Tux
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Butch Jones ran his zone read offense at his fist two stops and then at Tennessee. The offense worked great against lesser competition. Against SEC and other national powers, the offense has failed to generate any kind of serious running game.
Jones has adjusted his short route passing route tree and we are seeing more vertical routes being run and thrown, with some success. In fact, Justin Worley has turned into one of college football's best passers. It does not hurt that he has one of the more talented group of WRs in the nation.
WRs are the most explosive playmakers on the field and a smart coach is going to do what he can do to get the ball into their hands as often as possible. Thus, you need a good passing QB. That is the biggest prerequisite of QBs to play in this offense on this team.
All teams need to be able to run the football. It is an integral part of the game. In Butch's old version of his offensive scheme, his QB was as important in creating a ground game, as the RB. However, he did not have WRs half as talented as the group he has at Tennessee. He also did not face defenses with athletes as big and as fast as he has been facing in the SEC.
The Vols offensive line was much maligned a year ago, but the NFL vindicated them in the 2014 NFL Draft. The problems with the Vols run game lie more in the scheme itself, than in the the guys who played on the OL last season. This season the issues lie with the scheme and the talent on the OL.
This years OL is young, not huge, not particularly strong, and is without any true offensive tackles in the line up. Butch is playing two offensive guards at offensive tackle. Butch is partially culpable for the failure to recruit quality offensive tackles in his two recruiting classes. Derek Dooley is equally at fault for the failure to recruit OTs too. Butch came here believing that he could recruit tall, thinner, and mobile offensive linemen and play them at tackle in the SEC. He has learned that he has to change his faulty recruiting paradigm in order to put together a good OL in this league. He is no longer in the MAC or the Big East.
Butch is also seeing that he is having to change his run blocking in order to open holes for his RBs. We saw him use some lead blockers to open up holes against Oklahoma and it worked well. Using lead blockers, as he did is not truly part of his zone read scheme. However, it worked.
Shortsighted fans want to blame Worley for the run game woes for not keeping the ball and forcing the defensive ends from crashing. There is a reason why he dies not keep the ball. The coaches have likely instructed him to not keep the ball. They understand his value to the team's offensive success.
The zone read May work in smaller conferences and the read option may work at Auburn where they run the ball 70% if the time and more. However Tennessee is playing in the SEC against the predominant defensive linemen in the nation. If your offense throws a lot and you have a plethora if talented WRs as UT does, you need to be able deliver the ball to them accurately, something most mobile QBs can not do on a consistent basis.
Knowing that your team does not truly have the talent to run the zine read offense, why does a coach continue to do so? They say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
Maybe Butch is waking up and realizing that he can still run a spread offense with some changes to the run blocking. I sure hope he has had an epiphany. If not, we may become a better program due to the influx of talent to the program. However, how long does the continued recruiting success last without major victories and lots if them? I firmly believe that our future success depends on Butch Jones adapting his offensive scheme to his talent and to the defenses personnel of the SEC. A major part of that adapting is dumping the Zone Read run game.
Jones has adjusted his short route passing route tree and we are seeing more vertical routes being run and thrown, with some success. In fact, Justin Worley has turned into one of college football's best passers. It does not hurt that he has one of the more talented group of WRs in the nation.
WRs are the most explosive playmakers on the field and a smart coach is going to do what he can do to get the ball into their hands as often as possible. Thus, you need a good passing QB. That is the biggest prerequisite of QBs to play in this offense on this team.
All teams need to be able to run the football. It is an integral part of the game. In Butch's old version of his offensive scheme, his QB was as important in creating a ground game, as the RB. However, he did not have WRs half as talented as the group he has at Tennessee. He also did not face defenses with athletes as big and as fast as he has been facing in the SEC.
The Vols offensive line was much maligned a year ago, but the NFL vindicated them in the 2014 NFL Draft. The problems with the Vols run game lie more in the scheme itself, than in the the guys who played on the OL last season. This season the issues lie with the scheme and the talent on the OL.
This years OL is young, not huge, not particularly strong, and is without any true offensive tackles in the line up. Butch is playing two offensive guards at offensive tackle. Butch is partially culpable for the failure to recruit quality offensive tackles in his two recruiting classes. Derek Dooley is equally at fault for the failure to recruit OTs too. Butch came here believing that he could recruit tall, thinner, and mobile offensive linemen and play them at tackle in the SEC. He has learned that he has to change his faulty recruiting paradigm in order to put together a good OL in this league. He is no longer in the MAC or the Big East.
Butch is also seeing that he is having to change his run blocking in order to open holes for his RBs. We saw him use some lead blockers to open up holes against Oklahoma and it worked well. Using lead blockers, as he did is not truly part of his zone read scheme. However, it worked.
Shortsighted fans want to blame Worley for the run game woes for not keeping the ball and forcing the defensive ends from crashing. There is a reason why he dies not keep the ball. The coaches have likely instructed him to not keep the ball. They understand his value to the team's offensive success.
The zone read May work in smaller conferences and the read option may work at Auburn where they run the ball 70% if the time and more. However Tennessee is playing in the SEC against the predominant defensive linemen in the nation. If your offense throws a lot and you have a plethora if talented WRs as UT does, you need to be able deliver the ball to them accurately, something most mobile QBs can not do on a consistent basis.
Knowing that your team does not truly have the talent to run the zine read offense, why does a coach continue to do so? They say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
Maybe Butch is waking up and realizing that he can still run a spread offense with some changes to the run blocking. I sure hope he has had an epiphany. If not, we may become a better program due to the influx of talent to the program. However, how long does the continued recruiting success last without major victories and lots if them? I firmly believe that our future success depends on Butch Jones adapting his offensive scheme to his talent and to the defenses personnel of the SEC. A major part of that adapting is dumping the Zone Read run game.
