[81alum]

It tells us how much we miss Bloomgren.

BC

I was wondering this too, all season so far but especially so last night.

When we have largely the same personnel and yet 1) the offensive line is run blocking much worse and 2) the passing game seems much better the logical conclusion is that this is due to changes of emphasis in coaching.

The offensive coordinator is a former quarterback, the outgoing one was the offensive line coach.

Another possibility is to rest this on Carberry, who is the new offensive line coach and running game coordinator.  Those are obvious weaknesses of our offense at this point, and it is not as if Carberry has had less talent to work with than Bloomgren did.

The good news is that Love has such an enormous reputation that having him on the field keeps the defense honest, whether or not he is running particularly well.  This gives us plenty of passing opportunities.  I'm inclined to think that Love will be able to run better once we establish the pass and start forcing defenses to drop more into coverage--this is the Walsh philosophy and the opposite of Shaw, but I wonder if even he will be forced into this conclusion given the great success of our passing and limited success of our running.

Much has been said about play action, and after watching a couple of classic Gerhardt games with lots of play action I was reminded of how very different our old running plays looked compared with the new pitch-back plays.  But Shaw knows this, and while he may be stubborn, we also know he is perfectly willing to run power and play action since he has before.  I conclude that it is something to do with our personnel.  He thinks Costello is a more effective quarterback if he is always facing the defense since he is young and doesn't scan the field as quickly as Luck learned to do.  Or he is worried that Costello's mobility is limited and so he needs to see the blitzes coming a little earlier.  OR (and this is my best guess) Love runs best when he is patient and sees the holes developing, and thus the deep pitch play to him.  The defenses know this and so play-action just doesn't work since Love almost never gets the ball on a conventional handoff.  We would have to start regularly handing off to Love to make the play-action work, and hand-offs don't maximize Love's abilities.

[81alum]

It tells us how much we miss Bloomgren.

BC

I was wondering this too, all season so far but especially so last night.

When we have largely the same personnel and yet 1) the offensive line is run blocking much worse and 2) the passing game seems much better the logical conclusion is that this is due to changes of emphasis in coaching.

The offensive coordinator is a former quarterback, the outgoing one was the offensive line coach.

Another possibility is to rest this on Carberry, who is the new offensive line coach and running game coordinator.  Those are obvious weaknesses of our offense at this point, and it is not as if Carberry has had less talent to work with than Bloomgren did.

The good news is that Love has such an enormous reputation that having him on the field keeps the defense honest, whether or not he is running particularly well.  This gives us plenty of passing opportunities.  I'm inclined to think that Love will be able to run better once we establish the pass and start forcing defenses to drop more into coverage--this is the Walsh philosophy and the opposite of Shaw, but I wonder if even he will be forced into this conclusion given the great success of our passing and limited success of our running.

Much has been said about play action, and after watching a couple of classic Gerhardt games with lots of play action I was reminded of how very different our old running plays looked compared with the new pitch-back plays.  But Shaw knows this, and while he may be stubborn, we also know he is perfectly willing to run power and play action since he has before.  I conclude that it is something to do with our personnel.  He thinks Costello is a more effective quarterback if he is always facing the defense since he is young and doesn't scan the field as quickly as Luck learned to do.  Or he is worried that Costello's mobility is limited and so he needs to see the blitzes coming a little earlier.  OR (and this is my best guess) Love runs best when he is patient and sees the holes developing, and thus the deep pitch play to him.  The defenses know this and so play-action just doesn't work since Love almost never gets the ball on a conventional handoff.  We would have to start regularly handing off to Love to make the play-action work, and hand-offs don't maximize Love's abilities.