Playing fast and putting the defense on the field first.

I should start by saying I am 100% behind turning up the tempo of our offense as fast as possible. However, there are a couple points I'd like to make here:

1) Beck needs to do a better job of using appropriate situations to speed up or slow down this offense. In my opinion, our first offensive series needs to be dialed back a bit at least until we've gotten 1-2 first downs. I don't get the point of playing as fast as possible if we are on our own 35 or less (which Beck did in the first series last week).

2) Should we win the coin toss this year, we should never put our defense on the field first (especially against lesser quality opponents). I'm fine with deferring away from home, but we give our opponents a chance to gain confidence by doing so on our own turf. Our defense is young and not the strength of the team this year. If we elect to receive and we don't score, we at least have a chance to pin them back with bad field position. The fast tempo also plays a part here. The first 2 series of the game against WYO went as follows: we kickoff-stop them after 2 (1-I dont fully recall) first downs, they punt and pin us close to our own goal line. Beck decides to start the offense off full speed which turns into a quick punt (i believe we got 1 first down but it was so fast the 6 or so plays took under 2 minutes). We have an extremely young defense that's now been on the field for 2 drives in the first 5 minutes of the game. I would have done things differently.

Not only would I have elected to receive, I would have slowed the first few plays down to allow for better execution. Again, even if we don't score we give our defense more of a break and help in the field position battle.

In summary, wait until middle of the field to speed up the temp and if we have the option, take the ball first at home. A positive start to games this year will do wonders for the confidence our the young defense.

 
pretty much agree with you here...at this point a slow, grinding offense would keep the D off the field, which would be helpful.

 
Yep i agree, put something similar in my Fowlers Take thread. Beck needs a little bit smarter with his O in reguards to the D. I think a lot was learned from the Wyoming game in that sense. I would like to see us play ball control and field position more like K State did last year. Only speed it up after a few first downs and your rolling. We play to recklessly with the only goal in mind is scoring. Two major goals this season for the offense need to be:

1 Hold on to the ball, limit turnovers...duh.

2 Get a few first downs on every position, no 3 and outs. Always keep field position in mind and try to flip the field, we dont have to score on every play/possession.

If we play like this against bigger opponets we will be there at the end of games. I like how K state played last year. We dont have to go out there with reckless abandon and either score, fumble/int, or go three and out. Need to play smarter and put the D in good positions, ie keeping the field position in our favor.

 
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I agree with what you're saying, but it seems to be more of a head coach decision than an offensive coordinator decision. At least, it should be.

 
I agree with this. It seemed like we were punting on our first possession before the defense even got off the field.

Yep i agree, put something similar in my Fowlers Take thread. Beck needs a little bit smarter with his O in reguards to the D. I think a lot was learned from the Wyoming game in that sense. I would like to see us play ball control and field position more like K State did last year. Only speed it up after a few first downs and your rolling. We play to recklessly with the only goal in mind is scoring. Two major goals this season for the offense need to be:

1 Hold on to the ball, limit turnovers...duh.

2 Get a few first downs on every position, no 3 and outs. Always keep field position in mind and try to flip the field, we dont have to score on every play/possession.

If we play like this against bigger opponets we will be there at the end of games. I like how K state played last year. We dont have to go out there with reckless abandon and either score, fumble/int, or go three and out. Need to play smarter and put the D in good positions, ie keeping the field position in our favor.
I think our offense feels like it has to score every drive which obviously would be preferred however there's no way thats possible so we need to at least win the field position battle. Once we start going down the field and the game starts to carry on we should turn up the tempo. I think Beck and Bo learned a lot from the Wyo game.

 
I think they should opt for the ultimate sign of confidence and choose to kick at the start of BOTH halfs. Hey, it worked last time.

 
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