Fixing your team's offense: College Edition

by Slate Quicksilver

We here at potlucksports make no bones about it, we are fans of a particular team located in North Central Florida in Alachua County located specifically at 29°39′55″N 82°20′10″W. Three of our staff were born, raised and educated as Gators. As most fans, we feel passionately about our team. This year has been a great year. We are 9-0, #1 in the country/BCS and we feature a defense that is so cold blooded that makes Jules Winnfield bow his head in respect. Yet the offense is less than stellar. This is point of contention, understand, and here is one person's list of recommendations to fix it.

Recommendation #1:
Tebow up the middle does NOT fool anyone anymore. People in Botswana know that if it is a short yardage situation, Tebow will be running up the middle in some variation. If Vanderbilt can stop you several times because they KNEW that play was coming, then let's assume that South Carolina, Florida State and especially Alabama will know it is coming and will stop it EVERY SINGLE TIME. All it takes is 2 of the D-Lineman to just fall down and create a traffic jam stopping him before he can go anywhere. It's not like you need a degree in advanced astrophysics to figure this out. Look, once in a while it is a smart and solid play. Tebow won't fumble the ball unless he is blasted with a shotgun full of rock salt or is concussed (Mickey Andrews will still be the DC at FSU... so this is not an implausible situation). That's cool. But our offense running the natural option on those plays... or a quick slant or out pattern would be lethal against a defense sitting and waiting for the run up the middle. So why not try it!?!?

Recommendation #2:
Remember this guy? Deonte Thompson? #6 in your program? We recruited him for speed. SO WHY AREN'T WE USING IT!?!?! He is faster than anyone covering him. No, he is not Percy Harvin who can stop on a dime, change direction and then not lose any speed. Harvin defied the law of conservation of energy... Thompson cannot. Yet, Deonte can burn any CB or S on him... so throw it deep! And not just deep, throw it mid-range as well. 10 yard corner routes, 15 yard square ins. Dan Mullen didn't steal the passing game part of the playbook on his way out the door, did he? Thompson will burn his defenders and become a legit deep threat if we just give it a try.

Recommendation #3:
Our offense is as conservative as this guy. In the many variations on the spread, on a scale from Nancy Pelosi to Bill Krystol, UF is Rush Limbaugh (ultra conservative), Texas Tech is John Kerry (ultra liberal), Michigan is Dennis Kucinich (extremely liberal but also ineffective), and Oregon is Barack Obama (more moderate than the republicans think and less liberal than the democrats want him to be but still a powerful force). UF needs to open the playbook, particularly in the redzone, to shake this problem. I love throwing to Aaron Hernandez too, but the TE screen is meant to be run maybe once a game. We need to throw the ball longer than 15 yards more than 3 or 4 times a game. I have routinely screamed at the TV that there are 9 men in the box EVEN THOUGH WE HAD 3 WRs ON THE FIELD!!!!!!!! Just open the playbook. That's all. We don't want to go back to spinner wheel from 2007 that picked which play we would use from a list of 4 plays. That was very true and very embarrassing.

Recommendation #4:
Hey, offensive line! Yeah, you guys. The big guys. Protect this guy. He is your quarterback, the offense revolves around him. Maybe he owes you money or something but I'm sure you can figure out an arrangement to let that go until the end of the season. He has been sacked far too many times this year. The pocket regularly collapses and then, of course, he decides to tuck the ball and run because that's how he rolls. It's not easy to block for a guy like him because he runs so much... I get that. But on important downs where you are passing, rip an opposing player's head off. Don't let them get in on this guy. Protect him and we will win.

Recommendation #5:
I know Jeff Demps and Chris Rainey are sick athletes. I know Emmanuel Moody is a bruising runner. But we need to run the ball less. In the NFL, running the ball wins the game. In college, not as much. It's a great problem to have: too many awesome running backs. But it's time to start throwing the ball more. Tebow hasn't thrown more than 26 passes in one game this year. It's time to let him throw more than 30 times. And not just against FIU, I mean in a real game. Throwing the ball on first down and second down is allowed. That myth was only created by Jim Tressel who also thinks that you can't have more than 5 WRs on the field at any one time.

Look, I know the offense doesn't have Harvin anymore. But Harvin also got injured regularly and the offense usually wouldn't miss a beat when he was out. So it's time to pick it up and get moving. Just take 3 of these recommendations and I know our offense will go back to being world beaters once again. As it stands, our offense will look pitiful against Alabama's crazy whirling dervish of death defense. Granted, our defense will stop their offense dead in its tracks, but I wouldn't feel safe putting a national championship birth on the betting table with this scenario.