Good, Bad & Ugly- Syracuse

Oh, for Pete's sake. Defenses don't "give" offenses anything. Their job is to stop everything the offense might try. There are several different approaches they can take, but the most effective one by far is to control the line of scrimmage. Which Moo U did for 60 minutes, and 'Cuse did for substantial periods of time.
Now, you want to know how offense works? Its a concept not a lot of people catch on to, really. And its this: every play has the potential to score from anywhere on the field. TThe key is to identify the critical point of the play, and then getting the ball there before the defense can react. And if you doubt that, think about why Jordan Jefferson went 80 yards on an option keep against Tennessee a few years ago. Think about Guice going 96 yards through the guard-tackle gap against Arky last year. On a run, its getting the ball carrier past the d-line and into the secondary. On a pass play, regardless of how deep the route is, its how quickly you get the ball to the receiver. Both are virtually impossible if the play is continuously disrupted at the line of scrimmage. As I said, the case against MSU all night, and significant parts of the night against 'Cuse. So if you're the OC in those situations, you've got to adapt, and figure out how to get the play to that tipping point before its disrupted by the line. You've got to get the ball out of the QB's hands in a hurry and to the receiver before the pass rush gets to the QB or the DB can react to the ball. That's not happening in this offense. Granted, we scored 35 on 'Cuse, but that's because we got into occasional grooves where we did win at the line, and what is proving to be a slow-developing, deep passing game had time to be executed. But I haven't seen Canada demonstrate any kind of flexibility in his play calling, to get us through those moments when the defense has the momentum and is consistently winning at the line. That's the mark of a good coordinator.