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Ditch "Air Raid" scheme

You're misreading my point. I think we benefited greatly from having AR concepts in our offense. I didn't say we should become a full blown AR offense. It created variety and helped make passing reads easier and running lanes more wide open. When we lost that variety, our offensive gameplan stagnated and became too predictable. To say that we should reduce that variety ignores what brought us success.

Duff Man said:
When you look at Air Raid teams, do you see an offense run by very good to great teams? Because you can always pick out nice individual games, but it rarely works over the course of a season.
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manhattanbuf said:
You're misreading my point. I think we benefited greatly from having AR concepts in our offense. I didn't say we should become a full blown AR offense. It created variety and helped make passing reads easier and running lanes more wide open. When we lost that variety, our offensive gameplan stagnated and became too predictable. To say that we should reduce that variety ignores what brought us success.
Click to expand...

We disagree on what variety bred success. Games like ASU and Wazzu were heavily skewed toward the running game and it worked.
 
We lost these games in the trenches first and foremost. Both sides but last night in particular their d line was yards deep in the backfield within a second. I don't think our o line has had a worse game this season than last night.
 
Air Raid offenses typically have winning seasons and put up a ton of points. I'll take multiple winning seasons and 10 consecutive Bowl appearances any day of the week!
 
footballisit said:
Air Raid offenses typically have winning seasons and put up a ton of points. I'll take multiple winning seasons and 10 consecutive Bowl appearances any day of the week!
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Not sure if that perception is true any more. Defenses have caught up finally. TTU and Cal did not have good seasons, for example.
 
i don't know when we stopped saying spread (hal mumme and leach)....and started wanking it up as air raid (hal mumme and leach).

i do think if yo u play a lot of teams where the lb's and safeties are doing that (Big XII).....when you don't see it....can be tricky.

problem is: OSU beat us like a drum on the line of scrimmage......that's why we lost. UW, too.
 
Mick Ronson said:
i don't know when we stopped saying spread (hal mumme and leach)....and started wanking it up as air raid (hal mumme and leach).

i do think if yo u play a lot of teams where the lb's and safeties are doing that (Big XII).....when you don't see it....can be tricky.

problem is: OSU beat us like a drum on the line of scrimmage......that's why we lost. UW, too.
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I think we started calling it by a different name to differentiate it from what programs like OSU, Oregon, Arizona and West Virginia do out of the spread, which is mostly a run-based attack and comes more from the triple option heritage rather than from the run 'n shoot heritage.
 
Buffnik said:
I think we started calling it by a different name to differentiate it from what programs like OSU, Oregon, Arizona and West Virginia do out of the spread, which is mostly a run-based attack and comes more from the triple option heritage rather than from the run 'n shoot heritage.
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not sure i agree with that.....triple option means you are pulling guards. not that many teams do that.

i think the spread was a thing that eventually meant a QB zone read with a shot to run it.....air raid seems like the classic throw it 50 times a game to the flat, wide OL splits, lot of bubble screens to stretch the field.
 
footballisit said:
Air Raid offenses typically have winning seasons and put up a ton of points. I'll take multiple winning seasons and 10 consecutive Bowl appearances any day of the week!
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Air Raid offenses typically score a lot in some games, lack consistency, and make minor bowl games. If that is the goal... yikes.
 
Duff Man said:
Air Raid offenses typically score a lot in some games, lack consistency, and make minor bowl games. If that is the goal... yikes.
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If you really want to talk about a consistent offense lets look at the last 10 years.... what was the most dominant offense to win National Championships? Still think a combo of Pro and spread is the most consistent.
 
The 2017 line has the potential to allow more flexibility in style of offense. There is no way they could have ran a Pro style offense this year. Air Raid can be incorporated in the short game.
 
footballisit said:
The 2017 line has the potential to allow more flexibility in style of offense. There is no way they could have ran a Pro style offense this year. Air Raid can be incorporated in the short game.
Click to expand...
Air Raid + inaccurate QB sounds like a winning combination.
 
AR offensive concepts don't preclude running the ball. If you're sincerely arguing that we shouldn't have variety in our offense because we had success against wazzu & asu, the counter point from the Oklahoma State & Washington games are pretty compelling.

Edit... BTW from the two games you mention, Sefo had 610 yards passing. I'd hardly call either a focus on the run game.

Duff Man said:
We disagree on what variety bred success. Games like ASU and Wazzu were heavily skewed toward the running game and it worked.
Click to expand...
 
manhattanbuf said:
AR offensive concepts don't preclude running the ball. If you're sincerely arguing that we shouldn't have variety in our offense because we had success against wazzu & asu, the counter point from the Oklahoma State & Washington games are pretty compelling.

Edit... BTW from the two games you mention, Sefo had 610 yards passing. I'd hardly call either a focus on the run game.
Click to expand...

We were not going to beat either Washington or OSU going more toward the Air Raid. And while it does not preclude teams from running, I think Air Raid teams tend to have much more difficulty when the passing game is just a little bit off. We need variety and balance, but skewing more toward Air Raid concepts is not going to help us take the next step.

As for the ASU and Wazzu games, we also ran for 550+ yards in those games and really pulled away in both games by grinding down their defenses.

The next step for this offense is finding a second non-QB running threat.
 
?

My argument is in favor of more balance. AR passing game + ZR running game allows that. We saw great success with this game plan this season.

The other side of the argument is to do more ZR and "ditch" the AR. You'll have to let me know how I am supporting his argument.

lawdogg said:
Think you're kind of making his point for him, here.
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You're arguing against a strawman.

I have never said we should become a full blown AR offense. I've continually said that "ditching" AR passing concepts in favor of a more ZR oriented offense would be a mistake since we had success when we were more balanced. When we skewed toward the ZR to the exclusion of the short to medium pass game, our QB got killed.

Duff Man said:
We were not going to beat either Washington or OSU going more toward the Air Raid. And while it does not preclude teams from running, I think Air Raid teams tend to have much more difficulty when the passing game is just a little bit off. We need variety and balance, but skewing more toward Air Raid concepts is not going to help us take the next step.

As for the ASU and Wazzu games, we also ran for 550+ yards in those games and really pulled away in both games by grinding down their defenses.

The next step for this offense is finding a second non-QB running threat.
Click to expand...
 
Duff's point, centrally, seems to be that the offense should have an increased focus on running the ball. Citing to how well the team passed the ball against ASU and Wazzu just reinforces that a game plan focused on running the ball opens up opportunities in the passing game. Hope that connected the dots.
 
manhattanbuf said:
You're arguing against a strawman.

I have never said we should become a full blown AR offense. I've continually said that "ditching" AR passing concepts in favor of a more ZR oriented offense would be a mistake since we had success when we were more balanced. When we skewed toward the ZR to the exclusion of the short to medium pass game, our QB got killed.
Click to expand...

Did we skew toward ZR or did teams shut down the passing game? I think it is more the latter.

At the end of the day, you have to skew one way or the other. You can't be half and half with AR and ZR, the defense will be tipped pretty easily from play to play. I am quite comfortable skewing toward ZR.
 
The offense did not focus on running the ball in those games and scored big points. We had great balance, which I've advocated during the entirety of this thread. This is not an argument in his favor.

BTW, we tried the "focus on the run game" in the udub and oklahoma state games. That did not work out so well.

lawdogg said:
Duff's point, centrally, seems to be that the offense should have an increased focus on running the ball. Citing to how well the team passed the ball against ASU and Wazzu just reinforces that a game plan focused on running the ball opens up opportunities in the passing game. Hope that connected the dots.
Click to expand...
 
Against Oklahoma State, we had 38 pass attempts for 256 yards. Many of those attempts happened after we were getting smoked. Running the ball had to be lessened by necessity since the ZR/QB keep up the middle was ineffective. We did have 29 rush attempts for 62 total yards. This included 14 QB attempts for -2 yards.

Duff Man said:
Did we skew toward ZR or did teams shut down the passing game? I think it is more the latter.

At the end of the day, you have to skew one way or the other. You can't be half and half with AR and ZR, the defense will be tipped pretty easily from play to play. I am quite comfortable skewing toward ZR.
Click to expand...
 
manhattanbuf said:
The offense did not focus on running the ball in those games and scored big points. We had great balance, which I've advocated during the entirety of this thread. This is not an argument in his favor.

BTW, we tried the "focus on the run game" in the udub and oklahoma state games. That did not work out so well.
Click to expand...

For one, we had more rushing yards than passing yards against ASU. Two, anyone watching both games and thinking there was not a concerted effort to run the ball is kinda crazy. You are getting caught up in raw numbers here.
 
I watched the games too. You are arguing about your perception without basis in statistical facts. I check my perception against the numbers to see if I am seeing the game correctly.

I hope we would have success running against a team in ASU who gave up 4.9 YPC all year.

Duff Man said:
For one, we had more rushing yards than passing yards against ASU. Two, anyone watching both games and thinking there was not a concerted effort to run the ball is kinda crazy. You are getting caught up in raw numbers here.
Click to expand...
 
manhattanbuf said:
Against Oklahoma State, we had 38 pass attempts for 256 yards. Many of those attempts happened after we were getting smoked. Running the ball had to be lessened by necessity since the ZR/QB keep up the middle was ineffective. We did have 29 rush attempts for 62 total yards. This included 14 QB attempts for -2 yards.
Click to expand...

I thought the offense just looked bad in general. I doubt chucking it more early would have changed things, but you are welcome to believe so.
 
manhattanbuf said:
I watched the games too. You are arguing about your perception without basis in statistical facts. I check my perception against the numbers to see if I am seeing the game correctly.

I hope we would have success running against a team in ASU who gave up 4.9 YPC all year.
Click to expand...

You realize that we exposed the ASU rush defense, right? If you are so interested in raw numbers, you should look up the rushing yardage in our biggest offensive games.
 
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