Closing out Games Emphasis of Fall Practice

Closing out games is important but how about starting them too.

 

No Red my assessment is based on the evidence provided by several and written in the game records. Your assessment is based on wishful thinking.

 

You're right Red no one is fooled.

 

Personal opinion: Swagger and chemistry are overrated as concepts. I think that execution and winning lead to the appearance of swagger and chemistry - rather than "ADD SOME SWAGGER" would lead to execution and winning.

 

It's funny how so many people keep mindlessly repeating the mantra that "our offense has sucked for the past 5 years" while conveniently ignoring the offense of 2011, which was about as efficient and balanced of an offense as you could hope for. It's even right there in Brett's diatribe, the little number 17! Seventeen! When you consider the ridiculous numbers that come out of the 7-on-7 leagues like the Big XII, that's pretty damn impressive.

Oh, I'm sure the contrarians will chime in with the sentiment that the D often set us up the offense with short fields, etc., etc. To that I say, we also had one of the highest (if not the highest) red zone TD conversion percentages in the country. That offense was legit. It pushed people around, ran the ball well, threw the ball well, and made few mistakes. It could eat-up clock or hit you with the big play. But I think far too many Tiger fans let the events of 01/09/12 foil the perspective of the rest of the season.

I see the chain of events like this:

2008 - Offense was potent but made far too many mistakes
2009 - Offense sucked ass
2010 - Offense sucked ass until the Cotton Bowl - Crowton out
2011 - Offense was incredible, as noted above
2012 - Offense was very Jekyll & Hyde, but in the end was the downfall of the team - Stud out as OC

So I think it's highly disingenuous for people to assert that there's been a half-decade long trend of treachery with an even further decline ahead of us. Yes, the offense struggled pretty badly for a while there, but Miles took measures to correct it. Then the OC that he hired got hit with a potentially life-threatening disease, which put us in a bind for the past 2 years. When the offense again underperformed, what happened? Miles took measures to correct it.

You also have to consider that we face much tougher defenses week-in and week-out in the SEC than teams from other conferences, so we will never have the friggin' Tecmo Bowl statistics that many seem to covet.

 

And you must be able to see the bigger picture that this trend is much more complex than an HC who simply hates to score points.

No, and I am not asserting anything otherwise. I'm only addressing the irrational vitriol that seems to drown-out the more reasonable fans among us.

 

Right, but it hasn't been one, single thing that's limited our offense; it's been a chain of events. In '05 & '06, our offenses were good, but then Jimbo left for an HC job. Crowton came in in '07 and absolutely blew shit up, but he proved over the next 2 years that he was a flash in the pan. The rest is pretty simple. Bigtime OC brought in, then diagnosed with Parkinson's. Replacement led an incredible offense, then sucked the following year. Now we have as good of an OC hire as you could hope for.