What offense are we running? Serious question.

[appdaze]

I think a long term problem is that we have a coach who wasn't ready for this big of a program.

2001 Grad assistant with louisville
2003-2008 Eastern Kentucky OL coach
2009-2012 Purdue OL coach
2013-2015 Kent St. OL coach (This was a downgrade from Purdue)
2016-2018 App St. OL coach, Co-OC
2019 App St. OL coach, Assistant HC

And here lies the problem. We have a career OL coach who got vaulted in to a position he was not ready for because Drink left for P5.

Clark may turn things around in a couple years and get his chops but right now he is not ready for this job. This has been an issue in the post Moore era of trying to keep it "in the family." The family isn't big enough. Coach Moore doesn't have a massive Bill Parcels coaching tree.

What we did was the equivalent of a Team President stepping down and instead of giving the job to the VP or the GM, we gave the president job to the head of Marketing AKA we went too far down the chain.

Will he be fine eventually, yes. Is his current style of play going to get us over the hump, no. I have a hard time with a lot of the first year coach arguments like "these aren't his players." He literally recruited a number of them. They are his players. He doesn't get cut that slack.

While I put him and Capel in very different categories, the situation is very similar. Neither was ready for what was handed to them because their head coach left for the big paycheck. I just hope that we don't send football to the pit of misery that basketball has had to climb out of because we were too stubborn to make the right moves when they were needed.

Obviously, we can't see the future, but I don't think Clark will need years to adjust. I've never coached D-1 college football, but I've coached high school basketball with no experience other than a little bit of playing time. You'd be surprised how much you can learn, change, and improve within one year. I mean, look at the play where the TE fumbled into the end zone. That was a perfect play call, and a game-changing play that could've turned the tide had he just held on. There's still a very real chance we finish the season with only one loss. Until we start racking up more losses, I'm going to gird my concerns.

High school is a totally different animal. Random teachers end up coaching stuff because they just need a coach. That isn't really a standard we should be looking through. I've coached high school basketball, baseball, softball, volleyball, mens/womens tennis, and mens soccer but I don't think that qualifies me for a college position. Its a totally different animal.

I mentioned in an earlier post in another thread I think that I'm not going to flip out unless we lose to GA southern, Cajuns, and one more giving us 4 or more losses with all the talent he has to work with. Then I will be really questioning the direction of the program. I have concerns but no pitchforks are out.

[JMappfan5]

Marshall's Defense was fast/athletic and very physical. They had two weeks to prepare for this game. Take away the turnovers and we are tied or even win the game. "The Joan" is a lot like the ROCK, a tough place to win! Some of you guys are INSANE!!!

[AtlAppMan]

We were outplayed throughout the game but we still didn't get blown out of this game. A few mistakes not made by our PLAYERS would have won the game. The coaches are new and will gel as time goes on but to say Clark and Co are out of their league is a huge overstatement at this point. The players have to execute the game plan but some of them choked and we lost.

[appgrad2010]

I think a long term problem is that we have a coach who wasn't ready for this big of a program.

2001 Grad assistant with louisville
2003-2008 Eastern Kentucky OL coach
2009-2012 Purdue OL coach
2013-2015 Kent St. OL coach (This was a downgrade from Purdue)
2016-2018 App St. OL coach, Co-OC
2019 App St. OL coach, Assistant HC

And here lies the problem. We have a career OL coach who got vaulted in to a position he was not ready for because Drink left for P5.

Clark may turn things around in a couple years and get his chops but right now he is not ready for this job. This has been an issue in the post Moore era of trying to keep it "in the family." The family isn't big enough. Coach Moore doesn't have a massive Bill Parcels coaching tree.

What we did was the equivalent of a Team President stepping down and instead of giving the job to the VP or the GM, we gave the president job to the head of Marketing AKA we went too far down the chain.

Will he be fine eventually, yes. Is his current style of play going to get us over the hump, no. I have a hard time with a lot of the first year coach arguments like "these aren't his players." He literally recruited a number of them. They are his players. He doesn't get cut that slack.

While I put him and Capel in very different categories, the situation is very similar. Neither was ready for what was handed to them because their head coach left for the big paycheck. I just hope that we don't send football to the pit of misery that basketball has had to climb out of because we were too stubborn to make the right moves when they were needed.

You must be in a DAZE to even mention Shawn Clark and Jason Capel in the same situation. Jason Capel had 0 experience. 0, period. Charlie Cobb set Appalachian basketball back light years, when we should have hired Matt McMahon. A talented roster returned and vastly underachieved due to trying to reinvent the wheel. Not to discredit Capel, but his network was small and it showed with his staffs. They had moments, but few and far between. Granted he was put in a position to fail from the start.

[WASU 93]

Marshall's Defense was fast/athletic and very physical. They had two weeks to prepare for this game. Take away the turnovers and we are tied or even win the game. "The Joan" is a lot like the ROCK, a tough place to win! Some of you guys are INSANE!!!

The Joan at 25% capacity was actually pretty sedate until the 4th quarter. In the second quarter, it was actually pretty quiet. Nice small stadium, but the crowd really didn't play into this game.

[Mjohn1988]

Our offense basically has 2 running plays. Inside zone and outside zone. People complain way too much about us running the inside zone, “up the middle”. Over the years we have made a lot of big runs and scored a bunch of TD’s with the inside zone run. The other thing the inside zone run does is it keeps the inside backers honest and helps to set up a lot of those long outside runs and the play action pass. The inside zone run fake set up the almost TD pass to Evans. One of my biggest problems with Saturday was we pretty much gave up on the outside zone run.

[ASU3432Mi]

Virgil didn't play in 4th quarter when we really needed speed on the outside and was not there to return Marsha's last kickoff. Did he get hurt? Also when will Williams and Pearson be back?

[bigdaddyg]

Our offense is boring, predictable and easy to defend.

[Kafarmer]

I appreciate the passion from many die hard fans, but many of you are way too critical. How do we move forward from the last few years? Satt cashed in on a payday and more exposure. He left Drinkwitz a helluva team. New staff. Under normal circumstances, everything came together fairly well. But...... remember the “fire Ted Roof” crowd. Then Drink cashes in and now we’re left with a great team facing their third head coach and staff in 3 years. New schemes, screwed up practice schedules due to dealing with Covid. Change in schedule. It’s completely understandable that it’s been a little rocky, but going back and looking at things a few days later show it’s not that bad. Control the uncharacteristic turnovers and both games were pretty damn good. Things to work on, yes, but come on folks. Who do you think could have come in to coach that would have been better and more committed to ASU football? Get a name coach who, Once again, cashes in in 1, 2, 3 years?

[kornegaylw]

Our offense is boring, predictable and easy to defend.

Why fix what isn't broken? Up until Saturday it beat UNC, USC, won 5 straight bowl games & 4 straight conference titles with only 4 losses in 3 years.

Yes there is a LOT of tape on this offense and without a second WR that is a deep threat like Sutton its easy to scheme for if you're smart enough to do so. Marshals HC was and his team executed.

I expect Clark and Petersen to add some wrinkles and mix it up. Saturday is the perfect opportunity for this.

[rbarthle17]

We were outplayed throughout the game but we still didn't get blown out of this game. A few mistakes not made by our PLAYERS would have won the game. The coaches are new and will gel as time goes on but to say Clark and Co are out of their league is a huge overstatement at this point. The players have to execute the game plan but some of them choked and we lost.

Add into this the inability to have a normal offseason and any new coach would be behind even more. If anything, his familiarity is keeping things from being worse than they would with a total outsider in the same situation.

It's been 2 games in the most abnormal year most of us have ever lived through. The overreactions are borderline hilarious.

[rbarthle17]

Our offense is boring, predictable and easy to defend.

Why fix what isn't broken? Up until Saturday it beat UNC, USC, won 5 straight bowl games & 4 straight conference titles with only 4 losses in 3 years.

Yes there is a LOT of tape on this offense and without a second WR that is a deep threat like Sutton its easy to scheme for if you're smart enough to do so. Marshals HC was and his team executed.

I expect Clark and Petersen to add some wrinkles and mix it up. Saturday is the perfect opportunity for this.

I would agree with that, but Campbell is the kind of opponent most coaches go as vanilla as possible and win on talent disparity. However we do have what amounts to 2.5 weeks to add these wrinkles in in practice before the gauntlet begins.

[AppDub]

Marshall's Defense was fast/athletic and very physical. They had two weeks to prepare for this game. Take away the turnovers and we are tied or even win the game. "The Joan" is a lot like the ROCK, a tough place to win! Some of you guys are INSANE!!!

Maybe you had to be there, but nothing about that stadium looked like a tough place to win at aside from the lack of intensity that showed from some of our team. Marshall looked a whole lot more amped up and it showed on the field. Preparation isn't just scheming, its a mindset that has to show through. I don't claim to know what our players were thinking, but the low energy and frustration were very visible traits. I find nothing intimidating about a stadium named the Joan.

[AppSt94]

Sutton’s absence can’t be discounted.

[App91]

Sutton’s absence can’t be discounted.

Played the last 3 games without him last year.

[spacemonkey]

Back to the original question....Two of the responses were aimed at the question, the rest were rants. Our spread offense was a thing of beauty. I would love to see it come back. Who is our quarterback coach? Offensive lines are very important but execution of the whole offense and timing of offensive plays are important. So is there a name to our offense and what should we expect.

My two cents is Cam Peoples is a better spread offense running back but if we are going to run the offense we ran Saturday we need a bull running back. I saw very few runs outside the tackle to take advantage of our running back speed. Someone mentioned the bubble screens....It looked to be open and our receivers are good blockers...I THINK. (their defensive backs looked small but their linebackers looked to be a good size)

[App91]

I think you got your response, we have no idea!

[spacemonkey]

I think you got your response, we have no idea!

Got ya....That made me laugh.

[mountaineerman]

I just heard that was our lowest points since joining fbs. That’s a smack in the face. Moving on now .

[kornegaylw]

Sutton’s absence can’t be discounted.

Played the last 3 games without him last year.

The offense we saw without Sutton last year was the same offense we saw against UNCC and Marshal. Suttons deep threat took up a corner and many times a Safety. Hennigan is an amazing talent but he, Virgil and Williams do not bring the same dynamic to the offense that Sutton did.With him no longer playing the safety is freed up for additional pass coverage or run blocking. As a team that uses that depends on play action this cannot be ignored.

Troy, ULL, UAB & UNCC all probably saw this deficiency in our offense, schemed for it but didn't or couldn't execute like Marshal did.