That Army game man,,,,,,jees then ISU ....ooops there goes the blood pressure,,,,,,
I think Fitz is a stubborn guy.....usually to his benefit but that Army game.....Army practiced everyday against a multiple attack running game.....Totally agree that we should have started chucking that ball around the field.....But Fitz,,,,hell or high water was going to have our OLine move Army ....and we were elephants trying to catch a mouse.........which brings up an interesting point .
Not sure which loss was tougher, Army or ISU. I'd vote Army because it's so easily blamed on bad coaching decisions and an arrogance that Fitz flashes occasionally ... not to mention the freezing-cold boat ride home.
Fitz's
stubbornness is one of his greatest weakness as a HC.
He sticks too much to his belief that players should win their
individual battles.
Yeah, ideally they should - but in the case that they don't and
repeatedly at that, need to switch to a different plan that would mitigate the inadequacies on the team.
In the Army game, Fitz was too stubborn in his belief that the 'Cats could force their will on Army and run on the cadets. But it's not like that was all they tried to do.
KC had
23 passing attempts to
10 carries.
The problem was that those 23 pass attempts resulted in
89 yds gained thru the air.
In contrast, Siemian's 7 passing attempts resulted in
105 yds.
That was the same thing when the offense repeatedly try to run the ball on a power set on 3rd down and short and repeatedly failed.
The O-line (probably thru a combo of recruiting preferences at the time and lack of development) just was incapable of sustaining the push needed to help a RB starting in the backfield make it to the LoS and then gain an additional yard or so.
Was clamoring for weeks for Fitz/McCall to use the QB sneak in those situations and they finally started to do so, but then McCall became overly reliant on it which resulted in Siemian's injury in the PU game (at that time, was hoping that McCall would be faking the QB sneak as the Boilers had what seemed like every defender up in the box).
And then there was the MOON game - in the 4th Q when McCall finally let Siemian
"free" - the 'Cats mounted a furious comeback, traversing the length of the field twice and had the UM D on the ropes.
But FItz stuck w/ his plan to go for 2 and the win; a decision which was made earlier in the 4th Q w/ Fitz not revisiting the decision in light of the 'Cats moving the ball on UM's D.
The Colter-Mark option seems like an aberration in Fitz's tenure. Bacher, Persa, Siemian and now Thorson could all throw pro-level passes on occasion but also run.
Yep.
It caused by not being able to recruit the right Dual Threat QB.
The majority of DT QBs aren't the
right recruit, as most
aren't truly
dual-threat.
The majority coming out of HS are
below-average passers, having relied on their athleticism/speed.
Now some of these do end up developing into pretty good passers over the years in college, but more of them do not.
Which is why I have always been in favor of recruiting the more
polished-passer type of QB who, while maybe not a
running QB, has enough athleticism to scramble and extend plays.
Seems to be more of the type of QB the coaching staff has been recruiting lately.
