Has Paul Johnson struggled calling the offensive plays

I think the answer isn't very concrete either way...not like Coach PJ is calling for our linemen to false start 8 times a game. Any line that does this to a coach is gonna make him/OC look bad. I swear, this group of linemen are horrible...and injured to boot.

Our passing game is very frustrating...but when hasn't it been? This is what sucks the most.....a lot of us were expecting a badass passing attack simply because Vad doesn't throw wounded ducks all over the place like our quarterbacks of old.. It's really disappointing CPJ hasn't capitalized on Vad's particular skill set. He needs to fix this fast. I blame our lack of passing routes. Seems like we don't run many...just ask Stephen Hill.
 
We run plenty. Vad just has deep ball-itis
 
GTCrew4b said:
We run plenty. Vad just has deep ball-itis
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This.

Right now I would take some wounded duck completions over perfect spirals five feet over the receivers' head. We need to find the open receiver and get them the ball more consistently. There are no style points awarded.
 
GTCrew4b said:
We run plenty. Vad just has deep ball-itis
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Agreed. Go back and look at plays where Vad actually had decent time to make a pass. He goes for the deep ball 95% of the time even when there is a wide open receiver on a shorter route. It's like he refuses to checkdown and make the short pass. Kinda of like when he is running TO and instead of the short gain he tries to make the big play and loses yards..

I won't write him off yet as it his first year starting. Even Joe Hamilton didn't have a stellar first year. However, if Vad doesn't show signs of making better decisions; it might be time to go with JT.
 
gpburdell said:
Agreed. Go back and look at plays where Vad actually had decent time to make a pass. He goes for the deep ball 95% of the time even when there is a wide open receiver on a shorter route. It's like he refuses to checkdown and make the short pass. Kinda of like when he is running TO and instead of the short gain he tries to make the big play and loses yards..

I won't write him off yet as it his first year starting. Even Joe Hamilton didn't have a stellar first year. However, if Vad doesn't show signs of making better decisions; it might be time to go with JT.
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The improvement between Lil Joe's REdshirt freshman and Redshirt sophomore year was staggering. You could see Joe improving during the course of the 1997 season (RS soph) where you knew he was going to be a good one. I have yet to feel that way about Vad. His improvement during his third season has been minimal.
 
GTCrew4b said:
We run plenty. Vad just has deep ball-itis
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lonestarjacket said:
This.

Right now I would take some wounded duck completions over perfect spirals five feet over the receivers' head. We need to find the open receiver and get them the ball more consistently. There are no style points awarded.
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go to espn3.com, watch the first quarter, it's not as bad as we remember [IMO because of the last long Smelter completion]
 
originalwombat said:
I don't think so. My theory is that he is calling the plays that Vad needs to learn - and that he feels Vad can learn. I imagine CPJ knows exactly what to call to take advantage of Vad's strengths. That said, I bet he also knows that we're not set up to execute, thus making it pointless to call them.

The problem is that if Vad were truly so gifted at some things, then we'd see it by now. I'm not convinced his strengths are worth accommodating. CPJ might be thinking the same thing. Spring practice will be Vad's last chance to show that he's "getting it" or this will be JT's team next year.
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This may be true, but if so, JT better add about 20 lbs. of muscle....he will not last at his size, and we will have Vad again anyway.
 
Did Joe play all of his RS Freshmen year? However much practice time helps, in terms of playing time Vad is somewhere around where Nesbitt was in late 2008.
 
optionqb said:
The "15 yard pass" to Smelter was a post-route...that's a deep route. Yes, there was a screen pass to Laskey, but my whole point is the rarity of the play. It was a great call (even though Laskey used his blocks poorly). That's the only screen pass I've seen on 3rd down this year. Are there others? Maybe, I don't recall seeing them. There are way too many pass-plays that turn into long-ball throws (whether Johnson intends them to or not). I haven't seen many screen passes this year. Some others here seem to be noticing a conspicuous lack of them as well. Maybe that will change. I hope so.

I can understand the lack of true intermediate routes. Most of GTs passes come off play-action. On those he wants to typically go deep. When you call drop-back passes, the protection needed to allow intermediate routes to get open is high.
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Loser. The thread title makes the issue is "play calling." Your previous post labelled "chuck it long" his play call. A mature adult would admit error when confronted with contrary evidence. You chose to say, "whether Johnson intends them to or not."

Calling a 15 yd pass a post does not make it a "chuck it long" pass.
 
lonestarjacket said:
This.

Right now I would take some wounded duck completions over perfect spirals five feet over the receivers' head. We need to find the open receiver and get them the ball more consistently. There are no style points awarded.
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If the perfect spirals are to where the receiver's route should have gone, then I would say Vad's doing fine. Reading between the lines of what CPJ has said, Smelter at least has had significant issues with route-running.

Against Pitt, all but the last completion were these short/intermediate routes that people are asking for. The incompletions were mostly when Vad just didn't have enough time to do much of anything.
 
BarrelORum said:
You may be the only person who doesn't know PJs record versus VT.
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Umm, you might want to talk with some grown-ups about football. Sometimes, when a team loses, it is not because the DC out-schemed the OC. Also, if you look at the exchange between the adults to which you responded, you'll see that it was about one game not all of them.

Apparently calling cj a mediocre pro has not made you less arrogant about your ignorance.
 
cyptomcat said:
go to espn3.com, watch the first quarter, it's not as bad as we remember [IMO because of the last long Smelter completion]
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I was going to mention that in the Pitt game Vad started to check down some. It was great to see him improve in this area.
 
AE 87 said:
Loser. The thread title makes the issue is "play calling." Your previous post labelled "chuck it long" his play call. A mature adult would admit error when confronted with contrary evidence. You chose to say, "whether Johnson intends them to or not."

Calling a 15 yd pass a post does not make it a "chuck it long" pass.
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Look, dolt. It was explained to you in nice, simple "Football for Dummies" terms. IF an inordinate number of pass plays end up being deep throws (which they obviously have under PJs tenure), then that is a function of his play design. Comprende'? At the very least PJ does not emphasize short routes over long in the read progression. To use an anology, you can run the option with a certain emphasis on dive, keep, or pitch. You literally tell the quarterback before a play: Give unless #1 (the read key) absolutely wont let you give. It's a way of cutting down on the thinking process of the QB.

Now, you can point to last games screen pass and a few tosses to the WR out in to the flats to try and make a case...and I emphasize *try*. The passing PJs offense is notorious for a large percentage of deep throws. Or are you denying that despite all your "evidence"?
 
optionqb said:
Look, dolt. It was explained to you in nice, simple "Football for Dummies" terms. IF an inordinate number of pass plays end up being deep throws (which they obviously have under PJs tenure), then that is a function of his play design. Comprende'? At the very least PJ does not emphasize short routes over long in the read progression. To use an anology, you can run the option with a certain emphasis on dive, keep, or pitch. You literally tell the quarterback before a play: Give unless #1 (the read key) absolutely wont let you give. It's a way of cutting down on the thinking process of the QB.

Now, you can point to last games screen pass and a few tosses to the WR out in to the flats to try and make a case...and I emphasize *try*. The passing PJs offense is notorious for a large percentage of deep throws. Or are you denying that despite all your "evidence"?
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Of course we throw a lot of long passes. When you can get a receiver behind the secondary because they're cheating in run support, it's a great play. It's a big part of our playbook.

Focus. I was responding to you saying that he's not calling other pass plays and that chuck it long was a third down play call. That we regularly try to beat secondaries with long passes doesn't make every ball thrown long a calledplay. We often have 3 guys in routes with only 2 being vertical.
 
AE 87 said:
Of course we throw a lot of long passes. When you can get a receiver behind the secondary because they're cheating in run support, it's a great play. It's a big part of our playbook.

Focus. I was responding to you saying that he's not calling other pass plays and that chuck it long was a third down play call. That we regularly try to beat secondaries with long passes doesn't make every ball thrown long a calledplay. We often have 3 guys in routes with only 2 being vertical.
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Not to mention I don't know why we would call short passes since that is usually where the CBs/Ss cheat up. It's a lot different for teams whose bread and butter is deep passes, or teams that line up 4-5 WRs to spread out the field. Our offense positions the defense in a way to stop short passes to the WRs (because those happen to also be the run lanes for ABs and our QB). The only short pass that is routinely open are the screen passes to the WRs. That's why we run so many wheel routes, those are what the D gives us.
 
BarrelORum said:
The improvement between Lil Joe's REdshirt freshman and Redshirt sophomore year was staggering. You could see Joe improving during the course of the 1997 season (RS soph) where you knew he was going to be a good one. I have yet to feel that way about Vad. His improvement during his third season has been minimal.
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The problem with this argument is that it completely ignores reality. Hamilton started as a freshman. Vad didn't. Calling this his "third season" is idiotic. It's his first real season. Hamilton threw 188 passes his freshman year and ran 95 times. Vad Lee threw the ball 56 times his first two "seasons" (one of which was a redshirt) and has still thrown it less in his career than JH.

I don't have the number of plays in front of me, but expecting two players to develop at an identical rate where one started and the other redshirted and was a backup is just plain dumb.
 
You can't just pin it all on Vad. Our offensive line has not done well at pass protection, and our best WR (by far) is a former baseball player who does not run great routes.

You can't underestimate how badly we are hurting at WR right now. Smelter is very solid, but after him it's a wasteland. And that's just in terms of catching the ball. I think they're just ok w/ run blocking. Certainly no Bay-Bay's or Melton's out there.
 
floridajacket said:
Did Joe play all of his RS Freshmen year? However much practice time helps, in terms of playing time Vad is somewhere around where Nesbitt was in late 2008.
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Joe played about 70% of the snaps as I recall. He was injured some as O'Leary went back and forth between him and Brandon Shaw.
 
Honestly, I don't think its necessary to use Joe Hamilton as the benchmark to decide if Vad is where he needs to be.

He isn't.

He's had two years to prepare for this season. He ran 100 plays last year and 140 this year. He just doesn't look like you would expect a very athletic quarterback with 240 varsity snaps under his belt to look.

I understand that its not all his fault - he'd look better if he had a better supporting cast but then again so would anybody else. Really good players on not so good teams (or units in the case of football) will occasionally make the eye-popping play - rising above the limitations of their surrounding teammates to do something amazing and earn a spot on the highlight reel. There have not been many of them. His longest run this year is 21 yards. Most discouraging to me is his INT/TD ratio: 75% both this year and last year.

I'm not giving up on the guy but I've had to do some major recalibrating of my expectations.
 
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