Option Reads

They both were open.

Mason for sure was open and probably should have gotten the ball. Even if he gets stopped short, a long FG or even going for it on 4th comes into play.

But Carter was only open because his DB saw LJ staring Camp down and broke off the route. Looked like he had decent coverage before that.
 
Would have to look more closely. Sometimes what appears to be a bad read was an effective job by the defense to scrape and try and force the read where the defense is going. It's definitely a bad read when the unlocked guy goes straight for the back or QB and they end up with the ball, although if it's the back getting the ball you can't know if it was actually an option. Otherwise, something to pay attention to is what the receivers are doing. If they run a route instead of blocking, that indicates RPO. So if the defender assigned to that receiver ends up peeling off and getting to the QB that's a missed read because the QB is supposed to then throw it to the back. That's the basics, but I would guess there are defensive schemes designed to confuse that read too.

Edit: USF also showed zero coverage several times. If they didn't back out of it on the play, then there's an extra unblocked man in the box so it might also muddy things. But we were afraid to throw over the top of that on early downs for some reason and also against Clemson. Don't know why. We definitely weren't going to do much better with a clear numbers disadvantage.
 
Would have to look more closely. Sometimes what appears to be a bad read was an effective job by the defense to scrape and try and force the read where the defense is going. It's definitely a bad read when the unlocked guy goes straight for the back or QB and they end up with the ball, although if it's the back getting the ball you can't know if it was actually an option. Otherwise, something to pay attention to is what the receivers are doing. If they run a route instead of blocking, that indicates RPO. So if the defender assigned to that receiver ends up peeling off and getting to the QB that's a missed read because the QB is supposed to then throw it to the back. That's the basics, but I would guess there are defensive schemes designed to confuse that read too.

Edit: USF also showed zero coverage several times. If they didn't back out of it on the play, then there's an extra unblocked man in the box so it might also muddy things. But we were afraid to throw over the top of that on early downs for some reason and also against Clemson. Don't know why. We definitely weren't going to do much better with a clear numbers disadvantage.

Yeah, we aren’t going downfield like we should. And it isn’t just OL play. Our longest pass against USF should have been thrown to Oliver who had the inside deep, it probably would have been a TD.
 
I agree 100% with the concept of Oliver running and reading defense's it helps he generally has that skillset with his experience but he still struggles to pass especially downfield and until he proves that Defenses that he can do that they will continue to load the box and make it harder overall for the offense and then when our Center went down that whole exchange got horrible because the bad snapping. I really ultimately think Graham is the best of both world's for this offense but not sure if he playback wise and trust wise is read to go full-time.

I love how Oliver runs but it’s painful to watch Oliver throw the ball. It’s like watching Olympic shot put sometimes.
 
I agree with this. I'd like to see Oliver and Graham split reps, because Oliver currently gives us the best chance to win and Graham has the highest ceiling (IMO) of our QBs and may be the only one capable of running all parts of the offense at a high level. And when Graham is in at QB, I really like having Oliver on the field. At a bare minimum, it gives the defense something else to worry about.

spot on. TO is currently our best chance to win. JG probably the best ceiling although that's an assumption as of right now. me, against sit-a-dell, i'd run a three way split and let em all get some reps in. i'd also pull about a 60/40 pass / run ratio early, to see what they can do.

that said, i just checked the OC position depth chart and i'll damned if i'm not below the line this week. that's complete Bullchit!
 
I watched the game again myself and felt that Lucas had a really bad game. The team moves better with Tobias in the game. I would go with Oliver and give a few series to Graham and LJ would be my third string option. Of course, I am not at practices or in meetings. Oliver is not a great quarterback. The passing aaccuracy is not there. But, he is a good ball handler and runner. It seems he gives us the best chance to win.
 
I was rewatching a little bit of the USF game last night because the Pats/Steelers game sucked so bad, and I noticed something I hadn't seen live. A öööö ton of missed option reads. Either those were called plays, or we (especially LJ) did an awful job of reading the defense.

I've got an untrained eye, but damn if it didn't look like we kept handing it off into the teeth of the defense or keeping it when the RB had a hole to run through. Does anyone else with more time or knowledge want to go back through the film and break this down?

I remember saying to my buddy “Holy öööö we are missing the reads if they’re actually read plays.”
 
I would guess first off that securing the ball in shotgun means that the QB's eyes are not on their read as early as from under center.

It depends on who you’re reading. But the reality is that it’s run highly successfully many times a year in both high school, college, and pros.

It’s not hard to shotgun snap and still block
 
I watched the game again myself and felt that Lucas had a really bad game. The team moves better with Tobias in the game. I would go with Oliver and give a few series to Graham and LJ would be my third string option. Of course, I am not at practices or in meetings. Oliver is not a great quarterback. The passing aaccuracy is not there. But, he is a good ball handler and runner. It seems he gives us the best chance to win.

It’s been said before, hard to say when you can’t develop momentum with the lack of consistent snaps.
 
Oliver is the second coming of Smelter. He needs to be at WR or slot.
Oliver gives us our best chance at winning at QB now. He needs to play QB. If we had an OC that was worth a damn, he would install some packages/plays to take advantage of his limited passing ability while improving his confidence/skills. He is a sophomore. I know that we are used to seeing true freshman come in and win national championships at Clemson, but some players need to develop.
 
I'd use Oliver as a RB in a two back set and flex him out in the slot, or vice versa, and create some real matchup issues. A backfield of Oliver and Mason with (a healthy) Graham at QB creates a lot of headaches for the opposition, potentially.
 
I'd use Oliver as a RB in a two back set and flex him out in the slot, or vice versa, and create some real matchup issues. A backfield of Oliver and Mason with (a healthy) Graham at QB creates a lot of headaches for the opposition, potentially.

Doesn't matter how stacked the backfield is if we aren't given time by the O-line. Oliver has shown that he is able to make rushers miss. He can avoid the blitz and create positive yards. The other qb's haven't.
 
I'd use Oliver as a RB in a two back set and flex him out in the slot, or vice versa, and create some real matchup issues. A backfield of Oliver and Mason with (a healthy) Graham at QB creates a lot of headaches for the opposition, potentially.
We actually saw something similar against USF briefly, in between failed LJ drives.

Graham was hurt against the Citadel, but if he's healthy I wouldn't mind seeing this again.
 
We actually saw something similar against USF briefly, in between failed LJ drives.

Graham was hurt against the Citadel, but if he's healthy I wouldn't mind seeing this again.

What I'd like to also see go along with it is more pre-snap motion as window dressing to confuse the defense and give our guys some pre-snap reads that allow them to do less thinking and more executing once the ball is snapped. Right now they're in this weird limbo where they're trying to go fast, but they waste a ton of time looking to the sideline on every play and way too much thinking once the ball is snapped, which contributes to the ineffectiveness. It's basically the worst of all worlds right now.

A good OC would be figuring out a good half dozen to dozen plays that really cut out the degree of difficulty and give them good matchups and some pre-snap advantages so they can make some positive plays and build some confidence while they're learning the rest of the playbook and the techniques that go along with it on the fly.
 
What I'd like to also see go along with it is more pre-snap motion as window dressing to confuse the defense and give our guys some pre-snap reads that allow them to do less thinking and more executing once the ball is snapped. Right now they're in this weird limbo where they're trying to go fast, but they waste a ton of time looking to the sideline on every play and way too much thinking once the ball is snapped, which contributes to the ineffectiveness. It's basically the worst of all worlds right now.

A good OC would be figuring out a good half dozen to dozen plays that really cut out the degree of difficulty and give them good matchups and some pre-snap advantages so they can make some positive plays and build some confidence while they're learning the rest of the playbook and the techniques that go along with it on the fly.
Agree 100%. Our guys are trained to read the defense pre-snap and again as the play begins, so transitioning to read option/RPOs should be natural. We have two big WRs that can go up and get the ball and another speedster that can stretch the defense, so there's no reason we shouldn't be able to punish teams that creep into the box.

I'd also love to see more speed option to the edge. I see other teams run this successfully with lesser personnel. We have big WRs that can easily block CBs and a QB that is better at timing the pitch read than 99% of QBs out there. We scored on this play against the Citadel despite some awful blocking because Oliver forced his man to fully commit before pitching to Mason.
 
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