Quote Originally Posted by hokienole View Post
"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.
Call me an eternal optimist, but I think people are dragging what he's saying slightly out of context. I think he'd be more than happy if we scored on every possession; but this is football, and that doesn't happen. With every play comes a certain level of risk and reward, and in a shifting game context we have a shifting set of priorities. We have to manage both the risk and the priorities in the context of where we are in the game. Philosophically, I think it's just that our team would like to play lower than average risky football, for more consistent play and results against our main priority, winning.

Simple example: we get caught on our own 2 yard line by a fantastic punt cover. What are our priorities? 1. Win the game, always. But how important is it that we score this possession? how much weight do we put on not having our kicker backed up in the end zone?

What if we're in the lead, tight game, with the ball, low time on the clock. How high to we rank running out that clock against getting another score? Another score pushes our lead, but requires riskier plays that give a greater chance of ending with a big turnover, etc.

Obviously I'm taking extreme examples, but there's so many priorities such as philosophy around O-line dominating their D-line, giving a QB confidence if he's shaky, giving a running back reps to get hot.

It may just be me, but I think we're pigeonholing his comment too far into "we think you run the ball too much" against what he actually means.