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What do you think the single most important key will be for improvement over last year's squad. Please state and give reasons.

My answer: PLAY CALLING.

How many times in the chat room did I say, "we need another QB keeper." And what, to my surprise, did we run? A QB keeper. For a gain of inches. Keeper, keeper, incomplete 5 yard pass, [botched] punt. That was the extent of the play calling. We

I"m optimistic about the weapons we have on offense - specifically in the backfield. It just needs to come together under appropriate play calling.

Next?

Confidence in the offense to let them open up the playbook some more. They play calling was pretty bad but I think GB and GS were worried that their offense was too young to handle high risk plays so they kept it really basic. That's fine to do ... for a few weeks ... but not in the end of the season. With McCall taking over as coordinator and knowing the QBs really well, I think we'll improve in that area.

MarkL wrote:Confidence in the offense to let them open up the playbook some more. They play calling was pretty bad but I think GB and GS were worried that their offense was too young to handle high risk plays so they kept it really basic. That's fine to do ... for a few weeks ... but not in the end of the season. With McCall taking over as coordinator and knowing the QBs really well, I think we'll improve in that area.

The reason Brandon & Co. kept the no-risk playbook all the way to the end last season was because of how well we were doing in midseason. After the victory over Eastern Michigan, BG was 4-3, and more importantly, 3-1 in the MAC East Division. They figured, oh, we're winning with this style, let's just keep it going. It was clear during the 2nd half of the game against Central Michigan that what we were doing wasn't going to cut it the rest of the way though. Teams with good offenses were going to beat our defense, and we needed to score more. That's when they should have opened things up a bit.

Special Teams execution.

Preparation and focus. The lapses in focus that killed us last year in all phases of the game cannot be repeated if we hope to contend for the MAC title.

Jacobs4Heisman wrote:Special Teams execution.

If they play like last year, I'm all for executing them too!

Flipper wrote:Preparation and focus.

Odd choice, coming from a Brandon defender.

I know that for my Rockets I'm going with outscoring the other team-if we can just do that each week we'll be all right.

h2oville rocket wrote:I know that for my Rockets I'm going with outscoring the other team-if we can just do that each week we'll be all right.

BOOM!

Emphasis on Special Teams play. We were horrible on ST's last year. As I have mentioned before, Phil Steele puts together a non-biased computer system that rates ST's units based on: fg%, ret yards, ret yards allowed, blocked kicks, TD's, net punt, ETC. Not only was BG 119 out of 119 teams, but we weren't even close to being 118th.

Even with our poor play calling, there were a lot of games that we lost with more rush yards, more pass yards, more total yards, more 1st downs and more time of posession than the other team. That tells you how we did on the biggest exchange of field position and momentum(ST's)... HORRIBLE!

Look for the route of the problem that has been echoed in this thread. We had to run the draws and dumb down our playbook and playcalls included draw after draw and run plays because we didn't have a QB who could produce accurate passes on a consistant basis.

I think the key to this season is a leader at QB who can execute the playbook fully- being accurate and a weapon to pass or throw- thus resulting in a wider variety of plays being called.

Does COACHING qualify as only one thing? It's kind of all encompassing a lot of what's already mentioned here.

Playcalling -- if we can all predict it in the stands there's a problem
Preparation & Focus -- Like Flipper said, this team wasn't ready to play in a large portion of our games last year (for that matter I'd say that stretches back for quite a few years).
STs -- We need to execute, and a large part of that is scheme; it needs fixed.



If I had to pick one non-coaching related thing that we need to have happen for us to have a successful year, I'd go with QB play. This team has pieces that can win if they get above average QB play. If they get below average QB play I think we're in for another long year.

The defense has got to avoid the big play bug...the let too many 30+ yard plays and that cannot happen on a winning team. Things aren't going to be much easier with Parks gone from the line but we all know Briggs is going to be a kickass lineman...just avoid the big play!

If Brandon can insult last year's kickers just a few more times, that should at least be enough to win the division.

It's funny how everyone wants the "Last year's kicker comments" to go away yet they keep bringing it up...if you people won't let it go, why should Brandon. By they way...THE KICKERS SUCKED LAST YEAR!!! It was a WASTE of two scholarships...there, I said it.