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Middle of the field

Charlie's press conference transcript is up from yesterday here (I don't think there was a transcript of the post-game presser, though, and I haven't been able to watch that one yet). With regard to my earlier question of "where did the slants go?" it appears that it was a deliberate call:

Q. Can you be aggressive and not risky, or is it just inherently both?

COACH WEIS: Yeah, you just don't try to throw the ball -- last week we were either dinking and dunking or taking play action shots. Really there wasn't a prescribed intermediate passing game last week because it was kind of an all or nothing approach, which goes with a conservative nature approach that we were playing last week. When you're playing against a team like Boston College that is so good against the run, they might give up some extra yardage in the passing game because they're going to play a bend but don't break game. In that way they are very similar in mentality, not scheme wise, but mentality to Penn State. When Penn State plays, they just count on you not to have the patience and you mess it up.

I think that we're going to have to do a very good job and be consistent to put some drives together because if not all of a sudden it's 1st and 10, 2nd and 7, then it's 3rd and 7, and you're off the field and you're punting again.

I guess I'm not a huge fan of the conservative approach taken last week with this team, because it certainly seemed as though it resulted in a lot of short drives by not stretching the field at all. The Cowboys got a lot of mileage out of their underneath routes on Monday against the Bills, but then their "dink and dunk" passes also resulted in sustained drives because you can do more with 8-yard passes than 3- or 4-yard passes. Also, Charlie seemed well aware that being up 13-6 in the third wasn't a guarantee of victory, so to go conservative at that time was a gamble in itself, even though UCLA was turning the ball over every other play. Well, it worked on Saturday, and I'm not a coach -- I guess it's just interesting how willing Weis is to go with completely different offensive schemes in different games (while the fans are perplexed). Conservative can be risky, too. A few other comments from the press conference:

On why Robert Hughes, who was fantastic a few weeks ago, didn't play against UCLA: "No, we didn't have a string of longer drives. It wasn't like we had a bunch of 13 play drives in there. He was listed right behind James (Aldridge) in all the pounding packages, we just weren't on the field that many consecutive plays to warrant James being that tired to have to go out. Robert is very much in the mix. I really think that the sky is the limit for Robert."

And then the laugh line: "Q. Can you talk also about the football aspect of it [the BC rivalry]? It seems like there's a history of one team ruining another season.

COACH WEIS: Well, they're not going to ruin our season. (laughter)"

But with more seriousness: "We'd love very much to put a damper on their season. But I think that we understand that they're playing very, very good football and they deserve a high ranking based off of their production. We're going to have to play a very good game to be able to win."

Here's hoping!

Full post as published by Irish Law on October 10, 2007 (boomark / email).