In Wednesday's victory over Boston College, Vanderbilt did the right things on defense and special teams. Obviously, the Commodore offense was another story.
So what does offensive coordinator Ted Cain plan to do next season if he's still aboard, and Bobby Johnson hasn't said anything to lead us to believe otherwise?
He told the Tennessean's Mo Patton: "We'll continue to look at our scheme, both run and pass, and make sure we're doing the right things and asking them to do the right things."
Make sure we're doing the right things? How about: Make sure we start doing the right things!
There's more:
"Our biggest thing is we need to score more points. That's our biggest goal."
Great! Self-awareness is a start. Of course, being ranked among the three worst offenses in college football should get anybody's attention.
"We'll always address those areas like red-zone, short-yardage, but we need to continue to keep the ball, drive the ball and score points."
On Wednesday, his offense did keep the ball. Check.
And it did drive the ball early and when it need to. Check.
But scoring points? Ah, no. When you can't score points, your defense and special teams have to be perfect and get some lucky breaks, too, if you're going to win.
You know how many points our offense scored against Tennessee, Wake Forest and Boston College combined?
Six.
You know how many points our offense scored against Miss State and Duke?
Twelve.
We've got to score points to win, and we've got to be able to score quick and have big plays on offense.
I'm sure Bobby Johnson realizes this, I hope Ted Cain does too, and I look forward to seeing what they're going to do about it.
2 comments:
That's one way of looking at the situation, Here's another:
Vanderbilt's offensive woes had very little to do with play-calling. The Commies' offense was built around Chris Nickson. But Nickson got hurt in Oxford and never fully recovered.
As the season wore on and injuries mounted, Vanderbilt wound up rotating two injured QBs.
Finally, behind a redshirt freshman making his first start, they didn't turn the ball over even once, against a defense that led the nation in interceptions.
I'd call that a pretty good job of getting the most out of what was available to work with.
You make some good points. Nickson and Adams were hurt, and the coaches didn't want to rush Smith's development. It was frustrating, though, that we kept running on third and one against BC and losing yards. It was also frustrating that Smith got us inside the red zone on the first two drives and was pulled both times for Nickson and we had to settle for field goals. Notice that I'm not calling for Cain to be fired like a lot of Vanderbilt fans have. I do think we'll see marked improvement on offense next season, and I do think that Smith will benefit in the long run because Cain and Johnson didn't ask too much of him. Thanks for the comments.
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