I don't have enough time right now to carve out any fancy Plainsman litacism, so I'll try to crank out some thoughts in outline form versus the traditional paragraph.
Offense
- Love what Kliff has done in building an offense that has no smoke and mirrors based on theory of latitudinal passing attempts. This is a north/south based machine that gains chunks of yards down the field not across it. Speed is nice to have running east/west, but it doesn't have much functional value until it starts heading the right direction.
- Our OL is permitted to enter a three point stance and blow people off the ball when necessary. This facilitates the "sell" part of playaction as well and results in a happy and continuous loop of coherent offense. No one is behind the 8-ball any more to UT and OU when it comes to running the football. If we want to at Tech, we can. It's an option and Kliff clearly understands the strategical value of having a run game. This is an offense that has done nothing but dictate tempo.
- It was never more evident than Kliff's brilliant clock management of the 4th quarter in Fayetteville. The game was over the minute we put two scores between us. They couldn't stop our offense and we could operate at as slow a pace as possible to kill possessions for an Arkansas offense that required 8 minutes at 3 yards a pop to get in the end zone. Now, they're playing our game and we win at that. This is also a good sign that our young coach has a strong understanding of game theory.
Defense
- I really, really like Gibbs. He coaches and makes adjustments. We still have some of the same players on the roster, who resort to old bad habits at times, but you can tell throughout the game they are being coached on mistakes in real-time fashion. Not chunking in the towel until next week when Plan A doesn't work. We haven't had a guy with a Plan B since Willis, so this is extremely refreshing for me. He knows how to count and sadly that is an upgrade, but one that comes in handy for us.
- We aren't going into the Titans of Defense Hall of Fame or anything with this unit. But, since we're putting young talented and hungry players on the field without bad habits, we'll get a positive return on our snap investment and they've got a lot of ceiling to get to throughout the season.
- I'm extremely impressed with the improvement Gibbs has made with our leverage consistency, especially in the secondary. We'll give up some short to mid-range passing plays that require good throws to complete, but we're not letting guys get over the top of us by weight early in the route which prevents big passing plays.
Overall
- It appears on the field that Kliff had the team practicing what he was preaching in the offseason. The proof is in the conference stats:
#1 in penalties per game
#3 in turnover margin
This shows a tremendous improvement in the level of mental focus by the team and being ready to play. We're faster on offense than any defense we face on the schedule, so as long as those two stats remain consistent, there's no reason why we aren't conference contenders this year. At least from the physical perspective. TCU and Baylor will be a tremendous test for Kliff's ability to control the ego ceiling for the coaching staff, players and himself. If we get rolled the next two weeks, we'll know Kliff still has a lot of growing to do from a leadership standpoint as far as preventing an environment that resembles the emotions of a 7th grade girls lockerroom.
Offense
- Love what Kliff has done in building an offense that has no smoke and mirrors based on theory of latitudinal passing attempts. This is a north/south based machine that gains chunks of yards down the field not across it. Speed is nice to have running east/west, but it doesn't have much functional value until it starts heading the right direction.
- Our OL is permitted to enter a three point stance and blow people off the ball when necessary. This facilitates the "sell" part of playaction as well and results in a happy and continuous loop of coherent offense. No one is behind the 8-ball any more to UT and OU when it comes to running the football. If we want to at Tech, we can. It's an option and Kliff clearly understands the strategical value of having a run game. This is an offense that has done nothing but dictate tempo.
- It was never more evident than Kliff's brilliant clock management of the 4th quarter in Fayetteville. The game was over the minute we put two scores between us. They couldn't stop our offense and we could operate at as slow a pace as possible to kill possessions for an Arkansas offense that required 8 minutes at 3 yards a pop to get in the end zone. Now, they're playing our game and we win at that. This is also a good sign that our young coach has a strong understanding of game theory.
Defense
- I really, really like Gibbs. He coaches and makes adjustments. We still have some of the same players on the roster, who resort to old bad habits at times, but you can tell throughout the game they are being coached on mistakes in real-time fashion. Not chunking in the towel until next week when Plan A doesn't work. We haven't had a guy with a Plan B since Willis, so this is extremely refreshing for me. He knows how to count and sadly that is an upgrade, but one that comes in handy for us.
- We aren't going into the Titans of Defense Hall of Fame or anything with this unit. But, since we're putting young talented and hungry players on the field without bad habits, we'll get a positive return on our snap investment and they've got a lot of ceiling to get to throughout the season.
- I'm extremely impressed with the improvement Gibbs has made with our leverage consistency, especially in the secondary. We'll give up some short to mid-range passing plays that require good throws to complete, but we're not letting guys get over the top of us by weight early in the route which prevents big passing plays.
Overall
- It appears on the field that Kliff had the team practicing what he was preaching in the offseason. The proof is in the conference stats:
#1 in penalties per game
#3 in turnover margin
This shows a tremendous improvement in the level of mental focus by the team and being ready to play. We're faster on offense than any defense we face on the schedule, so as long as those two stats remain consistent, there's no reason why we aren't conference contenders this year. At least from the physical perspective. TCU and Baylor will be a tremendous test for Kliff's ability to control the ego ceiling for the coaching staff, players and himself. If we get rolled the next two weeks, we'll know Kliff still has a lot of growing to do from a leadership standpoint as far as preventing an environment that resembles the emotions of a 7th grade girls lockerroom.
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