You are slightly off the mark. Book could indeed take
by btd (2019-09-23 10:48:55)

In reply to: I notice you don't mention ND's offense  posted by Hanratty5ND


advantage. Brian Kelly refused to allow Book to take advantage.

Book probably had his best game ever in terms of throwing the ball well 15+ yards down the field. The last drive of the first half and the last scoring drive were repeatable the entire game -- if Kelly just allowed the offense to try doing what was working virtually at will.

UGA had no answer at all for the intermediate throws in the 15-25 yard range down the field. When actually thrown, ND was completing those at a high enough rate to score on nearly every single possession (let's assume we would have self destructed several times even if called).

Instead, Kelly hammered the 3 yard routes to death, UGA adjusted and either took them away entirely on many plays or crushed our WR instantly after the catch. Watching it live from a high vantage point -- you could see UGA literally forming a wall of 3 defenders in the middle of crossing routes knowing for 100% certain the ball was going there.

If Kelly simply mixed and matched what he did within each series - UGA was in severe trouble because they could not stop the intermediate throws and the shorter ones were hurting them too until they realized that was the one and only play they had to defend.

Kelly's offense isn't necessarily a failed system. It's failing because of his execution of the system:

1) Zone running can have dramatically more variations of runs than Kelly chooses to practice, perfect and then call

2) His passing game can have a dramatically wider array of routes, attempted throws, etc. He simply doesn't try that variety in any single game.

Book has limitations that are not great for being able to win a title. That doesn't mean if Kelly would get the F out of the way the offense could not be dramatically better even with Book.

This game was extremely winnable -- because the defense turned out to be in game 8 form by game 3. Lea managed to get the new players on D to play at a top 10 level in a span of 7 days. Kelly can't do that on offense in a span of 10 years at ND and 4 years per player.


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