Patenaude knew his X’s and O’s, as was evident by some of our opening possessions. He had a good eye for what they would try to do to stop us and took advantage. His problem would usually be after they adjusted.
If we had a normal FG kicking situation, his offenses would have scored a bunch more, but ultimately masks what we saw: He could eat up chunks but never fully cash in.
I’m also not a big fan of running a system the way it seemed he did. We ran the same type of offense with Sims and Jahmyr as we did with Yates and Dontae.
With Paul, we had YEARS where we would run less triple, hell he ran that QB counter with TM for an entire season and we never saw it before or after.
Maybe we are spoiled from having 2 HOF OC, and an NFL OC in living memory, but to my eye we didn’t run the offense to suit our personnel’s strengths. Put Paul, Fridge, or Billy O with the same roster and we hit pay dirt a lot more often.
I also thought we had some tells or at least were incredibly predictable. Duke and Pitt last year stand out. Watch the play selection as you rewatch those. On every running play they had 8 in the box. Either we tipped our hand in game or they scouted us out, and neither option is optimal.
All in all, I think ODU is probably more commiserate with his talents. I wish him luck.