I'm always surprised and the jubilation and consternation when a 40-50 yard bomb is picked off on 2nd or 3rd down. I mean, it's effectively just a high quality punt you made a down or two early assuming your WR is able to tackle the intercepting DB. What's the big deal?

So, the downside is minimal if you're launching bombs from near midfield. And with our defense that has allowed the fewest trips in the red zone in the country, we can usually survive giving teams a long field, who cares if it harms time of possession.

And the upside is anywhere from automatic field goal range to a touchdown.

If you can get a 50/50 opportunity (i.e. 1 on 1, no safety) and you have a player like Dakorien Moore where it's more like 75/25 I think you should be taking that shot basically every time that opportunity presents itself.

3rd and short is when the opportunity would most likely present itself with single high safety. And if the defenses start to pick up on it as a tendency, and adapt to it, it would only make getting a more modest conversion that much easier pulling a defender out of the box.

And last but not least, the most frequent outcome of an under thrown lofted bomb to a covered WR is pass interference.

I think Moore has this option available, but he doesn't want to thrown a 50/50 ball, he wants the receiver to have an advantage and throw a pinpoint pass rather than putting some extra air under it if the receiver isn't open.

He doesn't have it in him to throw to a covered receiver, he'd rather take an 80% chance of getting sacked vs. a 20% chance of getting intercepted every time. He's got too much Shadeur Sanders in him since Will Stein got ahold of him.

I said before the season we simply wouldn't be as efficient on a per down basis with Moore vs. Nix, or Gabriel, the only way Moore would be able to replicate their success is if he threw an extra explosive play for every pass play he wastes or takes a sack.

I wonder if it's been the wrong approach to try to turn Moore into Gabriel. Maybe it's the right approach if you're playing the long game, and I'm thinking it's about a 99% chance Moore is back next year.

Edited 21 hours ago21 hr by Solar

Interceptions?🫣

I completely agree with you, especially later when a certain receiver returns...

Certainly sounds reasonable...

And Charles agrees with you... 🤔

But I don't think I know enough to have an opinion.

I think OCs often Vizzini themselves and end up drinking their own poison when they try to double triple quadruple outsmart the opponents. No, genius, the bubble screen never works and it suddenly won't this time.

I like the concept.

But, the deep ball requires pass protection, which hasn't been great against the better teams.

Yes, some of that has been Dante's fault, but a lot of it has not. World's face mask penalty vs Wisconsin comes to mind...

Right or wrong, my guess is that we're not throwing deep as often because of that

Solar, i agree with you and Sir Charles, would love to see a few 50/50 balls from around mid-field

IMHO there may be a few reasons that we aren't seeing this:

Pass Protection:

As BBMichaels pointed out the pass protection hasn't been there. While our tackles are road graders in the run game, they are not rock walls on pass protection.

When you allow sacks against a 4 man rush that means the numbers on the back end arent in your favor. A free roaming safety can break up or intercept the ball.

Dante:

Dante may not be at the top of his game at reading the defensive schemes and formations, yet! He has the arm strength and accuracy but that type of play needs single coverage with no safety over the top.

Can or does Dante recognize this or has DL and WS given him the green light. If you go back and watch the games from 22-24, both Bo and Dillion had the team lined up with 25 or more seconds on play clock. They looked over the D formation and called an audible. If the D changed their formation they had enough time to audible again.

Bo and Dillion had game experience to do this. At this point, Dante may not have enough game experience. He will get there. Remember, Bo struggled at Auburn in his learning curve.

Conference Opponents:

Points have been difficult to come by in conference play. Rutgers being the exception. Plays are at a premium and this offence cannot waste any.

OBD's running game is strong. It eats clock and puts points on the board. If DL and WS had been more patient and kept rinning the ball against the Hoosiers, the out come may have been different!

When we passed to catch up or forced the pass, well Dante got picked twice in the fourth quarter. OBD's lost a game they could have won.

Go Ducks......

Managing a game involves a lot of variables. Your assumption appears to assume that if the 50/50 ball is intercepted that the defender is immediately tackled. If that tackle is made 100% of the time then it might make sense.

Remember, game management might get Cristy ball fired.

I guess it really depends on the opponent, and if it is a close game. Momentum is a fickle thing.

I can’t recall that many games where that play call means the difference between winning and losing recently. tOSU game was definitely won by the long ball.

Otherwise, it really just means the difference of winning by 21 pts, compared to 28 pts.