Alternate Plays

[TromboneJacket]

I was thinking about some of our games this year, and I remembered that during rainy games CPJ seemed reluctant to call plays that involve a pitch or a toss. I assume this was due to fear of fumbling. Two plays that involve outside running without an airborne ball that I could think of were Inverted Veer and Read Option. Does anyone have any insight on why these plays never seem to be used or any ideas of other “safe” outside plays that could have mitigated the effects of the rain on our offensive game plan?

 

[iceeater1969]

I get your point but don't know if any play helps when water is standing 5 yds inside the out of bounds line. This makes the field pretty compressed. MIA
FOR OTHER GAMES
Maybe some of the gurus will suggest a play.

 

[jgtengineer]

We actually have some pretty strong plays for this situation in the playbook with regards to A back isos, and B back stretch traps. However one of the big things about a CPJ system si that while you might have a ton of plays in the playbook, you rep the **** out of 8 or 9 plays that you feel will most likely kill your opponent.

So while CPJ probably knew the play he needed to call. it is likely they had not practiced it much if at all. Its why we started seeing the a back counter at VT i think.

 

[Animal02]

Seems like the A backs all season were a step slower getting to the outside corner. Don't know if it was raw speed, being out of position etc, but it seemed like opponents were sealing the edge. Rain just made it worse.

 

[takethepoints]

I think this is a combo problem.

First is that we played three games in the slop. When it's raining, a lot of bad things can happen when you start pitching the ball. This applies to both sides; remember the first half against UVA when none of their WRs seemed to be able to catch anything. The O functions better on a dry field. Period.

Second is that other teams have started to copy VT and hold our OLs to stop them from getting to second level blocks. This is an ongoing problem since D holding is seldom called in the box. The new "holding" rules make it ok to simply grab someone; unless you tackle him, it's cool. When we got around that, like against VT, we had success in the TO and sweeps. When we didn't - and it's harder in the slop - we had trouble. Mustn't blame the AB blocking for that too much, though they didn't tear up the pea patch on that this year, Cottrell excepted.

 

[bke1984]

I get your point but don't know if any play helps when water is standing 5 yds inside the out of bounds line. This makes the field pretty compressed. MIA
FOR OTHER GAMES
Maybe some of the gurus will suggest a play.

True...but Miami sure didn't seem to have a problem with it at the end of the game. I know the rain stopped, but the water was still there

 

[Animal02]

I think this is a combo problem.

First is that we played three games in the slop. When it's raining, a lot of bad things can happen when you start pitching the ball. This applies to both sides; remember the first half against UVA when none of their WRs seemed to be able to catch anything. The O functions better on a dry field. Period.

Second is that other teams have started to copy VT and hold our OLs to stop them from getting to second level blocks. This is an ongoing problem since D holding is seldom called in the box. The new "holding" rules make it ok to simply grab someone; unless you tackle him, it's cool. When we got around that, like against VT, we had success in the TO and sweeps. When we didn't - and it's harder in the slop - we had trouble. Mustn't blame the AB blocking for that too much, though they didn't tear up the pea patch on that this year, Cottrell excepted.

CPJ (or a surrogate) should be lobbying the refs all game about the defensive holding.

 

[steebu]

CPJ (or a surrogate) should be lobbying the refs all game about the defensive holding.

Doesn't do any good, apparently. He lobbies all game about offensive holding against us and how many holding calls have you seen this year?

 

[takethepoints]

Doesn't do any good, apparently. He lobbies all game about offensive holding against us and how many holding calls have you seen this year?

Yesssss.

Well, people here know my opinion of the new rules on "holding". They were put in (so near as I can see) to make the college game more "exciting" by giving a premium to passing. So we see teams with 5 OLs waddling to the line and pushing the DLs instead of, you know, really blocking them. Apparently, nobody was thinking about our old friend, unintended consequences. One of the things the new rules allow is for DLs to hold OLs at the LOS. As long as they don't tackle them, this is just dandy under the new rules. And now you know why so many teams have gone to zone blocking and pretty much given up on getting second level blocks.

How to beat this? Better athletes at OT especially. We did a pretty good job of getting second level blocks in most games. The exceptions were at Puke, Miami, Clemson, and Ugag. In two cases that was due to playing in the slop. In the other two we blocked well in the first half, then slacked off for some reason. Iow, this isn't an unsurmountable problem. More experience and more size and strength next year on the OL should make it easier, but we'll have to see on that. A lot will depend on getting Marshall back healthy (no guarantee there) and, especially, how well the 4 OLs we recruited last year come around.