Rushing Stats: Should Bell be the “Running” QB?
Posted on: November 9, 2013
Image from 247sports.com
I guess the argument early on was Bell gives the team the best combination of running ability, passing and game management. Now that we can’t find a passing game and we’re throwing interceptions all that seems to remain as a potential weapon for this offense is an unwavering and stubborn commitment to the run game. While a little schizophrenic, it does feel like the OU staff knows this and tried to get the ball in Trevor’s hand early. But unfortunately we scrap everything too early, save the one thing we simply aren’t equipped to execute – the shotgun4 WR sets.
Here are some interesting rushing stats:
Rushing yards per carry on the season:
Knight 6.9
Finch 6.7
Clay 5.8
Williams 4.1
Bell 3.4
Rushing yards per carry Thursday night against Baylor
Finch 5.1
Knight 3.4
Clay 3.2
Williams 1.9
Bell .6
Based on the yards per carry on the season you’d think Bell would get the least touches in the run. Bell had the most with 8. Knight had the least. We can debate about who should be getting the touches but it seems pretty clear who should not be. It seems they’re going to have to find new ways/new blocking schemes to use Blake Bell’s strengths as a downhill runner if he’s going to remain the starter. Part of the problem in the first quarter was there always seemed to be a missed block/assignment. As I’ve said before that tends to happen early in a game. The line takes time to get into a groove. When an assignment is missed that’s when you really need a shiftier runner, someone that make one or two guys miss. Perhaps it would be good if we saw Finch more early in the game.
6 Comments
You guys should become a brain trust/think tank for the OU coaching
staff…seriously. I know that people have extreme difficulty with new
concepts and pride becomes a towering obstacle but it just makes too
much sense. As good as Stoops is and has been, it is just impossible to
have fresh and the outside-looking-in perspective that could be enjoyed
by having an outside consultant or advisory group such as from what I
see offered here. In any case, keep up the good work in at least adding
such insight and analysis in making some sense out of the chaos that is college football. Gone are the days of powerhouse programs that
get all the top shelf talent and cruise easily over all but the other 5
to 10 elite programs! There is so much parity these days on a very high
level that any weakness can result in an embarrassing loss which results
in desperation in trying to shore up that weakness before the next
teams on the schedule come in and exploit the same.
Thanks for the kind words. I think the primary problem is in the offense. And it isn’t in the individual groups, instead its about the construction of the offense and then how a “strategy” is developed and then employed throughout the game. Offensively there are some very fundamental things we are missing. JY has a piece about one of those things we’re posting today or tomorrow I believe. And you make an excellent point about parity. This is something really lost on some people. Some people don’t realize that while teams like Alabama may be good at running the ball because of talent, they still take schematic advantages. Wisconsin has run the ball plenty well for a long time and they don’t get the most elite O-linemen in the country. Stanford does the same.
I look forward to the upcoming posts for sure. It is frustrating for the average, uninformed, unbraniacs like me when it comes to all the nuances of college football so that what I see here from you guys HELPS! Otherwise I/we read lots of standard talking head points and unlearned observances, which do nothing to make sense of it all and often even unintentionally mislead. I like to see and hear truth in the most light available, if you know what I mean. LOL Keep it up brothers!
lol we will try! 🙂
Hard to judge based on YPC. A) sacks. B) Bell runs a lot of designed short yardage stuff.
That is a good point and one that I had considered before posting. But I also realized that most of the time it seems Blake is responsible for the sacks, he has the most blockers by definition as a QB in short yardage, he doesn’t “keep” on a read option so he puts RBs in predictable situation and many of his runs also come in less predictable situations than say a RBs run on first down, etc. In other words there are ways to mitigate the blow or enhance the interpretation of stats on anyone of those runners. So I figured it best to take them at their face value.