I’ve been critical of our OC and QBs. I rewatched the game film and have a slightly more forgiving perspective.
Don’t get me wrong, Lucas Johnson makes bad decisions and just doesn’t look comfortable. But there were multiple situations where USF sent the OLB and DE off the edge on a zone read play. The tackle's job is to release inside and take the B gap up to the next level. In that situation, if the QB gives to the RB, the DE is going to make the tackle untouched. Meanwhile, the QB has a no win situation with the OLB in his face.
The problem I’m seeing: there’s a lack of trust in this offense, so we’re not as liberal with audibles and we’re not installing nuanced versions of core plays. For example, on those zone reads, we should pull guards to pick up the DE. Not too different than we did on counter gives and reads. We've actually been fairly successful running those plays. But I get the sense that the staff has to manage the installation and play calling very gradually, and therefore we’re running discrete plays as opposed to nuanced versions of core plays.