Bitter blog - Mike O'Cain Q&A, Part I

[Andy Bitter]

http://blogs.roanoke.com/andybitterv...n-early-downs/

[hokienole]

http://blogs.roanoke.com/andybitterv...n-early-downs/

"There is a philosophical approach that we have to our offense in the context of this team. You know, we’re not just an offense going out trying to score every time." -

Really -- haha. I simply can't fault O'Cain (and to lesser extent Stinespring) anymore, that philosophy is all Beamer's. This is taking ball control offense so far off to one tangent it becomes the non-sensical mess, with respect to strategy, we see all too often.

An offense that doesn't score by design.....I'll admit, that (and only that) helps explain an offense that doesn't exploit other teams's weaknesses like vs Michigan's weak pass D in the Sugar Bowl....and an offense that didn't exploit Kansas's weak run D in the 2nd qtr of the Orange Bowl (these team's quickly lined up to take the heat of their respective weaknesses, and VT happily obliged in return). Running 97.3% of the time on 1st down in the red zone makes sense within that context too.... Too much blame on the OLine (caveat, not 2006-2008 though) year after year too. An offensive line playing for an offense that isn't really designed to score every time is by default not going to look all that good. The 20:1 touchdown ratio WVU had relative to VT when playing Clemson makes too much sense now also.

Suddenly the offense I watch that seemingly doesn't make sense half the time is starting to make sense (it's not supposed to).

IMHO, This is anachronistic and has no place in college football 2012 anymore. That is unless VT winds up with Alabama's current Defense or Nebraska 1995 Oline. When you don't have the luxury of having those things, strategy and tactical nuance, while on offense, with respect to the opponent can help even out the playing field.

Mike O’Cain: ‘We probably needed to throw the ball more on early downs’ -- lol...then why don't you? You're the coach calling plays. Same thing comes from Stinespring year after year. Things never change.

Actually, I'd propose that under Beamer's offense, you really don't need to throw the ball more on early downs.... as counterintuitive as that is to most of us. It's all written into the Beamer philosophy. In that regard, O'Cain is being a little dishonest here, or covering up for Beamer's philosophy.

A bull headed no scoring offense by design is simply not getting it done at VT in the context of Beamer's ultimate goal (MNC). It's also severely (imho) hurting his own record in the national marquee matchups.

I'm somewhat perplexed as to why this elephant in the room is not discussed, through statistical analysis, more by the TSL staff.

[public knowledge]

Absolutely the dumbest offensive philosophy around.

"There is a philosophical approach that we have to our offense in the context of this team. You know, we’re not just an offense going out trying to score every time." -

Really -- haha. I simply can't fault O'Cain (and to lesser extent Stinespring) anymore, that philosophy is all Beamer's. This is taking ball control offense so far off to one tangent it becomes the non-sensical mess, with respect to strategy, we see all too often.

An offense that doesn't score by design.....I'll admit, that (and only that) helps explain an offense that doesn't exploit other teams's weaknesses like vs Michigan's weak pass D in the Sugar Bowl....and an offense that didn't exploit Kansas's weak run D in the 2nd qtr of the Orange Bowl (these team's quickly lined up to take the heat of their respective weaknesses, and VT happily obliged in return). Running 97.3% of the time on 1st down in the red zone makes sense within that context too.... Too much blame on the OLine (caveat, not 2006-2008 though) year after year too. An offensive line playing for an offense that isn't really designed to score every time is by default not going to look all that good. The 20:1 touchdown ratio WVU had relative to VT when playing Clemson makes too much sense now also.

Suddenly the offense I watch that seemingly doesn't make sense half the time is starting to make sense (it's not supposed to).

IMHO, This is anachronistic and has no place in college football 2012 anymore. That is unless VT winds up with Alabama's current Defense or Nebraska 1995 Oline. When you don't have the luxury of having those things, strategy and tactical nuance, while on offense, with respect to the opponent can help even out the playing field.

Mike O’Cain: ‘We probably needed to throw the ball more on early downs’ -- lol...then why don't you? You're the coach calling plays. Same thing comes from Stinespring year after year. Things never change.

Actually, I'd propose that under Beamer's offense, you really don't need to throw the ball more on early downs.... as counterintuitive as that is to most of us. It's all written into the Beamer philosophy. In that regard, O'Cain is being a little dishonest here, or covering up for Beamer's philosophy.

A bull headed no scoring offense by design is simply not getting it done at VT in the context of Beamer's ultimate goal (MNC). It's also severely (imho) hurting his own record in the national marquee matchups.

I'm somewhat perplexed as to why this elephant in the room is not discussed, through statistical analysis, more by the TSL staff.

[hokiebrewer]

the quote Les Miles gave before we played LSU in their house. I'm sure someone on here knows the quote word for word but he basically was saying that he was very familiar with our offensive scheme because it is something that was run decades ago (of course he said it with his arrogant grin). And then they came out and stuffed ua all game long until we tried something different (Tyrod). I know there were many other reasons why we got destroyed that day but I've never gotten that statment of his out of my head. Here's an OOC opponent that we have rarely played and he simply was not concerned at all about our offense. Kind of depressing, even if he had an awesome defense that year. Also very telling.

[Will Stewart]

"There is a philosophical approach that we have to our offense in the context of this team. You know, we’re not just an offense going out trying to score every time."

I'm somewhat perplexed as to why this elephant in the room is not discussed, through statistical analysis, more by the TSL staff.

That's an odd statement, because in your post, you reference things we have talked about in our articles, some of it from me and Chris, and some from Raleigh Hokie -- the Michigan game, the Kansas game, the high percentage of first-down runs in the red zone (Kyle Tucker gets kudos there, but I also put together a video from the Sugar Bowl showing red-zone offensive playcalling.)

Over the years, we've said repeatedly that VT runs a ball-control offense and prizes defense and special teams over offense. Just because we don't rant and rage about it in every single article doesn't mean we haven't said it.

Remember my fishbowl comment in one of my articles? The scenery never changes. We're just swimming back and forth in our fishbowl. It is what it is. I've said in the past that Frank learned his program philosophy from Jerry Claiborne, his mentor ... you know, Jerry Claiborne, who started his head coaching career 51 years ago and ended it 23 years ago, and who really liked the Woody Hayes/Darrell Royal quote, "Three Things Can Happen When You Pass and Two of Them Are Bad."

Here's the thing: IT'S NOT GOING TO CHANGE. So why analyze it and talk about it constantly? All it would do is poison the web site by constantly pointing out one of the weaknesses (IMO) that holds Frank's program back. We'll talk about it from time to time, but there's no sense in repeatedly analyzing it. All that would do is make the fishbowl an unpleasant place to live. Even the Fire Bryan Stinespring web site has branched out into talking about other stuff, instead of constantly railing on Stiney.

If you're going to talk about the things you think Frank does poorly -- or areas where I wish he would evolve, I guess -- then you have to also talk about the things he does well -- runs a clean program (as far as we know), has good kids in the program, creates a good atmosphere, etc. etc. So we talk about all those things, not just the fact that he might want to consider a different approach to offense.

[Orbital]

[QUOTE=hokienole;240868]"There is a philosophical approach that we have to our offense in the context of this team. You know, we’re not just an offense going out trying to score every time." -

Really -- haha. I simply can't fault O'Cain (and to lesser extent Stinespring) anymore, that philosophy is all Beamer's. This is taking ball control offense so far off to one tangent it becomes the non-sensical mess, with respect to strategy, we see all too often.

An offense that doesn't score by design.....I'll admit, that (and only that) helps explain an offense that doesn't exploit other teams's weaknesses like vs Michigan's weak pass D in the Sugar Bowl....and an offense that didn't exploit Kansas's weak run D in the 2nd qtr of the Orange Bowl (these team's quickly lined up to take the heat of their respective weaknesses, and VT happily obliged in return). Running 97.3% of the time on 1st down in the red zone makes sense within that context too.... Too much blame on the OLine (caveat, not 2006-2008 though) year after year too. An offensive line playing for an offense that isn't really designed to score every time is by default not going to look all that good. The 20:1 touchdown ratio WVU had relative to VT when playing Clemson makes too much sense now also.

Suddenly the offense I watch that seemingly doesn't make sense half the time is starting to make sense (it's not supposed to).

IMHO, This is anachronistic and has no place in college football 2012 anymore. That is unless VT winds up with Alabama's current Defense or Nebraska 1995 Oline. When you don't have the luxury of having those things, strategy and tactical nuance, while on offense, with respect to the opponent can help even out the playing field.

Mike O’Cain: ‘We probably needed to throw the ball more on early downs’ -- lol...then why don't you? You're the coach calling plays. Same thing comes from Stinespring year after year. Things never change.

Actually, I'd propose that under Beamer's offense, you really don't need to throw the ball more on early downs.... as counterintuitive as that is to most of us. It's all written into the Beamer philosophy. In that regard, O'Cain is being a little dishonest here, or covering up for Beamer's philosophy.

A bull headed no scoring offense by design is simply not getting it done at VT in the context of Beamer's ultimate goal (MNC). It's also severely (imho) hurting his own record in the national marquee matchups.

I'm somewhat perplexed as to why this elephant in the room is not discussed, through statistical analysis, more by the TSL staff.[/QUOT

[NokieHokie]

"Three Things Can Happen When You Pass and Two of Them Are Bad."

Three things can happen when you run and two of them bad.

1. Tackle behind the line of scrimmage for loss.
2. Fumble.
3. Positive yards gained.

[bourbonstreet]

What got into the TSL.com water today men?
That's two exceptionally well-played posts on TSL (one over on the pay-side) all at once.

The two things TSL can never and I damn well mean "eeeeeeeeever" have too much of:
a) good, solid, spot-on takes
b) fun-times and well humored posts




late-
b-st.

[NokieHokie]

What got into the TSL.com water today men?
That's two exceptionally well-played posts on TSL (one over on the pay-side) all at once.

The two things TSL can never and I damn well mean "eeeeeeeeever" have too much of:
a) good, solid, spot-on takes
b) fun-times and well humored posts



late-
b-st.

Much thanks b-st! I've been saving that one for a while, it seemed like a good time to unleash it...

[br1990]

There is a philosophical approach that we have to our offense in the context of this team. You know, we’re not just an offense going out trying to score every time.

I think [hope] he's saying that while he wants to score on every drive, we can't score on every play. Sometimes we go for a deep ball and try to score, other times we just try to get some yards and slowly move the chains... At least I hope that's what he was trying to say.