It is no secret that we had our difficulties running the ball last year (especially as the season progressed). So, let’s take a look at some statistics from last season and try to pinpoint the causes of our shortcomings. For the purpose of this analysis, the OU game will be very significant. First, that particular game was just about the midpoint of the regular season (game 6). Also, and perhaps more significant, that is when we lost Dockery to a season-ending injury. Let us begin. Before the OU game, we rushed for the following totals in our contests: 212, 172, 330, 193 & 119. That gives us an average of 205 YPG. After the OU game, we rushed for the following amounts in our games: 162, 128, 227, 164, 143, 70, & 70. That’s an average of 138 YPG. On its surface, it would appear that the loss of Dockery had a tremendous impact on our ability to run the ball. Let’s dig a little deeper and ask a few more questions just to make sure. Could our decreased rushing totals be due to the fact that Colt improved as a passer over the course of the season? Could it also be due to Greg Davis having more confidence in Colt and therefore allowing Colt to pass the ball more? Before the OU game, we passed for the following: 198, 154, 163, 246 & 300. This gives us an average of 212 YPG. After the OU game, our passing yards were: 275, 220, 256, 346, 241, 160 & 308. That’s an average of 258 YPG. (Note: Remember that Colt did not play after the fist possession of the KSU game and was not healthy during the A&M game. I think our passing numbers during those two games reflect those items) Our overall rushing output decreased by 67 YPG, and our passing output increased by 46 YPG after OU. That gives us a net difference of –21 Total YPG after OU. We’ll dig deeper once more. Pre OU, our yards per rush attempt were the following: 4.8, 5.5 (Ohio St.), 7.7, 4.8 & 2.8. That’s an average of 5.1 YPR. (Also, note that the SHSU game [2.8] was played without Charles and S. Young). We also averaged 40 rush attempts per game. After OU, our averages were the following: 4.4, 3.8, 5.2, 3.6, 3.2, 2.8 & 3.3. That’s an average of 3.8 YPR. We also averaged 36 rush attempts per game. Let’s look at one more category. Before the OU game, we averaged 23 pass attempts per game. After the OU game, we averaged 34 pass attempts per game. Conclusion After the OU game, we ran the ball a little less (4 attempts less per game) than we did before the RRS. Was this due to improvements in our passing game? Yes. However, we were tremendously less effective rushing than we were passing as the season progressed (see above). Nonetheless, there are still many positives we can take away from these stats. First, the improvements in our passing game during the course of last season were great. With a healthy Colt, Sweed, Quan, Shipley, Pittman and Finley, I think our passing game will be deadly this year. Before the Dockery injury last year, we were quite effective running the ball. The big question obviously is will our running game be able to return to the form it had when Dockery was healthy. If so, our offense will be extremely balanced and will be one of the tops in the nation. If not, we’ll simply be an above average offense that struggles against elite defenses.
Agreed that our ability to rush the ball was pretty ****** the 2nd half of the season. However, I was suprised how well we rushed the ball (especially against Ohio St.) the first half of the season considering we had a very minimal passing game our first few contests (for various reasons).
It's interesting to look at, although I'm not sure we can point to one thing definitively as the cause of the trends. Losing Dockery no doubt impacted the run game, but how much of it was blocking/run scheme? Sure our run game was going to change b/c we didn't have VY, but it looked even more different from the times when we had Benson or even Ricky for that matter. I know a lot of this had to do with a lack of a 'true' fullback, but whatever changes we tried to do scheme wise never gelled into the same running success that we knew previously. I understand teams' personnel changes and adjustments need to be made, but it seemed like we tried to run in that second half of the season - we just could never do it as effectively as before. Wasn't there some stat that we never had a td run over 20 yds all of last season?
Maybe OU exposed some weaknesses in our running game for the rest of Big12 to exploit. (34 attempts for 124 yards vs OU)
Ok. In the first quarter, we rushed for 56 yards on 8 attempts (7 yard per attempt). At the end of the game, we averaged 3.9 yards per rush attempt. I THINK Dockery went down some time in the 2nd quarter. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
IIRC he did go down in the second quarter. Someone posted an article about him and next year's Oline that might have the definitive answer, 83.
I'm sure this is a stupid question, but why don't we have a true fullback? That seems to be a constant excuse for our run game.
I don't necessarily disagree with the premise of how the stats are interpreted, but they might have more validity if rather than just looking at what we did, they were based on how much better or worse we did than our opponent averages. This would help balance out the differences in level of competition among the games.
First number indicates opponent season rush defense average, number in parentheses indicate what we did. UNT: 149 (212) tOSU: 98 (172) Rice: 188 (330) ISU: 154 (193) SHSU: 152 (119) OU: 99 (124) BU: 191 (162) NU: 117 (128) TT: 151 (227) OSU: 147 (164) KSU: 149 (143) TAMU: 132 (70) Iowa: 134 (70) So before OU, we rushed for more than what the opponent was giving up every time (except for the SHSU game, but if you'll recall, neither Jamaal nor Selvin even played). We actually rushed for more than what OU was giving up. After OU, we outrushed our opponents' averages 3 times in 7 games. We only failed to pass KSU's average by 6 yards (and given that Jevan was sacked a few times, we would have passed it if Colt was playing). The last two games we barely got half the yards that the opponent was giving up.
I think hpslugga is more effectively using stats by comparing the averages Texas gained versus what the defenses gave up for the season. also think it is more effective to look at ypc, but numbers alone don't tell the stories. the only two games that mean of those first six are Ohio St. and OU. the other four games were played frankly very bad defenses. Texas rolled over UNT, Rice, and Iowa State which really means nothing. Not sure you can count the Sam game as that was nothing more than a glorified scrimmage at game ticket prices. Ohio State and OU does show that Texas ran the ball effectively early on and there is no doubt that losing Dockery hurt Texas last year. Blaylock went to guard and Ulotoski struggled at times. Mix in that Hills had the bad ankle and this was nowhere near the line that Texas started the season. Also consider that in your numbers for the second half you had two big, strong defensive fronts that the Texas line struggled to move in Nebraska and A&M and the KSU game was abnormal in the way it played out. Finally, Ahmard Hall is one of those guys who is missed more when he is gone than he is appreciated when he is around, but you don't have to have a fullback to run the ball. Need talent, scheme, execution, and a committment to make it work. Texas did not have all four of those after the OU game and it showed.
Davis can keep his precious zone stretch plays if he'd just mix it up a little bit and at least try to make it uncomfortable for the defense. I think a little diversity in play calling could go a long way...
IMHO, the number of bodies up front is a separate issue that also needs to be addressed. You say run against a 7 man front, I say 6 (well actually, I say 5 but I'll be realistic about this group when it comes to that). I say that any time they put as many as 7 in the box, make them pay for it because they're basically leaving 4 guys to cover 4 of our pass catchers (and if I had my way, that would be our 4 wide receivers well over half the time) and that's a task that very few, if any, secondaries will be up to. Even if we're just talking about what we actually do as an offense (11 personnel shotgun), that's still asking 4 guys to cover 3 of our WR's and JerMichael Finley. That's still a daunting task. And if that 7 man front is a cover 5 (2 man under) and JF is therefore being covered by an LB, all the more reason to throw it.
The split back would be ideal for a mobile QB because you could add the zone read option into your arsenal. Of course with Colt, that play serves no real purpose. Only other reason to use a 2 back shotgun set would be to max protect, but that falls back into the "not having a true fullback" issue. Those are some plays that are run out of the shotgun, but the problem is that we don't run most of them and if we do, we do not run them enough. Our shotgun run game is dominated by the zone play. We rarely use a quick or delayed draw, we did use that counter trey but not enough. We do not use the direct snap to the HB. And in addition to using that one play predominantly, we don't call it at the right time. The right time to call that stretch play would be if the D was in a 2 deep nickel package and was using man coverage. We just call it whenever we feel like it. That kind of random "who cares what the defense is doing" attitude is counterproductive to running out of the shotgun in a pass first offense. You have to know when to run and against what defense to run said play. Another thing that I've wanted to see aside just the 10 personnel in general is the 10 and 11 personnel groupings under center. For some odd reason, we didn't do this at all last year. Not even 11 personnel. Go back and watch the films and you'll see the only single back under center set we used was that ACE double tight set. Ideally, if we were to be a true pass first team and if we wanted to improve the run game, the best thing to do would be to scrap the ACE 12 set, scrap the I-formation (that set is completely worthless with this team) and use just 4 general formations: 10 personnel under center and shotgun, 11 personnel under center and shotgun. When you use few formations, a decent amount of plays, and base what to call on what the defense is vulnerable to, and when you have talent, and when you execute well, your offense becomes nearly invincible. All we really have right now is talent and a generally sound use of formation with said talent (although we tend to get away from that from time to time). If you want to know about those spread out under center runs, go to this page and look up "running game":The Link About half of the runs are north/south (the base series, the trap, kickback, and the draw), the other half is east/west (arc, dash, scat, and liberty). As I (and many others) have said countless times, there is nothing wrong with the zone play. What is wrong about it is when you base your rushing offense on it to an extreme ratio. If you want to have a truely fluid and balanced rushing offense, you have to go both outside and in. Just doing one (and that goes for up the middle as well) isn't good enough in BCS conferences.
Oh and here's another thing about always running outside when we run from the shotgun 11 personnel look: Even that part of it isn't what renders it ineffective. The problem is that it's always a zone play. What would really help just to merely improve the outside shotgun run game is to only call them against man coverage, use basic man blocking for the OL, have the QB to sell the pass by bringing the ball up even if for just a split second, and instead of the WR's stalk blocking like they do in the current scheme, run the CB's off the play. This accomplishes two things: 1). If the DL is rushing outside or the OL just flat out creates a crease on the inside, the RB doesn't have to bother bouncing outside and 2). If the DL crashes, the RB can bounce outside and no one will be there. See, when you use that zone, the DL doesn't crash the middle and even if they do, the LB(s) will be in pursuit of the play before it goes past the LOS. When you have the OL man blocking instead of zone blocking, the LB's won't be near as prepared to chase down the RB should he break it to the outside. He also won't be stopped early in the play by a CB if he breaks it to the outside because the CB will be 15 or so yards downfield with his back turned to the play. When WR's stalk block and don't execute, an outside run isn't going anywhere. I know no one on this board takes this offense (or this team) seriously, but y'all should check out how Hawaii manages its outside run game. They don't run very often, but when they do, they get about 8 yards a pop from their RB. The run plays they use are the exact run plays I'd like to see us use.
