Good post. Thanks. I understand that in theory the offense is great, but I've seen enough. Since you mentioned Dickerson, Cigs was the OC for that 2009 Pitt team Dickerson was on which had 5 of the 11 first team all conference offense, including Lewis and Baldwin. There wasn't a talent issue, yet they came in third place and, if memory serves, that offense wasn't even in the top 50 for total yardage.Throwing the ball out of condensed formations can be extremely aggressive and effective. Having an 8-9 man box means nothing vs condensed formations. Based off the personnel you can have a minimum of 3 vertical threats with a maximum of 4. Those 3-4 DB's cannot fall asleep and just play the run. If they do, it can be 6 in a blink of an eye. Go and watch some Army or Navy football. Their receivers are very pedestrian but they usually have out of the ordinary YPC #'s especially when they're a good team. Their YPC goes through the roof when they operate out of those condensed formations. This strategy is very stressful for a DC.
By utilizing those condensed formations -
1. We get more #'s at the point of attack then the defense has to defend.
2. We get to play cat and mouse vs the secondary. They want to make tackles to negate the #'s advantage? Cool - we can let them do that and take shots.
3. You can get WR's blocking safeties instead of corners. Corners don't like tackling 215lb RB's all night long.
From what I see our problem is not scheme at all. It's purely a talent situation. We aren't great on the OL. Slovis is very inconsistent. The WR's don't really scare anyone.
One of things that goes unnoticed is Cigs usually requires everyone to know the scheme. If you're an X, you better know Z. If you're an Y you better know fullback. This creates the multiplicity that DC's hate because you aren't relying on personnel and showing your hand. I bet if you asked Dorin Dickerson about Cigs' strengths it's his ability to do this. However, it takes time to learn. You don't have to run as much scheme because you can get matchups. This is pro-style offense. You have a slow SLB? When Cigs is rolling, he's going to find a way to exploit that. He can call a familiar play but get an offensive player matched up with that kid. Canada was good at this too. Anyone wonder why he had the big fullback lined up at WR split wide vs. Clemson? Because he was getting his playmakers on lesser athletic players. Good stuff indeed.
The problem with the GT game wasn't using the condensed formation... It was his continued use of it even though it wasn't working. Especially on first and second downs. If the condensed formation is threatening, then why did he go away from it in third and longs against GT?