Duke Football -- Offseason Discussion

[Bob Green]

There is a lot of merit in spreading the defense wide by getting the ball to the flanks quickly.

The field is 53 1/3 yards wide and outside screen passes force the defense to cover every inch of it. In conjunction with downfield passes, those plays make it impossible for the defense to load the box.

Coach Cutcliffe commented on execution frequently during this past seasons struggles and wide receiver screens is an example of an area where Duke needs much better execution.

[OldPhiKap]

The field is 53 1/3 yards wide and outside screen passes force the defense to cover every inch of it. In conjunction with downfield passes, those plays make it impossible for the defense to load the box.

Exactly. And that lets you do what may be the most important aspect of an offense — run the ball.

Screen passes are a useful tool — if balanced with downfield throws to stretch the D.

[Bob Green]

Part II of Jim’s article is up on the front page:

https://www.dukebasketballreport.com...e-wade-stadium

Give it a read and discuss.

[OldPhiKap]

Part II of Jim’s article is up on the front page:

https://www.dukebasketballreport.com...e-wade-stadium

Give it a read and discuss.

Ben Albert may be the best hire Cut has made in his whole tenure. What he did at BC was incredible too.

[devildeac]

Part II of Jim’s article is up on the front page:

https://www.dukebasketballreport.com...e-wade-stadium

Give it a read and discuss.

Great summary by Jim, as usual, from both sides of the ball. I still want to know what the #$@% happened with the D against Syracuse and WFU giving up 49 points and 600+ yards, respectively.

[jimsumner]

Great summary by Jim, as usual, from both sides of the ball. I still want to know what the #$@% happened with the D against Syracuse and WFU giving up 49 points and 600+ yards, respectively.

Fatigue, bad tackling and lack of enthusiasm. When Dylan Singleton tells the media that Duke wasn't doing a good job pursuing the ball, you can see a big part of the problem.

Read what I wrote in Post-mortem Part 1 about the post-Carolina hangover,

[HereBeforeCoachK]

Great summary by Jim, as usual, from both sides of the ball. I still want to know what the #$@% happened with the D against Syracuse and WFU giving up 49 points and 600+ yards, respectively.

The physical and mental and emotional fatigue of trying to carry a terrible offense for weeks on end is my theory.

And another point, I'd like to have seen more Mateo...Deon disappointed me this year.

[devildeac]

Fatigue, bad tackling and lack of enthusiasm. When Dylan Singleton tells the media that Duke wasn't doing a good job pursuing the ball, you can see a big part of the problem.

Read what I wrote in Post-mortem Part 1 about the post-Carolina hangover,

Thanks! A dangerous combination.

[PDDuke85]

Ben Albert may be the best hire Cut has made in his whole tenure. What he did at BC was incredible too.

I’m concerned for Duke over any long term relationship with Coach Albert as his well deserved reputation will draw bigger fish with deeper wallets. As well, I wonder if a continued lack of any prowess on the offensive side would be cause for him to move on.

[Bob Green]

As well, I wonder if a continued lack of any prowess on the offensive side would be cause for him to move on.

A legitimate concern; however, I believe we are a quarterback away from resolving the offense issues. The young wide receivers showed a lot of promise, TE Noah Gray was just recognized as 2nd Team All America and Jim talked about the running back talent in his latest article.

Yes, we will need improved performance from the offensive line but the critical factor will be both Gunnar Holmberg and Luca Diamont being ready to rock-n-roll at quarterback.

Oh, and play calling...

[HereBeforeCoachK]

Thanks! A dangerous combination.

But the salient questions is WHY....and I point to weeks on end of poor offense as one reason why...certainly for the fatigue and lack of enthusiasm, and those both lead to poor tackling. Solve our offensive issues, and the defense will inherently improve.

[Devil in the Blue Dress]

Ben Albert may be the best hire Cut has made in his whole tenure. What he did at BC was incredible too.

Another line coach made a big difference: John Latina

The fact that we're talking about line coaches as perhaps the most significant hires reflects the importance of line play.

[sagegrouse]

I believe it would be beneficial to the very popular “bubble screen” topic to define the term because every outside screen pass is not a bubble screen.

Bubble screen - a type of screen pass where a receiver or tight end moves toward the sideline at the snap of the ball to receive an immediate pass from the quarterback.

http://insidethepylon.com/football-1...bubble-screen/

A different wide receiver screen is the tunnel screen also referred to as the jailbreak screen or plain old wide receiver screen. For this screen pass, the receiver is moving from outside to inside toward the quarterback.

Both plays require a couple of skills Duke seems to be lacking, a fast shifty receiver combined with good blocking, on the outside, by other receivers. As demonstrated in the link above, Alabama with Jerry Jeudy uses a bubble screen effectively. Duke achieved success with Jamison Crowder.

I am optimistic we will see effective use of outside screens in the coming seasons but it is dependent upon Trooper Taylor teaching our wide receivers how to block.

Finally, getting to my point, there is nothing wrong with running bubble and tunnel screens as part of the offense but they have to complement downfield passing and the running game instead of being a staple play. I like wide receiver screen passes, unfortunately, Duke does a poor job executing the play.

Bob, I appreciate your more expansive explanation of screen passes. Perhaps I have been overly simplistic -- in my lexicon, any pass to a wide receiver that results in a gain of from +3 to -10 yards is a "bubble screen."

[DukeDTD]

Part II of Jim’s article is up on the front page:

https://www.dukebasketballreport.com...e-wade-stadium

Give it a read and discuss.

I found Jim's comments about the OL interesting. I thought we had several guys who seemed to regress. We did have Freshmen replace our two returning tackles, but the reality is that OL performance generally was worse in 2019. Here are metrics from a well respected analytics source comparing OL performance this past season and 2018. Our OL did not improve in 2019. In fact, it declined. Neither year was particularly good.

https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/ncaaol/2019

https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/ncaaol/2018

Our sack rate was actually quite a bit worse in 2019, despite a QB who got rid of the ball quickly vs Jones who generally held the ball a long time (and still does). In the run game, the only stat that improved was that we had a low # of running plays that lost yardage. On the other hand, we were not very good at getting 4+ yards on early downs nor getting the tough 1-2 yards on 3rd or 4th and short. The run game was likely adversely affected by how quickly Q was releasing the ball as teams could really crowd the box and press on the outside. Nevertheless, the OL was not creating push or space. I was really surprised we did not see Kraeling get more snaps, especially to boost the run game.

The bright side for 2020 - Generally experienced lines that have started a lot of games together perform better. Hopefully at some point, Monk can move back inside which is where he is ideally suited to play.

[budwom]

Yeah, the OL story is not good. One excuse now is that we are young, with two freshman OTs...this is true...However, we had experienced and highly recruited tackles in Kraeling and Miller, and both got demoted, as did Santos at LG...so either something is amiss in their development (which I suspect is true) or they were misevaluated...but we should NOT be young on the OL. Miller, Santos, Wohlabaugh, Chambers and Kraeling would have been a very experienced unit.

[DukeDTD]

Yeah, the OL story is not good. One excuse now is that we are young, with two freshman OTs...this is true...However, we had experienced and highly recruited tackles in Kraeling and Miller, and both got demoted, as did Santos at LG...so either something is amiss in their development (which I suspect is true) or they were misevaluated...but we should NOT be young on the OL. Miller, Santos, Wohlabaugh, Chambers and Kraeling would have been a very experienced unit.

Agreed. I see no signs of the unit as a whole or guys individually getting better. And there is little to no evidence nor metrics that would refute that. Also, I would add Chambers to the list with Santos, Kraeling and Miller. He has now started for the better part of 3 seasons, yet this year may have been his worst. I expected him to push for all-ACC by his senior season. Now I would not be surprised to see him bumped.

[Bob Green]

Agreed. I see no signs of the unit as a whole or guys individually getting better. And there is little to no evidence nor metrics that would refute that. Also, I would add Chambers to the list with Santos, Kraeling and Miller. He has now started for the better part of 3 seasons, yet this year may have been his worst. I expected him to push for all-ACC by his senior season. Now I would not be surprised to see him bumped.

I certainly do not know what the issue is but poor position coach performance is a reasonable guess. Hopefully Coach Cutcliffe takes a long, hard look at his staff this off season.

[HereBeforeCoachK]

I certainly do not know what the issue is but poor position coach performance is a reasonable guess. Hopefully Coach Cutcliffe takes a long, hard look at his staff this off season.

Poor OL coaching and poor play calling....both will result in poor OL performance. Good play calling keeps defenses on their heels...and thus makes the job of the OL much easier...and of course good position coaching is an obvious need.

[jimsumner]

I didn't think this was that subtle

"If Duke can coach them up then Duke can get back into the turning 3-star-offensive-linemen-into-NFL-linemen business, which should lead back to the-competing-for-Coastal-Division-titles-business."

[DukeDTD]

I certainly do not know what the issue is but poor position coach performance is a reasonable guess. Hopefully Coach Cutcliffe takes a long, hard look at his staff this off season.

I am in the same place - I am not sure how much is talent vs. position coaching vs scheme vs play calls. I just know that something is not working - we have had pretty poor OL performance the past 2 years. I am hopeful that we have recently recruited more athletic OL - Holman, Monk, Carr, Barton and likely a couple of others. But they still have to be coached and put in positions to succeed.

Jim could probably tell us the answer if he would quit being so subtle.