Saturday, September 18, 2010

Commodore Vanderbuilt would be proud

It is clear that the Ole Miss offense has chemistry problems. While Jeremiah Masoli is an outstanding talent, the Rebs are having problems meshing his abilities into the offense. The lack of practice time was clearly evident today. Open receivers were missed. The timing that comes with hours spent practicing with recievers is just not present right now. There is a reason teams have spring training and fall practice and the Rebels are suffering from having a starting quarterback that was not present during this critical time.

Furthermore, the Rebs lack an offensive identity. Masoli is a spread quarterback while the team also uses Pro-style elements and also sprinkles in the Wildcat (or Wild Reb/ Wild Hog or whatever Nutt wishes to call it). Pick an identity Rebels. If Masoli is to be your quarterback, run the spread. Don't continue to try to fit this square peg into your multiple offense. We've seen what Masoli can do when unleased in the spread. If you don't want to convert completely, bench Masoli and play Stanley. Football offenses produce when there is a clear philosphy. Mixing spread, Pro and Wildcat elements is good idea  in theory but when it's crunch time, what do you rely on? What do you have confidence in? Just a bunch of plays? I'd much rather have a clear philosphy that my players believe in.

Finally, I admire Tyrone Nix and think he is a good football coach. With that said, the game-plan was completely off this week. He comes from a blizting background but that doesn't play well against a running team. The Rebels continually gave pressure looks and Vandy gashed them. The Rebs moved around and stunted but that movement plays into the hands of a running team. You block the first wave and there is no second line of defense because the secondary is in man coverage. This results in all the long runs the Commodores had today. There was no need for this since Ole Miss matches up physically with Vandy. The game plan today was just piss poor.

Looks like it will be a long season in the Grove.

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