ku manned us up one time, Freeman read it and threw it over the top to Nelson. It was a deep score.
After that ku played 2 deep safties and dared us to run the ball. We couldn't do it enough to get ku into man or 8 in the box where we can exploit them with the play action pass or vertical game and were forced to throw underneath and drive the field. If we are ever going to get vertical in our passing game we have to be able to run the ball.
Seriously, the lack of understand this gets old. Very few coaches are going to throw deep routes when you get cover 2 over the top. That is how everyone plays us now, they are going to see if we can run the ball against 7 in the box and throw underneath to beat them. Without being set up by defense and special teams we are proving that for this team that is difficult.
And you don't open up the run by throwing deep against 2 deep coverage. That will only get you picks most of the time unless you have an exceptional WR that will just go make a play, and I'm not sure Jordy is that guy on a fade.
That said, the holes in cover 2 are behind the corners and in front of the safeties, in between the corners and LBs, and behind the corners and in front of the safties. My disappointment is that we aren't finding ways to exploit the holes behind the corner and in front of the safeties or behind the LBs enough. We got a few in the middle of the field, but not enough, and right now that is where our play action pass should be open. This is where you can throw a corner route, especially if you can get the safties to overcommit to one side of the field, but that is a tough route and throw. We've got it a few times, but not enough. We are mainly attacking that area in between the corners and backers, basically between the numbers and hashes, but its not enough when we can't run the ball. Plus, we don't have enough depth/experience at WR to exploit all of those zones. WRs have to have a feel agaisnt zones and be able to find an opening and so far Nelson, Murphy, Mastrud, and Gonzo a bit are the only guys that we have doing that.
Its still college football and the run has to set up the pass 95% of the time. Until we can establish more of a running game, vertical routes and play action will be hard to come by.
