[stupac2]

Given the evidence we had this year, wasn't everyone surprised by how well UW played in comparison to us? I have to think even Petersen didn't see that coming. What little evidence we had (basically just the UA game) said that UW's lines were both problematic and that we ought to be able to handle them. It seems like two things happened:

1) UW did not play well against UA but did against us.
2) We did not play well against UW.

Which explains the dramatic swing. You can get away with playing badly against an inferior foe, but playing badly against a good team is a recipe for disaster, as we saw.

I do wonder why we move the pocket so little with Burns. It's not like he's immobile, and it's not like that's some crazy scheme (we did it plenty with Luck), but my faulty memory is that we did that less and less with Hogan as time went on. If that's true then maybe the staff think the disadvantages (DBs only need to cover half the field, QB needs to be accurate on the run) outweigh the advantages (negates pass rush). You'd think we could afford to do it a few times a game though.

But it's not like we don't do other semi-creative things. We run the read option, we try to do a sweep or reverse once or twice a game, we run the wildcat (though I'm not sure we're doing it well this year). In 2014 when this was a long topic of discussion I was of the opinion that playcalling doesn't really matter too much, if your guys can't make plays then it hardly matters which ones they aren't making. Now shifting the entire scheme could matter, IIRC people smarter than I am said our offense picked up last year after we started doing more zone blocking, but figuring out what to do there is pretty darn complicated and I doubt any of us really know what's up.

[stupac2]

Given the evidence we had this year, wasn't everyone surprised by how well UW played in comparison to us? I have to think even Petersen didn't see that coming. What little evidence we had (basically just the UA game) said that UW's lines were both problematic and that we ought to be able to handle them. It seems like two things happened:

1) UW did not play well against UA but did against us.
2) We did not play well against UW.

Which explains the dramatic swing. You can get away with playing badly against an inferior foe, but playing badly against a good team is a recipe for disaster, as we saw.

I do wonder why we move the pocket so little with Burns. It's not like he's immobile, and it's not like that's some crazy scheme (we did it plenty with Luck), but my faulty memory is that we did that less and less with Hogan as time went on. If that's true then maybe the staff think the disadvantages (DBs only need to cover half the field, QB needs to be accurate on the run) outweigh the advantages (negates pass rush). You'd think we could afford to do it a few times a game though.

But it's not like we don't do other semi-creative things. We run the read option, we try to do a sweep or reverse once or twice a game, we run the wildcat (though I'm not sure we're doing it well this year). In 2014 when this was a long topic of discussion I was of the opinion that playcalling doesn't really matter too much, if your guys can't make plays then it hardly matters which ones they aren't making. Now shifting the entire scheme could matter, IIRC people smarter than I am said our offense picked up last year after we started doing more zone blocking, but figuring out what to do there is pretty darn complicated and I doubt any of us really know what's up.