One of our most successful plays was a fake pitch left and then hitting the tight end down the middle. The fake pitch resulted in linebackers sprinting to their right opening up the middle so even an imperfect pass (nice catch) went for a substantial gain. I have long maintained that misdirection should be a large part of any Irish gameplan. Teams that play Notre dame are fired up and the defenses sprint to where they think the ball is going. Ara knew this; Lou knew this. The belly option doesn't count as misdirection as that is one of the most common plays in football. Let's make some effort to confuse the defenses we face. It is hard to pound it out when 11 guys are headed to the point of attack.
Misdirection
- Thread starter Moher
- Start date
Really, because our opponents, even titans like tOSU, have such an inferiority complex in the presence of holier than thou ND, that they will naturally and overzealously, and more important reliably and predictably overrun basic plays, so much so that it can totally be worked against them.
This a new dimension to ND arrogance that I haven't encountered yet. But according to you, previous coaches have actually game-planned around it.....
This a new dimension to ND arrogance that I haven't encountered yet. But according to you, previous coaches have actually game-planned around it.....
Agreed. After that successful play (where the TE was wide open), I wondered the rest of the game why we didn't do anything like that again.
There needs to be a safety valve when the QB is blitzed. Rees did it last year but not against OSU. Some of his play calls are random so even if something works you may never see it again. Buchner is an average QB so there isnt much upside going forward.
Agreed. I wanted to see more of that fake pitch. I wanted to see play action, rolling out, throwing to the backside of the formation. Run options with buchner and pitching to Tyree working to attack the perimeter. I wanted to see quick end around and maybe a reverse. With OSU putting a safety in the box. Through the air and towards the sideline is what you need to attack. The longest run was tyree on a sweep. You could have built on that and done play action. Frustrating to see show moments of brilliance and then go vanilla.
That is a moronic statement about TB. The kid has had 1 freaking start, 1!!
When you figure that out let me know why we stopped running #7
I'll take 3 and outs of my RB is punishing the tacklers and then they get real shy and short arm the tackles.
We love the 3 and out series so we might as well run #7 more and pretty soon he starts getting 5 and 6 yards.
Oh well....
Let me know what you find out
Lol how do you judge Buchner to be average in a single game vs the #2 team in the country?
Thats ridiculous
I just can't believe we tried to make the game plan simple for buchner vs difficult for OSU. Pretty much every play (except maybe the first frichan play of the game) was clearly a designed run or designed pass.
There's so much opportunity with buchner to have calls that look like a run but end up being a pass. They suck the LBS in and provide so much room to throw. The fake pitch is an example. The easiest frichan play ever but because of buchner and the threat of a run the lbs all flowed with the pitch.
It was very obvious after the first 2 series Zeke/Lugg were in bad shape. Yet we kept letting the middle of our line be what crushed our offense.
Yes, there were play calls to get the ball down the field that were there for the taking, but they required buchner to stay in the pocket right behind center and lugg/zeke to hold up for over 3 seconds. A blind person could tell that they weren't holding up. So yes, I HAVE A HUGE problem with rees play calling because buchner in the pocket over and over again wasn't going to work at all with our IOL obvious issues. As a play caller if someone is getting whipped, you get them help or you don't let them be the reason your offense gets wrecked. Yes, up the middle is probably the worst spot to be getting wrecked, but we NEVER adjusted to that. Reese's adjustments second half were more plays that needed them to hold up longer. I want him to be aggressive downfield, but have some rollouts or slide the line, etc etc. Or get someone else in that's capable. 3 years in a row of Zeke Lugg major issues.
Is Rees just responsible for X's O's and QBs, or is he responsible for the execution of the entire offense? My guess is no team in the big ten has less yards than ND did vs OSU this year. I don't think the OSU defense we just played is as good as Clemson this year or even Cincy last year, definitely not Georgia/Bama D. OSU D is much better than last year but they didn't wow me. The wows came from how bad our offensive execution was on what should have been easy plays.
Our secondary was better than I expected, but our offense was much worse.
There's so much opportunity with buchner to have calls that look like a run but end up being a pass. They suck the LBS in and provide so much room to throw. The fake pitch is an example. The easiest frichan play ever but because of buchner and the threat of a run the lbs all flowed with the pitch.
It was very obvious after the first 2 series Zeke/Lugg were in bad shape. Yet we kept letting the middle of our line be what crushed our offense.
Yes, there were play calls to get the ball down the field that were there for the taking, but they required buchner to stay in the pocket right behind center and lugg/zeke to hold up for over 3 seconds. A blind person could tell that they weren't holding up. So yes, I HAVE A HUGE problem with rees play calling because buchner in the pocket over and over again wasn't going to work at all with our IOL obvious issues. As a play caller if someone is getting whipped, you get them help or you don't let them be the reason your offense gets wrecked. Yes, up the middle is probably the worst spot to be getting wrecked, but we NEVER adjusted to that. Reese's adjustments second half were more plays that needed them to hold up longer. I want him to be aggressive downfield, but have some rollouts or slide the line, etc etc. Or get someone else in that's capable. 3 years in a row of Zeke Lugg major issues.
Is Rees just responsible for X's O's and QBs, or is he responsible for the execution of the entire offense? My guess is no team in the big ten has less yards than ND did vs OSU this year. I don't think the OSU defense we just played is as good as Clemson this year or even Cincy last year, definitely not Georgia/Bama D. OSU D is much better than last year but they didn't wow me. The wows came from how bad our offensive execution was on what should have been easy plays.
Our secondary was better than I expected, but our offense was much worse.
"There needs to be a safety valve when the QB is blitzed."
While conceptually, I agree, there were 2 times where Buchner had no chance of doing anything with the football other than eat it and live for another play. Better he do that than something foolish.
"Buchner is an average QB so there isn't much upside going forward"
Let's let the book of the season (12 games) be written before we make that judgement. 1 game is not a sample size.
The only issue with this is nobody gives a shit about your year over year know nothing whinning about our coaches, but by all means ride your keyboard and continue your useless drivel. It does make for a good laugh.
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"I just can't believe we tried to make the game plan simple for buchner vs difficult for OSU. Pretty much every play (except maybe the first frichan play of the game) was clearly a designed run or designed pass."
The game plan for ND was to limit the amount of offensive touches for OSU - ND did not want to get into a shootout with them. And defensively, be physical and keep everything in front of them. To that end, ND was ultra successful (save for the ill-called safett blitz and the gut wrenching 95 yard drive). ND could have been a little more creative, but OSU also knew ND was not deep at receiver and the QB was playing his 1st tru game in 3 years (yes, he played PT last year, but this is different being the #1 guy). OSU practically dared ND to throw the ball, knowing either could not or would not (would love to know what was going through Rees' mind). Also -- missing Patterson on the OL really hampered ND's ability to do anything OSU was killing ND's OL all night long -- especially in passing situations.
Let's see how things develop over the course of the next few games/season before we start writing people off.
You didn't have to get into a shootout and you can limit possessions but still be creative and keep OSU D off balance. Our offense playcalling looked like early season Coan offense last year instead of what you would expect from a physically gifted QB. You don't have to sling it all over the field, but have some creative run plays, some pass run options for buchner to read. Roll outs, etc etc.
Remember early last season rees was calling a lot of slow developing downfield pass plays leading to sacks because the oline almost never held up. See second half vs OSU after seeing the first half our oline getting blown up minus one series.
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Also, why they went back to dreadful edge runs east/west instead of keeping Estime going north/south.
Kind of like Brian Kelly never left because nobody and I mean nobody loves that long developing play more than him.
See ND out-coaches itself never committing to one thing and working off that one thing to expanding into a few other things.
They can say we're going to "establish the run" but it's all bullshit. They don't commit to it.
Running laterally against a fast defense is falling right into what they want.
ESPECIALLY since we have everyone spread out and the defense can see evertything that's going on.
It's Mickey Mouse offensive football.
Remember Holtz...(since he's a huge reference point as of late)
He loved running the ball. Big time!! He comitted to it. The opposition knew it was coming and it didn't matter.
He also had a great sense of feel on what play, when and who should be running that particularly play.
Example... remember Adrian Jarell? He had a grand total of 21 catches in his entire career.
Oh but on one glorious day of Game of the Century against FSU Lou had him run an end around for a 32 yard score.
Nobody ever seen that coming and especially the who.
Jarell finished his career with 3 carries( 2 as a freshman) 1 carry against FSU the end around...
21 catches for 283 yards combined.
He had a way of keeping players interested even if given a little morsel of playing time but got them excited and they felt important.
Meanwhile Lee Becton made Florida State and their all world "fast defense" look pedestrian. Lee Becton wasn't big nor fast. He was quite slow but he was gettinh 6 yards before he even had to make a move.
That was committing to run the damn ball. We don't do that whatsoever.
We do things by default. Well let's give Tyree his lateral touches now against a fadt defense completely oblivious to #7 punishing the defense.
Until ND is truly comitted to one thing or the other they won't see any top playmakimg players. Nor should we!!
It’s not just that easy my friend. When good teams blitz they will game plan where a teams “hot read is” and they’ll be ready to rally and tackle. To beat a blitz you have to be able to pick it up and attack the weakness left behind.
When defenses blitz you they’re trying to get a sack or a turnover. They’re happy with yielding modest gains or incomplete passes as opposed to being torched.
check downs are good when everything is taken away but when you’re throwing a hot when the defense knows where that hot is you’re asking for a pick 6
There needs to be a safety valve without question but I have to tell you over the last several the #1 option in the passing game is the safety valve.
I always say the BK signature route... 3 yard curl and sit route.
You can't possibly tell me they're instructed to use that route as option #1 most times yet that's exactly what we did/do most times. Either the QB doesn't trust himself to thread a pass to a true #1 or #2 route...or they're told just look this way, look that way...hit the 3 yard curl route.
I want to believe that isn't the case but god damn we do it so much.
Curl and sit, curl and sit...back shoulder sideline pass...curl and sit, curl and sit....
Lenzy at least twice a game should be targeted on a 8-10 yard crossing route. Hell you never know he might take one the distance.
He get's no crossing routes. Matter of fact how many fly patterns or go routes did he run against OSU? I counted zero. I'm pretty sure he's got elite speed but again it's just not utilized.
BK's offense is not comparable to the offense ND ran against OSU. BK was rarely blitzed especially during HH 1st stint. I said check downs are a solid option when everything is taken away by coverage, not when your QB is under pressure from a blitz because the D knows where the hot is and you're opening yourself upto turnovers.
You beat a blitz by picking up the blitz and attacking the hole left by the blitz. Sometimes thats an intermediate zone and sometimes that's putting a safety in conflict with a 1/4s beating concept which is gonna require some pass-pro.
BKs defense to his all go routes all game philosophy was that he would always get quarters or cover 6 coverage and I guess that's a way to attack 1/4s. I'm not a football genius, so I don't really know.
I remember Brees and Tirico calling out his lack of diversity in route combos, but the rare times they ran dig*6) routes, they would have great success..
I think something must have happened to BK in his coaching career where his teams got burned with some INTs from running digs and slants. He defended his lack of slant routes as they can get easily picked and taken the distance, but his lack of creativity on offense always baffled me.. It was quick stuff in the flat or 9 routes. Like in Water Boy where coach was intimidated when his playbook was stolen haha.
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