[stupac2]

[quote author=stupac2 link=topic=17760.msg207589#msg207589 date=1508797729]
The only person I've seen making this argument is you, in order to knock it down. Seems like a straw man.

I made and stand behind that argument. And yes, I do think the Love "quick strike" scores are a potential problem. Naturally, they are very exciting, and I am not saying he should fall down and not score. BUT, tell me that against SDSU that 6 more minutes TOP wouldn't have been quite useful. We have had the discussion about the fact that this year we seem to have a somewhat wider variance in YPP than usual. On average, we are at least good, maybe better than that. However, 3 and outs have hurt us this year because our ability to stop the run isn't what we would like. Now, if we are scoring 42 points, that may not matter. However, I am sure you have seen the comments on this board about how ND is going to run all over us. While I think our defense has some stops in them, I don't think they have lots of stops in them. Each 3 and out is a risk. I really liked how Love moved the chains against ASU, as well as the long runs. We need to win the TOP battle against UW, WSU, and ND. If we don't, I don't expect us to win.
[/quote]

I wasn't counting you since I thought you were just engaging in his hypothetical.

Sure, having more TOP in some situations would sure be nice, but so would having, I dunno, more points. The point of the game is to get more points than the other guy. There are close to infinite ways to try to arrange that, and explosive plays are one. Ball control is another. There are explosive offenses with suffocating defenses, and ball control offenses with wet-paper-bag defenses. But the real problem here is that you're assuming it's either-or and it's not. You can be efficient and explosive. Our problem at SDSU was that, outside of one Love run, we were really neither.

In general, for this season, given our thin personnel on the DL, maybe in a vacuum you'd want more TOP, but I don't think it really matters all that much in this day and age of 4-hour games and constant timeouts. Going 3-and-out vs one-play-TD constantly? Sure, that's bad, you want to move the chains at least a little. But that's not what our offense is doing.

The game against SDSU was a result of a whole bunch of problems, ball control is really far down the list I'd draw up.

[stupac2]

[quote author=stupac2 link=topic=17760.msg207589#msg207589 date=1508797729]
The only person I've seen making this argument is you, in order to knock it down. Seems like a straw man.

I made and stand behind that argument. And yes, I do think the Love "quick strike" scores are a potential problem. Naturally, they are very exciting, and I am not saying he should fall down and not score. BUT, tell me that against SDSU that 6 more minutes TOP wouldn't have been quite useful. We have had the discussion about the fact that this year we seem to have a somewhat wider variance in YPP than usual. On average, we are at least good, maybe better than that. However, 3 and outs have hurt us this year because our ability to stop the run isn't what we would like. Now, if we are scoring 42 points, that may not matter. However, I am sure you have seen the comments on this board about how ND is going to run all over us. While I think our defense has some stops in them, I don't think they have lots of stops in them. Each 3 and out is a risk. I really liked how Love moved the chains against ASU, as well as the long runs. We need to win the TOP battle against UW, WSU, and ND. If we don't, I don't expect us to win.
[/quote]

I wasn't counting you since I thought you were just engaging in his hypothetical.

Sure, having more TOP in some situations would sure be nice, but so would having, I dunno, more points. The point of the game is to get more points than the other guy. There are close to infinite ways to try to arrange that, and explosive plays are one. Ball control is another. There are explosive offenses with suffocating defenses, and ball control offenses with wet-paper-bag defenses. But the real problem here is that you're assuming it's either-or and it's not. You can be efficient and explosive. Our problem at SDSU was that, outside of one Love run, we were really neither.

In general, for this season, given our thin personnel on the DL, maybe in a vacuum you'd want more TOP, but I don't think it really matters all that much in this day and age of 4-hour games and constant timeouts. Going 3-and-out vs one-play-TD constantly? Sure, that's bad, you want to move the chains at least a little. But that's not what our offense is doing.

The game against SDSU was a result of a whole bunch of problems, ball control is really far down the list I'd draw up.