How does an offense stop the BLITZ?

94VegasCat · Post by **94VegasCat** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 1:01 pm

When Bass caught his td pass, it was absolutely the best play call all night. We need to be able to dump to the rb in the flats or underneath the safeties in the middle. Somebody mentioned "squirting" the rb through the middle on the blitz. PERFECT. The griz have been throwing the ol pigskin around forever. Do you think that they don't know how to play against a blitzing team. (well they used to know anyway). Screens and draws are perfect for little scat back type runners like Bass.

Another thing that works, is just straight forward running it up the middle. Not with a hand-off 6 yards deep, dives and quick-hitters. Yep, they will be blown up in the back-field on occasion, but they can break open huge runs as well. Lulay is smart enough to make checks at the line of scrimmage.

Many have mentioned running out of the shotgun. We should option out of the shotgun. If the d-end pinches down, roll Lulay out and let him decide if he runs or throws.

What happened to this 2 TE formations we have been hearing about all summer long. Barnhart, Parker, Bostwick......???????? Let's make teams even up on the front and have Bass jam it down their throats!

A question that has always bugged me though is this. Do the CATS purposely run such a VANILLA offense early in the season that they are setting themselves up for failure?? Often times, people are posting on here that "everyone in the stadium knew it was gonna be a run." When are TE motions to a side and stops behind the OT.......it's gonna be a run to that side. Show some variation coaches so that when the opposing D sees it, they can't pin their ears back and come at the hole.

BozoneCat · Post by **BozoneCat** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 5:24 pm

Lulay needs to hold onto the ball longer when we run option plays. On the few occasions we have run the option this year, Lulay has pitched way too early before making the defender commit to him. The one option play he ran correctly was when he kept the ball against SFA and he rambled for a ~40 yard gain by faking the pitch and making the defender jump outside.

BobcatLionFan · Post by **BobcatLionFan** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 5:28 pm

94VegasCat wrote: What happened to this 2 TE formations we have been hearing about all summer long. Barnhart, Parker, Bostwick......???????? Let's make teams even up on the front and have Bass jam it down their throats!

Were the coaches talking about running a two TE set or the Nation?

The TEs are young and not super strong. Thus having them run might not work, would be better off putting DeCock in at one of the TEs and run.

Helcat72 · Post by **Helcat72** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 8:41 pm

El_Gato wrote:How many of you thought like I did that our O-line combined with Bass/JD/Groves would just POUND the ball between the tackles and be successful at it?

Under Jimmy Johnson, the early 90's Cowboys had FIVE running plays; they lined up and told the opposing D "we don't care if you know what we're going to do, you can't stop us". I really thought we'd have THAT ability this season, or at LEAST that mentality starting the season.

However, given the # of times we throw on first down, it doesn't appear that Bailey believes we're that good. This is where I will be a little critical of him; remember our first play on O vs SFA? We ran a high-risk play that lost big yards; we put ourselves behind the 8 ball, couldn't pick up the first down, and had to punt away our first possession. I really thought we'd see more straight-ahead, POWER football. If we don't find ourselves in 2nd and 3rd & long, I think this offense will be very good. When we get in those bad situations, however, Defenses know they can blitz and we will struggle.

Against Cal Poly, when we ran on 1st down, I'd say we picked up 4+ yards at least 75% of the time. Problem was, we'd do that once, end up getting a first down, and then we'd throw on the next 1st down and end up in trouble. I DON'T CARE IF RUN/RUN/PASS IS BORING AND/OR PREDICTABLE, IF YOU CAN DO IT, YOU DO IT!

Bailey and/or Travis' playcalling always has this feeling that we have to FOOL the defense to be successful; whatever happened to just lining up and whipping the man in front of you??? I really thought this O would be that type and I'm not convinced that we aren't.

To paraphrase an old quote, my problem with throwing so much on first down is that four things can happen, and THREE of them are bad! (In our case, there's incompletion, interception, and SACK)

This is my only real beef with the offensive playcalling to date; having Rick back will be huge; I believe the trio of Gatewood/Murray/Guinn WILL vastly improve our passing AND running ability, as D's can't lean toward the line of scrimmage so much.

We definitely need to shore up our "hot reads" vs the blitz; how many times have we seen Travis trying to hold the ball for several seconds while the blitz is pouring in; waiting for his guys to run long and/or slow-developing routes? If he sees those blitzers coming, the ball should be out quickly to a slashing Guinn or Gatewood.

While I think our OL is athletic, I don't think they are physical enough to run the ball down anyone's throat. The only real physical player is Bolton. Figeroa is physical but too short to have enough leverage on a taller defensive tackle to push him around.