OSU on predictably of Tennessee offense

[savannahfan]

I’ve been wondering about this. Is the lack of creativity on offense due to the inability of the players to execute more dynamic plays?

Also, I know I have seen this mentioned before, but why will our defensive backs not turn their heads and try to make a play on the ball? Some of those OSU receptions could have been intercepted or at least batted away. Are they coached to just watch the receivers’ hands and just try to get their hand in there when they see the receivers raising their hands to make the catch?

This is the big question. Are they taught or are they unteachable? If it is the latter, bad recruiting. So for me it all comes back to short comings with the staff.

 

[JohnWardForever]

This was already touched on above.
There is nothing to see here. We have a bad Oline- it was bad in the spring, bad in the summer, and bad all fall. You can’t run our offense - or any offense other than pound the rock without a good one. And pound the rock don’ exactly fly when you are facing an NFL D line.
We will be MUCH better in another year. 2024 overachieved in my opinion.

Arkansas defensive coordinator Travis Williams made some similar comments after the Razorbacks' win against Tennessee in early October.

"When I go home, I'm watching a lot of tape by myself," said Williams. "That's kind of when I get my thoughts and I said you know what, every time they (Tennessee) got this look, they did this. And it's [going] back to 2021, 2022, just watching every team that they played and trying to get a beat on, you know, what are their identities once they see a certain look. And I saw it, I said the whole goal is, okay, if we can get them to 12 personnel then perfect, we got them. We got them where we want them. You know, kinda playing our type of game. They got in 12 personnel so we switched personnel to fit that." When you are predictable, it doesn't matter how Talented you are; these days, everyone has Talent.

 

[JohnWardForever]

Tennessee coaches should do what other teams' coaches do, Study TENNESSEE"S tendencies, and change them. They are getting worked .....I submit this is simply laziness, if your opponents have figured you out, and you don't change, stubborn, lazy, or incapable .

 

[smoltie29``]

This offense was great and fun to watch early on. What's surprising is it was better with players left over from the Pruett era than it has been with CJH own recruits. Even when it was successful i always wondered how it was because it seems like there are certain areas that aren't attacked by this offense. Number one is the outside run is never used. With the exception of a few speed options a year or zone read keeps by the qb all of the runs are in between the tackles. There are no jet sweeps or outside runs because of the wide splits. In the passing game, because of the wide splits, the defense doesn't have to worry about any out patterns by the outside receivers. The only throws outside the numbers are fly patterns or hitches.

 

[Stoerner Fumbles]

Hazle is Heups Randy Sanders.

Heupel called the plays when Golesh was here, and did again this season.

 

[VOLfrombama]

I'm not sure Hype is capable of adjusting. He certainly hasn't shown that ; and with 3 weeks to prepare, had nothing different for osu, And if He really studied their team, should have known they were equipped to stop his offense. No contingency plan, just let Nico run. That's not a plan at all.

It sure seems that way. But I know one thing, the gameplan goes right out the window when your QB is running for his life. OL has to get way better. Not sure if they can either.

 

[Majors]

Just confirms what most of us already know. It's like Heupel isn't trying to find the strength of this team. Instead, he just thought he was gonna line up and out talent them boys. No wrinkles, no creativity, nothing new. Where'd the genius playcalling go? Im starting to believe this offense will never be explosive again without a speed demon like Hyatt at WR. He was the magic.

https://atozsports.com/nashville/volunteers/ohio-state-defender-confirms-suspicion-tennessee-offense-buckeyes-vols/

Or he did find the strength to his team and it got us to the playoff.

 

[Majors]

Go back and look at the comments/complaints from UCF fans about Heupel's offense, staff and recruiting. You'd think you were reading this board.

Since those post, their coach left and became an OC at FSU. Tough times in Orlando.

 

[VOLINVONORE]

This offense was great and fun to watch early on. What's surprising is it was better with players left over from the Pruett era than it has been with CJH own recruits. Even when it was successful i always wondered how it was because it seems like there are certain areas that aren't attacked by this offense. Number one is the outside run is never used. With the exception of a few speed options a year or zone read keeps by the qb all of the runs are in between the tackles. There are no jet sweeps or outside runs because of the wide splits. In the passing game, because of the wide splits, the defense doesn't have to worry about any out patterns by the outside receivers. The only throws outside the numbers are fly patterns or hitches.

There are no jet sweeps because our Olinemen can not pull and block the defenders and we lose yardage. Our recruiting has been ranked pretty high but those players have not seen the field very much. Many of the players we have taken from the portal have not produced as expected. I maybe wrong, but it appears our coaching staff was able to “coach up” players who were here when they arrived better than players they have recruited. Our line can not protect the QB, our receivers can not get sept, and our running backs have difficulty in picking up blitzes. I believe our new LB coach is a good recruiter and coach. He just doesn’t yet have the talent or depth , especially when Pili went down. Our defensive line has the best coach in college football and when we get proven talent at LB and Safety, we will be in great shape. My concern is the apparent quality of our offensive staff, especially at WR
Next year will be a tale tell season for Heupel and his staff. If some changes are not made, AD White will have to earn his money.

 

[bigorangepoppa]

Like it or not, Sampson was the one that dictated how this offense would preform. He wasn’t ready to play in a game of this size, whether it was injury or sickness or whatever. Our WRs couldn’t get off press coverage hardly at all. You had Bru that did a little work out there but mostly even when “open” it was very tight windows. Oline pretty much sucked all game.

So idk if they had some advanced game plan or anything but they weren’t able to execute it. Whatever prep the staff put in was totally wasted on complete lack of execution.

I read an article a couple of days ago where one of OSU players said they studied film and the defensive coordinator figured out that when Tennessee would do on offense by the alignment they were in. Tennessee did just exactly what the film showed they would do. They didn't call an audible to switch the offense to another play when OSU aligned in a defensive set to counter the alignment of the offense. Not hard to shut the other team is that vanilla.

 

[KTrain]

Time off prior to games hasn’t helped us much. See Arkansas game.
Resting and healing up is the only benefit.

Playing night games on the road in the SEC or B1G is never easy especially with a Freshman QB and the SEC player of the year injured had just a few rushes and 2 of your WRs injured Sq & Donte and Bru has been good but not the same as he was pre injury. The odds where stacked against us. I was hoping for some good karma but it was worse than I thought it would be. We got the OSU that played Oregon not the one that didn't show up at a noon game vs Michigan. They are not as great as we made them look and we were at our worst in play and no dynamic players available.

 

[MikeHoncho724]

It's true, but the same stuff was said about Chip Kelly in past seasons. I suspect the lack of creativity is more the result of the O-line issues. There's only so much you can do when the D is in your backfield within 1-2 seconds constantly. We desperately need help on the O-line next year.

And let's be honest ... the game was over in the 1st Quarter when our D couldn't stop anything. D has been great for most of the season, but looked severely outmatched against OSU. Once we were down 21-0, game was over.

All in all, we got beat by a better team that played their best game of the season.

Has a lot to do with how fat and out of shape our lineman looked. Getting beat on the line like that is a talent/strength issue.

 

[DeepSpringsVol]

I can't speak to the offensive side. Defensive though. In warmups when Ohio State was lined up throwing against air it was on my side of stadium where the Horsehoe is closed in the detached part. Both the throws to Jeremiah Smith at end zone were exactly as they lined up and where he ended up. I thought that placement was perfect but no way he (Will Howard) will have the time to convert that with our defensive front. I was wrong. The exact same formation and placement. So my question is do our coordinators in press box watch the other team warming up and watch for that in chance they can call it down?

 

[smoltie29``]

There are no jet sweeps because our Olinemen can not pull and block the defenders and we lose yardage. Our recruiting has been ranked pretty high but those players have not seen the field very much. Many of the players we have taken from the portal have not produced as expected. I maybe wrong, but it appears our coaching staff was able to “coach up” players who were here when they arrived better than players they have recruited. Our line can not protect the QB, our receivers can not get sept, and our running backs have difficulty in picking up blitzes. I believe our new LB coach is a good recruiter and coach. He just doesn’t yet have the talent or depth , especially when Pili went down. Our defensive line has the best coach in college football and when we get proven talent at LB and Safety, we will be in great shape. My concern is the apparent quality of our offensive staff, especially at WR
Next year will be a tale tell season for Heupel and his staff. If some changes are not made, AD White will have to earn his money.

I dont believe personnel is the reason we don't run jet sweeps. He's not run a jet sweep or outside zone in the four years he has been head coach. It's his system. You can't run that type play with the way we set up with the defense already spread out wide.

 

[smoltie29``]

Just confirms what most of us already know. It's like Heupel isn't trying to find the strength of this team. Instead, he just thought he was gonna line up and out talent them boys. No wrinkles, no creativity, nothing new. Where'd the genius playcalling go? Im starting to believe this offense will never be explosive again without a speed demon like Hyatt at WR. He was the magic.

https://atozsports.com/nashville/volunteers/ohio-state-defender-confirms-suspicion-tennessee-offense-buckeyes-vols/

Our offense has slowed down a lot in the past couple of years. In the first 2, they played lightning fast. Now, they line up and look over to the sideline. I thought it was an issue with Milton, but they do the same thing now. Have to wonder if playing at lightning speed the first 2 years made it harder for defenses to make pre-snap reads and get lined up right causing coverages busts. We had receivers running wide open under Hooker. Playing slower like we have been seems like it allows the defense to get lined up and get reads on what might be coming.

 

[BigOrangeTrain]

I've seen enough open receivers this year who didn't get the ball to believe that the offense itself is fine - it's the execution on OL and QB being there that isn't. I mean really, really open receivers. We all saw them. There were a lot of 20+ yard pass plays left on the field. Nico, at least, is an underclassman and can hopefully find more of those open receivers next year. Don't know about the line.

I would like to know why Tennessee stopped using much, if they used any, pre-snap motion. We saw a lot of that in 2021 and 2022. Less last year, and even less this year.

When did you see all these open WRs? Certainly didn’t see many against any good teams.

 

[Dro]

This offense doesn't work when going at the tempo we have the past 2 years except against cupcakes. Either Huepel needs to bring in an OC totally revamp the system or find a QB that can run it properly if Nico cant.

Its pretty simple and easy to defend when the defense has time to read what youre doing. Alot of our touchdowns and big plays the first 2 years came off coverage busts and catching the defense scrambling out of position.

Our offense has slowed down a lot in the past couple of years. In the first 2, they played lightning fast. Now, they line up and look over to the sideline. I thought it was an issue with Milton, but they do the same thing now. Have to wonder if playing at lightning speed the first 2 years made it harder for defenses to make pre-snap reads and get lined up right causing coverages busts. We had receivers running wide open under Hooker. Playing slower like we have been seems like it allows the defense to get lined up and get reads on what might be coming.

 

[carolinaviking]

I think the play calling and offense from the 2022 season now resides at USF. Love CJH hope he’s here for a while but he needs to make 2 calls the first is an Oline coach our current one isn’t working out fully and the second a co-OC our QB all have looked incredibly under prepared since we changed OCs

You know, punctuation and capitalization matter.

 

[jasonvol18]

This was already touched on above.
There is nothing to see here. We have a bad Oline- it was bad in the spring, bad in the summer, and bad all fall. You can’t run our offense - or any offense other than pound the rock without a good one. And pound the rock don’ exactly fly when you are facing an NFL D line.
We will be MUCH better in another year. 2024 overachieved in my opinion.

There's actually plenty to see here. We have becoytoo predictable and it wasn't just the Ohio St game. I think Heupel is too stubborn to change, but would love him to turn it over to an offensive guru that isn't as predictable.

 

[PharmDVFL]

The predictability is 100% on Josh Heupel and our OC. Heupel is stubborn but I’m hoping that he changes and brings someone creative in from the outside.

 

[I40VOL]

A 22 million dollar roster makes a difference, simple question, after watching Ohio st offense and defense, what players or positions could leave our side and automatically start and made them better. Then ask the same question about the coaches.

 

[Undercs]

Heupels offense seems to have been figured out 2 years ago. We thought it was all Joe Milton's fault last year.

The o is a hs offense that really relies on run first to set up the pass, basically an option pass game, if any d has a competent line and shut down the run, ball game. The O has the least sophisticated route tree ever. RUTS on teams with marginal talent, get beat by teams that stop the run and play man on the outsides.

The ceiling is what has been seen, beating Bama twice, has been the catalyst for the delusion that Heupel is a genius.

 

[volfan411]

This offense doesn't work when going at the tempo we have the past 2 years except against cupcakes. Either Huepel needs to bring in an OC totally revamp the system or find a QB that can run it properly if Nico cant.

It’s pretty simple and easy to defend when the defense has time to read what youre doing. Alot of our touchdowns and big plays the first 2 years came off coverage busts and catching the defense scrambling out of position.

this offense will only work when it is ran with tempo and neither Nico or Joe could do that.

Hopefully Nico grows into a Hooker type QB but if not Heupel has to either change his philosophy or find a QB who can run his system.

 

[volfan411]

The predictability is 100% on Josh Heupel and our OC. Heupel is stubborn but I’m hoping that he changes and brings someone creative in from the outside.

Has nothing to do with predictability it has all to do with tempo. When we can play with tempo the defense doesn’t have time to adjust but when we slow down the defense has time to communicate and adjust.

 

[VOLINVONORE]

Has nothing to do with predictability it has all to do with tempo. When we can play with tempo the defense doesn’t have time to adjust but when we slow down the defense has time to communicate and adjust.

Surely you do not believe that.