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Worley took a beating the other night and never complained. I hope I dont see another negative thread about this man, he has guts and he is performing his best.
I am a litle miffed though. Looks to me like Lane is getting meaningless carries. Butch gave all the things for Pig to work on in order to be a part of this team and he feeds him the ball. Marlin Lane stayed all summer long to work on his attitude and conditioning. We were told by Butch that Marlon did all the right things to be a part of this team, yet he gets meaning less carries for the most part. The kid had a better than 5 yards per carry behind a veteran line last year. Why is he not being used more? He runs hard and is moves the pile forward. Nothing against Hurd, but I just think Marlon isn't being given a fair opportunity like Pig was.

It could be that Hurd is doing the overall job better than Lane.  Things like pass blocking, which Hurd is better at than Lane (though Lane did have one good blitz pickup Sat night).  You'll note that Hurd is in most of the time in obvious passing situations.  Given the OL performance to date that as much as any other reason may be why Hurd is spending more time in the games.

In the first couple of games Lane was the designated flair receiver but not Sat night. 

The one thing that I see Lane better at this season is patience in the hole.  It has allowed him to gain extra yards but has also cost yards on occasion (worked twice and failed at least once Sat).

The thing I have noticed is that Hurd is much more capable in space than Lane.  IMO he was clearly the beter RB Saturday night. 

I don't have any problem with the RB touches. Hurd has all the upside AND, as Pirate said, is better on passing downs. He's a talented 3-down back and that's why he's getting snaps and touches.

I do have a problem with the Pig touches. I simply don't think he's talented enough to warrant going out of our way to feed him the ball. Last year, when your options were Neal, Lane, no TEs, and a brand new WR in North, sure . . . Pig was the guy who needed touches. But I don't think that's true anymore. I'm so tired of the jet sweeps with Pig that go nowhere, and the guy is as prone to dropping passes as anyone else on the team. North needs to be fed. Hurd needs to be fed. I think even Wolf and Pearson need to be fed once they're back. But Pig is just another WR on the roster, IMO, and I say that as someone who likes Pig and is proud of his hard work this offseason.

Are we assuming that the staff is going out of their way to feed the Pig, or is there some sort of tangible evidence to back that up? I have a hard time believing Pig's involvement in the passing game is anything more than him being open, because I think this staff would be foolish to not be going to North. I admit, though, that I haven't watched the games closely enough to see whether Pig has been Worley's primary target on those plays. He did have a couple of BIG catches Saturday night, though.

We all agree on the jet sweeps, I think. If that's never called again, it'll be too soon.

Pig also had a drive-killing drop in the 3rd Q. It seems to me like he's good for one or two of those every game.

Against Utah State I thought he was the target of way too many plays. Since then I'm not sure I'd say that in the passing game, but we're still doing those awful sweeps.

I'm actually really confused when I look at the stats . . . the box score shows Howard with NO rushing attempts vs. OU, but I could swear we ran the sweep with him twice, including the game's first play. In fact, the UT stats show only two rushes for him all season but there's no way that's right. I think those sweeps may be technically passes, which makes figuring out his impact in the passing game difficult too.

They are forward handoffs, are they considered a run or pass? It is a handoff, he does not flip it, but it is forward. see video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrVNcjnoqMg

It's odd. That one was scored a rush, but now it seems clear that the two we ran against OU were scored as passes (per the play-by-play . . . one pass for a 7 yard loss and another for a 6 yard loss). I'm not sure why.

I hope we throw those fades to North instead of Croom from now on

Did we flip them to him instead of hand it off?

Pig and Smith are the two receivers who seem to have the abilty to get open.  North is nowhere near them in that ability.  Now Smith is out with a high ankle issue and I doubt that Pearson will be back for the puppies.  We should have Wolf back for the puppies.  

To a great extent though, we need a lot of receivers against the chickens as they have great difficulty defending against the pass.  We3 will rarely play against a pair of corners that cover as well as the pair Saturday night.  All the talk going into the game was Sanchez but #2 could flat cover.

We've done both. I suppose that could be the scoring difference. It would be interesting to catalog them all-- 6 or 8 of them in total so far, I think-- to look at the yardage. I think the scoring play against USU was the only positive play among them.

The 2nd Sat was a forwad flip, don't recall if the first was (far end of the field from where I was sitting).

I don't really like the play much. To me it's a play run by lower level teams, but I think in the SEC it will work about 1 out of 10 times. Takes too long to develop, and runs lateral to the line too much. A speedy defense would have caught Pig. Nice block by #1 though.

if you're going to run that ball, I always flip it. Makes it an incomplete pass if fumbled on the exchange.

Also Saturday, if the WR (I think Pig) gets even a half good block down field Hurd scores on the sreen pass.  Hurd even made a jog to set up the block to no avail.
Pig also whiffed on 1-2 bubble screen blocks Sat.
I would have rated the receivers no higher than a C Sat due to the poor blocking

The big reason the first play blew up is that the RT didn't block anybody, including the defender he was supposed to block, who made the play on Pig.

It was #3 malone that missed the block

Both of them Saturday were flipped forward, so they were pass plays. I don't recall the first two games.

I agree on Croom as well. What a disappointment.

Absolutely. One of the guys I was watching the game with, who thinks I'm too high on Hurd, said, "See?? If he had good speed, he wouldn't have been caught!!" I was like, for real, dude? He slowed down to give Malone time to block the DB, and Malone just completely screwed up.

OK, on the right, I think early 2nd/4th (We were going North)?

On the bright side Malone got some quality reps Saturday and made a couple of receptions.  Will only help going forward.

Croom has had a hand injury, which is a little bit of an excuse, but no reason for him to not body up Sanchez on that int. He's 6'5 240, Sanchez is 5'11 190. No way Sanchez should have been able to do that if Croom plays physical there.

Go to the 0:40 mark, you will spot it.

http://www.utsports.com/sports/m-footbl/recaps/091314aaa.html

Thanks, wil look at it when I get home (we are flash restricted here ...)

The :40 mark, not 2:26...

So I decided to do a quick film study . . . here's the work Pig has done so far:

Utah State: 9 targets, 6 catches, 37 yards on actual passes. 2 jet sweeps (rushes) for 9 yards and a TD. Also threw one incomplete pass.

Arkansas State: 6 targets, 3 catches, 30 yards. No jet sweeps.

Oklahoma: 4 targets, 2 catches, 35 yards on actual passes. 2 jet sweeps (passes) for -13 yards.

So on the season that's 19 targets, 11 catches for 102 yards on real passes, one incomplete pass of his own, and 4 jet sweeps for -4 yards and a TD. We did try to get him the ball against USU, a little less so against ASU and OU. The jet sweeps by and large have failed. He also has two drops in there.

IMO our best X, Y, and Z receivers are North, Pearson and Smith (and two have high ankle injuries).  Each brings a different skill set and each is very good.

2nd tier are Malone, Pig and Croom.  In some cases, IMO, a significant drop off.  Malone has a large upside, needs the light to come on bright.  Pig knows the offense and has the ability to get open, IMO needs to be more consistent.  Croom could be a good pass catching TE IMO.

I suspect with Smith out we will see more of Hurd being split out, like he was after Smith was injured Sat night.  In the 4th Saturday several times we lined up with both Hurd and Lane both on the field.  This may be a sign we intend to split Hurd out more but retain the ability to run with either TB.

The first was a 3 yard loss.  After which, I noticed the scoreboard said "-3 pass yards" even though I thought it was a hand off.  So yeah, it was a pass.

The first was a 7 yard loss

I've never questioned Worley's "toughness" or heart.  He is what he is, and he stood in there on Saturday night and took a pounding. 

What I do question, or opine, is that if Worley is the best option at this point then we don't have a QB on campus at this point that fits what Butch wants to do offensively.  Worley is just not a good fit for the spread/read/zone option offense.  A QB in that system has to be mobile - which Worley is not - and has to be a threat to pull the ball and run it when the read is there. 

I question the scheme, given that we apparently don't have a QB that fits the scheme.  Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and go away from what you want to do long term and go to something that fits until you get the fit for what you wan to do.  Just don't see a fit right now.  Not saying go to a crazy offensive scheme, just to make some adjustments to fit the personnel that is there now.   

The thing is, to a large extent we are not running a true zone read type of offense (I think I may have had a conversation with a friend of yours on another board on this topic (assuming he uses the same name on multiple boards)).  They may "look" like it but they are designed plays to use the personnel we have.  Saturday night we started changing our blocking schemes in the 2nd quarter and really changed them at the half.  For example, on Hurds first longer run we ran a counter, out of the RO set.  The 2nd Hurd run was a "classic" RO blocking scheme.  In between those to end points we were using some really different blocking schemes at times.  Sometimes effective, sometimes not.

The O-Line blocked much better in the 2nd half.  There were far fewer breakdowns.  Thomas was night and day different as he went from looking like a HS FR in the first half to a college FR in the 2nd half.  Our biggest issues in pass blocking were handling twists (never really resolved it) and individual breakdowns, mostly by the RG though overall the pass blocking improved significantly in the 2nd half. 

Call it what you will - which is why I termed it the spread/read/zone option - but it is a read option based offense no matter how one tries to dissect it.  In that scheme the QB has to pull it and run it on occasion just to keep the "gatekeeper" honest.  SEC DCs are too good not to see the pattern. 

Which friend were you conversing with?

Just because Worley is not mobile doesn't mean he is not the best option.  As Pirate points out, we likely have tailored our approach to the talent.  Worley is doing fine.  I am less worried about the future, but next year will be a bit rough, breaking in a new guy.  Then again, Dobbs has experience and maybe Peterman can get some more seasoning.

Don't dispute anything, and as I said if Worley is our best option then we don't have a QB on campus right now to run that offense, and it is a read option offense of some sort, no matter what one tries to call it.  And if one of the options is not exercised, then it is pretty much a useless offensive scheme to be running.  SEC DCs are way too smart for that.