Today's Thunder and Lightning left a pretty interesting easter egg

[missouridawg]

You can place me firmly in the camp of "Mike Leach's offense won't have as much success in the SEC as it did at his other stops". We play against better players, better coaches, better schemes.

But on T&L, Brian/Robbie mentioned that the offense has worked on some QB Draws, Speed Options, etc... These little wrinkles will change my tune. These little wrinkles make this more of an Oklahoma Air Raid, rather than the TTech Air Raid.

I got irate watching us continue to struggle against the drop 8 last year. If it's not working, you HAVE to try something different. These little wrinkles are trying something different. Now let's see if he actually does this in a game.

I found this news to be very positive and it brought me some optimism going into the year.

 

[Ralph Cramden]

Don't ignore the fact that you can't implement an air raid offense at a predominantly running school with no spring practice. If you expected anything less than a serious struggle last year you are unrealistic. Freshmen all over the field. It will be drastically improved this year. And yes, some effective running will be a great help as you saw the last couple of games last year.

 

[Phil Wenneck.sixpack]

I'm with you. Not to make excuses for last year but with no spring practice, we couldn't even get our base offense installed. Much less installing things to adapt to the defense. I'm on board hoping Leach evolves somewhat despite many that will say he's stubborn. I think he knows he's coaching in the big leagues now.

 

[thekimmer]

I don't think the drop 8 was the biggest issue last year....

You can place me firmly in the camp of "Mike Leach's offense won't have as much success in the SEC as it did at his other stops". We play against better players, better coaches, better schemes.

But on T&L, Brian/Robbie mentioned that the offense has worked on some QB Draws, Speed Options, etc... These little wrinkles will change my tune. These little wrinkles make this more of an Oklahoma Air Raid, rather than the TTech Air Raid.

I got irate watching us continue to struggle against the drop 8 last year. If it's not working, you HAVE to try something different. These little wrinkles are trying something different. Now let's see if he actually does this in a game.

I found this news to be very positive and it brought me some optimism going into the year.

I mean does anyone think that it took 20 years of seeing this offense before someone said hey I think we can stop this by dropping 8 into coverage. The biggest problem we had last year wasn't the drop 8 it was the rush 3. We couldn't block 3 rushers with 5 offensive lineman.

 

[missouridawg]

Don't ignore the fact that you can't implement an air raid offense at a predominantly running school with no spring practice. If you expected anything less than a serious struggle last year you are unrealistic. Freshmen all over the field. It will be drastically improved this year. And yes, some effective running will be a great help as you saw the last couple of games last year.

The Air Raid is designed to be super simplistic and easy to implement. And, to me, seeing Costello and Co. teabag Eddie O and Bo Pelini in game 1 kinda proves that theory. That offense looked pretty installed to me, there.

I can certainly concede that last seasons' practice regime wasn't normal. And I can also concede that it probably held back the offense a little bit. But to pretend like what we saw against Mizzou and Tulsa is going to be the norm going forward is also kinda asinine. Those were probably the two least talented defenses we faced last year, both from a talent standpoint and a coaching standpoint (I acknowledge that Vandy may have worse talent/coaching).

Here's what our last handful of games looked like rushing/passing

Team Rushing Passing
Vandy -22 226
UGA 22 358
OM 39 479
AU 19 221
MIZ 151 295
TULSA 123 148

Hopefully Leach saw something when he kept pounded the square peg into the round hole last year that he's going to have to adapt here. The practice report Brian/Robbie gave made it seem like that was the case.

 

[Dawgzilla]

That's real easy to say now, but in preseason it was all "Leach's offense is so easy to install", "It's a simple offense based on repetition", yada yada yada. We even had people asking why the preseason predictions were ranking UMiss higher than State.

As MOdawg said, the offense looked pretty well installed in game 1, then regressed as the season went on. There were some signs of improvement down the stretch, but it still was not the offense most of us expected to see.

I'm not willing to say that Leach's offense won't work in the SEC. Spurrier's offense worked, so I don't know why Leach's cannot. It can work as well as Mullen's does, and probably as well as Kiffin's will. There will be games where it looks pretty terrible though.

 

[MedDawg]

You can place me firmly in the camp of "Mike Leach's offense won't have as much success in the SEC as it did at his other stops". We play against better players, better coaches, better schemes.

But on T&L, Brian/Robbie mentioned that the offense has worked on some QB Draws, Speed Options, etc... These little wrinkles will change my tune. These little wrinkles make this more of an Oklahoma Air Raid, rather than the TTech Air Raid.

I got irate watching us continue to struggle against the drop 8 last year. If it's not working, you HAVE to try something different. These little wrinkles are trying something different. Now let's see if he actually does this in a game.

I found this news to be very positive and it brought me some optimism going into the year.

There's no reason that other offenses can succeed in the SEC but Leach's cant. Plus "SEC defenses" is really just 4 or 5 teams, and they shut down most offenses.

Leach's offense may not be as successful as at Washington State and Texas Tech, but he routinely had national Top 5 offenses at those schools. That would be asking a lot of MSU, especially this early. Leach does have a much better defense at State than he had at both WSU and TT.

 

[Uncle Ruckus]

I loved hearing that as well. Last year was a wash. Of course Leach thought he could come in and have success like he has everywhere. It’s like the saying ‘you don’t know what you don’t know’. He truly didn’t know how much better these defenses are and it sounds like now he knows he has to adapt some. I also don’t think that he had time to install new concepts given that he didn’t have enough time to install his base offense. Something as simple as a read option, if successful, in a drop 8 will force defenses to adjust. Read option in 10 personnel is block 4 read 1. When teams are giving us a 4 and 5 man box, iz will wreck that ****. If we actually do it remains to be seen, but it gives me hope that he has is installing some new wrinkles.

 

[patdog]

Yep. And I have to admit, after that first game, even I was believing it. And I'm not really seeing the signs of much improvement down the stretch. We got a lot of yards against one of the worst defenses in SEC history and against a pretty mediocre Missouri team that was just ready for the season to end, but we got shut down by Auburn, Tulsa and Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt! Now the party line is Leach always shows big improvement in year 2. At Tech, he went from 7-6 year 1 to 7-5 year 2 and didn't really start to take off until year 3 (year 5 before he finished a season in the top 25). At WSU he did improve in year 2, but still only to 6-7 before falling back to 3-9 in year 3 before hitting his stride in year 4. So, I'm expecting another year or two of inconsistent offense before hopefully this experiment will work. I am encouraged by the news that he's apparently making some adjustments to his offense, which some of us have been saying he'll need to do since the day he was hired.

 

[dog12]

I mean does anyone think that it took 20 years of seeing this offense before someone said hey I think we can stop this by dropping 8 into coverage. The biggest problem we had last year wasn't the drop 8 it was the rush 3. We couldn't block 3 rushers with 5 offensive lineman.

Definitely, that was a problem last year. I'm hoping our offensive linemen are in great shape this season and can do a better job at protecting our QB and give him sufficient time to find an open receiver.

Also, I'm hoping our receivers can get some separation and/or find open space this year to give our QB easier completions that will give our receivers a chance to get some yards after the catch.

 

[missouridawg]

Plus "SEC defenses" is really just 4 or 5 teams, and they shut down most offenses.

I don't think I agree with this statement at all.

SEC Defenses at the bottom half of the standings are better than PAC12 and Big12 defenses at the bottom halves of their standings. There's more NFL talent on these SEC rosters and there's better coaching (in most cases).

 

[Go Budaw]

There's no reason that other offenses can succeed in the SEC but Leach's cant. Plus "SEC defenses" is really just 4 or 5 teams, and they shut down most offenses.

Leach's offense may not be as successful as at Washington State and Texas Tech, but he routinely had national Top 5 offenses at those schools. That would be asking a lot of MSU, especially this early. Leach does have a much better defense at State than he had at both WSU and TT.

I think its important to define what qualifies as “succeeding in the SEC”. It’s mighty ambiguous. Dan Mullen, for all he was lauded as an offensive mastermind who ran a system that was perfect for MSU’s historical talent base, had ONE season where he averaged over 30 ppg in conference play. For some perspective, 6 of 14 SEC teams accomplished that feat last season alone. So historically, an MSU offense that “succeeds in the SEC” is still going to be a very middle-of-the-pack offense.

Some more perspective….Leach, with no spring practice and a total headcase starting QB for half the season who played about the worst football anyone has ever seen over a stretch of 4 games, and our best offensive player dipping out after 3 games, STILL averaged about the same ppg in conference play than Dan Mullen did in Year 1.

We were a totally different team when Rogers took over and got his feet under him. And we saw the offense work just fine after that happened, given the circumstances….even against elite competition (UGA).

 

[patdog]

Can't compare the SEC of today to the SEC in Mullen's first year, or even for most of his tenure here. Scoring overall is up 20% since 2009. But for us, succeeding in the SEC is to consistently be somewhere in the top 8-10 out of 14 teams.

 

[maroonmania]

Don't ignore the fact that you can't implement an air raid offense at a predominantly running school with no spring practice. If you expected anything less than a serious struggle last year you are unrealistic. Freshmen all over the field. It will be drastically improved this year. And yes, some effective running will be a great help as you saw the last couple of games last year.

I agree that people are putting way too much emphasis on last year's results in deciding if Leach's air raid can work in the SEC. I think Leach used last year as essentially a throw away year to teach his air raid concepts real time to a team that was lacking in experienced playmakers in both the offensive skill positions and OL (at least as far as being pass blockers). He really didn't have much choice given he took over a run heavy team with personnel geared to that and then, on top of that, got no Spring practice. Basing your opinion on how Leach's offense will or won't work on last year's results is pretty shortsighted in my view. SEC defenses may be slightly better on average than most other P5 conferences but if you check the statistics over the last several seasons you will see that the SEC is giving up points like never before.

 

[Ralph Cramden]

Pretty sure Leach understands SEC defenses and he is playing against better competition, but at the same time he is using better players. The talent level here exceeds anything he ever had at WSU or TT. Maybe he reads SPS to get pointers on how to coach but I kinda doubt it. Don't forget he coached at Kentucky

 

[o_Hot Rock]

I heard something today that made an impression. I was listening to the Steve on Boneyard. He asked Leach at some point earlier if there was anything he saw from Miss State's players that made an impression.

Leach apparently said yes there was one thing. None of these receivers know how to catch a football. They didn't understand body positioning and other techniques. In a lot of ways, they had to start from square one teaching basic principles of playing the WR position.

Leach's offense requires lots of precision routes. Some guys just never get it and most take time to understand it. They know what to do but if their routes aren't precise, the spacing is off and not only is their route effected, that whole area of field can become compromised. This offense may be simple to learn but it us difficult to execute at a high level.

We should begin to see a real difference this next year. I am not convinced this offense won't work, in fact, I think it will but we have to see real improvement this year. I like the read option addition, that could tear up some back peddling defenses.

 

[Go Budaw]

Can't compare the SEC of today to the SEC in Mullen's first year, or even for most of his tenure here. Scoring overall is up 20% since 2009. But for us, succeeding in the SEC is to consistently be somewhere in the top 8-10 out of 14 teams.

OK, so say Mike Leach’s offense in year 1 was 20% worse than Mullen’s Year 1 offense. Is that really that ominous, considering all the ******** that was brought to us by 2020? We averaged 27 PPG in the last 5 games when Rogers took over as the starter....that is more than adequate for Year 1 of just about any true freshmen QB in the SEC or first year offensive system....let alone both at the same time.

What I’m really curious about is how many times it has to work for people to say it works in the SEC. If 4 times out of 5 games with a true freshmen QB isn’t enough data, how much more is needed?

 

[patdog]

We'll see. But scoring 24 against Mississippi's defense, 10 against Auburn's and 21 against Tulsa's isn't really impressing me. Scoring 51 on Missouri was good, but take it with a grain of salt, they gave up 148 in its last 3 games and didn't want to be playing in December. Not saying it can't work, especially if he's adding some run elements to the offense, but I didn't see much last year to say it is working yet.

 

[Ralph Cramden]

Takes lots of practice and precision route running. The routes themselves are designed to open other players up. It may not be a lot of plays and complicated jargon but it has to be done just right and the QB and recievers have to be spot on in order to work. I expect a major improvement this year. Still not gonna beat Bama. Not next year either...lol.

 

[maroonmania]

I heard something today that made an impression. I was listening to the Steve on Boneyard. He asked Leach at some point earlier if there was anything he saw from Miss State's players that made an impression.

Leach apparently said yes there was one thing. None of these receivers know how to catch a football. They didn't understand body positioning and other techniques. In a lot of ways, they had to start from square one teaching basic principles of playing the WR position.

Leach's offense requires lots of precision routes. Some guys just never get it and most take time to understand it. They know what to do but if their routes aren't precise, the spacing is off and not only is their route effected, that whole area of field can become compromised. This offense may be simple to learn but it us difficult to execute at a high level.

We should begin to see a real difference this next year. I am not convinced this offense won't work, in fact, I think it will but we have to see real improvement this year. I like the read option addition, that could tear up some back peddling defenses.

Wait, so you are saying that perhaps Stephen Guidry never learned the proper technique of catching a football? Shocker.

 

[DoggieDaddy13]

We're going to win at least 8 games this year. Maybe 10. The offense is going to be clicking and the defense is going to win a couple of the close ones for us.

Count on it!

 

[maroonmania]

We'll see. But scoring 24 against Mississippi's defense, 10 against Auburn's and 21 against Tulsa's isn't really impressing me. Scoring 51 on Missouri was good, but take it with a grain of salt, they gave up 148 in its last 3 games and didn't want to be playing in December. Not saying it can't work, especially if he's adding some run elements to the offense, but I didn't see much last year to say it is working yet.

Actually, I would say those results aren't bad at all given, by the time we played those teams you mentioned, we were starting true freshmen at QB, RB, and most of the entire WR group. So we were running an air raid with essentially nothing but true freshmen at all skill positions. And these were guys that just got started with the offense in August. Not like true freshmen that graduate HS in December and have gone through a spring practice. Again, judging what this offense can be off of last year is shortsighted.

 

[missouridawg]

We're going to win at least 8 games this year. Maybe 10. The offense is going to be clicking and the defense is going to win a couple of the close ones for us.

Count on it!

Serve me every plate full of crow you can find if this happens.

 

[messageboardsuperhero]

The Air Raid is designed to be super simplistic and easy to implement. And, to me, seeing Costello and Co. teabag Eddie O and Bo Pelini in game 1 kinda proves that theory. That offense looked pretty installed to me, there.

I can certainly concede that last seasons' practice regime wasn't normal. And I can also concede that it probably held back the offense a little bit. But to pretend like what we saw against Mizzou and Tulsa is going to be the norm going forward is also kinda asinine. Those were probably the two least talented defenses we faced last year, both from a talent standpoint and a coaching standpoint (I acknowledge that Vandy may have worse talent/coaching).

Here's what our last handful of games looked like rushing/passing

Team Rushing Passing
Vandy -22 226
UGA 22 358
OM 39 479
AU 19 221
MIZ 151 295
TULSA 123 148

Hopefully Leach saw something when he kept pounded the square peg into the round hole last year that he's going to have to adapt here. The practice report Brian/Robbie gave made it seem like that was the case.

Easy to install does not equal easy to master. Just because there is only a base of ~ 20 plays does not mean you draw them up and run them to perfection in a handful of practices. Leach has been a P5 HC for 19 seasons. His three worst offenses were year 1 at TTU, MSU, and WSU- and no other offense has even been close to as bad. The track record is very obvious. We were no worse last year offensively than WSU was in 2012- and they had a spring install and played NC games.

LSU’s screw up (besides just flat out not being a good, well-coached defensive team) was not mixing up coverages at all. Pelini say I’m man all game and Costello didn’t even have to think about coverages- he knew where to go with the ball immediately.

I’d have to go back and look, but when Leach was hired a WSU fan came here and said our guys will learn the plays quickly. However, the offense won’t be full go until year 3. Looking at past statistics at WSU and TTU, that appears to be true. We should have all seen last year coming- myself included.

ETA- Mizzou and Tulsa were not even close to the worst defenses we faced last year. Both were at least better than Arkansas, Vandy, and OM. LSU was more talented, but they were a terrible defense. Mizzou finished middle of the pack in the SEC in total defense, and Tulsa was the second best defense in G5 behind Cincinnati.

 

[messageboardsuperhero]

Yep. And I have to admit, after that first game, even I was believing it. And I'm not really seeing the signs of much improvement down the stretch. We got a lot of yards against one of the worst defenses in SEC history and against a pretty mediocre Missouri team that was just ready for the season to end, but we got shut down by Auburn, Tulsa and Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt! Now the party line is Leach always shows big improvement in year 2. At Tech, he went from 7-6 year 1 to 7-5 year 2 and didn't really start to take off until year 3 (year 5 before he finished a season in the top 25). At WSU he did improve in year 2, but still only to 6-7 before falling back to 3-9 in year 3 before hitting his stride in year 4. So, I'm expecting another year or two of inconsistent offense before hopefully this experiment will work. I am encouraged by the news that he's apparently making some adjustments to his offense, which some of us have been saying he'll need to do since the day he was hired.

You are just looking at W/L record to judge whether or not an offense is improving. Here is the past PPG jumps from year 1 to year 2. It’s not some BS narrative or “party line” to say Leach’s offenses take a jump in years 2-3.

TTU: +8.1 PPG (25.4 to 33.5)
WSU: +11.6 PPG (20.4 to 31)

We were at 21.4 last year. I expect us to be around 30 this year. If we aren’t, then we can have serious discussions about if this scheme can work in the SEC. Until then though, we are pretty much right on the normal Mike Leach schedule.

 

[messageboardsuperhero]

I mean does anyone think that it took 20 years of seeing this offense before someone said hey I think we can stop this by dropping 8 into coverage. The biggest problem we had last year wasn't the drop 8 it was the rush 3. We couldn't block 3 rushers with 5 offensive lineman.

It’s great to hear people say the air raid has been “figured out.” Then you go back and read game stories from 2012 WSU games and see they went through the same drop eight in zone coverage issues we had in 2020.

It’s hard to say DCs have a scheme figured out when Leach’s two best offenses at WSU came right before he got here- in years 7-8 of playing in the Pac 12.

 

[ezsoil]

Can't compare the SEC of today to the SEC in Mullen's first year, or even for most of his tenure here. Scoring overall is up 20% since 2009. But for us, succeeding in the SEC is to consistently be somewhere in the top 8-10 out of 14 teams.

You also can't compare last year to any of Leach's first years as this was a SEC ONLY schedule ....had he had the original planned schedule, he most certainly would have been 6-6

 

[BoDawg.sixpack]

Take last year's results and treat them like an exhibition

We had a guy look like the second coming of Dan Marino and beat LSU in Baton Rouge and then he proceeded to make Micheal Henig's cumulative stats look appealing. The signal to noise ratio is too low. We should take a big step forward on the offensive line and that by itself will give this year a very different feel regardless of the W/L record.

 

[Mjoelner]

We also had receivers staying on their routes vs zone instead of settling into an open spot. Case in point, instead of watching, I listened to Neal and Matt for part of the 2nd half of the Bama game. Neal called an incompletion and stated "The ball was thrown behind the receiver again." Matt told him that the ball was thrown to the correct spot but the receiver, on a crossing route, ran out of coverage in one zone and straight into coverage in another instead of stopping at the sweet spot in the middle.

 

[patdog]

I don't much care if it's offensive or defensive improvement. I just want to see improvement. And again, can't compare just the offense ppg today with the ones in 2000 or 2012. The game has completely changed since then. 21.4 in 1st season is a lot worse than either TTU or WSU 1st seasons.

 

[messageboardsuperhero]

I don't much care if it's offensive or defensive improvement. I just want to see improvement. And again, can't compare just the offense ppg today with the ones in 2000 or 2012. The game has completely changed since then. 21.4 in 1st season is a lot worse than either TTU or WSU 1st seasons.

It’s not really worse when you consider we had no spring and played a conference only schedule. But the people who have already made up their mind about Leach’s offense seem to ignore that part.

It would have been nice to have spring practice or get some early season confidence against Eastern Washington and UNLV like WSU did in 2012, but we didn’t get those luxuries.

 

[patdog]

You may be right. But I doubt EWU or UNLV could have possibly been much worse than that LSU defense he played in his first game.

 

[patdog]

.had he had the original planned schedule, he most certainly would have been 6-6

He would have been 5-7. Take away the Vandy win and the UGA loss and add 3 OOC wins and a loss at NC State.

 

[ChinaDogSunflower]

I'd settle for 20 designed run or run option plays/pg

 

[ChinaDogSunflower]

If true, that is very promising. We have to be able to do more in the SEC

 

[philduckworth]

I mean does anyone think that it took 20 years of seeing this offense before someone said hey I think we can stop this by dropping 8 into coverage. The biggest problem we had last year wasn't the drop 8 it was the rush 3. We couldn't block 3 rushers with 5 offensive lineman.

UW dropped 8 everytime against Leach after their first meeting and shut WSU down with ease. Then players and coaches at UW couldn't believe Leach never changed anything. They were literally shocked.

 

[philduckworth]

I don't care how many run plays we install, if we don't tighten the splits, we won't have much success on the ground.

 

[Ralph Cramden]

Maybe one year we can finish 11-1 ranked #10 in the country like the 2018 Cougars

 

[Dog316]

Missouridawg surely you didn’t really mean to say this, “And I can also concede that it probably held back the offense a little bit.” Held back a little bit? As Joe B would say, “Come on man!.

 

[PirateDawg]

There's no reason that other offenses can succeed in the SEC but Leach's cant. Plus "SEC defenses" is really just 4 or 5 teams, and they shut down most offenses.

Leach's offense may not be as successful as at Washington State and Texas Tech, but he routinely had national Top 5 offenses at those schools. That would be asking a lot of MSU, especially this early. Leach does have a much better defense at State than he had at both WSU and TT.

All this arm waving and everyone is forgetting that Leach is coaching the best offensive talent he's ever had at any other stop. His offense has worked in the SEC and it will at State. In fact, I believe that the only equalizer in the SEC is through the air. If you believe we are going to beat Georgia, Alabama, LSU, Auburn, and Florida with smash mouth football then you are wearing the maroon colored glasses and drinking the Kool-Aid. We can beat any team that plays straight up defense with the air raid. When they go 3-8 it is a different story but its not like Leach hasn't seen that before. The offense obviously becomes more complicated against the 3-8 which we will see a lot this year. I would like to see us use a guard and RB on delay hand offs to freeze the LBs in the 3-8. Last year we hit RBs out of the backfield instead. The problem with that is you have two offensive linemen that don't get in on the plays. A RB that follows an unblocked OL player should be able to get 5 yards a carry.