The Doman Offense

[Surfah]

This is a silly thread. I don't know much about football, but I know enough to not condemn a first time coordinator for his first game, played 1500 miles from home, in a game he won.

I hired a guy last week. maybe some of you could come visit our office on Tuesday, check out his performance, and tell me if he sucks.

By the way, here are BYU's results in first games of the season in the Mendenhall era:

So what you're saying is we need to schedule more FCS teams.

[Sizzle]

This is a silly thread. I don't know much about football, but I know enough to not condemn a first time coordinator for his first game, played 1500 miles from home, in a game he won.

I hired a guy last week. maybe some of you could come visit our office on Tuesday, check out his performance, and tell me if he sucks.

By the way, here are BYU's results in first games of the season in the Mendenhall era:

Interesting that the most comparable game is the Arizona game from Beck's Senior year. I would wager that Arizona of that year is probably the most comparable team we played, although Washington of last year would probably be a close second. I hope that we can be as good at the end of this season as that team was at the end of Beck's senior year.

[Eddie]

I thought the tempo might have been deliberate. It kept their offense off of the field for about 2/3rds of the game. There are more reasons than one that our defense looked so great from start to finish and theirs got worse as the game went on.

I don't think you get enough credit for this observation - and was thinking the same thing myself.

The greatest danger to BYU was that the huge Ole Miss line would get to pound on them all day, wearing the defense down by the 4th quarter, and giving us a repeat of the FSU game in which we watch our defense give up 6-8 or more yards per play with runs up the middle.

The best thing BYU could've done to give them the best chance to win would be to play ball control and keep the Ole Miss offense off the field.

I think that typically BYU would like to play at a little faster tempo. But not one the road in the first game of the season against a team with a good running game. This game could've gotten out of hand fast if Ole Miss had more time on the field.

Now - maybe this is wrong. Maybe we'll see the same tempo at home against Idaho St. If we do, I'll be disappointed. But I wasn't yesterday.

[USCoug]

Offense looked fine. They just couldn't finish drives.

[Hazzard]

OK, I went back and watched the game a second time so I have a better idea of what Doman was doing offensively.

Thoughts:

1. We don't have an offensive identity.

I knew this was going to be a problem when Doman said about 10 contradictory things over the summer about what he was going to run. One week we were going to be the BYU offense of old, passing it all over the field. The next week we were going to be a power running with play action team. The next week we were going to be like Boise State.

If you look at the offenses who outperform their historical recruiting levels (recently, it's teams like Boise State, Oregon, Georgia Tech, Hawaii, any team coached by Leach, etc.), they have a completely clear identity. Oregon is spread run, then pass when the D comes into the box. Hawaii is pure run and shoot. Leach is Air Raid. Boise State is shift to outflank, then counter when teams overreact. Georgia Tech is pure option. Every single one of the coaches of these teams says the same thing: have a clear identity, keep it simple, have a few constraint plays, rep your stuff a million times and watch it go.

We, on the other hand, looked like we weren't sure if we wanted to be a power running team or a spread passing team. In the NFL, with unlimited practice time, you can be both. In high school and college, with limited practice time, you've gotta choose. Doman needs to decide what he wants to be and go with it.

2. Our offense is a good favorite strategy, but a poor underdog strategy.

We spent a lot of time in an I formation with a tight end. This is fine against average to poor defenses b/c, despite our mediocre running backs, we have a big advantage with our offensive line. Against San Jose State, we can run out of the I and dominate with our line push. But if we're shooting for a national championship we are going to have to figure out how to beat elite teams. Lining up in the I against LSU with DiLuigi at tailback is laughable. Our line might still get a decent push, but their LB's will nail our running backs at the line of scrimmage, even with seven in the box. That leaves us in a bad spot.

Our other most frequent formation was shotgun, 2-back, 3-wide. This is weird b/c if we're going to get in the shotgun and pass most of the time out of it, why go 2-back? I'd rather see us go 4-wide or empty with Apo and Hoffman out wide, Mathews flexed inside and some combination of DiLuigi, Jacobsen and Falslev filling out the other spots.

3. We need less plays, more reps.

Watch Hawaii, watch Georgia Tech, watch Leach's teams. These are the models we should follow. (Ignore Oklahoma, Texas, USC, Ohio State, etc. They get such good athletes they can run whatever they want. We can't compete with their athletes so we have to use underdog strategies if we want to compete for a national title.) They run few plays, but they run them really well. They use execution and deception to mask their athletic shortcomings to regularly compete with the big guys.

On our only touchdown drive, the last two plays that put us into the end zone were shallow cross (an Air Raid/Anae staple) to Jacobsen and a post-corner (an old BYU special) to Apo. These are the types of plays we need more of. I formation power running followed by play action into the flat will be fine if we want to go 9-3 every year, but not if we want to bust the BCS. We will get pounded by elite teams.

4. We will be much better at the end of the year than we our today. And we will be really good next year. But there are going to be some growing pains. Heaps still has a lot of maturing to do.

[Hsaru]

I don't know how you can come out of a rewatch with only negative observations--things looked pretty darn promising to me on the rewatch. I notice you didn't mention a single thing that actually hurt the drives as in dumb mistakes, bad snaps, penalties, blitz assignment mistakes...

[shoganai]

There is one thing that stood out to me more than anything after this game. Doman made this comment:

...the coaches made some recommendations in the second half that were critical for me as a play-caller.

I'm willing to bet such recommendations were rarely, if ever, solicited or accepted by Anae.

Doman will be fine.

Article

[jay santos]

After rewatching, I have two issues that I'm hoping will be fixed over time.

1. We did terrible under center on third down in a passing down. This is going to be a big problem if we try to keep it up. Heaps was always rushed and never in a position to take advantage of it.

2. Heaps designed roll out too often. I think Heaps is best and most comfortable in the pocket. I don't think he does as well on the move. The play action is acceptable if it results in Heaps back in the pocket, but too often we went play action designed roll out. I just don't think it's our strength.

[Sizzle]

After rewatching, I have two issues that I'm hoping will be fixed over time.

1. We did terrible under center on third down in a passing down. This is going to be a big problem if we try to keep it up. Heaps was always rushed and never in a position to take advantage of it.

2. Heaps designed roll out too often. I think Heaps is best and most comfortable in the pocket. I don't think he does as well on the move. The play action is acceptable if it results in Heaps back in the pocket, but too often we went play action designed roll out. I just don't think it's our strength.

We converted 5 of 6 3rd downs of 5 yards or less. We converted 1 of 7 on 3rd and long. 3rd down has as much or more to do with what happens on 1st and 2nd down as it does on 3rd down IMO.

In terms of the roll out, I'll have to go back and look, but those bootlegs seemed to be plays that converted at a highly successful rate. If they drove a large number of 1st downs, why would we want to go away from that?

[Pelado]

After rewatching, I have two issues that I'm hoping will be fixed over time.

1. We did terrible under center on third down in a passing down. This is going to be a big problem if we try to keep it up. Heaps was always rushed and never in a position to take advantage of it.

2. Heaps designed roll out too often. I think Heaps is best and most comfortable in the pocket. I don't think he does as well on the move. The play action is acceptable if it results in Heaps back in the pocket, but too often we went play action designed roll out. I just don't think it's our strength.

I too thought the rollout was overused, though I don't remember the results of those plays. If only there was a way to re-watch the game.

[USUC]

I don't know if this question belongs in the Doman offense thread, but I couldn't figure out where else to put it. I'm not sure how BYU's receivers performed last week. You can never tell watching the game on TV other than dropped balls. But how much of the problem on Saturday was the inability of the receivers to get seperation? I suspect that had something to do with all the drop off passes to the backs. Has Cahoon said anything about how the receivers have performed? For those of you that were in Oxford, did you notice how the receivers performed?

Edit: I guess I should have put this in the "BYU Thoughts" thread.

[All-American]

I too thought the rollout was overused, though I don't remember the results of those plays. If only there was a way to re-watch the game.

I thought they were extremely successful. The only reason I would go away from it is if the defensive ends caught on and started staying home. I was amazed at how often they would bite on that play and how hard. Jake could have walked for five yards each time BYU ran a naked bootleg.

[BGRTHNUMEGO]

Am I wrong in thinking that the rollouts were used so often because they were put in to replace attempted run sweeps against a defense that we knew we wouldn't be able to run to the edge against with our backs? The rollouts were likely used as a means to spread the defense out a bit. And given the unpredictable drum that wasn't being beaten I'm sure we'll see the receivers' routes being altered on those rollouts in subsequent weeks.

[cougjunkie]

I don't know if this question belongs in the Doman offense thread, but I couldn't figure out where else to put it. I'm not sure how BYU's receivers performed last week. You can never tell watching the game on TV other than dropped balls. But how much of the problem on Saturday was the inability of the receivers to get seperation? I suspect that had something to do with all the drop off passes to the backs. Has Cahoon said anything about how the receivers have performed? For those of you that were in Oxford, did you notice how the receivers performed?

Edit: I guess I should have put this in the "BYU Thoughts" thread.

Receivers were open for the most part, Heaps just missed them. In fact it was never a matter of Heaps holding the ball to long because he couldn't find anyone open or him trying to force stuff. He had guys plenty open he was just not making the throws.

He short hopped an out route to JJ, he missed Mckay on a post pattern where he was open between 3 defenders, he overthrew Falslev on a 3rd down where JD had a step on his guy.

Things were different in the 2nd half he was 13-16 and was much more accurate.

[smokymountainrain]

he missed Mckay on a post pattern where he was open between 3 defenders,

This was one of his worst misfires of the game, but it was funny because he threw that ball so hard, despite hitting the safety in the numbers, it just bounced right of his chest.