FanPost

A few things to think about offensively (with poll). Please leave your comments as well!


I've noticed a lot of people are down, and extremely hard on Tyrone Swoopes. I was honestly impressed with his play and I think if everyone thought about a few different things they would be more encouraged by his play as well.

1) Have reasonable expectations. I think a lot of people already had in their minds that he had to have a VY-Rosebowl-like performance to have pleased them. The reason VY is arguably the greatest college QB of all time is because he could put those shows on and the rest couldn't. How much can we reasonably expect from a kid that played a handful of snaps in mop up time and some reps in the Alamo Bowl? Not to mention he has only had 15 practices in a brand spanking new offensive system.

2) He wasn't the only one who struggled early. A QB and an offense will only go as far as the play from their O-Line allows them, with the exception of Colt McCoy. The entire offense struggled early and often. Malcolm brown was consistently stopped at the LOS, which should show that the line was getting bullied by outstanding D-Line play. There were 8 sacks on the day! What QB is going to thrive under constant pressure? Especially when an all-conference, perhaps All-American, RB can't move the ball.

3) The offensive game-plan for the scrimmage was very vanilla. As in most spring games, the offensive coordinator doesn't open up his playbook. To put this in perspective, Daje Johnson didn't have one Jet Sweep called for him, a play that is sure to be a familiarity in this up coming season. Swoopes didn't have a chance to work with certain plays that create space, something that he will thrive in. All in all, not much has been put in the play books for the players due to the fact that they have only had 15 practices. As the team gets more reps and more is put into the playbook, expect more of the type of plays that Swoopes is groomed for. The calls during the scrimmage were the most basic plays that a team will run.

4) He handled adversity. This might be the most important thing to take away from Saturday's action. Swoopes started the game 2/9 for 12 yards and an extremely ugly interception. He couldn't generate any yardage and the game looked to be a nightmare for the beginning of the Strong era. However, he did something that is not coachable. He rose from the dead, and properly so on Easter Weekend, to finish by going 15/21 for 220 yards and 3 touchdowns. He threw an absolute beautiful deep ball to Shipley, something that has not been present on the 40 Acres for quite some time. To see a young QB shake of horrible play to finish 17/31 with 229 yards, 3 Touchdowns and only 1 interception is something I would take in a heart beat. Especially over Case McCoy. Not many quarterbacks are capable of turning horrendous play into greatness, his QBR in the second half would've been second in the country last year to that of Jameis Winston. Yes, it was against the second unit and other reserves, but this is something that Ash is not well known to do with the one exception against Oregon State (with the aid of an incredible defensive performance). Ash has choked against teams such as Kansas at the start of games and had to be relieved because he could never get anything going. To see Swoopes shake off the nerves at DKR gives me huge hope that he can develop into his tremendous potential.

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