If Hal Mumme can get this offense rolling

[SMU 86]

Lookout. We can win conference. Big if but no one knows until the first game.

[AusTxPony]

Happy to hear Mason feels good about his defensive depth this year. Most positive he has been while at SMU.

[ponyscott]

The D looks good I understand....great for Mason.

[StallionsModelT]

3 keys

1. Gilbert plays the full season like he did against Tulsa/Fresno
2. Some of the young WR's can get mentally ready to play early
3. No injuries to Lasecki or Gottschalk



If we do those things we can have a special year offensively.

[JasonB]

I have been on record as saying I think the offense will step up this year and the defense will be very good because of our depth of really good players at linebacker and the secondary. I think we are looking at 8-4 or 9-3.

That said, Mason did talk about being a top 25 defense going into last season. So, he has been optimistic before. I haven't talked to him, so I don't know if it at a new level, but just saying...

[SMU 86]

It will be interesting to see what kind of player rotation we have on the defensive line.

[Stallion]

Gilbert is going to have to play a helluva a lot better than he did against Tulsa and Fresno. He was 24 for 55 in those games. This revisionist history is starting to get ridiculous. He threw well under 50% in those games. He never got it last year. He was lost in even the games we won. He didn't play at a high level in the second half of the season. The only difference is when he was lost he decided to run instead of taking sacks and throwing interceptions. Better but he was still lost in the passing game. He needs to actually make plays from the QB position-he needs to complete 65-70% of his passes in a Run and Shoot Offense. he never consistently did that last year which is why he was one of the worst QBs in the country by any yardstick. Hopefully that resulted for a learning curve of the SMU Offense but if he plays like he did in the second half we win 4 or 5 games.

[Grant Carter]

It wasn't just him deciding to run when he was lost, there were called runs, but you are right that he needs to play better

[Charleston Pony]

QB has to make quick decisions and accurate throws in this offense. For most of the season, I was extremely frustrated with Gilbert's play and calling for Coach Jones to give somebody else some time at QB. I agree he needs to improve...a lot...from last year or this is going to be a long season and we will be looking forward to basketball very early in the football season

[StallionsModelT]

I forgot. Stallion is Sportsradamus.

Look princess, what I should have clarified is that Gilbert played better (i.e. not turning the ball over and making better decisions on when to run). What's the matter? No 22 year old bar skanks were receptive to your 50-something Tech lawyer smooth moves at Cowboys Red River last night?

[blackoutpony]

Stallion is right. Gilbert still played like garbage, he just didn't play like a pile of sh*t I'm still EXTREMELY concerned about GG this year. And to all of you who keep saying "oh, he has another year in the system, he'll be better" how did the work out at Texas? He regressed. I pray to god that doesn't happen, but if he starts off awful again, Im just worried that JJ won't have the stones to switch overt to Burcham (since apparently CP won't play this year with the circulation issue in his chest) or someone else. I would hate for us to waste the one season we have in a BCS conference becuase JJ doesn't want to bench his buddies kid.

I really do hope he finally realizes his potential and uses all his god given talents, but he hasn't shown that he can yet

[blackoutpony]

And who stuck a stick up SMT's butt? Jeez

[StallionsModelT]

No one did. The same little queen that said "SMU would rue the day it passed on Todd Dodge" acts like he's incapable of being wrong about anything to do with college football. But being an overweight Tech grad lawyer will give anyone a certain amount of angst I would assume.

[Fooball]

What's the matter? No 22 year old bar skanks were receptive to your 50-something Tech lawyer smooth moves at Cowboys Red River last night?

Someone woke up on the cranky side of the bed. Chill out.

[JasonB]

One of the things I find most interesting about JJ's comments is that he has repeatedly mentioned that the R&S is more vertical, while the air raid is more horizontal.

The vertical offense of the R&S tries to look deep and then move to shorter routes. It is predicated on the position of the safeties pre-snap, and what they do post-snap.

In the last 10 years, defenses have adapted to most offenses running flexible routes. This means safeties move around pre-snap to confuse the recievers and QB, and they delay movements post snap to make it harder to read during the play.

The result of that is an offense that used to make quick decisions now takes forever to figure out what the defense is doing, delaying the initial read. QBs new to the offense take a long time, and then the reads become quicker as they get used to everything. That is the area GG improved in over the course of the season, and should improve in this year.

Since JJ has been here, we have only had one half season of productive QB play. That was Padron's first year. There were two major factors in the high rate of productivity:
1) The offense was simplified significantly for Padron so that quick decisions could be made on shorter routes, leading to a higher completion percentage.
2) Sanders was good enough to force the safeties to make early decisions and early movements. So, when there was a deep ball, the read could be made relatively easily and quickly. Even if the read took a little longer so that intermediate routes had run their course, we could dump the ball off to McNeal and he could make something happen.

A lot of times over the last few years, you see us hold the ball waiting on the safety/deep play, and by the time we decide not to throw it, the intermediate and short routes are complete. So we go into playground mode. This also leads to more drops, because the ball isn't being thrown when receivers expect it, but later in routes.

This is why I think the horizontal/vertical terminology is so important. I believe we are moving to an offense where quicker reads are made immediately on shorter routes, with the occasional deep read thrown into the mix. This will allow for a much higher completion percentage and more consistency on offense.

I do believe we will be much better on offense this season.

One impact it may have, though, is decreased effectiveness in the running game. Other teams knew we looked deep first, so they shut that down, opening up space int he middle of the field for the delayed handoff. with shorter routes, teams will play a little more zone, and that may impact our ability to run the ball.