HR_Poke said:
Did he include Boise's DC in that quote. Harsin came out and said they knew exactly what play they were going to run based on how they lined up because of tape and what they had run in the game. I'd say that is a glaring issue in your play calling scheme...
At this point in a season is there any surprise left for any team? In this day and age, programs have incredible amount of data on personell groupings and tendencies. Knowing what is coming is pretty much the base level .... Everybody "knows" what Alabama is going to do ... doesn't mean you can stop it. Air force is actually a pretty good example of this. A couple years ago somebody was analyzing AFA triple option (this probably applies to most triple option teams)...basically they run four plays 90+ % of the time with very small wrinkles in angle of attack of the blocking. It was pointed out that this is very common even for non-triple option teams. The good teams get you to over-commit to stopping those 90% of plays and that is when you burn them.
For teams w/reputation of being "tricky" (like BSU) ... they are more likely to be just very good at executing the "set up" plays. If teams can stop an offense w/base defenses ... all the creativity in play-calling in the world will not help. The "trick" play only works if you have consistency on the non "trick" plays.
By all indications BSU was selling out to keep our run game from going off. Late in the fourth quarter would have been a great time to throw a changeup....that being said....3rd and one is probably north of 80% conversion rate with our vanilla play-calls.