[BostonCard]

I have to ask then, why did we keep running that type of play? Keep trying until we get it right? It's all a matter of execution?

1) Mostly because Love was so good that when it did work, it resulted in a 40 yard touchdown.

2) You can't look at it as a binary process.  It's not like the play worked 100% of the time when Gerhart was running behind Maricec and a pulling DeCastro (it just seemed like it). So maybe one opponent (I remember WSU most prominently) stops you most of the time.  You wouldn't want to just give up, would you?  You would want to determine if that was a particuliarity of the defense you just faced that is hard to replicate, or that once other defensive coordinators have film they will immediately be able to adopt.  You would analyze the film and figure out if you could scheme around that.  You'll remember around that time we tried several things, including having the QB turn around and try to block the backside DE.  Or maybe you see if you can exploit an overaggressive DE, which Love was able to do.  Coordinators are constantly playing a cat and mouse game, and a defensive coordinator will figure out a way to stop a play that was previously working, and then the offensive coordinator will tweak the play to overcome that weakness, and back and forth it goes.  This doesn't just happen to us, by the way.  Remember when Oregon scored 53 points against Stanford in 2011.  The very next year, we held them to 14.

3) You can't just abandon a play; you have to replace it with something.  That something was Duo, but it didn't just materialize out of thin air.  We brought in a new offensive line coach who could install it, and teach the OL how to run it.  The OL had to practice it.  It takes time.

I think it is weird to expect that at the first sniff that an offense has had trouble that the first thought is that the offense should be chucked.  That year, when we held Oregon to 14 points and seemed to have solved Kelly's offense, they went 12 - 1 and averaged almost 50 points per game.  To me, it's like any other sort of troubleshooting; first you have to determine if it is a reproducible problem.  Then you have to figure if there is a way to fix it.  And only if the answer is no do you chuck it and buy something new.

BC

[BostonCard]

I have to ask then, why did we keep running that type of play? Keep trying until we get it right? It's all a matter of execution?

1) Mostly because Love was so good that when it did work, it resulted in a 40 yard touchdown.

2) You can't look at it as a binary process.  It's not like the play worked 100% of the time when Gerhart was running behind Maricec and a pulling DeCastro (it just seemed like it). So maybe one opponent (I remember WSU most prominently) stops you most of the time.  You wouldn't want to just give up, would you?  You would want to determine if that was a particuliarity of the defense you just faced that is hard to replicate, or that once other defensive coordinators have film they will immediately be able to adopt.  You would analyze the film and figure out if you could scheme around that.  You'll remember around that time we tried several things, including having the QB turn around and try to block the backside DE.  Or maybe you see if you can exploit an overaggressive DE, which Love was able to do.  Coordinators are constantly playing a cat and mouse game, and a defensive coordinator will figure out a way to stop a play that was previously working, and then the offensive coordinator will tweak the play to overcome that weakness, and back and forth it goes.  This doesn't just happen to us, by the way.  Remember when Oregon scored 53 points against Stanford in 2011.  The very next year, we held them to 14.

3) You can't just abandon a play; you have to replace it with something.  That something was Duo, but it didn't just materialize out of thin air.  We brought in a new offensive line coach who could install it, and teach the OL how to run it.  The OL had to practice it.  It takes time.

I think it is weird to expect that at the first sniff that an offense has had trouble that the first thought is that the offense should be chucked.  That year, when we held Oregon to 14 points and seemed to have solved Kelly's offense, they went 12 - 1 and averaged almost 50 points per game.  To me, it's like any other sort of troubleshooting; first you have to determine if it is a reproducible problem.  Then you have to figure if there is a way to fix it.  And only if the answer is no do you chuck it and buy something new.

BC