Clarifying the Offense for you all

For all the people blaming Graham Harrell or Clay Helton for bad play-calling, you need to understand how this offense works. This offense solely relies on giving the QB the decision. All Graham Harrell is doing is communicating with what he sees when the defense first lines up or giving the QB choices of a couple of plays. Clay Helton actually doesn't say a word unless he sees something that the OC doesn't see, then he'll make a suggestion. This offense does not have set plays where the coaches call it in and the QB must run whatever they call in.

Today, Fink made some terrible decisions, especially near the goal line. The right read on the interception would have been to hand it off to the running back, but instead, he kept the ball and threw a pick.

This offense works very well when you have a savvy QB that is good and quick at reading the last second changes that the defense makes at the line of scrimmage. This offense doesn't work very well when you have a QB that doesn't see the entire field clearly and has problems reading through progressions. This offense works very well for a QB like Slovis who was taught by Kurt Warner to make good decisions quickly.

You can blame Clay Helton for other things though like being a bad teacher.

 

I don’t know much about the air raid and whether or not what you say is true, but Fink deserves the lion’s share of the blame for the loss. Very poor decision making regardless of whether the playcall was right or not. Looking forward to seeing Slovis back out there.

 

Great stuff!

 

Just watch Graham Harrell's post game interview:



He explains that Fink had the option, but made the wrong decision.

 

Works very well for Slovis? I don't think he got the memo.

K. Slovis 5 Td's and 4 Int's.

Matt Fink 4 Td's 4 Int's

JT Daniels 1 Td 1 Int.

In fact you're not going to believe this.

As a group all 3 QB's

10 Td's 9 Int's Through 5 games. I've never see anything like this. I thought the offense was simple 5 plays? You can't even bench a guy because you get the same result. Maybe they need to start looking at the QB coach?

 

3 of those Int's from Slovis was in 1 game in his first game playing against that type of coverage.
2 of those Int's from Fink was in his first game playing against that type of coverage that was already seen by the coaching staff this season so I blame that on the coaches.
That Int from JT was exactly the same coverage that BYU and Washington used today and our coaching staff STILL didn't prepare the QBs for it.

All 6 of those interceptions I mentioned were literally due to linebackers lining up near the line of scrimmage and then dropping back into the middle of the field at the snap. In my opinion, all 3 of the QBs will learn from that, but Slovis still looks like the most talented.

Moving forward, this offense will work very well for Slovis.

 

Time for the Wing T. Niumatololo or Monken would be averaging 40+ PPG with our athletes.

 

You can't have a fade pass to the back corner of the end zone on 4th and goal from the 3. That was the play that made me jump off the couch and scream. I can understand bad decisions from the quarterback. But the coordinator needs to have bare minimal grasp of national tendencies and percentages, so he doesn't design such idiotic plays for that situation, let alone actually call them.

I worked in a sports stats office for several years. Third down screen passes are the most moronic play in football. Not far behind are red zone fade passes. The office used to burst out in group laughter whenever those plays showed up. I'm convinced these coaches never actually study situational results, as opposed to thinking it sounds cute so let's put it in the playbook.

Elite quarterbacks can make those plays. They also work against outmanned opposition. That is probably part of the reason the ridiculous designs show up, when you can least afford them. The coordinator remembers seeing Tom Brady execute a perfect red zone fade. The coordinator remembers succeeding on a third down screen pass against Portland State.

 

I understand what you're saying and I agree, but put yourself in Graham's shoes. That play was definitely called by Graham and Fink didn't have a choice there, but look at what happened on the 3 previous plays. They ran it twice, then Fink had the option of throwing or keeping to run, he had no confidence to throw it so he kept it and ran it into 3 defenders. Graham had to quickly come up with a play and he saw a mismatch with our much taller receiver against a 5'9 defender. If Fink threw that pass higher so the receiver can high point it, you would be singing a different tune right now. It was a huge mismatch, but Fink short armed it and threw it low and away instead of high.

 

You sound like Clay Helton with your excuses. Maybe you can do his next press conference.

I have no idea what Slovis will do neither do you he's played 2 games. Smoked a weak team and got smoked by a fair to good team. The jury is still out for me.

 

And you're going to eat crow when Slovis leads USC to a victory against Notre Dame. Clay Helton still sucks though.

 

Not a fan of clays air pray offense

 

I'm not eating anything. I post facts not hogwash. You're posting what could happen.

He does in fact have 5 td's and 4 Int's. Did his best work against a weak Stanford team threw 3 picks against a team with a defense. I don't care who dropped back or what. That's what every teams does to a new QB, show different looks. It's what Clancy should be doing.

I'm not saying he won't. ND is very beatable. They lost last week and struggled in the first half today. They looked like they could take another loss.

As far as Helton. It's obvious by my postings. I prefer a new direction.

 

The worst part of this is they went after Myles Bryant. The last guy you should challenge on that team.

1. They used London who had 3 catches coming into the game. Instead of ARS, Pittman or Vaughns. He's a good player but it's a lot of pressure for a do or die play.

2. They went after their T.Hufunga. i would be surprised is he doesn't go high in the draft. He's the current Buda Baker. He already has 2 picks this season. And as expected he played it perfect even with giving away the hight.

I posted about this guy a few days ago. I guess Helton dosen't read the boards or he would have know to throw to the other side of the field.

 

There was been no continuity for our QBs, od course they are going to make mistakes

 

7:29
This looks designed all the way. Fink looks right the whole time like he's waiting for London to clear. He never looks for any other WR.

My question is why would you throw to Myles Bryant's side? In this situation. I don't think this one was on Fink to be honest. You be the judge.

 

I am sorry, but when you are facing for the most part 5 players in the box, and you continue to throw the ball that's coaching. First and goal at the 6 yard line and you throw, that's coaching.

 

I wrote in another thread about this play. This play was definitely designed the whole way due to what happened on the first 3 plays and especially the 3rd down play. Here's how it went:

1st down, design run play, try to pound it in. Result: Unsuccessful
2nd down, design run play giving Finks to QB keep, but he chose to give it to the RB. Result: Unsuccessful
3rd down, RPO and option for QB to keep. Finks didn't even look to throw and just scrambled and kept the ball himself and ran into 3 defenders. Result: Unsccessful; This tells me that he is not confident in throwing the ball. I'm sure Graham saw this.
4th down, ok, our QB is not confident in throwing the ball and running the ball in is not working, lets find a mismatch. Oh look, we got a 5'9 guy guarding our tallest receiver. Lets throw a fade to him which should be an easy catch if the QB throws it at the high point. Instead the QB threw it low and away from the receiver making it easy for the defender to defend without looking back and no PI called since the receiver had to reach out behind the defender to catch it.

 

All Spring camp and Fall camp the QB competition was left wide open with all the QB'S getting plenty of time in the system. It was and is supposed to be such a simple Offense that it was a plug in and play any QB and go. This excuse doesn't hold water. Our QB's are just not playing very well or aren't as good as some people think.
Either that or the system isn't as good as we were told and think.

 

Who do we blame for running 7 pass plays of the first 10 vs a soft 5 front defense that anyone with eyeballs could read? Fink should have been eased into the action on the road and taken what the defense was giving. It’s was a soft 3 DL, and 2 LB look. Dropping 6 into pass coverage, and USC said yeah, let’s pass on that look 7 out of 10 times. You think Fink was audible out of run plays early?