The Bobcat Nation

At this point, it's obvious that we either don't know how to do it or don't have the players to do it.

I will say this: I'm not calling for anyone's head, but if Bailey can't figure out how to make other teams pay for blitzing, where does he stand?

If his blitz packages aren't working, is it because they're not designed well or because we don't have the personnel to execute them properly?

Neither of those answers is good for our team; either Bailey doesn't know how to design a gameplan to account for blitzing, or our recruiting has gotten us athletes who aren't capable of stopping it.

At this point, I've never seen a team get blitzed as much as we have since late last season; if blitzing was simply that effective against ANY football team, why don't you see it everywhere and why aren't we able to do the same thing to our opponent's offenses?

This is my biggest area of concern for this ballclub right now. If NDSU is sending the kitchen sink and we can't move the ball consistently (like last night), I think we've got some hard questions to answer...

El Gato,

I said in a post before the game that Cal Poly's defense applies preasure from everywhere and can force a good offense into bad mistakes. I still feel you have a good offense that will only get better when you get Gatewood back. Good luck to you the rest of the season.

It wasn't just CP that blitzed our skulls out though. Every team has blitzed us consinstently since about EWU last year.

I agree Bailey needs to figure out how to slow it down, or teams that normally don't blitz are going to do so because they know it is our downfall.

How to stop a blitz?

Effective running game....It's something we haven't had in quite a while.

If we can't run, then we can't use play action to slow down the backers.

Our running game wasn't too bad, but unforunately we got done very quickly so we had to more or less abandon it very early on.

wbtfg wrote:How to stop a blitz?

Effective running game....It's something we haven't had in quite a while.

If we can't run, then we can't use play action to slow down the backers.

Hit the nail on the head here. Until you can establish a running game, Lulay will be running for his life. Teams now have last years Griz game and yesterdays game to see tape on how to stop the Bobcats. Pressure, pressure and more pressure.

Keep as many offensive players in Pass Pro as there are defensive rushers. Of course this is a conservative approach given our talent at the skilled positions. But so is the concept of passing from the pocket.

The second most effect way to beat the blitz is to put your QB where the blitz aint. I mean roll him out, sprint him out and/or even move the pocket. This won't happen as long as the coaching staff has the mindset that we can't risk getting T Lu injured and therefore must keep him in the pocket.

That conservative mentality will not win us many more games and could result in an injury anyway. Don't assume that I'm blaming the offensive coordinator. I think Krams has a lot to say about how aggressive our offense is and how much risk we take w/our QB's. I would point out that all three or our passers are mobile and come from HS programs that put added pressure on defenses with their mobility. There's no reason why the Bobcats can't do the same. If you question the soundness of that idea...consider Urban Meyers Spread Option Offense.

One final point. If we're going to have an aggressive offense...The Spread... let's really make it dangerous. Let's put the QB in the gun, give him a real advantage on his pre snap reads and add a fraction of a second to his dicision making and throwing time. I would add that there is not a single running play that cannot start from gun.

I think a fairly simple solution is vary the playcalling. If we could keep the defense guessing at what we are trying to do we have already won half the battle. Take last nights game, our defense seemingly had no clue what was coming at them, if they thought run then it was a pass, if they thought pass here came the option. Whereas, everybody at the stadium including the SLO defense pretty much knew when we were going to run or pass. In that case you make the defense a step faster making the play because there is no hesitation while our D was constantly standing there trying to read the play. I know it's easier said than done but take a page out of the SLO book and try and call a play they aren't expecting for a change.

Also in retrospect, it seems that Kramer in this case shouldn't have been so characteristically honest in his comments leading up to this game. All his talk about getting outcoached and basically outsmarted by Ellerson seemed to come to reality.

Gordo wrote:I think a fairly simple solution is vary the playcalling. If we could keep the defense guessing at what we are trying to do we have already won half the battle. Take last nights game, our defense seemingly had no clue what was coming at them, if they thought run then it was a pass, if they thought pass here came the option. Whereas, everybody at the stadium including the SLO defense pretty much knew when we were going to run or pass. In that case you make the defense a step faster making the play because there is no hesitation while our D was constantly standing there trying to read the play. I know it's easier said than done but take a page out of the SLO book and try and call a play they aren't expecting for a change.

Also in retrospect, it seems that Kramer in this case shouldn't have been so characteristically honest in his comments leading up to this game. All his talk about getting outcoached and basically outsmarted by Ellerson seemed to come to reality.

You make a good point in that it appeared as if we were waiting on defense for the play to come to us. I didn't see any penetration on defense. By the time the play developed they had two or three blockers out in front of their ballcarrier and mowed our defense down. We have to start attacking.

How to stop the Blitz:

1) Run the ball. If you can't do it inside, then fake rush up middle and pitch the ball going outside and get the LB's that are blitzing bunched up on inside.

2) If RB isn't effective blocking picking up the blitz, then he is worthless then in the backfield if its going to be a pass. Either go empty backfield and put in extra TE or squirt the RB through the line to where the Blitzing LB's were. That BASS slant pattern was a perfect call on the blitz. No one picked him up (as they were blitzing) and it was a TD.

3) Roll the Pocket.

4) Screen passes, roll QB right or left .. let blitzers through and screen pass back the other way.

MISDIRECTION AND TRICK PLAYS:

Pitch to RB on a sweep and roll QB off to left and have RB pass it to him. If we have a RB that can throw I'm sure they will not have anyone that can cover Lulay or will be covering him etc.

Plain and simple, until we can establish the run and break some bigs plays running the ball we will see 8-9 in box and Blitz Blitz Blitz. We need to have our offense play against 12-13 man defense in practice and practice blitzing them etc. so we can practice/get in synch with some of those HOT ROUTES you need when the blitz comes. The SLANT to Bass was perfect.

Also, LULAY needs to learn how to throw the ball away as well instead of taking loss of yards/sacks all the time. I know he is a competitor, but if its not there do not FORCE the ball. Our offense will get better with Gatewood in there as he has been in the system a year. LIke we did last year we are struggling a little bit on offense.

THIS IS NOT WHAT HAS ME WORRIED THOUGH.

DEFENSE DEFENSE DEFENSE.

We could not stop the run in the 2nd half AT ALL when we knew it was coming. Force/Fuller were the only one's making plays (and that was 6-7 yards up field). Where are our vaunted LB's in this 3-4 .. they were no where to be found over the middle (were they getting blown back? overpursuing or what?). And if the middle was so soft, why was the outside so soft as well? I understand the option spreads your defense out, but I just did not see any playmakers out there?


Anyway, I have vented ... we played a very tough team on Saturday and 1) Didn't play very well 2) Turned the ball over for 2 scores for the other team 3) Did not tackle very well 4) Did not block very well. I know ever team has a bad game and to me this was a very bad game. The only thing we need to take from this game is this.

NORTH DAKOTA STATE THIS WEEKEND. I want to see some heart/fire out there this weekend as this is a pride (state grudge game) and I want to see some playmakers on both sides of the ball. If they Blitz, we need to beat them down the field. If we even have to run Lulay on some naked bootlegs to beat the Blitz then so be it (even if risks getting him hurt). He is our wildcard and we need to use him more. The drives were scored on he was running on some plays and that totally makes their defense take a step back and THINK about blitzing us.

NDSU GAME .. BE THERE .. BE LOUD! LETS GET A WIN THIS WEEKEND.

GO CATS!

2Cats wrote: One final point. If we're going to have an aggressive offense...The Spread... let's really make it dangerous. Let's put the QB in the gun, give him a real advantage on his pre snap reads and add a fraction of a second to his dicision making and throwing time. I would add that there is not a single running play that cannot start from gun.

I think the Shotgun would help as well .. and have some pre determined run plays away from the blitz that everyone up front will block that way for if they see it and an audible is called etc. Lulay can beat you with his feet ... if they blitz .. he needs to do that EVERY TIME ... POISON for BLITZ. If they don't, then shotgun will give him extra time to pick apart the defense with the added time.


I will give major KUDOS to Cal Poly though. Their front 7 isn't any better w/o beck, but their secondary overall is way better I thought. That is a very very good team we just played. It will be very interesting when they play the Griz and see how Washington handles that blitz.

I know that this point has been made, but I want to reiterate it: Bailey HAS to come up with a game plan to counter the blitz! It is getting a little ridiculous that teams sending the house at us are continuously killing our offense. I also am getting tired of watching our running backs bouncing EVERYTHING outside. These guys have been playing to much Madden. Our backs think that they need to get 20+ yards on every play, so they try making something happen by bouncing outside. If they just run the ball up the middle they will get 5+ yards instead of 1-2 yards. If the Cats want to make the playoffs they had better get their minds set.

G.W.Bush wrote:I know that this point has been made, but I want to reiterate it: Bailey HAS to come up with a game plan to counter the blitz! It is getting a little ridiculous that teams sending the house at us are continuously killing our offense. I also am getting tired of watching our running backs bouncing EVERYTHING outside. These guys have been playing to much Madden. Our backs think that they need to get 20+ yards on every play, so they try making something happen by bouncing outside. If they just run the ball up the middle they will get 5+ yards instead of 1-2 yards. If the Cats want to make the playoffs they had better get their minds set.

Thats not how I play madden Inside running is the trick to being good at Madden. Madden 06 is a VERY realistic football game as far as running. You play against the good rush defenses on there (Patriots/Steelers/Chargers) and you DO NOT RUN the ball to the outside on them. You have to pound them between the tackle.

On a side note, I would like to see them use Bolton more as a fullback and try and POUND TEAMS in the mouth between the tackles (the smaller teams that blitz) and get those 4-5 yards a pop etc. I did notice a little drop off in the Cal Poly Blitz once we started running it a little on those between the tackle plays. It forces them to quit pinning their ears back and account for blockers coming through the holes AT THEM etc. I'm a Charger fan and in the 92/93/94 seasons when Bobby Ross was there they would use an H back in motion across the line and WHAM BLOCK a blocker inside the left/right guard gaps to get that extra blocker in there for Natrone. It was VERY successful (Pupunu was the H back). That makes sure we have an extra run blocker in the mix in the middle of the formation (Bolton would be very scary as the WHAM blocker ).

One person I'm wanting to hear from on this topic is Mr. Quast. As an offensive lineman that went through this system, I'm curious to hear from you on a few different topics.
1) How do you grade the boys-in-the-trench efforts from Saturday night. By this I mean not just straight up blocking but audibles, blocking schemes, the various things these guys can do to open holes and pick up the blitz schemes better.

2) Where do you see them needing to improve in this topic?

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.

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.

Or to Bass in the slot as well. That was a very nice hot read he made on that one. If Bass can't block well in the backfield against a LB, then we need to put him out in space and make that LB that will be accounting for him move out to guard him (takes away one extra LB blitzer). It is as simple as that as the RB. A nice flip out pass play to the RB is just what we need on those. We had a ton of those last year to Domineck in the flat when we faked rolling Lulay left and then had him flip back and pass over to Domineck. Just a hunch, but I bet we see some of these type plays this weekend

Good point, CC.

I agree that Bass looks like he can be a receiving threat.

Even WITH our suspect blitz protection, I'd love to see us line up with 5 WR's: Gatewood/Bass/Murray strong side, Guinn/JD weak. Bass and JD run quick slants into the middle, Rick runs a flare under Bass & Murray(WR screen, basically) to the strong sideline with the potential to catch & run, Guinn runs about a 10 yard hitch on the weak sideline, and Murray runs a post or fly to draw the safety deep. If the D single covers those guys, they can send 6 but I like our chances with those 5 guys in single-coverage.

This follows up my question about solving the blitz; in my opinion, the best answer is to ATTACK a blitzing Defense with mulitple threats/quick hitters, rather than trying to hold in enough guys in the hopes of picking up the extra pass-rushers...

CARDIAC_CATS wrote:

2Cats wrote: One final point. If we're going to have an aggressive offense...The Spread... let's really make it dangerous. Let's put the QB in the gun, give him a real advantage on his pre snap reads and add a fraction of a second to his dicision making and throwing time. I would add that there is not a single running play that cannot start from gun.

I think the Shotgun would help as well .. and have some pre determined run plays away from the blitz that everyone up front will block that way for if they see it and an audible is called etc. Lulay can beat you with his feet ... if they blitz .. he needs to do that EVERY TIME ... POISON for BLITZ. If they don't, then shotgun will give him extra time to pick apart the defense with the added time.

I will give major KUDOS to Cal Poly though. Their front 7 isn't any better w/o beck, but their secondary overall is way better I thought. That is a very very good team we just played. It will be very interesting when they play the Griz and see how Washington handles that blitz.

agreed, shotgun formation almost all the time, short routs to take advantage of blitzing players, including screen passes, draw plays, sprintouts...ect

My be I'm off base, but there are two things I noticed about the Blitzs

1) There were no sacks until the end of the 3rd Q and the score was 35 to 10. Cal Poly then had 5 sacks in the last two positions of MSU. So they were bringing everything when MSU HAD TO PASS. They wanted MSU to run to use time. (sometimes last impressions are what you think the game was?)

2) we knew going in that #53 on Cal Poly was a future NFL player. He was 2nd in Bucannanon voting last year. So he was going to have pressure. Lulay was going to be forced out of the pocket because this guy was the best we will see ALL YEAR (fosmark will be OK compared to him).

The total yards for each team didn't match the score (only 90 yards difference). It sounds like we had a couple to many fumbles (snaps in many cases). When you have a bad snap, it is truely a KILLER. Lost down and minus yards with nothing.

It was commented that we didn't make cal Poly pay for the blitzes. This problem is increased because our receivers were a long way from full strength. Miller and Gatewood obviously didn't play. If they focused on Murray, then it was tough. Brown hasn't shown much all year (in catching the ball, he gets open, but has to catch the ball). Also, Lulay has to be the guy on the blitzes, He has to read them just prior and after the snap (if he actually gets the ball on the snap) and adjust the play before hand if he see's it coming or do instant check offs if it develops after the snap.

Most teams blitz if they see an open backfield, immediate call by the linebackers because there is no run threat. If you have a full backfield and TEs, they do the opposite (watch the run and back off in zone against only a couple receivers.) So they tend to blitz when you don't have blockers (amazing concept).

CARDIAC_CATS wrote:
I will give major KUDOS to Cal Poly though. Their front 7 isn't any better w/o beck, but their secondary overall is way better I thought. That is a very very good team we just played. It will be very interesting when they play the Griz and see how Washington handles that blitz.

Beck was good,

But I would say that Chris Gocong kid is a stud. Better than we've see so far this year and will be a draft pick this spring.