The Cats went back to this play as a staple last saturday, and for the most part it worked well. James Johnson showed some nice patience with it and unlike Patton he can break an arm tackle which means we rarely lost yardage even when the defense blew the play up.
The good: though we didn't have a ton of big plays with it, the stretch/outside zone was used to set up much of what we had success on with our boot passes and Johnson's cutback leading to a 32 yard score. We are able to get the edge once which led to a nice gain, but other than that we were mostly held to 5 yards or less. However, it was used to set up a lot of other things for us with ISU overpursuing often.
The bad: Too often ISU's front 7 blew up the play. Mostly the problem was a DT putting our OG or OT 3 or 4 yards deep in the backfield and forcing our RB to cut earlier than he'd like. The Oline must at least maintain the LOS on this play if not get a push, but its not like we need to drive people 6 yards off the ball. We did a solid job getting to LBs and sealing the backside, but penetration by their DTs hurt us when the play didn't work. However, like I said before, Johnson was good at getting back to the LOS if not gaining a couple yards even when ISU defended the play well.
In addition we did a nice job mixing in some traps and power lead schemes as well as the short passing game to our wide-outs. Even though many considered the offensive gameplan pretty conservative, I thought it was by far our coach's best job of mixing things up, but yet being persistent. Those 1 and 2 yard gains on stretch plays may be frustrating, but what it was used to set up definately paid off down the stretch. Good to see some offensive continuity and look forward to seeing how we do on the road in Boulder.
On another note, the bowl picture is getting clearer. Even with a win in Boulder, its looking like our game in Lawrence could be for a bowl birth. Its looking like the south will get 5 teams bowl elgible (Baylor on the outside, especially with Bell going down) and the north 3 or 4. If ku can get another win before they play us (then they could be the 4th) and we win in Boulder, our game would feature a 5-5 ku vs a 6-5 K-State (assuming a loss to UT). A loss there and we are 6-6 while they are 6-5 with a likely loss coming in Columbia. I have a feeling the bowl folks might use our game as the deciding factor as to who goes bowling. This just makes getting that win in Boulder all the more important as well, should be interesting to watch.
