I could be wrong, but I think those runs up the middle on 3rd down were read options where AR is supposed to put the ball in the belly of the RB and let him have it if there's a hole and pull it and roll out to either run himself or throw a pass if there's not. To me, AR made the wrong read on those plays. So it's more on him than on the play call from the sidelines.
I could be wrong, but I think those runs up the middle on 3rd down were read options where AR is supposed to put the ball in the belly of the RB and let him have it if there's a hole and pull it and roll out to either run himself or throw a pass if there's not. To me, AR made the wrong read on those plays. So it's more on him than on the play call from the sidelines.
A couple may have been, some were clearly not. For instance the one on 3rd and 8 in the red zone clearly was not. But either way, read option or not, odd call on 3rd and 12 numerous times.
First of all this is Heupel’s 2nd year. He lost 6 games last year at UT. Yes he lost a lot of players in the portal. He also added a lot of players in the portal to replace the ones he lost. Hendon Hooker is one of those players that transferred in. Next if UT doesn’t recruit good they won’t be good every single year. Their team is also loaded with seniors this year.
As for Heupel he has always been a good offensive coach at every stop he has made. He hasn’t always recruited well or put together the best staff or cared about defense. Each year at UCF was worse than the year before during his tenure. With that being said maybe he has developed as a coach and improved.
Don’t forget after the first 2 years we thought we were on the way back with Mullen.
Vols are loaded with seniors this year. Also have probably the 3 best WR combo in college football....lets see how next week plays out. As to Florida, Mizzou has more draft projections than we do. There is no talent on this Gator team.
In addition to that we were 4 of 16 on 3rd downs today. Of those 16 plays, 6 of them were runs and 10 were passes, however we converted a first down on 2 of those 6 running plays whereas we only converted 2 of 10 on passing plays. So while sometimes the play call may sometimes be questionable we were actually more successful with the running plays on 3rd down. The problem is we have a very inaccurate QB.
And while I agree the play calling could be better at times it isn’t the main problem with the offense.
We are currently averaging over 7 yards per play. The most since the 2020 offense with Trask, Pitts, Toney, etc. We haven’t had an offense average this many yards per play since that 2020 offense and before that was when Urban Meyer was the coach.
And while I agree the play calling could be better at times it isn’t the main problem with the offense.
We are currently averaging over 7 yards per play. The most since the 2020 offense with Trask, Pitts, Toney, etc. We haven’t had an offense average this many yards per play since that 2020 offense and before that was when Urban Meyer was the coach.
for instance, sure Heupel is a offense guy, but he IS, at this point, a far better offensive guy than Billy
and yes he ignores D at times, but they continue to improve on D and Toney has not gotten any better week to week
i am OK with the talent excuse because its real, but to think there aren’t other issues is not being honest. Billy is fine, as long as he is willing to see he needs to make changes. Even when he was winning at ULL, most knew his passing schemes were elementary
And while I agree the play calling could be better at times it isn’t the main problem with the offense.
We are currently averaging over 7 yards per play. The most since the 2020 offense with Trask, Pitts, Toney, etc. We haven’t had an offense average this many yards per play since that 2020 offense and before that was when Urban Meyer was the coach.
Well he’s a good offensive coach for sure. But like I said earlier sure enough so far this years offense has been averaging more yards per play than all of Mullen’s offenses except that 2020 offense.
This is long, but I hope it explains a lot about Heupel at UCF, between Frost and Gus.
I'll put a lot in 'Spoiler' tags to cut down on length, but in case people want to know more details.
Heupel's system worked very well at Missouri prior, and was 'close enough' to Frost's, that he kept over 70% of Frost's playbook built around Milton, when he came to UCF. In fact (and I'm trying to find it), there was a great article back in 2016-2017 on three offensive-minded coordinators, including Huepel (at MissourI) and Frost (at Oregon, then UCF), and how much they were similar, before UCF even hired Heupel.
Undertand in 2016, a lot of UCF fans hated Milton, and hated Frost for playing true freshman Milton over the senior QB (long story). UCF Boosters might be loyal to coaches and players, but the UCF Twitter Mafia can be downright nasty at times. It was so bad Milton almost left and was going to transfer to Hawaii, but Frost talked him out of it, because Frost felt the same attitudes at Nebraska in his playing years.
But that 'investment paid off' as the system was built, and Milton is now the most beloved QB to ever play at UCF, even over Culpepper and Bortles. Unfortunately, when Milton got hurt in late 2018 ... his backup couldn't run the system as well, let alone not against LSU (UCF was lucky to have kept that close).
Fortunately for Milton, he did recover, and -- despite nothing spectacular -- did finish off his career at FSU, with full UCF fan support. Dillion Gabriel, who replaced Milton, ended up following UCF's QB/OC to Oklahoma, unfortunately ... more on him in a bit.
Unfortunately, Heupel's speed is 'hard on defenses.' At first, UCF fans liked Heupel's play calling more than Frost, but ... he went 8-something seconds between plays, versus 10-something between plays. So you have to have a solid defense to manage that. Don't forget ... Heupel got fired as an OC from Oklahoma years ago over such (long story), even though the D was poor (largely because they were gassed, and losing ToP).
Frost actually had an innovative 3-4 built around one-handed line-backer that you should all know. He was undersized for a NFL OLB, but not for a collge one. His twin, similarly sized brother played DB.
The man dominated in the speed from the outside, but could also drop back. He literally had several one-handed grabs (INTs) and scoops (fumble recoveries, including running after) that were amazing. And his attitude, literally living on a blow-up matress in the film room ... was how he learned defenses.
Heupel, er, um, well ... G5 programs aren't known for strong defenses ... and Randy Shannon (the top paid G5 DC at $1.2M/year at UCF by nearly 2x) returned UCF to a 4-3 that didn't work nearly as well.
Cincinnati is really unique, and able to hold some of the top defenses from the P5 to a few scores too. It took Fickle 3 years to figure out how to 'shut down' UCF's offense. And even then, it was really true freshman Dillion Gabriel that they were able to exploit ... on turnovers (and won by only 3 points).
Cincinnati still has as solid D, but they lost their QB starter after last year, and ... UCF 'returned the favor' this year via it's new D. T.will's 3-2-5 defense at UCF that works well shutting down big play offenses, especially in the G5, and relies on UCF's massively huge lines for a G5. Even 2017 UCF had the #7th beefiest O-line in the final Top 25 (thanks largely to prior O'Learly recruiting). Gus is now doing the same in size.
In fact, the only team that has scored more than 20 points on UCF this year is ECU, which everyone was scratching their head on. At first everyone just assumed it was UCF driving its first 3 drives into ECU territory only to turn it over all 3 times, making UCF 1-dimensional -- and super-fast QB Plumlee isn't the best at passing. Heck, UCF did that twice against Cincy in the redzone, back-to-back, and its points against Cincy, like Louisville (UCF had most of its TD scores called back), should have been double.
But more recently it broke that ECU had hired one of UCF's fired GAs a few weeks back, and knew UCF's calls. The GA has already put up an 'indirect denial' on Twitter. I don't know how much truth there is to anything, but other then ECU ... UCF has only 'beat itself' this year in turnovers (and nearly did against Cincy). ECU is still a 'head scratcher,' as UCF has an improving D, with a new (albeit error-prone) offensive system post-Frost/Heupel.
Now this is all despite ...
Gusonly has a single recruiting class(2022) to his name, as he came in after 2021 closed. That's why Gus is relying on transfers. Which brings me to Heupel recruiting the G5 ...
He hasn’t always recruited well or put together the best staff or cared about defense. Each year at UCF was worse than the year before during his tenure. With that being said maybe he has developed as a coach and improved.
Heupel lost half of his recruits at UCF over his tenure, even before the 'transfer rule changes!' He didn't even want Dillion Gabriel -- yes, the former UCF QB that replaced Milton and, later, followed his OC to Oklahoma, THAT Gabriel -- and was 'forced' to take him by the players basically 'demanding' him. I fully expected Heupel to recruit better at Tennessee, but he sucked in the G5.
UCF had major losses on the defense by 2020, and Heupel kicked 3 starters off the team just before the bowl game against BYU (long story). The result? UCF lost by more points in that 2020 bowl game against BYU (who was ranked around top 15, but still ...) than all other losses combined since 2016 ... and UCF is lucky BYU 'took the foot off the gas.'
The buy-out for Heupel went from $10M to under $5M at the conclusion of that bowl game, and -- from a reruiting standpoitn -- UCF's 'poison pill' post-Frost that tried to 'maximize the damage' of a 'buy-out' by another program within 3 years kinda backfired ... but, ironically in a good way.
While UCF didn't find a new AD, and didn't hire a new coach, until after the 2021 recruiting cycle was over. But ... UCF ended up getting a better recruiting class (2021) by various ranking sites as a result of Heupel being gone! Yes ... Heupel -- unlike Frost -- ignored a lot of good, top, high 3-star G5 recruits, going for 4+ stars.
Heupel -- unlike Frost, let alone Gus -- was not well-liked by local, central Florida high school coaches. Gus, on the other hand and even better than Frost, purposely went right at the 'within 100 miles' and that's why UCF, in 2022 and, so far, for 2023 ... has more ESPN top 300 recruits than all other coaches prior ... combined! And that was including ones in the 2022 class ... before the Big XII invite was extened.
UCF is still 'rebuilding' from Heupel. It is still a little ugly. Even UCF fans that originally defended Heupel had to admit how bad it was by early 2021, before even Gus arrived. UCF is still 'rebuilding' its roster, and dealing with -- despite the influx of talent (e.g.,the O-line is huge, so much 300+ lb tackles have moved to guard) -- the fact that there is so little 'playing time together,' which is a problem a lot of teams face with transfers in/out now.
Gus ended up losing an additional 27 players over the 2021 season largely due to injuries and other issues, along with Gabriel and a few others asking to transfer -- in addition to all the ones that left Heupel by the end of 2020. UCF was down to under less than 50 scholarship players that could dress for the 2021 Gaspirilla Bowl.
That's why even most UCF fans predicted a loss in the bowl. Let's be honest ... that bowl game came down to Florida's Jones not hitting even 1 of 3 attempted bombs, and UCF's true freshman Keene finally hitting the last 1 of 3 bomb attempts. Before that, it was close, and Florida could have won it.
But after that bomb, where UCF went up, UCF just then controlled the clock with a bruising O-line and back, which is why the final ended up 29-17. But was really much closer than that.
UCF had a poor team in 2021, and the blowout losses in-conference at times showcased that. Gus also had to drop the speed of the system after Gabriel went down at Louisville, and true freshman Keene constantly stalled the offense to the point Navy -- yes, Navy, who was not good in 2021 -- came back from a 21 point deficit -- yes, 21 points down by the late 3rd quarter -- because UCF's D was gassed out of sheer 40+ minutes of Navy ToP.
Conclusion: Heupel is fine ... until the O isn't producing, and the D is gassed as a result. That's some of the issues Tennessee had in 2021. Heupel sucked at recruiting central Florida for G5 UCF. He's probably better now in the SEC.
We’re seven games in. What did you think was going to happen? Most of us knew there would be struggles and there have been. Back off the ledge, man. You can’t tell anything at this point.
We’re seven games in. What did you think was going to happen? Most of us knew there would be struggles and there have been. Back off the ledge, man. You can’t tell anything at this point.
What element of our offense appears to be in proper development to you? Is there anything we are doing that appears to be going in the right direction or building toward anything on the field? Can you honestly see any type of a development in any area? Fine to be optimistic but be willing to objectively question as well.
What element of our offense appears to be in proper development to you? Is there anything we are doing that appears to be going in the right direction or building toward anything on the field? Can you honestly see any type of a development in any area? Fine to be optimistic but be willing to objectively question as well.
What element of our offense appears to be in proper development to you? Is there anything we are doing that appears to be going in the right direction or building toward anything on the field? Can you honestly see any type of a development in any area? Fine to be optimistic but be willing to objectively question as well.
Trying to think what is good. Young defenders getting a lot of reps, 2 good RBs on the roster, most of O line getting more experience for next season.
The problems are players don't seem to be able to execute the defense, limited at WR with no true deep threat, no go to TE for the passing game and Richardson not making much progress in the passing game since the season began.
What element of our offense appears to be in proper development to you? Is there anything we are doing that appears to be going in the right direction or building toward anything on the field? Can you honestly see any type of a development in any area? Fine to be optimistic but be willing to objectively question as well.
I don’t think the offense is great by any means and there is room for improvement but I will say what I said earlier. In yards per play we are top 10 in the country and the best in that category since 2020 with Trask and Pitts and then you have to go back to Urban Meyer before you find a UF offense that is averaging as many yards per play as this years.
I believe before the UGA game we were the least penalized team in the SEC which I’m not sure that has ever happened before.
To me the defense is what is a total mess. With just an average defense the team would be fairing much better. It seems like the last decade it has been a problem to be good on both sides of the ball.
I don’t think the offense is great by any means and there is room for improvement but I will say what I said earlier. In yards per play we are top 10 in the country and the best in that category since 2020 with Trask and Pitts and then you have to go back to Urban Meyer before you find a UF offense that is averaging as many yards per play as this years.
I believe before the UGA game we were the least penalized team in the SEC which I’m not sure that has ever happened before.
To me the defense is what is a total mess. With just an average defense the team would be fairing much better. It seems like the last decade it has been a problem to be good on both sides of the ball.
Agree. The offensive line has been solid and we have really good running backs. The WR group is average, but overall the offense has been pretty good. I see the main problem on that side of the ball is with AR making bad reads sometimes and being inconsistent with his accuracy. With with just an average defense we would probably be 6-2.
I think Heupal caught lightning in a bottle with Hooker who just so happens to run his offense at an extremely high level, he also landed a few good offensive players (WR that nobody can guard). It's also his 2nd yr vs Napiers first yr. I'm not gunna lie, outside perspective here, from what I've seen, Napier hasn't done well on gameday amd mainly with the QB/play calling.. Could be the personnel doesn't fit what he wants to do or it could be him. Richardson has never looked worse and that is concerning. However, it's his first yr, with another coaches players. What I will say is he's done a great job recruiting and if he doesn't make, the next guy will have something to work with. Which is opposite of Mullen.
I think Heupal caught lightning in a bottle with Hooker who just so happens to run his offense at an extremely high level, he also landed a few good offensive players (WR that nobody can guard). It's also his 2nd yr vs Napiers first yr. I'm not gunna lie, outside perspective here, from what I've seen, Napier hasn't done well on gameday amd mainly with the QB/play calling.. Could be the personnel doesn't fit what he wants to do or it could be him. Richardson has never looked worse and that is concerning. However, it's his first yr, with another coaches players. What I will say is he's done a great job recruiting and if he doesn't make, the next guy will have something to work with. Which is opposite of Mullen.
Our best olineman and best 2 RBs weren’t even on the team last year. 2 of them are transfers from ULL and the other is a true freshmen. I would say that is probably due to a lack of talent recruited by the previous staff because that probably shouldn’t happen at a place like UF. Sale and Juluke probably should get some credit for recruiting and developing Torrance and Johnson. In fact you could make an argument that those are the 3 best players on our entire offense.
I'm not off the bandwagon with CBN, but I will say I've been disappointed with this team. Teams play with the personality of their coaches, and this version of the Gators is confused and disorganized on offense and disorganized and soft on defense.
There are probably issues with the roster as far as depth of talent and attitude, so I'll give him to next year before the alarm really starts ringing. I think its possible that he is not on the same page at all with AR, but he basically has to play him.
I had very high hopes for AR, but now I'm not sure I would even want him back next year. It seems to me like he does not want to run, and that is the only thing he does at an elite level. If he would attack defenses with his running, his receivers would be running open all over the place.
I'm not off the bandwagon with CBN, but I will say I've been disappointed with this team. Teams play with the personality of their coaches, and this version of the Gators is confused and disorganized on offense and disorganized and soft on defense.
There are probably issues with the roster as far as depth of talent and attitude, so I'll give him to next year before the alarm really starts ringing. I think its possible that he is not on the same page at all with AR, but he basically has to play him.
I had very high hopes for AR, but now I'm not sure I would even want him back next year. It seems to me like he does not want to run, and that is the only thing he does at an elite level. If he would attack defenses with his running, his receivers would be running open all over the place.
i am on board with a lot of this. I am not sure AR coming back is a good idea as he is pretty average to be honest. However, when I watched Billy’s ULL team after we hired him, his QBs do run quite a bit, and that is an element of him running game and Billy does have a strong run game. Do we have a guy who can run when necessary?
i do think there are both talent and coaching issues on the defensive side of the ball.
And Billy, Sale and Jaluuke have our running game and OL in a pretty good place, I do think Billy needs help in the passing game
i am on board with a lot of this. I am not sure AR coming back is a good idea as he is pretty average to be honest. However, when I watched Billy’s ULL team after we hired him, his QBs do run quite a bit, and that is an element of him running game and Billy does have a strong run game. Do we have a guy who can run when necessary?
i do think there are both talent and coaching issues on the defensive side of the ball.
And Billy, Sale and Jaluuke have our running game and OL in a pretty good place, I do think Billy needs help in the passing game
Billy can stay "OC" but he needs a run game coordinator and a passing game coordinator to relieve some of the duties. Also needs to play 2 QB's to mix some things up. Get Kitna in the game.
AR has got to run more for this offense to work. He's never going to be an elite passer, doesn't see the field well enough. My guess is the injuries have him gun shy. Hard to say if it's the play calling.
AR has got to run more for this offense to work. He's never going to be an elite passer, doesn't see the field well enough. My guess is the injuries have him gun shy. Hard to say if it's the play calling.
I think they call a lot of options for him but he always gives it up. Him running should be our offense's primary threat. He reminds me of Jeff Driskel. All of the tools but it's like they can't process what's going on out there.
I think they call a lot of options for him but he always gives it up. Him running should be our offense's primary threat. He reminds me of Jeff Driskel. All of the tools but it's like they can't process what's going on out there.
Yep a lot of people have pointed out quite a few plays he should have kept the ball. The 3rd Q of the GA game seems to be the only time this year he kept the ball a lot and it opened things up for the RBs who were getting stuffed before that.
Yep. That's what I've been saying since game 1 or 2 when people started saying Billy was handcuffing AR from running.
It's been obvious that there have been many times, feels like almost every time, that a read was called and AR refused to take it himself, sacrificing his running back to the middle of the line.
