RN Roundtable: 3-4 Defense, Outlook on the O-Line, Focus Areas for the Hogs

[jkstock04]

Plays Vs. P-5 Opponents

                      O        D
TCU                72       90
A&M                82       59
Alabama           84       51
Ole Miss           83       70
Auburn             64       69
Florida              75        51
LSU                  55        67
Miss St             67        68
Missouri            85        56
Va Tech            65        78
                      732      659
                      73.2     65.9

I'm a little slow today, what do these stats show in contention with what I said?

[hawginbigd1]

Why?

Cause he said so, and you can say anything on the internet.

[MuskogeeHogFan]

I'm a little slow today, what do these stats show in contention with what I said?

Your contention was that we needed to return to more of a ball control style of offense. We already average about the equivalent of one more drive worth of plays against our P-5 opponents on average for the season. There were specific exceptions like TCU, LSU and Va Tech where they ran significantly more plays than we did and two others where the number of plays were similar, but in 50% of our P-5 games we ran significantly more than the competition.

Just information that related to your comment.

[elksnort]

An aggressive defense works better for our overall philosophy which is controlling the ball and the clock, right? Either get in there and get stops and get off the field or give up a big play and....get off the field. We don't want our defense on the field as a rule of philosophy. IF we can make this work then questions of depth aren't very relevant.

Disclaimer: I am not worried about depth on defense.

Interesting take about playing aggressive/risky in order to get the defense off the field. I agree.

[jkstock04]

Your contention was that we needed to return to more of a ball control style of offense. We already average about the equivalent of one more drive worth of plays against our P-5 opponents on average for the season. There were specific exceptions like TCU, LSU and Va Tech where they ran significantly more plays than we did and two others where the number of plays were similar, but in 50% of our P-5 games we ran significantly more than the competition.

Just information that related to your comment.

So with that information at hand is it your opinion that we actually did run a smash mouth, run the ball, bleed the clock mentality? Cause to me it seemed like our passing game was the strength. O line was a mess and we couldn't run the ball well. But maybe that's just my perception and not reality.

[LZH]

So with that information at hand is it your opinion that we actually did run a smash mouth, run the ball, bleed the clock mentality? Cause to me it seemed like our passing game was the strength. O line was a mess and we couldn't run the ball well. But maybe that's just my perception and not reality.

I think we ran the ball fairly well for the most part.  But I also think a whooooole lot of people underestimate how good Brandon and Austin Allen are and the job Enos did/has done with them.  We would have missed a bowl game two out of the past three years without them.  I know you could say that about a few other players, maybe, and other QB's can play, too.  But the passing game was the strength at times because of who actually played QB.

[Mike_e]

Smashmouth Defense wins games.

Sure rope-a-dope will win sometimes but even Ali only used it the once.

Make the other guys unball their fists and put their hands over their heads is the way to win games.  If you let them keep throwing shots then sooner or later they will land enough to beat you.

[MuskogeeHogFan]

So with that information at hand is it your opinion that we actually did run a smash mouth, run the ball, bleed the clock mentality? Cause to me it seemed like our passing game was the strength. O line was a mess and we couldn't run the ball well. But maybe that's just my perception and not reality.

It looks like we did in 7 of our 10 P-5 games. It wasn't always successful and some of that has to do with the defense not being able to get more 3 and out's. There were only 4 games that we didn't exceed 70 plays each game and 70 plays on Offense is a lot of plays for our style of offense.