First, I totally acknowledge the following potential issues:
Fight on!
- First-half schedule
- Time for the offense to gel
- Harrell's relative youth in coaching
- Track record of air raid offenses in generating ground production
- Inexperienced secondary
- The predictability and conservativeness of Clancy's D
- I'Offense
- This OC was an expert practitioner in the system that he is now implementing at USC.
- The system brings a cohesive attack strategy that probes the entire defense and takes what the defense is giving. (No longer are we just flashing a disjointed collection of plays that we may not have sufficiently practiced and cannot execute well.)
- The simplification should allow all of the players to understand the key objectives of each play and master the execution and realization of those objectives.
- This will yield huge benefits especially for the offensive line, which suffered greatly from confusion and missed assignments over the last couple of years.
- The benefits also extend to the receivers, who should be better able to understand how to better manipulate the defense to help the play succeed ("get to grass").
- Of course, the looks for the QB are also simplified, and with a smart player J.T. Daniels, the impact is multiplied.
- The pace of the offense and quickly of decision-making which is demanded will benefit the offensive line greatly.
- The offensive coaching has improved at practically every position (especially at offensive line).
- Defense
- The defensive line is very, very good! These guys are big, athletic, and have great motors. It all starts up front, folks!
- Elsewhere on defense, we have a ton of play makers (PG, Hufanga, PM, OG, etc.)
- Special teams - The punter! We are going to be able to flip the field when the offense doesn't produce. This is a not-small factor.
Fight on!
