how many teams are running a pure air raid anymore. I’m pretty sure QB counter isn’t part of that offense and we ran a lot of that.
What I hate about the air raid is the lack of play action, and the empty sets. If you’re running a lot of empty you’d better have Tom Brady behind center or running a QB designed run out of it every 3-4 plays to keep a defense honest. Running that with a new QB who’s still learning how to go through progressions is dumb.
And when you can run the ball, run PA passes FFS. It helps your OLine out and gives the QB bigger windows. Only time you should not be running PA is when the entire stadium knows it’s gonna be a pass.
Your reasoning is lacking.
We saw great OL play under CML for pass protection. Run blocking was meh, but I'd wager still better than the production we've seen recently.
The biggest problem with a strict AR is not having a QB who can make a read pre-snap and know where the ball is going, even if that means he's going to the check down on the second read. We get QBs who are in love with the deep ball and hold the ball way too long looking for a play that never develops.
IMHO, one of the basic tenets of CML's offense was the wide OL splits. Does any "Air Raid" offense do this, including WSU's? I believe not. Just because you run crossing patterns over the middle or 4 verticals at times does not make yours an Air Raid offense.
The point I am making is that we have been way to inconsistent with running the offense the two years Arbuckle has been the O-Coordinator. Our OLine cannot run block very well and most times our RBs are having to use great field of vision to find what little holes are available to them. But I agree with you about the QBs holding the ball too long.
Not trying to say all is right... but we could just about anything we want to if we'd concentrate on signing a great Oline.
Build a house... build a foundation
We should become the highest paying school for Olinemen first... Dline second... linebacker 3rd
We can find enough intelligent QB's who know what to do. We will never be paying millions and win with them.
However... $500,000 to our new Fat 5 and we could make a difference
Build a house... build a foundation
We should become the highest paying school for Olinemen first... Dline second... linebacker 3rd
We can find enough intelligent QB's who know what to do. We will never be paying millions and win with them.
However... $500,000 to our new Fat 5 and we could make a difference
Those are probably the hardest positions to recruit. Hence, what we've seen since Leach left.
Do we have the money to spend there?
My biggest bitch about the QB running is that it is the same play every time (aside from scrambles). Mateer gets the ball out of the shotgun, hesitates, then plunges up the middle. No RPO, no bootlegs, nothing else. Why not run the I back formation under center a few times a game? Or anything other than plunge up the middle. That is not on Mateer.
I know if we are up to $500,000 on Mateer... we can try to switch targets.
I know certain businesses want the Noise of Mateer. If we found home builders that believe in WSU and we wanted to shout "foundation"... we could make it work
I think the answer to "for whatever reason" is that we've been consistently putting together OL units that can't run block.
It should be really easy, as we've talked about here numerous times - if the defense rushes 3 and drops 8, you run the ball. If they're going to give you a manpower advantage in the 5 yards across the line of scrimmage...take it. The problem that we have is that for several years, our 5 OL can't block 3 DL consistently, and even when the D drops 8 our RBs don't get a clear path through that 5 yards.
Physically, most of our OL look the part, but when you put them on the field they've got C- footwork and D- awareness, and if the defensive player isn't exactly where they expect them to be, they're not sure what to do. Watch our guys, if they don't have a man head up, instead of going and finding a linebacker and clearing a path into the 3rd level, they take two steps forward and just start looking around (actually, sometimes they do that even when they do have someone head up).
Our OL actually isn't any better than it was in 2023. The difference is that Mateer is harder to bring down than Ward was, and has been much more decisive and more willing to take off and run when he gets pressure. Ward ran backwards and kept looking to throw, Mateer runs forward. In the second half of the season, when defenses started spying Mateer and closing the lanes, they started getting him behind the line a lot more...and the OL started looking worse.
IMO, we need to focus more on OL who can move the pile. We have to be able to move the ball 3 yards downfield reliably. We can't really sacrifice anything in pass blocking though, since our current crop can't keep the pocket clean for more than 2.5-3 seconds. But, if we can develop a run threat, we can force the D to pull back the pressure a little. Combine that with a QB and receivers who can hit the quick passes, so we don't need more that 3 seconds, and we should be OK.
I was never really sold on the R&S when Rolo tried to bring it in, but I don't think it really ever got established. With what I said above though...that's probably the right style for us.
the problem with the runniung game isnt bad blocking, its bad schenme. run the ball straight ahead, the lineman can hold a hole open long enough for that, running parralell to the line looking for an opening is a losing approach
I hate the empty backfield sets, they don’t help teams by taking away another option, that a defense would have to take into consideration.
Not if you have an awesome Line and a mobile QB.
If you're tall with a gun (Bledsoe/Leaf) sitting pretty in shotgun you can also destroy teams if they try to 1 on 1 the receivers too much.
That being said... I love play action and to pick my favorites it's 4 out with 1 RB. Put a man in motion to see where the man to man coverage is.
Run 2 or 3 screens per game... and a delayed hand-off now and then.
When two of our guys are blocking each other, it's bad blocking. HTH.
I forgot about that. It’s also bad blocking when an Olineman ear holes a USC DLineman and a pac 12 ref has a flag in his pocket.
Bad scheme is in the mix, but the blocking is bad. They don't hold blocks long enough, and they don't block downfield. Even in the Portland State game, their LBs were making plays at the line because our OL couldn't get to the 2nd level. Some of that is scheme, but every one of the kids on our OL played in high school. They should know just by instinct that they need to find someone to block.
There were many plays, over the course of the year, where the D-linemen would stunt to try and get into the backfield. Most times it worked because our O-Line immediately got confused and just like that, our QB is running for his life. We are lucky enough to have had Mateer for that reason alone but he is still so raw in the QB position.
