I’m going to say personnel dictated that imbalance. And despite that we probably won more games than we lost due to an electrifying passing attack.
Which is what worries me about the offense this year. I don’t know how it will adjust to a more pro-style scheme. But will be a step back.
It’s worrying but absolutely a needed adjustment. I love Air Raid offenses when I’m playing Madden. But not in real life. I think they have a stout glass ceiling that’s tough to breka through unless you are LSU in 2019 elite.
It’s an interesting debate. My thoughts on the air raid are that it can elevate a team with less overall roster talent to winning more than it would otherwise (maybe us the last few seasons), but there is definitely that ceiling. But I still think the first part of that statement can be true. Like those old Texas Tech teams under Leach weren’t going to be nationally relevant playing regular balanced football - they just would have gotten eaten by the rest of the BIG12 and been mediocre.
I feel somewhat similarly about the option offenses. Navy isn’t going to be competitive playing regular football, so they don’t. Will they ever be a top 15 team doing it? No. But they’ll over perform their talent level and be relevant. I’m honestly sad GT decided to abandon the option. Now they just suck and are uninteresting. At least before they were decent and fun to watch as something different.
I think you nailed. Like most gimmick inspired offenses, the Air Raid in it’s truest sense is made as a way to mask a short coming. I also that one of the Air Raid’s, like the Triple Option best benefits is teams don’t see it often and struggle to prepare for it.
The problem with that is even teams that run a “pro-set” have Air Raid tendencies, and more importantly teams are more comfortable playing against the uptempo and covering. So the newness effect is gone. The other issue is, it’s one thing to run the Air Raid when you’re Hawaii playing Fresno, it’s something else when it’s Bama, Uga and Clem on the otherside of the ball, their Jimmy and Joe’s out perform your X’s and O’s.
The Hoos ran into that issue last year. Yes, the defense let them down, but other teams were more than capable of going blow for blow slinging it around. BYU, UNCheat and Wake showed that.
Yeah. What make the Air Raid really work is that passing really is mostly better than running. You want to be able to do both, since a passing game works better against a D that also has to defend against the run. But if you’re seriously short on talent, going with the passing game is the obvious way to go.
Which is part of what makes triple-option offenses fun. They know the passing game is overall better, but the running game is more reliable. So if you can get good enough with it, it magically wraps all the way around and becomes unstoppable. The coaches are like “I know guns are generally better, but we’re going to be SO GOOD with bows and arrows that we’ll be unstoppable!”
I guess this should be obvious but I’m hoping we run sets like Elliott did w Lawrence and Ettienne. Passing attack so lethal that a guy like Hollins gets a huge cushion on a draw if he hits his hole. That’s a big if and another reason why OL play is massive, will RBs have to stay home in pass pro, or can we use them in the passing game / some draw actions
Imagine if last year’s Uga defense ran a triple option and just dominated ball on offense even more than they did? They may have given up 4 pts all season.
Also defense is where Elliott will win or lose the fans, sort of like Bronco’s staff lost a lot with two years of bad D. I think we can expect offense w Elliott and our current personnel, but if he can get us to a consistently average to above average defense most years, I think we’ll be good enough to hover around the edge of top 25
Defense wins championship and defense will win over the Virginia fanbase for TE. I’m nervous because as it’s been mentioned, the secondary is largely the same pieces that have been here. I’m not sure those dogs can hunt.
If you want to just huff raw unadulterated optimism, you can tell yourself our last staff were way too loyal to upperclassmen and that the young secondary guys are actually somewhat talented, they just never got the chance to play. So there’s reason to believe we could take a step forward.
That’s what I’m doing, haha.
There are a lot guys who have been on the roster but not played much. Really only Johnson has extensive time on the field. I’m optimistic there because it sounds like the younger guys weren’t given opportunity to beat out the entrenched crew rather than not being good enough to beat out that mediocre (being very kind) group that graduated.
Sounds like a storyline borrowed from last season’s basketball team.
Normally this would be a Pollyanna take but with what we’ve heard about the state of the D under Howell I think it’s true
Are the Howell rumors written anywhere? I must’ve missed them.
I was wondering the same thing. I don’t remember hearing anything specific about him causing disruptions. And the fact he landed just fine I figure whatever smoke followed him out can’t be that bad.
On a random note I want to vent about how frustrated I am that UVa has released single game football tickets already. But GT is still holding out hope I’ll a 3 pack just so I can watch the Hoos in Oct.
Not sure there’s one nice write up that lays it all out. Reporters covering college teams tend not to put out pieces like that. But basically just anecdotes of Howell being in over his head as DC. An example that stands out to me (and is damning enough on its own imo) is that apparently we weren’t doing live 1 v 1’s with the WRs and DBs the last 2 seasons. Guess it started as a Covid measure and then we just never went back to them. Seems unimaginable for a team with a secondary that struggled so much.
Do you know who was Bronco’s DC in his latter years at BYU?
Nick Howell lol
