(11-24-2014 03:06 PM)wml33t Wrote:  

(11-24-2014 02:58 PM)Rocco Wrote:  

(11-24-2014 02:35 PM)Hail Indians Wrote:  Very fair. That's pretty consistent with what I saw too, though not from the endzone. It looks like he's looking for somewhere to fall when they blitz us sometimes, but that is a product of 1 - pass pro problems all year and 2- lack of experience.

I think he will continue to get better and will give us a chance to win. Love the toughness and durability.

Looking for a place to fall is an improvement from the beginning of the year when he would stand in the pocket and wait to get murdered.

I'd like to see a few more screens to help the offense next year. RB screens, not the garbage bubble screens to receivers. It would help take pressure off the line. I'd also humbly request no more Wildcat in the red zone.

There are a few things I'd like to see with variety in the passing game to help Cluley out.

- More screens when teams blitz
- Seam routes
- Slants

For some reason the last several years it has seemed like W&M forgot what a seam and a slant are. They just don't seem to be in the playbook, but should be staples of a ball-control, take a shot here and there offense.

I agree. We don't seem to be attacking the seams when the opponent plays zone or using slants on man-to-man coverage during blitzes to any great degree. Both can be effective. Screen passes to RB's would seem to be effective given Cluley's mobility and keep the defense off balance.

Then again, they would take away plays from delayed handoffs...

The shotgun delay counter draw is one of my least favorite plays. It's probably not as terrible as I think it is but it sticks out in my mind.

(11-24-2014 02:58 PM)Rocco Wrote:  

(11-24-2014 02:35 PM)Hail Indians Wrote:  Very fair. That's pretty consistent with what I saw too, though not from the endzone. It looks like he's looking for somewhere to fall when they blitz us sometimes, but that is a product of 1 - pass pro problems all year and 2- lack of experience.

I think he will continue to get better and will give us a chance to win. Love the toughness and durability.

Looking for a place to fall is an improvement from the beginning of the year when he would stand in the pocket and wait to get murdered.

I'd like to see a few more screens to help the offense next year. RB screens, not the garbage bubble screens to receivers. It would help take pressure off the line. I'd also humbly request no more Wildcat in the red zone.

He seems very conscious of protecting the football, which is great. This scenario will get better.

Seam route works best when you flood one half of the field with two wide and then throw the seam route to the tight end from the other side. The safety will generally cheat to the two wide leaving the tight end open or having an LB cover. Having Revel hurt most of the year took that away.

(11-24-2014 03:20 PM)LeadBolt Wrote:  

(11-24-2014 03:06 PM)wml33t Wrote:  

(11-24-2014 02:58 PM)Rocco Wrote:  

(11-24-2014 02:35 PM)Hail Indians Wrote:  Very fair. That's pretty consistent with what I saw too, though not from the endzone. It looks like he's looking for somewhere to fall when they blitz us sometimes, but that is a product of 1 - pass pro problems all year and 2- lack of experience.

I think he will continue to get better and will give us a chance to win. Love the toughness and durability.

Looking for a place to fall is an improvement from the beginning of the year when he would stand in the pocket and wait to get murdered.

I'd like to see a few more screens to help the offense next year. RB screens, not the garbage bubble screens to receivers. It would help take pressure off the line. I'd also humbly request no more Wildcat in the red zone.

There are a few things I'd like to see with variety in the passing game to help Cluley out.

- More screens when teams blitz
- Seam routes
- Slants

For some reason the last several years it has seemed like W&M forgot what a seam and a slant are. They just don't seem to be in the playbook, but should be staples of a ball-control, take a shot here and there offense.

I agree. We don't seem to be attacking the seams when the opponent plays zone or using slants on man-to-man coverage during blitzes to any great degree. Both can be effective. Screen passes to RB's would seem to be effective given Cluley's mobility and keep the defense off balance.

Then again, they would take away plays from delayed handoffs...

Meh - you can run the seam with a slot WR or either of the freshmen TE, I don't buy that as an excuse.

Outside of that, look at Revell's numbers. We all loved him, but he was hardly ever thrown to either. He had 7 receptions in 2013 for 109 yards and a touchdown, with 49 of those yards coming on one play. This is not just a problem from this year.

I think we give Cluley too much grief.

In his first year starting, he completed 58% of his passes, had 11 TDs and just 4 picks. He's also faster than people realize, and can but out long runs from time to time.

My one complaint is he backpeddles instead of stepping up when there's pressure, which causes sacks to be 7-10 yard loses instead of 5 yards or so.

(11-24-2014 03:31 PM)Rocco Wrote:  The shotgun delay counter draw is one of my least favorite plays. It's probably not as terrible as I think it is but it sticks out in my mind.

I am not as fond of that one either. We did run a really nice variation of late (I think Towson) where we faked to the right, had movement there, and then ran away from the formation for a TD.

I would like to see us make fewer FG attempts unless we have the 2009 defense in play. Even with a prolific offense, UR went for it a lot last weekend. At least one TD resulted.

No you can't just run a seam route with any freshman tight end or receiver or we would have seen it. You can provide me with even more stats if you want, but Revel was supposed to be a threat this year and he wasn't due to injury. Last year's stats are great for NFL teams, but college teams turn kids over and each year another bunch steps up.

(11-24-2014 05:01 PM)wml33t Wrote:  Meh - you can run the seam with a slot WR or either of the freshmen TE, I don't buy that as an excuse.

Outside of that, look at Revell's numbers. We all loved him, but he was hardly ever thrown to either. He had 7 receptions in 2013 for 109 yards and a touchdown, with 49 of those yards coming on one play. This is not just a problem from this year.

(11-24-2014 02:57 PM)Tribe Fan Wrote:  

(11-24-2014 02:35 PM)hktribefan Wrote:  Did I hear/see right that Christian Brumbaugh was with the seniors on Saturday night? If so, I guess he is opting to graduate?

Yes he did walk with his fellow seniors, but in the past there have been many who walked on what was their real senior day but still came back for the 5th year.

I am not/not trying to be insensitive here but is W&M going to "have" to float the bill for his fifth year?

(11-24-2014 07:41 PM)Tribe32 Wrote:  No you can't just run a seam route with any freshman tight end or receiver or we would have seen it. You can provide me with even more stats if you want, but Revel was supposed to be a threat this year and he wasn't due to injury. Last year's stats are great for NFL teams, but college teams turn kids over and each year another bunch steps up.

(11-24-2014 05:01 PM)wml33t Wrote:  Meh - you can run the seam with a slot WR or either of the freshmen TE, I don't buy that as an excuse.

Outside of that, look at Revell's numbers. We all loved him, but he was hardly ever thrown to either. He had 7 receptions in 2013 for 109 yards and a touchdown, with 49 of those yards coming on one play. This is not just a problem from this year.

When I'm not on my phone I'll look up our TE stats over the last few years. Quite simply, they're not good - even with a number of promising upper classmen.

Don't waste you time. I'm not trying to outsmart you. I'm just giving you some observations about what they should and could have run. Again, you can look up stats from prior tight ends, but that has no relevance to what we have today. My point was that they could have run seam routes if the TE was healthy. We'll never know if I'm right or not because he wasn't.

(11-24-2014 08:13 PM)wml33t Wrote:  

(11-24-2014 07:41 PM)Tribe32 Wrote:  No you can't just run a seam route with any freshman tight end or receiver or we would have seen it. You can provide me with even more stats if you want, but Revel was supposed to be a threat this year and he wasn't due to injury. Last year's stats are great for NFL teams, but college teams turn kids over and each year another bunch steps up.

(11-24-2014 05:01 PM)wml33t Wrote:  Meh - you can run the seam with a slot WR or either of the freshmen TE, I don't buy that as an excuse.

Outside of that, look at Revell's numbers. We all loved him, but he was hardly ever thrown to either. He had 7 receptions in 2013 for 109 yards and a touchdown, with 49 of those yards coming on one play. This is not just a problem from this year.

When I'm not on my phone I'll look up our TE stats over the last few years. Quite simply, they're not good - even with a number of promising upper classmen.

I am a bit worried about next year's offense with the graduation of Tre McBride and Sean Ballard. We just have two playmakers, Abdul-Saboor and Dedmon, unless some new faces emerge. I agree that we need to utilize TE or H-back more.

(11-24-2014 01:23 PM)Rocco Wrote:  I don't have the numbers for the entire season, but against Richmond Cluley was 2-7 passing on 3rd downs. The passing game this year worked when they threw on early downs or when they were able to get ahead of the chains and do play-action to set up Cluley's bombs. When in situations where he had to throw, he struggled. For the offense to really succeed next year they need to get more out of the passing game. Cluley throws a beautiful deep ball- they generally aren't Joe Flacco Specials where he heaves it and prays for his receiver to make a play, but are accurate tosses to receivers who have a step. He struggles with his accuracy when throwing underneath. While this offense can succeed as a run-heavy/play-action offense you'd like to see them not rely so much on deep bombs.

Honest question, not just naysaying: How many of the 3rd downs were catchable balls that were dropped? If he was on target 4-5 out of 7, does that change the evaluation?

Edit: Read the rest of the thread before replying, I guess. Sorry, I didn't see those before I posted.

Cluley looked an awful lot better when he had time than when he didn't. Obvious point, but one that came into play a lot this season with our pass blocking problems. Judging from the last two games, pass protection may have been where we missed Revell the most. Cluley was regularly behind his receiver on short crossing routes, which may have been why we saw fewer slants & seams.

(11-24-2014 10:59 PM)TribeInTheBurg Wrote:  

(11-24-2014 01:23 PM)Rocco Wrote:  I don't have the numbers for the entire season, but against Richmond Cluley was 2-7 passing on 3rd downs. The passing game this year worked when they threw on early downs or when they were able to get ahead of the chains and do play-action to set up Cluley's bombs. When in situations where he had to throw, he struggled. For the offense to really succeed next year they need to get more out of the passing game. Cluley throws a beautiful deep ball- they generally aren't Joe Flacco Specials where he heaves it and prays for his receiver to make a play, but are accurate tosses to receivers who have a step. He struggles with his accuracy when throwing underneath. While this offense can succeed as a run-heavy/play-action offense you'd like to see them not rely so much on deep bombs.

Honest question, not just naysaying: How many of the 3rd downs were catchable balls that were dropped? If he was on target 4-5 out of 7, does that change the evaluation?

Edit: Read the rest of the thread before replying, I guess. Sorry, I didn't see those before I posted.

I remember 1, and the game log backs up my memory. Just going through the last 3 games since that's all I have time to do at the moment it looks like W&M converted 7 of the 24 3rd downs where they passed the ball.

Another question is how many circus catches were required to convert some of those passes. I mean, if we're going to count dropped passes, we need to count catches where the receiver bailed out the QB, right?

I think the bottom line is the kid showed he can play and if he continues to improve, we could be in better shape at QB than we have been in a while.

I think Cluley can get it done. The offense was better this year than last year, and though McBride & Ballard are huge losses, the potential is there for the offense. We need a physical WR to step up.....Hart perhaps?? One of the true frosh from this year?

The offense exceeded my preseason expectations, as did the special teams.

(11-25-2014 09:01 AM)TribeNomad Wrote:  I think Cluley can get it done. The offense was better this year than last year, and though McBride & Ballard are huge losses, the potential is there for the offense. We need a physical WR to step up.....Hart perhaps?? One of the true frosh from this year?

The offense exceeded my preseason expectations, as did the special teams.

Great hope for David Carlisle. 6'3" and over 200. Good list of potential contributors at WR. Hart has speed but must get healthy. Reeves and Flynn Heald should be in the mix. Kuzjak and Jack Armstrong as well. Dedmon should be the centerpiece. He's developed as a route runner and covering him is going to be a nightmare for opposing defenses.

I love watching Dedmon, and was hoping he would break free for some big ones. Nice return against JMU. I am concerned about durability, he does not have the size to take hit after hit on returns and routes.

I heard that Dunn is expected back next year, that would be a plus as well. We need playmakers.