My take o n our situation after watching and re-watching 3 games;
- Gus’s offense is complex and confusing. Although he is a savvy offensive mind, these kids seem confused by this offense and this contributes to our failure to execute like we should. It’s obvious that our offensive line is not executing like it should either and that contributes to the lack of QB play as well. It’s hard to pick out a receiver when you are fighting for your life. The game is lost or won up front just as it always has been.
- This is a veteran offensive line and there’s no excuse for them either not knowing the offense or executing better. That’s the result of poor motivation and accountability IMO.
- For some reason, Gus and/or Lashlee have gotten away from the zone read which has been so successful for us with our QB’s in the last few years. The lack of a mobile QB has caused defenses disrespect what the QB can do on the ground. The results are obvious. JJ has to become more mobile if we are going to have success. If a QB is no threat on the ground, you have problems like we have. Perhaps this is Gus’s fault for not calling these plays concerned with JJ getting hurt. Who knows?
- It’s obvious that some of Gus’s philosophy relies on “big plays” rather than sustained drives going with what works best. He seems to get too creative and fancy and stalls drives with poor play calling getting greedy. This contributes to our defense being on the field too long and getting gassed. I think our offense sometimes reflects Gus’s personality and when the big plays don’t come, they give up.
- It’s obvious that our lack of success in recruiting top defensive talent in the recent past has become a factor both in terms of talent and depth. It would seem that Gus has focused more on amassing offensive talent while ignoring the need for top defensive talent. We have had some success with players like Monty and Lawson but have had to rely on JUCCO players to fill the gap we failed to fill with HS recruiting. This year, so far, seems no different although I think the T. Rob and Muschamp affect with pay dividends soon. I hope so anyway.
- I believe that our defensive philosophy in the past has also resulted in some bad habits by the players and the defensive coaches have had to coach some of these players out of these bad habits. Some of these players have played under three defensive coordinators and this has to have been confusing at best. Playing so many freshmen may also be a problem.
In any event, our linebackers aren’t filling gaps, our defensive ends are getting blocked inside and over-reacting, and our defensive linemen are getting man-handled. That has to be either poor coaching, poor motivation, or lack of talent. Lesser talent at other schools are performing better than us and this is puzzling.
- Our wide receivers, for the most part, haven’t performed up to standards and seem to be confused as well. It’s obvious that some are “dogging it”, like Duke while others are not being utilized. Part of it seems to be miscommunication between the receivers and Johnson with one or both of them having this problem.
