By the time last week ended, I was in a foul mood.
In Wednesday’s Northwest Arkansas Times, Rainer Sabin was talking passing game. And I listened to the radio shows all last week and heard a lot of flack about Casey Dick.
Okay…like many fans, I didn’t like the fact that the passing game against Troy seemed to be directed almost totally to the running backs.
But there seems to be an attitude from fans that Casey should have been throwing the ball down the field. Maybe players, too:
“It wasn’t really designed to just go to the running backs the whole time,” said Arkansas sophomore split end London Crawford. “It just kind of fell like that. That’s how it goes.”
Yes…I noticed that the ball was thrown to Peyton Hillis at times with two defenders ready to hit him. Yes…I listened to Keith Jackson on the radio talking about how Peyton was going to get hurt if we kept doing that.
‘Check downs.’ A Houston Dale quarterbacking specialty. The longer you play for him, the more you ‘check down.’ Plus…I bet you never get in trouble for throwing the ball to Peyton Hillis.
The fact that the Razorbacks did not throw much downfield had little to do with Casey, but rather was a product of the way Casey had been coached for the game and the plays that were called.
“I wanted to give [Casey] some confidence, get the ball to the backs with the shorter routes,” Lee said. “The problem is, when the half is over, they’re the only ones with any catches at all.”
According to the Sabin article, Casey looked downfield only five times. Two were completions, one was a drop by Robert Johnson, and two others were apparently incomplete. I’m thinking I remember one of those he threw away.
His inability to find his wide receivers “was just basically a lack of accuracy,” Lee said. “That was a first-game start. He was a little bit nervous. But he played better the second half.”
So since three out of the five downfield passes should have been completed, what was it about lack of accuracy that was a problem?
It wasn’t. Casey was doing exactly what he had been coached to do. He was dumping the ball off to the backs because that is what the coaches wanted him to do.
Casey Dick can throw the football. There is not an issue with his ability to throw the football. We’ve seen him do it too many times in the past. But the company line is pretty obvious:
“Coaches went into the game with a heavy emphasis on run early,” Fish said. “And that’s what we did. We ran a lot. Eventually, the pass opened up and we made some more passing plays down the stretch.
“We’re working on our strength right now. If our strength is running, why not run?”
“As long as you have Darren or Felix back there, you don’t need to pass,” said Hillis, a fullback who happened to be Arkansas’ leading receiver Saturday with six catches for 39 yards.”
72 plays — 50 rushes, 22 passes. Oh yeah…Casey supposedly checked out of four pass plays to running plays.
And David Lee eventually channeled Houston Dale’s ‘bus’ philosophy again, illustrating why he was such an obvious choice for offensive coordinator.
“I’ll take Casey’s 150 yards with no interceptions every week,” Lee said. “I’ll take that every week. I’d be thrilled to death. I want the guy who can drive the bus, keep us in the road, not turn it over, manage the clock, not let the 25-second clock run down and keep the tempo of the offense going.”
It really doesn’t matter if Casey is capable of passing the ball or not. The coaches really don’t want to pass very much.
People need to get off of Casey’s back. He’s going to execute what he’s told to execute. And anyway, we need to work on our strengths, not our weaknesses. And our strength is in running the ball.
How can everyone not know that by now?
The last paragraph is the key. I said weeks ago that with a new line you could expect us to focus on the run in the first game. We have to get that going first if we are to have any chance. I agree that we've got to give Casey a chance. Its a bit early to denounce the entire passing game and all associated with it.
On a seperate note; the comparison between Tebow and Casey Dick is a little rediculous. A comparison between McFadden and Tebow would be more in line because they are both the focus of their respective offenses. It wouldn't be fair to compare Florida's tailback to DMAC either.
Well, I watched the Cowboys last night and noticed a substantial difference between their playbook and ours. What gives, we got David Lee the Braintrust of the Cowboys.
Also, I think any pass behind the line of scrimmage should be counted as a long handoff.
When you play the big boys that have good corners and safeties, you are going to wish you had developed the pass play when you get man coverage.
If we are going to dump it to the backs, and only need 150 yards a game then let DMAC be the QB and put another running back in there and run the wishbone.
Carolina – Okay, I missed the Tebow thing along the way. Catch me up.
Reason – the Cowboys now have an ex-quarterback with Norv Turner background running the offense. Plus Romo is pretty good (insert David Lee credit here if you so desire). I suspect the approach to the playbook is probably a bit different. Plus, a defensive coordinator as head coach instead of an ex-QB head coach that only recently was told not to call plays anymore that has studied the past few years at the University of Broyles school of offense.
The Tebow/Casey discussion started up in the last few comments over on the Wildcat post.
Wildcat — The Sequel
Carolina Hog, once again we disagree (no big surprise).
Actually, I don't really keep track of this… each discussion is totally different. I think is completely perfect to do a comparison between Dick/Tebow vs. Troy. Now, I will agree style of play could factor into the comparison but a pass is a pass is a pass. As I mentioned before, sometimes the right choice is to throw the ball away or the receiver doesn't run the right route and the quarterback takes the hit for it. However, QB to QB comparison vs. the same time at the same time of the year is a good comparison. At least, in my book.
Having said that… a lot of what HogBlogger mentions here is directly related to what I concern style. We just aren't trying to implement the passing game at all and we will pay the price for it in an SEC game (unfortunately)!
"However, QB to QB comparison vs. the same time at the same time of the year is a good comparison. At least, in my book."
Ordinarily I would agree with you on this except for a couple of things:
1) Does C.Dick compare favorably with Tebow on talent? I don't think so.
2) Tebow has had the massive advantage of having his best receiver on the field for his games and Dick has not so far.
1) totally agreed…. doesn't change the facts nor matters if we have to go head to head in SEC championship again with Florida now does it. Best team usually wins (normally driven by the better QB). Overall, Tebow would win this battle as would Florida. Having a better passing game would help all around for us and we all seem to agree but we don't agree on how we get there.
2) Maybe… but since we either ran off (or have injured) all of the promising ones, we won't know now will we!
I'm not against Casey, I personally think he would do fine job as QB somewhere – but as HogBlogger indicated here… he's a causality of the system at UofA!
We're a running team, period. We all know it. So why talk all spring and all fall camp about the new passing game? Two years in a row? To sell tickets?
I'm ok with that concept… so, when do we start using the QB?
For what?
"doesn’t change the facts nor matters if we have to go head to head in SEC championship again with Florida now does it."
No, but then we were comparing the two QBs not assessing UA's chances in a rematch with the Gators, right? Or did I miss something?
" but since we either ran off (or have injured) all of the promising ones, we won’t know now will we!"
Not all the promising ones certainly (I will admit I had Monk in mind when posting above as opposed to Harvin for FL). Tuck and Crawford are promising (at least) so we should have the chance to more than find out but…
since I agree that our QB (no matter who he is) will be constrained by the system, we could very well not find out. ;^)
This discussion will have a lot more substance after we play (to quote the imminently quoted DC) the Varsity of Alabama this weekend. Sunday and Monday of this coming weekend will be fun to review. That is unless we get killed in Tuscaloosa and that will not happen!
How do you recruit good receivers when the only time you throw downfield is in desparation? For that matter how do you recruit a top quarterback (without fibbing) and keep him?
Were whipping a dead horse guys. It's a far gone conclusion were going to put the ball into our Hiesman candidate's hands. The more you do this, the better chances he will have at padding the stats against a team he is supposed to pad the stats against. Did anyone really believe the Troy game is supposed to set the tone for the rest of the year? This game was nothing more than a tune-up for the beginning of SEC play, and a great way to kick off the Hiesman campaign. Mission accomplished. After watching the Tide do anything but pass on Saturday against Vandy, I wouldn,t suggest the Tide try and be anymore balanced than what they showed. Vandy had no D-line. That equels= trapping up the middle with a quik TB. Vandy's only weapons on offense were the QB and WR. That equels=Keep the QB running all day long , so he will never get comfortable. Mission accomplished. Teams are going to do what they need to do to win. Period. Most every game plan will be a little different. It has been stated our passing game is still a work in progress, so why would we exspect it to be where it needs to be after seeing only 1 game? The passing will improve, but we are never going to air it out this year, because it isn't our strength. If it was, we wouldn,t be talking about how good our backfield is. We don't need to throw alot of passes. We just need to be a little more efficient at throwing down field when needed. Were not that far off from putting that together. As the O-line continues to gel and become cohiesive, and the overall defense continues to improve, it will come in time, if fickle fans can be that patient. I for one won't jump ship after 1 game GO HOGS!!!!! BEAT BAMA!!!!!
Not to beat that dead horse any further but doesn't this sound familiar?
"We ran the ball effectively. We were good in goalline situations. We made 11 explosive plays, but we have to continue to improve our efficiency in the passing game and at scoring when we get into the red zone."
And this description of Bama's stats is familiar also:
"Junior quarterback John Parker Wilson had an up-and-down performance, completing 14 of 28 passes for 150 yards as the Tide finished with 371 total yards (221 rushing, 150 passing )."
They even had a special teams standout:
"Javier Arenas added some spice to the Crimson and Cream's attack with a 69-yard punt return to the Vandy 1 to set up Bama's first TD."
This sounds like it could be a lot like playing against ourselves. Except we're better at what we do. ;^)
Pretty soon we will actually have something to talk about. There is no way to make too much sense out of the past year, certainly not any that we can get any agreement on. We didn't do well against Bama last year, except on the scoreboard. We only had 3 points at the half, 17 at the end of the game, 7 of those on defense. That's 10 offensive points against these guys last year. We trade Kines for Saban and Shula for Applewhite. Darren is healthier but our line and defense are weaker.
No, we won't pass much or well, just like last year. Fortunately for us they are not as good as they were passing last year. The season begins in Tuscaloosa. Someone is going to get plenty of amunition for next week's discussion or questions will remain unanswered.
Two things we know for sure, the spread won't work in the SEC and, we are getting rid of PawPaw.