Menu
What's new
By:
Filters
AllBuffs | Unofficial fan site for the University of Colorado at Boulder Athletics programs

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

  • Prime Time. Prime Time. Its a new era for Colorado football. Consider signing up for a club membership! For $20/year, you can get access to all the special features at Allbuffs, including club member only forums, dark mode, avatars and best of all no ads ! But seriously, please sign up so that we can pay the bills. No one earns money here, and we can use your $20 to keep this hellhole running. You can sign up for a club membership by navigating to your account in the upper right and clicking on "Account Upgrades". Make it happen!

A quick comparison of the CU & TTU offenses

Buffnik

Buffnik

Real name isn't Nik
Club Member
Junta Member
I thought it might be interesting to look at the offensive concepts that Chev brings to CU from Texas Tech.

Obviously, TTU is known for its "Air Raid" as a high powered pass offense, but Texas Tech's Air Raid is no slouch in the run game.

#30 in the nation this year in rushing yards per game at 204.8 (on a 5.61 yard per carry avg).
Colorado was #83 at 156.2 on a 3.75 average rush.

The thing is that their pass offense is so good that it overshadows the great run offense.

#2 in the nation at 389.7 pass yards per game (8.29 yards per attempt).
Colorado was #48 at 240.6 on a 6.71 average per attempt.

TTU's yards passing vs rushing was a 1.90 ratio.
CU's yards passing vs rushing was a 1.54 ratio.

That points to Tech's offense being more pass heavy.

Attempts bear that out.
TTU passed 564 times and rushed 438 times (1.29 ratio of pass to run).
CU passed 466 times and rushed 542 times (0.86 ration of pass to run).

I think the thing that's most striking to me in all of this, though, is that TTU was tied at #13 as the best Red Zone offense in the nation this year. This is not some run-n-shoot b.s. offense that stalls inside the 20.

Compare that with CU's #120 red zone offense.

We can talk about what TTU's Air Raid, but I wanted to eliminate some misconceptions. The bottom line truth is that it's just a great ****ing offense.

*Stats used from NCAA.com
 
Watching a few of their games it seems like a pass to set up the run type offense. Their success in the red zone comes down to having an accurate qb who can throw in small windows and having bigger receivers who can make catches even when covered IMO.
 
An increase in the passing game has a dependency on an accurate QB (I think onealcd alluded to that). Giving Sefo more throws means additional INT's as well. The QB's at TT have a quick release, that is not one of Sefo's strong points, nor is accuracy. Cade Apsay had a quick release and I think did a better job of looking thru his reads and mixing it up downfield (a lot more throws to the TE's and WR's across the middle). I am hoping that Montez will be that complete QB with accuracy, quick release and the element of running the ball. I am excited to see an uptempo, high scoring offense but am not sold on Sefo being the QB for that system.
 
Montez doesn't necessarily have that quick of a release. He has a big arm and is accurate though.
 
I do think that Cade Apsay would be the perfect QB for this type of offense. I have always seen some Colt McCoy in him. I hope to see more passes thrown in stride to maximize YAC, like short slants. It always seems like our WRs catch the ball when stationary, unless its a deep ball. Also, we have felt like they really value accuracy in a QB and I would expect that to be magnified even more now.

Here's to hoping Chev signed off on Ento and realizes the need to have a handful of receivers that can box-out defenders at the goal line or make the catch over smaller CBs. I also think that the coaches like Ento's potential as a blocker, whether blocking down on a linebacker in the run or for CBs on screen passes. That type of receiver combined with the Donovan Lee type on short slants or screens could do some good things for our offense if we successfully incorporate some air raid concepts.
 
The Mike Leach offense(which is what TTU runs) is totally different than CU's. The challenge will be the reads and allowing the QB to audible at the LOS. I had the impression that Lindgren did not allow much deviation from the called play. I do not think it is an offense you can dabble in - I think you have to be all in with it.

I am not sure the hire of DC will change the offense - that will be interesting.
 
BlackNGold said:
The Mike Leach offense(which is what TTU runs) is totally different than CU's. The challenge will be the reads and allowing the QB to audible at the LOS. I had the impression that Lindgren did not allow much deviation from the called play. I do not think it is an offense you can dabble in - I think you have to be all in with it.

I am not sure the hire of DC will change the offense - that will be interesting.
Click to expand...
Agreed we won't see much of an offensive change especially with BL still calling the plays. The move was made to take some of the offensive admin off his plate to focus on QB development. DC will help with the admin and give a few suggestions, but let's be honest DC has a full plate of responsiblities and he isn't the savior, just a very nice piece in this coaching staff.
 
One change that we could see -- and we'll know better on this once we see if a new OL coach is hired based on the system he's from -- is that the Air Raid has the OL coached very differently than what we have been doing in Lindgren's offense. At the most basic level, it creates natural running and throwing lanes by widening the standard gap splits in the OL alignment. I'm very curious to see whether CU moves in that direction.
 
Buffnik said:
One change that we could see -- and we'll know better on this once we see if a new OL coach is hired based on the system he's from -- is that the Air Raid has the OL coached very differently than what we have been doing in Lindgren's offense. At the most basic level, it creates natural running and throwing lanes by widening the standard gap splits in the OL alignment. I'm very curious to see whether CU moves in that direction.
Click to expand...

Nik, I think you are stretching a little bit. DC had two years of exposure to the Air Raid offense as a WR coach. I think if you are truly committed to converting to that type of offense you would need to get someone who has worked on it more than that. You cannot go with the wider splits (and also being that far off the ball) without running the offense it is designed to be effective for.
 
BlackNGold said:
Nik, I think you are stretching a little bit. DC had two years of exposure to the Air Raid offense as a WR coach. I think if you are truly committed to converting to that type of offense you would need to get someone who has worked on it more than that. You cannot go with the wider splits (and also being that far off the ball) without running the offense it is designed to be effective for.
Click to expand...

You may be right on the wider splits not working with other offensive concepts.

And I'm not suggesting that there's a move in the works to the Air Raid system.

What I do know is that some concepts from that are going to be integrated along with some plays as a main component of the offseason playbook update. Within that, I believe that whomever is our OL coach next season will give us a lot more insight on whether it's a tweak to the current system or something closer to an overhaul.
 
We will need to have depth on defense if we are going to implements portions of the Air Raid system. Tech was 127th in total defense this year. Marching up and down the field quickly comes at a price.
 
BlackNGold said:
Nik, I think you are stretching a little bit. DC had two years of exposure to the Air Raid offense as a WR coach. I think if you are truly committed to converting to that type of offense you would need to get someone who has worked on it more than that. You cannot go with the wider splits (and also being that far off the ball) without running the offense it is designed to be effective for.
Click to expand...


WIDER SPLITS????
 
When we played WSU, we run some of the exact same plays and they don't work nearly as well. I was trying to figure it out. QB play? WR play? Some.

But a lot of it to me was timing. There's some very precise timing to some of those plays where the WR has to get the ball precisely as the other WR is chipping a man. They've been running the same small number of plays for years under Leach. They've been copied by Lindgren and others, but it seems to me that only Leach and some of his disciples have the fine-tuned details to make it work. Just my observation.

Copying the plays is easy. Having the precise execution is tougher. Not sure if we get the secret sauce on that from DC. Maybe.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top