There are a few things in my opinion that are affecting our offense.
1) Line play has been very poor. Not much daylight created for running backs. Pass protection for Thorson isn't great, but not atrocious, which leads me to...
2) Thorson gives up on plays FAR too often. He rarely steps up in the pocket to "buy time" and give receivers additional opportunity to get open. Instead, he runs laterally, and either chucks the ball out of bounds or runs out of bounds for little to no gain. Now, a couple things that would help him out...
3) How about faking a draw and throwing it down the middle? It's called play-action passing. Did we see any of this against ISU? I don't recall seeing any. Maybe once against WMU. That slight hesitation where the defense does not know what's coming can make ALL THE DIFFERENCE and often, a big play downfield, which are are sorely lacking. Which leads me to another problem with this offense...
4) PLEASE, PLEASE stop telegraphing the handoff a full second and 3 yards before actually doing this. I do not notice ANY OTHER TEAMS in FBS still doing this extended handoff action. When you telegraph the play like this, it is SO easy for run support to come in from the secondary (if even necessary) and literally makes everyone's job on the offense that much more difficult. I guarantee you if McCall left, that absurd and totally counter-productive handoff method would go away. And lastly...
5) This team needs to stop trying not to make mistakes and instead, try to make some plays! Thorson has 1 TD and zero interceptions thus far but we have suffered two damaging losses (one extremely damaging, in my opinion) to start this season. It's as though he is afraid to make the timing throws (i.e. throwing to a spot, not to a receiver, in anticipation of the receiver's break to that spot). He has to find his rhythm and his confidence in his receivers or this season is toast almost before it begins.
1) Line play has been very poor. Not much daylight created for running backs. Pass protection for Thorson isn't great, but not atrocious, which leads me to...
2) Thorson gives up on plays FAR too often. He rarely steps up in the pocket to "buy time" and give receivers additional opportunity to get open. Instead, he runs laterally, and either chucks the ball out of bounds or runs out of bounds for little to no gain. Now, a couple things that would help him out...
3) How about faking a draw and throwing it down the middle? It's called play-action passing. Did we see any of this against ISU? I don't recall seeing any. Maybe once against WMU. That slight hesitation where the defense does not know what's coming can make ALL THE DIFFERENCE and often, a big play downfield, which are are sorely lacking. Which leads me to another problem with this offense...
4) PLEASE, PLEASE stop telegraphing the handoff a full second and 3 yards before actually doing this. I do not notice ANY OTHER TEAMS in FBS still doing this extended handoff action. When you telegraph the play like this, it is SO easy for run support to come in from the secondary (if even necessary) and literally makes everyone's job on the offense that much more difficult. I guarantee you if McCall left, that absurd and totally counter-productive handoff method would go away. And lastly...
5) This team needs to stop trying not to make mistakes and instead, try to make some plays! Thorson has 1 TD and zero interceptions thus far but we have suffered two damaging losses (one extremely damaging, in my opinion) to start this season. It's as though he is afraid to make the timing throws (i.e. throwing to a spot, not to a receiver, in anticipation of the receiver's break to that spot). He has to find his rhythm and his confidence in his receivers or this season is toast almost before it begins.
