That’s kind of wild, though. If Anae somehow had an offense that didn’t require in depth QB reads and had super simple route trees for the receivers that produced (with mostly this group of players) top 10 offense, then why is that bad?
I get that it was extremely unbalanced, the team hardly needed running backs. But it feels like there’d be value in relatively simple (and thus probably easy to pick up) passing schemes that are also effective.
Possible answers:
(I’m not necessarily against the offense, and I thought it was nice that our offense seemed good last year, and I am amping up my contrarianism on this QUITE A BIT)
Dont think our defensive struggles had much to do with the offense not giving them time to rest as much as they were just bad and poorly coached. It does prep guys like Jelani Woods for example. And Poljan got a chance. We are never getting elite talent regardless due to the inherent built in disadvatanges of recruiting to UVA academically. Lets just win football games lol. Sound like Calipari trying to prioritize getting guys pros.
Seems like a lot of people forget the Hoos were a 4-8 team last year … only 6-6 officially because of 2 missed opponents chip shots.
Did anyone expect better than 4-8 this year with a new staff and no recruiting time and no offensive line? And a QB who threw a ton of fades and jump balls last year that got caught?
That’s a great question and it comes down to philosophy and what you want your team to be as a coach and a fan.
The cynic answer is: The offense is gimmicky and does not prepare players for the NFL. Yes there are exceptions to every rule, but generally speaking the Timmy Chang’s of the world don’t pan out at the next level. That brings me to my next cynic comment, the gimmicky pass happy offenses do not hold up against disciplined talented teams at the top level. Every so many years we see a Group of 5 gimmick their way to the big show and get worked by Bama, UGa etc. In a P5 conference that’s harder to pull off. Mike Leach for all that he has accomplished in his career aint beat nobody to win the conference. Chip Kelly did it with all the toys and got worked when he met the best.
The Optimistic answer is: It does work and I’ll take the explosions and gaudy stats and 4 6-6 season for that one year it all clicks or we get the next Cam Netwon and just ride that wave.
Cal prioritizes guys getting to the pros so he can get better talent so he can win more college hoops games. It’s all a weird, elaborate swindle that he’s gotten everyone to buy into. Cal doesn’t care about pro hoops. I watched Cal try to coach the Nets; I can guarantee you it wasn’t really his thing. 
(this was a tangent, but I had to say it)
I used to read stuff like this about hoops back in the day, too. We never got top 5 talent, but it’s turned out okay.
The point isn’t to bring in elite talent – I know we’re not the SEC. The point is to improve it, and Bronco wasn’t.
I’m really out of my element here, but basically Bronco was a replacement coach who dumped us. Tony E might suck, but it’s still a bit early, and I don’t know we have to pine after a system that had us in the Fenway Bowl.
UVA’s inherent position in football is completely different than basketball. And football and basketball recruiting are two different phenomena. This aint the 90s anymore where a team like UVA could be #1.
Some did since we had the 3rd easiest fbs schedule. Its going to get a lot worse next year.
Most definitely, but I think while the comparisons are lazy and overdetermined, they are a bit inevitable.
Woods got drafted because he’s 6’6 280 and Bronco was smart enough to let him run around and throw the ball to him. He is everything the NFL wants right now. There will always be exceptions. Woods also is not a UVA product he went to finishing school at UVa but he learned route trees blocking etc at Okie St.
That was always my greatest gripe about Bronco he believed he could make anyone into a football player and I saw a bunch one 1 and 2 stars walk in and leave as 2 and low 3s. That’s nice improvement I guess, but it doesn’t move the needle.
This
This…
For all those stats Bronco’s offense put up, Last year’s team limped to .500. Bronco’s greatest UVa team got destroyed by Clemson, beat a 6 win?!? VPI… Oh and he walked out on the Hoo so he could saunter in to a big payday at a bigger school (if you don’t believe that’s happening you don’t watch CFB)
Don’t know that Coach Elliott is the CTB for the football program but not he’s essentially inheriting the same thing Bronco did and, that London did.
That’s the problem with banking on results by schedule. Go back and look at that schedule now that the teams are actually on the field. A combined 13-2… That’s not a shitty schedule.
Yep. This ain’t an easy schedule. Maybe looked that way at the start but teams like cuse and Illinois have performed far above expectations
The professional oddsmakers? Our win total was 6 or 7, I think.
They were drastically off. Oddly Vegas has struggled with the Hoos for a few years now. Last year the O/4 was 4.5 and they easily blew by it. I’ve said since Aug that the 6.5 for this year was off and should have been closer to 5 or 5.5. And I still tuck the under before a snap was made. But Vegas has also been horrible with O/U for Virginia scores last year the over hit the majority of the time until late in the season when they caught up to the new offense. This year the lines have been extremely high and still have not adjusted through 5 weeks to account for the sluggish offense.
All that said, to say Vegas is great at what they do, but O/U on win totals esp on college football is not how they make their money.
Bro.
Bro.
Bro…
Bro, I just want to be able to beat Duke.
The most valid critique of Anae’s (and other air raid) offenses I’ve heard is that it the real problems it causes for the defense is in practice. Not letting them rest in games is overblown as there are so many stoppages built into modern football. The real issue it can create is the defense doesn’t get to practice against a real running attack and thus gets gashed by opponents in games. Players don’t know and aren’t disciplined in their run fits.
Holds up pretty well to the defense last year but doesn’t explain as much the 1.5 years prior to that when the run defense was fine and the pass defense was already abysmal.
Haven’t done much college football gambling since Roethlisberger was tearing up the MAC, but I always found it much easier to find some misplaced lines than in college hoops. I’d buy Phil Steele**, check out the lines, and the bad lines would just pop right out. In college hoops, those lines get real good, real quick, (usually by late December / early January). There’s a lot of data really quickly and things are just less volatile. But none of this has anything to do with the topic…
** That guide was amazing. He had a whole page dedicated to telling you how he organized some sort of weird TV cube in his home office with 9 games at a game, and then he’d brag about how he could watch that many games at once. I was torn between immense respect and extreme revulsion at the life he must be living.
That was my favorite part of summer throughout my college years and into my 20s Getting the season preview with Phil Steele and reading it cover to cover until I had it memorized. My guys and I were like savants back in those days.
Generally speaking I think you’re spot on with the assessment. It’s a big reason I bet college football and actually enjoy it. The early season there are so many unknowns that it takes 6-8 weeks before everyone catches up. With every program essentially under lockdown until the season openers and it’s tougher to analyze HS film to see if it will translate to the pros on top of that we don’t have endless hours of AAU/sneaker ball we can watch and know everything a kid does or endless off season game footage to watch
Not much CBB value in the big conferences because of the reasons you laid out but going hard on 1-2 mid or low major leagues is still one of the most profitable ways to sports bet