Really looking forward to this Tech game

TOP is a meaningless stat.

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If the other team offense can’t get on the field it is not meaningless

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I think the whole “Air Raid offenses lose when you hold on to the ball” talking point is pretty overblown.

First, Air Raid offenses play fast, and throw often. That means that, even when they win, they’re not going to win the TOP battle unless it’s a blowout. Losing, for an Air Raid offense, means getting stopped at least a couple of times, and getting stopped means drives that only take up about a minute of game time. That means that beating an Air Raid team almost necessarily means winning the TOP battle, regardless of what your gameplan was.

Second, running the clock and keeping the offense on the field is only really feasible if you’ve got an offense that’s capable of scoring basically at will anyway. To run the clock, you have to run a lot of plays, and to run a lot of plays, you have to be able to move the ball.

There are strategic advantages to running the clock – mostly, the fact that the game takes a smaller number of plays so that unlikely play and drive outcomes have greater leverage in determining the game result – but those really only help you if you’re a clear underdog. Running out the clock isn’t really helpful if you think it’s a relatively even matchup, which this is. At some level, the game of football always boils down to which offense scores more points per drive. If you can’t score more than they can, it doesn’t matter how long their offense spends on the field.

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But a big part of the Air Raid offense is QB rythm. The worse games Keenum had was when the other team offense stayed on the field keeping the Air Raid off and preventing the offense get in rythm. If our defense can stop their offense couple possessions in a row early while the Coog offense stays on field for long TD drives it will be key to a win.

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Again, I think you have this backwards. The opposing offense was able to stay on the field in those games because Keenum couldn’t get in rhythm.

If our defense can get a couple of stops early and our offense can go on a couple of long scoring drives, we’ll be up a couple of scores. If you go up a couple of scores early, yes, you generally have a pretty good chance to win. But you still have to be able to stop their offense to make that happen.

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I believe these offenses are beat with TOP and keeping them to field goals if they score. Should be a good test. We need a large LOUD crowd this week similar to last year’s Louisville game. If our stadium is rocking, it is very hard for most offenses to operate effectively. Need some glade starts.

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The Air Raid offense uses a strategy of getting the ball out of the QB’s hands quickly to avoid sacks, and by stretching the field using seedy receivers, most of which is sideline to sideline with screens and slants. I think a good defensive strategy is to defend everything over the middle with close covergse on the defenders, forcing them to beat us with throws to the outside and with deep routes that take time to develop. This is how the good teams defended us in the past. The last thing I would do is give them 10 to 15 yard cushions and allow them to pick apart our defense.

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Keenum’s worst games were when he threw 5 or 6 picks which took our offense off the field. The Air Raid scores quickly but needs our defense to make 2 stops on their side of the ball.

Gotta watch out for those seedy receivers. :wink:

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Maybe I missed it but I think the biggest point of TOP against the Air Raid was left out. Keeping the opponents defense on the field. The Air Raid is often a 3 down and punt or 3 down and score kind of offense. They don’t need TOP to score a lot. The problem is, if the defense can’t get off the field, then the offense scoring quickly or punting quickly gives the defense no chance to rest. Teams that have an Air Raid often get ahead quickly but also lose their leads in the 2nd and 4th quarters. Forcing a turnover from the Air Raid exasperates that problem.

If you have a tie ball game with five minutes to play and the ball on your 20 yard line, which do you think is a more effective way to win the game, go 80 yards in two plays or grind out 70 yards over 4 minutes and 57 seconds against a tired defense to attempt a chip shot game winning field goal with 3 seconds left?

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And that’s the rub, isn’t it. I think our #1s in the secondary and LBs can cover adequately if we get enough pressure on their QB to make him throw off balance, in a hurry, or preoccupied with getting hit. Doing a Louisville 2016 on him would be nice
11 sacks would definitely be disconcerting for a QB. It’s when we start rotating #2s that I get worried about TT breaking a long plays and starting to roll. So, it is VERY good that the #2s and some #3s saw action vs Rice. I know we subbed at Arizona too, but i think we will need to sub for TT even more, perhaps much more.

My prediction is if we keep them under 40 we win. Over that and it’s a coin toss.

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Something else no one has mentioned is that this Tech team probably has the best group of WRs we will see this season. They aren’t as good as the Oklahoma State crew, but definitely Top 5 nationally. Considering we’ve played two teams who don’t have anywhere close to this level of passing ability, I think we will learn a lot about our defensive backfield this week.

If the DL can get pressure with 3-4 guys and we get to drop 7-8, that puts their new QB in a tough position to make quick, accurate reads and get thru his progressions before he is sacked. The best Tech QBs feasted on teams with a great pass rush by getting the ball out quickly. I’m not so sure that this new guy they have, making only his 3rd start ever, will be able to do the same. Also, can our guys cover well enough for 2-3 seconds to make the pressure an issue?

I’d like to make a bold prediction about this Tech game. The Coogs are going to beat them like a drum and it will not be close. I’ve watched the Tech games against AZ State and Eastern Washington. They are not good. We have not faced an offense like theirs and the counterpoint is that they have not faced a defense like ours. We are REALLY good on defense. This one will be a blowout. Coogs 42 Tech 17 :sunglasses:

If you’re bored, look at the TOP for the 2011 season. We had one game where we won the TOP battle. Want to guess which one?

The biggest blowouts quite frequently had the worst TOP. Biggest TOP differential was our 63-28 win over Marshall where we had the ball only 18 minutes

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Hope you are right on margin of victory. Looking for loud crowd to put some pressure on QB. Need to cause false starts and keep offense off schedule.

Their defense is improved but still isn’t very good . I would look for a similar offensive performance to what we did against Rice without putting the brakes on for the second half. This will be a loud one, like the Louisville game last year.

How will our secondary hold up against their stout receivers? Shimonek may not get much time to throw but when he does


Our defense looks much faster than their offense. You can look at their games on You Tube. I just don’t see how they beat us at home or really at all. They looked sad against Eastern Washington and They put up a bunch of points on AZ State but AZ State has an awful defense. I trust our DBs especially when you consider the pressure Tech’s offense will get from the front 7. I think the Coogs are looking to make an example of most P5s not to mention Big12 teams.

Not a chance that an 11 AM game will have the same intensity or crowd passion that a night game against a ranked opponent brought. Add to this the fact that there will be a larger % of Tech fans in the stadium than there were Louisville fans, and it’s even less likely to be an overwhelming home field advantage.

The true advantages for UH this game:
Our DL is better than their OL
This is their first road game of the season
This is only the 3rd game started for their QB
Our RBs should be able to run effectively off-tackle

It is quite impossible to know how our pass defense will play against an offense like Tech’s until we see it in action. Against a run-first offense like Arizona and a low FCS-level offense like Rice, we look awesome. This game will be a BIG step up in competition. Should be fun!

I doubt the Tech fans will make it feel less than a home game, get out here with that bs.

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