It's Nole week... Going to take a different angle on this, and forgive me if this is a bit disjointed-- I am just throwing this out there for fodder.
I think we have proven we have quality players that CAN do well when when the correct plays are called. We have been ridiculously efficient in 2 games (UK and App State) and adequate in others, but we (meaning the offensive coaches) tend to become predictable and unimaginative (there is that word again) in tough games (LSU, MSU, Bama, USC, etc). Its as if the pucker factor down below squeezes so hard that they get no blood to their brains and they run the same plays over and over. Are their heads that far up their a$$es with tough games? If you were able to see the game yesterday, you would have seen a much more vertical passing game than we showed against the previously mentioned tough games. We seemed to actually allow Brantley a chance to be a pocket passer, and the protection seemed to be pretty good except when Brantley panics. He has that tendency to stagger around instead of checking down to the safety valve or throwing it out of bound and ends up taking a sack, but that is a different rant. The running game also was much better since we did have a vertical passing game. It forces the safeties to stay deep instead of assisting in run support. You can't let the good teams stack the box. You can't let first and second team safeties withing 10 yards of the LOS and expect to run the ball, but that is exactly what we did in the losses. We never forced them to stay deep. Its not that we didn't throw deep, we didn't run a deep route at all against them! We did yesterday... and it was a MUCH more effective performance. So why is there such a disparity in playcalling? Why do we seem to have two different offensive strategies and packages? We did not sell out to the full spread offense yesterday. Instead, we mixed it up and it WORKED! We let JB be JB. We let the speedy receivers run down field, we let the O-line pass block and less zone read, and we were able to open up all aspects of the offense. Granted, it was App State, but they are not a bad team, just overmatched. Do we only modify the offense against our lesser opponents? Isn't that opposite of what we should be doing to keep the better opponents off balance? Just some things to think about before we all pucker up for FSU. Go Gators! Scott -- GATORS: ONE VOICE ON SATURDAY - NO VOICE ON SUNDAY! 1996 National Football Champions | 2006 National Basketball Champions 2006 National Football Champions | 2007 National Basketball Champions 2008 National Football Champions | Three Heisman Trophy winners: Steve Spurrier (1966), Danny Wuerffel (1996), Tim Tebow (2007) - Visit our website at www.gatornet.us
