It wasn't that many years ago we commented regularly that the offense was easy to diagnose and that most of us were calling the play before it happened 80% + of the time. [Ahhh, remeber when we'd get chastised for saying as much, only to later learn we were right.. other teams DID know whart was coming... but I digress.] Under Moorhead, even if we got a bit obvious we always had SB and often a bad call turned into a TD... he was that good.
I think Sanders is very good and now and then he will break one, but i don't have that sense of excitement I got when SB touched the ball.. you just knew it could be 6 EVERY time. So Rahne has an offense with some good features but no one to clean up the mess of bad playcalling except Trace... and maybe that is asking too much. And maybe touting him as the next Baker Mayfield, Heisman winner, savior of the program was a touch too much on the man's shoulders. Just a thought...
The whole year has nearly slipped past us and there just isn't a sense that we've got a plan... that pre-season we were going to run plays with the idea of showing it now, then doing something off of it next week... then something different the week after... and so forth. Jet sweeps are cool but it's the fakes and reverses etc that can/should follow that never materialized. That's just one example.. there a quite a few others.
I've (probably wrong about this) presumed the staff developed a scheme from January to July that had long range plans within plans, strategies designed to confuse the opposition and prevent them from being comfortable they knew our stuff. Add to that my suspicion that we are tipping plays and that with 2 weeks with film their coaches found the trends... piling on, we have what should be a very good offensive line that has looked pretty offensive -- they sure did on saturday.
So I'm no coach, but are my expectations way off? Is it as simple as the coaches try to keep it as rudimentary as possible with the hopes that execution plus talent will win the day? I watch other teams and they seem to have all kinds of gadgets (and did we hang all our hopes on Tommy as the Lion being our primary "gadget"... yikers) and make in-game adjustments to run plays off of previously successful plays. Their kids don't seem to have trouble making the transition.
Admittedly frustrated.
I think Sanders is very good and now and then he will break one, but i don't have that sense of excitement I got when SB touched the ball.. you just knew it could be 6 EVERY time. So Rahne has an offense with some good features but no one to clean up the mess of bad playcalling except Trace... and maybe that is asking too much. And maybe touting him as the next Baker Mayfield, Heisman winner, savior of the program was a touch too much on the man's shoulders. Just a thought...
The whole year has nearly slipped past us and there just isn't a sense that we've got a plan... that pre-season we were going to run plays with the idea of showing it now, then doing something off of it next week... then something different the week after... and so forth. Jet sweeps are cool but it's the fakes and reverses etc that can/should follow that never materialized. That's just one example.. there a quite a few others.
I've (probably wrong about this) presumed the staff developed a scheme from January to July that had long range plans within plans, strategies designed to confuse the opposition and prevent them from being comfortable they knew our stuff. Add to that my suspicion that we are tipping plays and that with 2 weeks with film their coaches found the trends... piling on, we have what should be a very good offensive line that has looked pretty offensive -- they sure did on saturday.
So I'm no coach, but are my expectations way off? Is it as simple as the coaches try to keep it as rudimentary as possible with the hopes that execution plus talent will win the day? I watch other teams and they seem to have all kinds of gadgets (and did we hang all our hopes on Tommy as the Lion being our primary "gadget"... yikers) and make in-game adjustments to run plays off of previously successful plays. Their kids don't seem to have trouble making the transition.
Admittedly frustrated.