DMN- Will this be the breakout year for the R & S?

[Dr Death]

One last note and question to Dr. Death, now that Colt Brennen has been pushed out of the league what do you think of recruiting him as an Assistant QB Coach at SMU? I think he could be the "hands on" leader by example that maybe KP and the rest need, sorta monkey see, monkey do may be what has been missing. He may also become a great recruiter.[/color]

In the future, Colt may do that. Right now, he's intent on getting a shot to play football. This kid has had the worst luck of anyone I've ever known. To recap... he goes to Colorado as a Freshman, a girl invites him back to her room, he was drinking, they made out, he left. Next thing he knows, he's being charged w/ burglary and "fondling" the girl. The fondling charges were dropped for lack of evidence but Colorado, who had a huge sexual situation w/ the football team explode just prior to that, said no more. So they boot him off the team.

He can't find any colleges willing to give him a chance, so he goes to Saddlebrook, which is like Div 3 level, leads them to a championship and June sees film of him. He reminded June of Jeff George in his throwing motion. So June tells him to "walk on" at Hawaii, which he does. Then, 2 years later he breaks 40 NCAA passing records and the following year leads them to a 12-0 record. Then they get to face the mighty power, at the time, Georgia, who had D-linemen like Hawaii had never seen.

So he gets killed in that game and his stock plummets. He gets drafted in round six and his first pre-season he was the leading QB of all the guys that played in the league. Led 3, 4th quarter come-from-behind wins, completed 67% of his passes and threw 0 interceptions. Also proved he could make all the throws. Second year, he gets hurt, but plays through it hoping to win the 2nd team QB spot. The injury affected his ability to push off when throwing... it was a hip injury... and he wasn't as sharp. He still made some "Oh-my-God" throws, but the injury got so bad they had to pull him from a game and place him on the disabled list for the year.

His third year, Shanahan takes over and waits until after the first day of training camp to cut him. Shanahan wanted his own guys... he got rid Jason Campbell, Todd Collins and Colt. Colt signs w/ Oakland, who was dealing w/ injured QB's, but he only threw one pass for them, a 14 yard completion, and never got more than a "Thank you" despite many Bay area reporters writing about how sharp he looked in practice and was throwing the deep ball better than anyone on the team.

Sits out the year, gets in serious car wreck last November, heals from that, the NFL is on Lockout Mode, so he signs w/ the UFL's Hartford Colonials and then... about a week ago... the team folds. Right before the season is set to start.

Colt has all the intangible things you want in a QB; accuracy, leadership, the ability to play and win in the clutch and come from behind... and he can make all the throws... yet he can't get a call. Meanwhile, some of the jokers in the league, like the backups in Indy and Arizona and SF and Oakland... I don't know... but if this kid ever gets a break and proves everyone wrong, it will make one helluva movie.

Some day, he may want to coach. I know he loves Hawaii... the state and the team... so I could see him going there, but reuniting w/ June might appeal to him as well. For now though, he's still trying for a shot.

[Stallion]

You guys saying we are loaded at WR-come back and let's talk after the Texas A&M game. I think you're going to see they are going to have big problems against Texas A&M's pass defense especially A&M's CBs just like they did against UCF's vetearn team and just like they did against TCU's defense last year which completely shut SMU's passing game down in the final 3 quarters when SMU completed what was it about 25% of its passes. We got some guys that put up big numbers against defenses rated 118 and 115 and then disappear when we play quality teams. Can these WRs step up to the next level of play which we rarely see.

[One Trick Pony]

I always try and stay hopeful and positive till the first snap.

[White Helmet]

You guys saying we are loaded at WR-come back and let's talk after the Texas A&M game. I think you're going to see they are going to have big problems against Texas A&M's pass defense especially A&M's CBs just like they did against UCF's vetearn team and just like they did against TCU's defense last year which completely shut SMU's passing game down in the final 3 quarters when SMU completed what was it about 25% of its passes. We got some guys that put up big numbers against defenses rated 118 and 115 and then disappear when we play quality teams. Can these WRs step up to the next level of play which we rarely see.

32%

[Mitch McConnell]

Don't like this offense
Never have liked this offense
This is not an offense that will win championships

IMO It's not physical enough in tough/tight games when you need to run the clock and physically kick somebody in the arse.

And I'm stuck with 3rd-and-1 and watching us throw a low percentage deep ball.

That said, this offense's success is going to be predicated on how opportunistic the defense is. This defense is built to create turnovers so the offense can strike quickly.

That didn't happen in 2010. In fact, I think SMU was something like minus-9 in the turnover ratio last year. So you could say to go 7-7 with that kind of turnover ratio is a bit stunning.

Defense has to provide more of a short field. If it does that, then the offense can put up the numbers fans are hoping to see.

[Stallion]

You guys saying we are loaded at WR-come back and let's talk after the Texas A&M game. I think you're going to see they are going to have big problems against Texas A&M's pass defense especially A&M's CBs just like they did against UCF's vetearn team and just like they did against TCU's defense last year which completely shut SMU's passing game down in the final 3 quarters when SMU completed what was it about 25% of its passes. We got some guys that put up big numbers against defenses rated 118 and 115 and then disappear when we play quality teams. Can these WRs step up to the next level of play which we rarely see.

32%

yeah about that. Padron was 5 for 6 in First Quarter then once TCU realized SMU came to play Padron was 9 for 29 in the Final 3 Quarters. That ain't great in a pitch and catch offense which should at least complete 60% of its passes.

[Mitch McConnell]

That also happens when a non-physical team plays against a physical team and can't throw enough haymakers for 4 quarters.

[ponyboy]

What is the point of this? No one said we are "loaded" at wideout. One poster reported that we'd improved in athletic ability in the receiver spot based on the practices he's seen. And then Stallion sets up his usual straw man, this time the contention that we're absolutely loaded at receiver. And then, shock of all shock, he proceeds to tear down said straw man by attempting to show how we have fared -- and will fare -- against some of the nation's toughest defenses in last year's TCU and this year's A&M. It's such an old pattern and really makes you question his motives in even bringing up the subject. Personally, I think his feelings are hurt that Dr. Death came on here with some lucid commentary.

[Wuba]

What is the point of this? No one said we are "loaded" at wideout. One poster reported that we'd improved in athletic ability in the receiver spot based on the practices he's seen. And then Stallion sets up his usual straw man, this time the contention that we're absolutely loaded at receiver. And then, shock of all shock, he proceeds to tear down said straw man by attempting to show how we have fared -- and will fare -- against some of the nation's toughest defenses in last year's TCU and this year's A&M. It's such an old pattern and really makes you question his motives in even bringing up the subject. Personally, I think his feelings are hurt that Dr. Death came on here with some lucid commentary.

I had wondered who had said we were loaded at wr in this thread, I figured I had just missed it. Just took another read through and did not see it. I wonder which post(s) Stallion read the "loaded" comment into?

[Stallion]

Ponyboy can make a point without mentioning my name. I'd appreciate it [deleted]. You don't even know what a straw man argument is-because you just did it by talking about me rather than the topic which was objectively discussed in this thread. Now back to the discussion you interrupted. There are a bunch of posters pointing the finger at Padron and giving our WRs a pass

Here's one:

"I mean darius, Beasley, Holman, and wilkinson is a pretty good top 4, plus there are some talented younger guys who could see reps. I think you don't need 4 great recievers for this system you just need 4 competent recievers because in any defense there is always space somewhere on the field and if the WR and QB are eading it right theywill always be in this space."

I'm not a Football Coach but I'm pretty damn sure that there is more than just 1 player on Offense.
"You are Correct Stallion, however the QB in the R&S creates the offense 60% of the plays. The QB is charged with the additional responsibility of reading the defense and Quickly making a decision to deliver the ball with the Accuracy necessary to enable any one of the four receivers to catch the ball without breaking stride or doing any acrobatic manuevers that would circumvent a run after catch opportunity. Dr. Death so clearly stated "you need to be smart and accurate and quick and decisive in your decision making". A QB with those qualities will push his receivers to Greatness. Colt sent four to the NFL, one a converted DB his senior year."

Here's another

"We must have a dozen good receivers this year waiting for the ball to be Delivered properly. I have been frustrated this camp reading the practice reports daily and have yet to hear of a pass from any of the QB's that wasn't thrown behind, low, diving or twisting the receiver all which negates the run after catch. We even brought out the garbage can and couldn't hit it."

We've got hundreds of posters -several more in this thread that like to blame the QB for every problem with the offense which is stupid. Apparently, blame can only be assigned to the QB which usually comes from ignorant fans

[Wuba]

Ponyboy can make a point without mentioning my name. I'd appreciate it [deleted]. You don't even know what a straw man argument is-because you just did it by talking about me rather than the topic which was objectively discussed in this thread. Now back to the discussion you interrupted. There are a bunch of posters pointing the finger at Padron and giving our WRs a pass

Here's one:

"I mean darius, Beasley, Holman, and wilkinson is a pretty good top 4, plus there are some talented younger guys who could see reps. I think you don't need 4 great recievers for this system you just need 4 competent recievers because in any defense there is always space somewhere on the field and if the WR and QB are eading it right theywill always be in this space."

I'm not a Football Coach but I'm pretty damn sure that there is more than just 1 player on Offense.
"You are Correct Stallion, however the QB in the R&S creates the offense 60% of the plays. The QB is charged with the additional responsibility of reading the defense and Quickly making a decision to deliver the ball with the Accuracy necessary to enable any one of the four receivers to catch the ball without breaking stride or doing any acrobatic manuevers that would circumvent a run after catch opportunity. Dr. Death so clearly stated "you need to be smart and accurate and quick and decisive in your decision making". A QB with those qualities will push his receivers to Greatness. Colt sent four to the NFL, one a converted DB his senior year."

Here's another

"We must have a dozen good receivers this year waiting for the ball to be Delivered properly. I have been frustrated this camp reading the practice reports daily and have yet to hear of a pass from any of the QB's that wasn't thrown behind, low, diving or twisting the receiver all which negates the run after catch. We even brought out the garbage can and couldn't hit it."

We've got hundreds of posters -several more in this thread that like to blame the QB for every problem with the offense which is stupid. Apparently, blame can only be assigned to the QB which usually comes from ignorant fans

Saying we have good receivers or saying that we have talented young guys followed by saying we just need competent receivers is a long way from saying we are loaded at WR, but I guess if you want to rant you should not let it stop you.

[RGV Pony]

I think Stallion should pony up$200 to charity and hop on the double decker bus to A&M and invite PonyPride to film a ponyfans roundtable.

more to Stallion's point-I think-where the guy quoted by Stallion said "Colt put 4 WRs into the NFL," I suppose one could say KP has put 2 into the NFL in a year and a half. Need Al to stick w/ someone though

[Pony_Law]

Ok Stallion first, you must have skimed over what I said about the offense. I simply said you don't need 4 great crabtree like recievers to make the R&S work. My reasoning was that this offense is designed around both the recievers and QB's reading the defense. Every defensive scheme leaves space open on the field some where and at some time during the play. So even average recievers who are properly reading the defense will know where this space is and run the corresponding rout to take advantage of this space. And average wide recievers with some athletascism given the ball at full speed in space will often score/have huge yac against any defense. The QB for his part needs to read this so he knows where the WR will be and deliver accurate timely throws. I never said you need a great QB to run this, you just need one who can make quick decisions and make accurate passes. For instance Graham Harrel was a great Qb in a similar system because he was smart and was really accurate withing 35 yards. is Graham harrel considered great by any of the metrics used in evaluating QB draft prospects? no.

I put equal weight on the QB and the WRs to make this offens go, point in fact I belive 4 of KP's interceptions were direct result of the WR running the wrong rout given what the defense was runing. I never said that we were loaded at WR and the struggles were all KP's fault. I said we were pretty good at WR which is why I think this offense has a chance to be really successful this year. I also said that this offense was already succesfull last year in a yards per game way but we did not score a lot of points. I never said we did not score alot of points because KP only. We did not score points because we a) commited turnovers b) committed penalties c) had negative plays to often (sacks) and d) KP did miss some of the deep quick strik TD reads (June I dentified this at every luncheon).

[Pony_Law]

Don't like this offense
Never have liked this offense
This is not an offense that will win championships

IMO It's not physical enough in tough/tight games when you need to run the clock and physically kick somebody in the arse.

And I'm stuck with 3rd-and-1 and watching us throw a low percentage deep ball.

That said, this offense's success is going to be predicated on how opportunistic the defense is. This defense is built to create turnovers so the offense can strike quickly.

That didn't happen in 2010. In fact, I think SMU was something like minus-9 in the turnover ratio last year. So you could say to go 7-7 with that kind of turnover ratio is a bit stunning.

Defense has to provide more of a short field. If it does that, then the offense can put up the numbers fans are hoping to see.

So I think This is just wrong for several reasons.

First, There are very few times where a team is put in position to win the game by running out the clock. When these situations do come up you are equaly likely/more likely to still win the game if you score. Also lets say you want to run out the clock, if you are completing passes at about a 68% clip which is what is expected in this offense, on 3 downs you should have 2 completions. Any time you have avoided a negative play in 3 consecutive downs you shold have made a first down.

Next you complain about throwing the ball on 3 and 1. Sure there are times you should run the ball but to say you should never do anything else is stupid. The objective of offense is to score, not to make first downs, not to run the clock. if you are scoring you are doing the other 2 as a byproduct. if you are making first downs and running the clock you might not score, this happend to us lots of times last year. we pretty much outgained every team we lost to including TCU, but because of negative plays our drives stalled and we did not score and we lost the game.

Thrid I don't think this offense is predicated on having a short field or relying on turnovers. It's actualy the opposite. This offesne says this both teams will likely have a similar number of possesions and run a similar number of plays, our offense is designed that we will have a higher % chance of scoring on any particular play because we will throw the ball more put recievers into space down field and if we connect we are likely to score. Hence over the course of the game and season we will score a lot more points than our opponents. Turnovers kill any team because it takes away your oppertunity to score and gives the other team a chance to score.

Finally the whole toughness grind out game you are imagining, is a false narative, you wear someone out just as much (if not more) on offense making them run all over the field covering you, Most teams that run this offense are 7-8 players deep at the WR position, defenses are ussualy 4 deep if they are lucky at CB. Mike Leach used to have 3 different recievers run 3 different go routes against a qb with the idea that he can keep subing but the CB will likely never be subed so that by the 3rd time he will either be a little tired and not be able to cover the fresher reciever or he will likely make a mistake because he is winded and a reciever will get open. Also it takes less energy for LB and D line men to plug gaps at the line of scrimage against the run then it does for them to be rushing up field after the QB or droping into coverage. Also nothing about the R&S prevents your defense from hiting some one in the mouth

[Garret]

I, also, am not a football coach, but I do think this is a weakness of the RnS. Most good receiving teams have two good WR's, and you need more than that to make this system work. It is augmented somewhat by the productivity we get from our RB, but we will start off again with 3 WR's, since we have have TW back, and hopefully we can find a fourth - reason I asked if TW is a potential deep threat and if any FR have stepped up.

How many teams have 4 quality WRs? In 2006, Hawaii had 2 top WRs (Bess, Rivers), 1 quality receiver who missed quite a bit of time due to injury (Grice-Mullen), and *3* WRs that split the 4th WR spot. You know how much JJ hates to rotate his WRs, so it should be an indication of his unhappiness with the production out of the #4 WR spot that he actually rotated players during games at that spot.

Colt Brennan in 2006 had 5549 yards passing, 58 TDs, 72.6% completion rate, and a 186 QB efficiency. Those numbers are amazing and Hawaii had just *3* top WRs, with one of those WRs hurt for a good portion of the season (the #3 WR was just #6 in team receptions).

BTW Dr. Death, Colt Brennan went to Saddleback (not SaddleBrook), with one big positive for that JC being that his family home is close to it. And he turned down a scholarship from San Jose State to walk on to Hawaii. I think he'll probably end up having to try the CFL route next season to get some playing time on film and show that he's recovered from that catastrophic car accident (where he was a passenger in the car).