[BostonCard]

That said, it's borderline coaching malpractice to have not run any play action passing. It would have been so easy to get the WRs and TEs behind the Safeties off play action fakes in that game given the amazing pass protection Stanford got (including from Love) against all the blitzing.

The lack of play action passing has been conspicuous by its absence the last couple of years, but particularly against SDSU. Given that Luck and Hogan both ran them extensively, I am puzzled by their de-emphasis in the playbook.  I can only wonder whether Costello just has a bit of trouble with the footwork and selling the fake or there are some other execution questions.  I mean, otherwise, did the coaches just forget that a QB can pretend to hand the ball off against a defense that is keyed in against the run in order to throw it to receivers that are one on one against their DB? 

The only other conclusion I can come to is that a play action pass was unnecessary against a defense that was playing with safeties up every play, even when we lined up in clear pass formations (3 and 4 wide receivers with the QB in the shotgun).  I mean in this particular game, we threw for 300+ yards against single coverage anyways; would we have gotten any further advantage by faking a run?

BC

[BostonCard]

That said, it's borderline coaching malpractice to have not run any play action passing. It would have been so easy to get the WRs and TEs behind the Safeties off play action fakes in that game given the amazing pass protection Stanford got (including from Love) against all the blitzing.

The lack of play action passing has been conspicuous by its absence the last couple of years, but particularly against SDSU. Given that Luck and Hogan both ran them extensively, I am puzzled by their de-emphasis in the playbook.  I can only wonder whether Costello just has a bit of trouble with the footwork and selling the fake or there are some other execution questions.  I mean, otherwise, did the coaches just forget that a QB can pretend to hand the ball off against a defense that is keyed in against the run in order to throw it to receivers that are one on one against their DB? 

The only other conclusion I can come to is that a play action pass was unnecessary against a defense that was playing with safeties up every play, even when we lined up in clear pass formations (3 and 4 wide receivers with the QB in the shotgun).  I mean in this particular game, we threw for 300+ yards against single coverage anyways; would we have gotten any further advantage by faking a run?

BC