I am shocked, and obviously I was wrong.
Navy were selling out to stop the run at all costs with constant heavy blitzes and ND absolutely torched them in the first half because of it. Navy was playing absolutely desperate defense which you would never coach that way unless you knew it was your absolutely only shot to be in the game. If everyone is crashing the line and you have cover 0 the whole game, you throw it. Period. On a run play, you're down a person because the QB is taken out of the play and DP is just not mobile enough to add to those numbers consistently as a runner.
In the second half, ND did a particularly poor job picking up blitzers off the edge (RBs mostly with TE mixed in there too), letting a couple of guys run free (Oline), and Pyne holding the ball too long or not hitting his quick outlet throws.
The offense only ran 18 plays in the second half so those mistakes were magnified significantly. If the RBs make any of those blocks or Drew Pyne hits on any one of those plays, we aren't having this conversation.
It was a perfect storm of miscues combined with a ball control offense on the other side. It doesn't even present a blueprint for other teams to work with because you're statistically more likely to get torched for 35 a half than not.
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Our primary ball carriers:
Estime 8 Carr 49 yds 6.1 avg
Diggs 13 Carr 31 yds 2.4 avg
Comb 21 Carr 80 yds 3.9 avg
When you have a RB averaging over 6 per tote and you give him only 8 carries, you have failed as a coach.
Simply swapping the carry distribution between those two would change things to:
Estime 13 Carr 80 yds 6.1 avg
Diggs 8 Carr 19 yds 2.4 avg
Comb 21 Carr 99 yds 4.7 avg
Seems to me we simply misutilized our personnel and then just stopped running it in the 2nd half.
That context matters. 6.1 ypc implies that Estime was running it down Navy's throat. He wasn't and all our backs were pedestrian.
We should have mixed in some runs to set up the pass. Not the other way around that you suggested.
It's not about making it seem like anything...fact, in first half he was averaging over 8 per carry. So why the F did he only have 8 carriers on the game? Because Navy 'shut him down'...nah sorry, only 8 carries and 2 over 10. Law of averages says if he gets 16 carries he probably has 4 over 10 with another big gainer.
But it's not even about that, we are spider webbing...we ran the ball consistently and effectively enough in the first half to open up the pass and we scored on every possession except when we missed a FG. The only reason the second half was different wasn't because Navy shut down our run, it's because we stopped running. Rees fell for the shiney object and came out trying to be a drop back passing team in the second half. We abandoned the run, as Rees' Mentor was so renowned for doing, which along with the defense forgetting how to play pass defense is why the game became close in the second half...not because Navy's mighty defense stymied our run game as you're trying to sell it.
Rees showed his true incompetence as an OC and played right into the hands of what Navy wanted us to do.
It stands to reason his late-game carries would have generated more 10+ yard gains as the defense gets more tired.
that you give 20, 25, 30 carries and they just take over games.
We see the elite teams do this through the years and we finally get that type of player on or roster and we give him 8 damn carries.
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and getting sacked.
If we were running it and pick up a first down instead of starting in a 2nd and 15 hole, then we have the ability to have a drive. The 1st first down of the drive is the most important one.
But, we "kept" drop back passing? Got it.
The guy that averaged over 8 per tote in the first half and added a 30 yd TD reception, got two F'ing touches the entire second half.
Do you also realize that after Navy had a 10 minute drive to open the 3rd Quarter, on our very first play of the second half we ran a drop back pass and were sacked to bring up 2nd & 15. Then two meaningless runs up the middle picked up 4 or 5 yards, but if we run those on 1st and 2nd down we're in 3rd and manageable instead of 3rd & 14.
Then second possession, two runs put us in third and manageable and Pyne's third down pass is tipped and intercepted.
Then our third possession (pay attention here) the score is now 35-24, perfect time to melt some clock away and get things back under control....nope, not Rees, 5 pass plays, 1 rush attempt. On those 5 pass plays: 1 completion, 1 incompletion, 3 Sacks.
But, your points on Estime and the run game in general are way off. The "Estime was averaging 8 yards per tote" is meaningless in the greater context of the game. To use it to describe how effective our run game was is disingenuous at best. He didn't "average" near that much against Clemson. Did our run game in the first half against Navy look in the same universe as the Clemson game?
We also did not abandon the run in the second half. Our first 2 possessions included 4 runs and 2 passes. And in the 2nd possession we ran it on first down.
If you want to say we abandoned the run in the 4th quarter, I agree with you. But to claim our meltdown in the 2nd half was due to us going away from the first half game plan, I don't agree. We stuck with it through 3 quarters and all of the sudden it's 35-24 at the start of the fourth quarter.
I'm beginning to think that you don't understand offensive football very well.
When you have a back who is doing that well, you feed him...when you give him only 8 carries in a game (2 in the second half) you have failed as a coach and YOU shut down the running game, not the opponent.
19 runs for 93 yards in first half..4.9 avg [Estime had 6 of the 19 runs for 32%...should have been even more]
8 runs for 11 yards in second half..1.4 avg [Estime had 2 of the 8 runs for 25%]
19 for 93 at 4.9 is enough in a half to get it done against Navy...8 for 11 is not.
You seem so stuck on trying to believe that I think we were going to roll the ball out, run every down for 8-9 yds a pop and never pass and that I think we were having great success running at will vs Navy, that you aren't seeing reality.
19 for 93 at 4.9 in a half, IS succes vs a good run defense! I'll take that all day...I would have liked to see it be more like 26 for 128, but 19 for 93 is enough.
The point is, Navy didn't shut that down, our coach(es) did. "We" reduced our rush attempts by over 50% in the second half (fact) and "We" reduced the run distribution from our most successful back of the first half (fact), instead of increasing it as a good offensive minded coach would do.
Navy has a good run defense, this is true...but they are not the reason our run game disappeared in the second half, Rees is!
We ran it 4/6 plays until the 4th qtr.
They were not disguised.
That's the number that counts.
And you are the one who didn't think we even needed to pass it. We were just going to run it down Navy's throats until Navy "showed us" they could stop us. Well Navy showed us.
You just can't bring yourself to admit that Navy has a great run defense just because they are Navy and they suck. Well, they've proven it over an entire season. Yesterday wasn't an anomaly. Yet, somehow you have convinced yourself that ND could just run it at will for some reason.
I didn't cherry pick what runs count.
You presented 1.9 like that was an accurate reflection on our run game to celebrate how right you were.
1.9 is not an accurate reflection, period. The 5 sacks Pyne took in the second half "while dropping back to pass" took away from our actual rushing numbers, but you didn't care about accuracy just wanted to make yourself look more right.
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Our pass/run ratio was 16 to 19 in the first half...in second half it was 10 to 8.
We ran 54% of the time in the first half and tried to pass 46% of the time. In the second half we ran 44% of the time and tried to pass 56% of the time.
Not only are they not the same, they flip flopped.
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ie, in college when QB drops back to pass and gets sacks they chalk that up as a rush attempt and take the yards away from rushing yards..that's kinda dumb but whatever. In the NFL this counts as negative "team" passing yards. Doesn't count against QB since ball isn't thrown but doesn't count against running game since the attempt was to throw the ball not run it.
Since I'm trying to have an honest and real discussion about how effective our run game was and how different the second half play calling was from the first...the 5 QB sacks Pyne took in the second half while dropping back to pass, I'm not counting them in rushing attempts because that just isn't what they were. That's why if you go back you'll see the wording I used is 'rush attempts' vs 'times we tried to pass'.
I'm not going to call them pass attempts either since ball wasn't thrown but have no problem saying 'we were trying to throw the ball on those plays' because....we were.
In fairness to run pass ratio, one of Pyne's runs from first half could probably be switched to 'tried to throw' since it appeared a pass was called but Pyne saw nothing so he tuck n run for a few yards.
I'm not trying to fudge numbers to make it look like our run game was fantastic, it wasn't...but it was serviceable enough vs a run D like that to not only stick with it, but ramp it up (specifically with the hot hand at RB) in the 2nd half with a big lead.
The problem as I see it is this, Rees flinched! When they had their 10 min drive to start the 2nd half, he immediately went into we gotta get that back mode. First offensive play was drop back pass, sacked to bring up 2nd and 15 that led to 3rd and 14.
If I'm the offensive coordinator, I'm up 35-13 at half, the opponent opens 3rd quarter with a 10 min drive that ends with a FG....I'm not upset or feeling pressure or any other kind of way, in fact I'm grinning, I'm thankful, I'm adding them to my Christmas list. You just shortened the 2nd half by 33% to get 3 points, you have made my job easier! In fact to thank you for being so kind, I'm returning the favor by grinding every second off the clock when I get the ball. 1) Not only did my defense just spend 10 min on the field and I don't wanna put them back out there with a quick 3 and out 2) every minute that decrease off this clock without you narrowing the gap decreases your ability to come back and win this game. Perfect scenario would be a nice long drive that ends the 3rd Quarter and results in any points.
Now 3rd quarter is over and you either maintained the lead or extended it.
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were we able to run all over Clemson NFL bound front and be completely shut down against Navy? From what I am reading Clemson was also loading the box. But we were stampeding all over them. How? What the hell was Navy doing? And why weren’t we able to adjust? Was it a matter of let down, coaching?
While we should have performed better, we were never going to run for 200+ yards on them. We just needed enough of a running attack to setup the pass. We did that in the 1st half. Rees should have made some adjustments in the 2nd half. Pyne did not help matters. He was simply bad in the 2nd half.
schemes? They were as bad or worse than the O
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This team is very bi-polar in nature, which is the opposite of what Freeman is telling them, don't get too high, don't get to low, remain balanced...
That’s on the coach