Over the past 5 years we have run an offensive scheme that has relied on spreading the field and quick hitting passes. However, it is my thinking that in Brandon's 3 years here that offense has radically evolved away from the original scheme that was conceived by him & Urban together. We've gotten more pass happy, relied less on running the ball, and in turn we have had times where the offense would struggle in the redzone or go through some dry periods of games. What's more, it is my contention that this year's offense would benefit GREATLY, from a return to the likes of 2002.
Let's look at some stats.
The 2001 season was the first season in this scheme, and everyone was just getting used to us being a successful MAC team. We came out like Lions with some big wins, and even threw a victory over Northwestern in there at the end. I truly think SC backed out of that game solely because of how strong we ended up being that year. To start, we were 8-3 that year with wins, as I mentioned, over Mizzou, Kansas, UT, and Northwestern. Josh Harris was our leading rusher with 614 yards. Joe Alls pitched in 553, and Gibby threw in 444. All averaged between 4.3-4.9 yards per carry. In all we rushed for 1836 yards and gave up 946 yards rushing. Harris & Sahm split time at QB with Sahm throwing for 1326 yards and Harris at 1022 yards. The team, as a whole, finished with 2387 yards passing, giving up 2566.
BG: Rushing 1836
Passing 2387
Opponents: Rushing 946
Passing 2566
The 2002 season was memorable for all in that we had that great run to break into the rankings before falling off against NIU, USF, and UT. A disappointing finish to a brilliant start, to be sure. Still we ended the year at 9-3, which I would deem pretty successful. This year we did even better rushing with Alls leading the way at 801. Harris & a true freshman named Pope chipped in for 737 & 577 respectively. Harris averaged 4 ypc, PJ 5.7, and Alls and eye-popping 6.6! As a team we had 2629 yards and allowed 1844. Passing Josh was now the man throwing for 2425 yards. Nobody else had significant yardage, but the team finished with 2758 yards and allowing 2537.
BG: Rushing: 2629
Passing: 2758
Opponents: Rushing: 1844
Passing: 2537
2003 was the year we were waiting for. We lost our stud HC, but thought we had a real chance to keep on chugging without a lost beat by retaining the rest of our staff. We returned a LOT of talent, and we were ready to roll. Racked up some statson 1AA teams, but threw in a victory at Purdue, and the NIU game might've been the best thing at BG ever. Lost a heartbreaker with OSU, but held on to beat a good UT team. Unfortunately MU was the best MAC team ever, and we were the 2nd best team in what was, IMO, the best year this conference has ever seen. We finished the year 11-3 with a bowl victory in a great game. This year Pope stepped up as the man with 1005 yards, Harris had 830, and Lane chipped in 498. As a team we rushed for 2750, and allowed 2148. Passing Harris was the only real contributor again throwing for 3813 yards. As a team we had 4206, and allowed 2908.
BG: Rushing: 2750
Passing: 4206
Opponents: Rushing: 2148
Passing: 2908
2004 was thought to be a rebuilding year, but we didn't know what we'd get out of Omar. A strong performance against Oklahoma built the expectations to a high level. Setbacks against UT & NIU again pretty much ruined the season, but it was still a good year at 9-3 and another bowl victory. This is where we start to see the trend that I really don't like. Maybe it was just Omar being a more passing QB, but we lose our balance to the offense. Pope was again the leading ground guy at 1098, but our next guys were Lane at only 375, and Omar at 300. As a team we rushed for our lowest total since the first year in the system of 2001 at 2019, we allowed 1589. Passing, everyone remember's Omar's year of 4002 yards. As a team we threw for 4057, allowing 3114. For the first year there was 2000 yard difference between passing & rushing.
BG: Rushing: 2019
Passing: 4057
Opponents: Rushing: 1589
Passing: 3114
Last year was a total disappointment for all involved. Yes we were injury riddled, but still 6-5 was a total heartbreak for a team picked to finish first in the conference. The trend I was afraid of REALLY got worse, when we look at the stats. With Pope's injury our leading rusher was Lane at 677, Pope contributed 436. Nobody else hit 200 yards, and as a team we gained a measly 1581, while allowing 1923. Passing Omar was pretty good throwing for 2591. Turner threw for 492 in Omar's absence. As a team we threw for 3124 yards while allowing 2242.
BG: Rushing: 1581
Passing: 3124
Opponents: Rushing: 1923
Passing: 2242
Now that the stats our looked at, I think my impressions are beared out. This could be because Omar was a drastically different player than Harris, but when Turner played last year we didn't really go back to what worked in Harris' heyday either. Looking at the numbers in the early years we ran the ball at will on people. We built one of the most balanced offenses in all of college football, and in doing so we were able to have very good red zone success, and were winning a lot of football games.
I remember when Urban came here he said he always wanted to coach the option, but instead he called our offense the "spread option." We still ran a lot of option plays, and even our between the tackles runs were usually a RB/QB counter where Harris had the option of handing the ball off if he thought that would be preferable. We might have been the first team I ever saw install the playaction fake run play. What's more we had tremendous balance by getting great yardage from a number of backs and the QB included. Over the past couple years we stopped having that great rushing depth. Injuries were the only reason the rushing yardage was really split up last year, and 2004 was almost solely Pope. In the prior years we had the QB rushing well along with at least 2 backs contributing mightily.
Some people may disagree, but I think our offense was more effective from a redzone standpoint, and allowed us to better control the clock during 2001-03 than it did in 04-05. We may have scored more points in '04, but from a pure winning football game standpoint, I really prefer the previous years offense. DC's didn't know what would hit them with a team that had multiple backs eclipsing 500 yards, and still having all those WRs to cover.
How does this apply to this season? Well, quite frankly, Barnes cannot throw the ball at the level of a top NCAA QB. Turner is no Omar either when it comes to throwing. What's more we have lost a lot of our top targets at the WR spot, and have suffered an injury to our #1 going into the first game. All the while we've got some talented backs returning with Macon and some of the young guys.
I really think this all adds up to the coaching staff needing to look back at some films of '01-'03. This team doesn't have the talent mix to play the way they have the past 2 years, but they may have the talent to pull off that great rushing depth again. Bring back more option plays. Bring back that counter-option-QBcounter. Bring in some run/option/pass type plays. In short I think we need to get the offense back to that balance, and maybe even weight more heavily towards the rushing side of things for this team this season. However, we still don't have the pure power talent to just line up and rush the ball, we'd be better served, IMO, to return to the days where defenses didn't know which player would carry it let alone which way they'd head. I don't think we have any RBs that can carry the tough load the way PJ did with that much power either...we'd be best served to get our quicker backs into the open field with these option style running plays. Macon reminds me a lot of Joe Alls.
The spring game still looked like we were trying to have Barnes & Turner be Omar Jacobs, more than playing to their strengths. That was just practice, but I hope the coaches have headed more towards the "good 'ol days" after seeing this team play over the summer. Well, I'm off to see the scrimmage now, but this is one thing that I'll DEFINITELY be looking for from this team today & as the season wears on. I'll say right now that if we're willing to take this scheme back to it's roots we can win some games this year. But if we go up to Cleveland and try to have Freddie Barnes run the Omar Jacobs offense, IMO, we'll get slaughtered.
Well, there's my take, anyways
