sycasey said:
They also had two third-and-short plays where they just let a rusher go right up the middle unblocked, resulting in a sack and a punt. Those were pretty bad.
Sycasey, these two plays spiked my blood pressure. I hate to nitpick Spavital, who has been been doing pretty well calling plays of late....but....on those two plays he either had an empty backfield from the beginning, or had Ott motion out so that it was an empty backfield at the snap.
I had been thinking maybe we should run it with Ott and then go for it on 4th down if we didn't make the line to gain. The Stanford defense may have been thinking that was a possibility too. Then Spav empties the backfield and every knows it will be a pass and not a run.
I'm no offensive coordinator but if the defense has to worry about Jadyn Ott running the ball for 3 yards, doesn't that force them to account for that? Also if it's a pass the RB can pick up a blitzer and then leak outside for a dump off pass. Options.
So both times I was loudly complaining about the empty backfield when the ball was snapped and a Stanford defender -- BOTH TIMES -- went right up the middle virtually unblocked (no RB to pick up the rusher, duh) to crush Mendoza for an immediate sack and end to the drive.
I had to vent that here because I was so pissed at the time.
Hey, we won the Big Game so I'm happy. But the UCLA D-Line will eat us alive if we do that.
