Why did we move away from our offensive identity throughout the year?

[Vols1891]

What happened to our fast paced, hurry-up offensive philosophy? We seemed to move away from it in the OU game and never went back to it.

 

[BernardKingGOAT]

What happened to our fast paced, hurry-up offensive philosophy? We seemed to move away from it in the OU game and never went back to it.

Much of it, I believe, has to do with Nico

 

[JRich]

Ability, at all positions.

 

[imw8n4u]

I've been wondering the same thing. My theory is it may be due to the in helmet communications where they can talk to Nico down to 15 seconds on the play clock. Normally we would have signaled in the play and snapped it long before that, but it seems they want to take as much advantage of that communication as possible.

 

[McDad]

Much of it, I believe, has to do with Nico

Yeah. It's a LOT to ask a RS Freshman with a porous Oline and inconsistent receivers to run the offense at that pace.

 

[CAVPUT]

What happened to our fast paced, hurry-up offensive philosophy? We seemed to move away from it in the OU game and never went back to it.

Lack of the ability to run that offense....both physical and mental.

 

[volmandu]

We went back to it a few times when offense was flowing .. but we never had any rhythm to get any tempo going.. Part of it if young QB and part of it is OL protection issues.

 

[Chitlin&theDude]

For it to work properly, you need a decent gain on 1st or 2nd down, which we didn't get enough of. And you can't have penalties, which we had a lot of.

 

[vik]

What happened to our fast paced, hurry-up offensive philosophy? We seemed to move away from it in the OU game and never went back to it.

What happened was that Hendon Hooker graduated.

It's becoming apparent that he was one of a kind. We need a dude that makes quick decisions and then commits to that decision. This is not a knock on Joe Milton, nor Nico, but with Hendon, you could tell he would do one read on his primary, another read on his secondary, and if either of those were open (or nearly open), he'd let it rip. If he felt any pressure, he would take off running. If there was no pressure and he had time to go back to read #1 he would, but if that was not there, he would tuck and run.

If it wasn't there, then it wasn't there -- and HH would move on immediately to the next progression. In my opinion, Milton and Iamaleava both seem to linger a little bit longer on a read and maybe hope it comes open. HH, on the other hand, was already to the 2nd read and/or tucking and running.

We get positive yards or a 1st down, then we can go fast. JMHO.

 

[aaronvol]

Wrs can't get open, line can't block, etc.

 

[BLUTickbusdriver]

What happened was that Hendon Hooker graduated.

It's becoming apparent that he was one of a kind. We need a dude that makes quick decisions and then commits to that decision. This is not a knock on Joe Milton, nor Nico, but with Hendon, you could tell he would do one read on his primary, another read on his secondary, and if either of those were open (or nearly open), he'd let it rip. If he felt any pressure, he would take off running. If there was no pressure and he had time to go back to read #1 he would, but if that was not there, he would tuck and run.

If it wasn't there, then it wasn't there -- and HH would move on immediately to the next progression. In my opinion, Milton and Iamaleava both seem to linger a little bit longer on a read and maybe hope it comes open. HH, on the other hand, was already to the 2nd read and/or tucking and running.

We get positive yards or a 1st down, then we can go fast. JMHO.

I agree…Hooker was very, very good at analyzing the field and making a quick decision…which coincidentally helped his O-line and receivers out. This year’s extra “one potato,” and sometimes two potatoes or more, we are taking to decide to run or pass hurt us…which is making the receivers look extra bad, and making the O-Line look worse than it really is. Whatever we do going forward the QB has to be, like Hooker, more time-oriented on the reads and subsequent option(s), otherwise you could have the second coming of Nash, Gault, and Peerless Price in the group and it wouldn’t matter.

 

[AstonRoyal]

What happened to our fast paced, hurry-up offensive philosophy? We seemed to move away from it in the OU game and never went back to it.

Honestly I'm not a 100% sure that it works on the top tier teams. It does feel like when we play talented defenses that it doesn't work quite as well. I don't have any evidence, it's just more from eye test more than anything else so I could be completely off because then again, not going fast didn't necessarily work against OSU...

 

[BernardKingGOAT]

Yeah. It's a LOT to ask a RS Freshman with a porous Oline and inconsistent receivers to run the offense at that pace.

I'm certainly not running Nico down here. I just believe with his inexperience and indecisiveness, there was no way Heupel could unleash this offense

 

[McDad]

I'm certainly not running Nico down here. I just believe with his inexperience and indecisiveness, there was no way Heupel could unleash this offense

Nico seems to be very grounded. I bet he'd be the first to admit his game in our system has a lot of room to improve.

 

[TheFlash1971]

We SUCKED thats the reason.

 

[orangerush]

No vertical passing game except when we play cupcake teams.

 

[SayUWantAreVOLution]

Just food for thought here. I can think of two QBs who have run Josh Heupel's offense at a pretty high level: MacKenzie Milton (now at UCF again with Scott Frost who originally recruited him) and Hendon Hooker, recruited by Pruitt. Obviously, Joe Milton struggled with the offense at UT.

At UCF, Dillion Gabriel ran the offense about as well as Nico as a true freshman. Gabriel won the starting job over former ND QB and 3rd ranked dual threat QB in his recruiting class Brandon Wimbush, who apparently had problems with the offense.

I'm wondering what it is that the stars have to be assigned "just so" for only 2 QBs, so far, to really excel in Heupel's offense?

 

[VolsFan-TX]

As previously mentioned by others, the OL and WR groups limited some of the offense. Additionally, CJH knows a strong running game significantly helps the defense too. We won 10 games with the lineup we had. If we tried the speed we used under Hooker, we may have lost some of those games by giving the other team’s offense more snaps.

 

[bpalmer28]

Too risky given Nico’s early-season issues and WRs inability to get open and catch passes.

 

[BradstarVols]

I think part of it was Josh being worried about his D getting gassed

 

[OrangeVolMan]

Yeah. It's a LOT to ask a RS Freshman with a porous Oline and inconsistent receivers to run the offense at that pace.

It’s a lot for a QB who can’t read defenses, makes decisions slowly and stares down WRs.

 

[BernardKingGOAT]

I agree…Hooker was very, very good at analyzing the field and making a quick decision…which coincidentally helped his O-line and receivers out. This year’s extra “one potato,” and sometimes two potatoes or more, we are taking to decide to run or pass hurt us…which is making the receivers look extra bad, and making the O-Line look worse than it really is. Whatever we do going forward the QB has to be, like Hooker, more time-oriented on the reads and subsequent option(s), otherwise you could have the second coming of Nash, Gault, and Peerless Price in the group and it wouldn’t matter.

Yep. Great QBs make the entire offense look better. If a QB stares down the receivers he wants to throw to, they don't have a chance. Great QBs stare down the opposite side of their intended target(s)