My one complaint on offense that looks like it could possibly be a problem all season is the blocking on the outside for the WR screens. If we’re going to run that many screens, our WRs have to be better in the blocking game. Dunbar, who is normally very good in that regard, got blown up in embarrassing fashion on one play and there were way too many times the catching receiver was getting hit after taking 1 or 2 steps with the ball. As a former WR, I know how incredibly difficult it is to block someone in the open field, but it has to be done better if the screen game is going to accomplish anything other than wasting a down and padding completion percentage stats.
By the way, I thought Kyle Allen looked good against UA, but people pointing to his 78% completion percentage as a major positive is crazy. I haven’t counted, but we threw the ball behind the line of scrimmage a ton of times. Any QB can complete that pass to near perfection. As has been pointed out before, Zona was prepared for the deep ball by playing their safeties deep, so screens were definitely in order to keep CBs honest, and I don’t hold that against Allen. But I seriously hope we air it out more against Rice so we can get a better feel for his arm strength and accuracy down field. And I don’t just mean fly routes down the field. I want to see fades to the boundary/in the end zone, deep crosses and deep outs. Let’s see what Allen and our WRs have in the tank.
Thank you! I was trying to explain Johnson’s connection to Mullen and that connection to Meyer. He’s an indirect disciple of Urban Meyer; he knows what he’s doing.
The line will be even better next year. I really like Josh and Braylon Jones, they played well for sophomores. I’m sad Rogers will be graduating. If how he played against Arizona is any indication of how well he’ll play this year, then keep running the ball on the right side! lol If you go back and watch the game, he was constantly pushing their ends 5 yards+ up the field.
I don’t like that we have to wait 2-3 years for the right kind of talent. We do have talent here, just not the talent for this system.
We have a very talented passing QB although he’s not a massive running threat.
We have some great possession type WRs although they don’t seem to have a high YAC potential needed for this offense.
We have some decent combo RBs, although none of them are pure power or speed guys.
I think we have some talent at OL.
Those are mostly square pegs in this system. But instead of adjusting the system to this talent, we appear to continue to try to hammer these into round holes
Yes, ideally we would have an offensive guru as head coach. Each off season the coaching staff would craft a unique offense, from scratch, perfectly suited to each players strengths…
Unfortunately, this will never happen with the current Urban Meyer disciples at the helm.
I will embrace a successful coach. If CMA wins even with an offense I don’t like, kudos to him. But if he isn’t highly successful for 2-3 years because he won’t adjust scheme to fit the talent he has, I may not have to embrace it long term.
… Unless the defense covers offensive deficiencies like the AZ game
After just one game - a rare UH road win against a PAC opponent - some of the comments on this thread seem ridiculous.
If Major Applewhite wins 10+ games this year (or next year), multiple P5 teams will be coming after him and will be offering him $4+ million/year plus his buy-out. And then the same folks that are now whining on here about his offense will then be whining about why he’s considering leaving UH and how those P5 teams can afford to pay him and his buy-out.
[NOTE: for the past 30 years, UH’s history is that every UH FB coach that had a 10+ win season was gone within 12 months - see Pardee, Briles, Sumlin, Herman. So, be careful what you wish for.]
I like the ability of our offense to be multiple, but also chew up game clock and keep our defense rested. The offense the other night moved the ball, but was not effective in the red zone and I think that gets fixed and we aren’t complaining about anything.
Rare road PAC win? It’s rare we PLAY the PAC, road or home. The largest number of PAC games, and even then it wasn’t common, were mid 80s and 90s when we were at our worst. You might as well take it to the extreme and say we’ve never beaten Maine
If you want me to concede that I will miss CMA if he wins 10+ and leaves, I will. Of course you’ll be willing to concede if CMA has a 5-7 season or two, you’ll be leading the charge to fire him. Hoping the former happens, not the latter. And even if he wins with defense, it doesn’t mean I’ll like the offense. I can separate the two
And BTW we’ve run this offense more than 1 game. I’ve never liked it here, even though Ward and the defense have won in spite of it
To go back to the original post, we are like OSU because we run that offense. Yes Urban Meyer has won with the offense every where he goes. To make me feel better, who else has run this offense and won big time? Don’t give me MS St because I will use the Dak Prescott argument the same as I’ve used Ward for UH. Without Dak, Mullen’s teams have generally been mediocre
So, in your opinion, what other FB coach and offensive system could UH have hired last year for ~$1.5 million per year which would been better than our current system which has achieved multiple Top 10 finishes and national championships?
And, let’s not act like UH can pay $5+ million per year for a guy like Lincoln Riley (who reportedly refused to even consider UH) and/or out-recruit any of the top tier P5 teams with $75+ million FB budgets.
Bogus argument. OSU and Florida have done that. You know those schools did the same thing before this system was used. Bama has won even more. Using your logic, shouldn’t we have hired someone who runs the Bama offense? Surely we’d have a very high level of success doing that
I don’t understand why a guy like Kyle Allen can’t be successful in this offense. Sure he can’t run like Greg Ward, Braxton Miller or JT Barrett, but the QB keeper is just one wrinkle in that offense and has a pretty short shelf life of effectiveness (see Greg Ward 2015 vs. Greg Ward 2016). Teams figured out that wrinkle pretty quickly.
A strong running game can be had without a running QB. I think the biggest piece we’re missing is a bruiser RB like Kenneth Farrow. He didn’t have break away speed, but he punished defenses and had a way of sucking defenses into the middle when he had the ball. That opens up passing lanes over the middle. I was hoping the Burrell kid could be the next Farrow, but it hasn’t happened yet. We also need TEs who are very good at blocking. Brooker may end up being really good, but McCloskey was fantastic in that regard.
Kyle Allen will do just fine in this offense if the OL can continue creating running lanes, give him protection long enough to make reads and he can accurately deliver the ball. And he can do all this without being a dual threat.
As fun as the Sumlin and Briles offenses were to watch, our winning was very limited with those guys. Whoever said it earlier was right; the air raid is brutal on the defense. The offense is either scoring very quickly or turning it over more often, both of which result in a gassed defense. I much prefer the more balanced offense we have now, even if it means we put up fewer points and less gawdy stats. In the long run, we’ll have a much better shot at winning big time games in December and January.
That’s what I’m thinking. You can have all the great philosophy you want but if you don’t have the hosses it means nothing. With the air raid you have an equalizer that gives the less talented a chance and if you happen to have the talent I.e Keenum, Edwards, Johnson and others, you can play with just about anybody. Give me Air Raid for the win rather than a good philosophy for philosophy’s sake.
So remind me of how many conference championships that Sumlin has won with his Air Raid at ATM, or Kliff Kingsbury at TT, or Dana Holgorsen at WVU?
And UH can’t attract or afford to pay a proven P5 head coach like Sumlin, Kingsbury or Holgorsen anyway. Heck, we couldn’t even get Lincoln Riley to interview while he was still just the OC at OU.
The reality is that we need to watch UH play a few more games and let Coach Applewhite grow into the job and develop his own program and systems before we start jumping to any conclusions.
