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I'm fairly new to this board, and a recent supporter of SMU. It's important for SMU to have a great football team because of the positive publicity and name recognition a great football team gives to the school. How many more applications for admission will Northern Illiniois receive this year?
As disappointed as I am in the record this year, and in the very conservative play-calling on offense (although I am glad that we threw a few times on Saturday), we have to remember that we are an extremely young team. With youth comes mistakes. We must give Coach a chance at another recruiting class (or two) and allow these young players an opportunity to become seasoned players.

Appreciate your support and rational post, but just for the record, we had 30 pass attempts vs 36 rushing plays. Unfortunately only 14 of the passes were completed which makes it seem like we didn't pass much. That is a fairly balanced game plan.

<small>[ 10-06-2003, 04:24 PM: Message edited by: PK ]</small>

The balance was almost ideal, according to Coach Bennett, who like many coaches has said he'd like to be close to 50-50 between the run and the pass. But more of those passes need to be caught, and maybe a little further downfield to force the defense to back up a little from the line of scrimmage - thereby allowing KK a little running room.

Wouldn't that mean that the players just need to start making the plays? If we are running a balanced offense, then the only thing that is stopping us from succeeding is our ability to execute. Granted that is based entirely off the number of plays called. I will agree with a lot of people that our playcalling doesn't surprise anyone. What would be intersting to see would be stats concerning when we chose to run, and when we chose to pass, was it on first down, was it when we were only third and long, that kind of information might provide some clarity to many of the current arguements raging on this board.

<small>[ 10-07-2003, 09:48 AM: Message edited by: abezontar ]</small>

Interesting stats PK.

One possible consideration/explanation of the relatively vanilla offense is the personnel and relative newness of the offensive system. Basically, that you're going the run the plays you think you can execute.

I've taken enough abuse today, so I'm not going out on a limb to state that's the absolute reason. But it could be a factor in the overall complex picture.

Just another example of how stats can lie. How many passes on first down? How many passes on 3rd and long? How many drops? How many wrong routes? How much pressure on the QB--hurries.