Deep shots down field may include some balls that are 50-50 or that you just expect your receivers to go up and make the play.

Dakorien Moore’s high school highlights are filled with getting those balls.

Even Wisconsin had one of those against us.

Even an incompletion in those instances can still soften a defense.

Am I missing why we are not doing this at least a couple times a game?

I don't know what the reason is, because Stein did it a TON at UTSA in the year before he joined us. I agree with you, as we need to stretch the defense and Moore seems to look for the dump-off valve primarily.

Two thoughts:

1. Perhaps Stein does not trust our tackles to provide enough protection for the additional time needed to throw downfield. They struggled at times yesterday.

2. Geoff Schwarz asserted after the Indiana game that a more effective running game would enable downfield passing by forcing the opponent's defensive linemen to concentrate on the run and possibly encouraging their safeties to move closer to the line of scrimmage to provide run support. Both of these reactions would facilitate play action downfield passing.

10 minutes ago, Triphibius said:

Geoff Schwarz asserted after the Indiana game that a more effective running game would enable downfield passing by forcing the opponent's defensive linemen to concentrate on the run and possibly encouraging their safeties to move closer to the line of scrimmage to provide run support. Both of these reactions would facilitate play action downfield passing.

Absolutely.

Need time for the vertical passing route to develop AND time for Moore to see it.

Against teams with good defensive lines we are seeing Moore's eyes get dragged down and he isn't looking at the deeper routes.

Establishing the run will force the defense to back off a little bit and give the vertical passing game time.