Cam Cameron's career, quarterbacks, and the running game

I've been following Cam Cameron's career closely since his IU days as I am an Indiana alum and really felt that he had the program headed in the right direction before he was fired so I have continued to follow very closely the teams he has coached since he left IU. So, yes, I am a t-shirt LSU fan but I know I can name 50 players on the current LSU roster off of the top of my head so I do want to offer a little bit of perspective.

First, this is Cam Cameron's offense, the good and the bad. Yes, I'm sure there are times that Les pulls in the reins but it certainly looks to me like Cam is calling the offensive shots so he can take criticism as well.

First, the running game has always been a huge staple of Cam Cameron offenses. This gets overlooked at times because he has been so solid at developing quarterbacks.

At Indiana, Antwaan Randle El, and rightfully so, received all of the attention but in 2001, the year that Cam got fired at IU after going 4-4 in the Big Ten and winning on the road at Michigan State (rushed for 489 yards) and at Wisconsin (won 63-32), a senior running back named Levron Williams led the entire country in all-purpose yardage and averaged more than 7.0 yards per carry.

In San Diego, Cam was blessed with a tremendous stable of running backs, of course starting with LaDainian, but Michael Turner, was also excellent. In 2006, when San Diego had one of the best offenses in NFL history, LT averaged 5.2 yards per carry and Turner averaged 6.3. They just pounded people. Their top receiver that season was tight end, Antonio Gates, who caught 71 passes for 924 yards and 9 touchdowns.

Even when San Diego was having all of its success, Cam and Marty Schottenheimer took a lot of heat for being really conservative and not pushing the envelope in the passing game. Ironically, that team finished 14-2 and lost to New England in the playoffs when Tomlinson only carried 9 times in the second half. It was a constant battle, who is calling the plays, is Marty making Cam run the ball, and on and on, even when San Diego was breaking all kinds of offensive records, including Tomlinson setting the record for most rushing TDs in a season.

In San Diego the Chargers were first in the NFL in giveaways in 2006 (14-2 record and 2nd in 2004 (12-4). In 2005 they were 17th and finished 9-7.

In Cameron's one season in Miami, the Dolphins were awful. What was interesting offensive is that throughout a revolving door of quarterbacks because of injury, Ronnie Brown got injured in the seventh game of the season. When he got hurt he was leading the entire NFL in total yards from scrimmage.

Baltimore was very similar to San Diego. Again bringing along a rookie quarterback in Flacco (throughout Cameron's tenure in the NFL his starting QBs averaged 3.2 years of experience), the Ravens relied heavily on the running game and defense. His first season people were thrilled with him because the improvement from the year prior was significant (went from 24th to 11th in points scored). They stagnated in years two and three. While people remember Cameron getting fired toward the end of the year that the Ravens won the Super Bowl, they were literally one end zone drop away from going to the Super Bowl the year before. That year they were eighth in the league in rushing attempts, and 18th in passing attempts. The year after the Ravens won the Super Bowl, the Ravens fell from 10th in the NFL in scoring to 25th. They were 29th in total yardage. Flacco's QB rating fell from 87.7 to 73.1. His INT percentage increased from 1.9 to 3.6 (his TD:INT ratios during Cam's tenure went 14:12, 21:12, 25:10, 20:12, 22:10. The year after Cam left it was 19:22. The Ravens were 33-12 Cam's last three seasons in Baltimore and were 8-8 the year after he left.

Similarly, Philip Rivers had 22 TDs and 9 INTs his last season with Cam and 21 TDs and 15 TDs the first year after Cam left and the Chargers went from 14-2 to 11-5 to 8-8.

The offensive numbers at LSU went in a very positive direction upon Cameron's arrival in 2013. While Cam's offenses will never be among the national leaders in total yards because of the offense he runs, they had a 3,000-yard passer and two 1,000-yard receivers. The total offense improved from 374.2 yards per game to 453.3.

Last year was beyond rough. Youth everyone, a passing game that was worse than pedestrian. Cameron has to own it just as he has his successes.

My frustration with the criticism headed his way is that he's not responsible for the LSU offense (successes and failures prior to his arrival). By every objective measure his first offense here should significant improvement. No, he didn't just throw balls up in the air to Beckham and Landry. They had nearly 140 catches between them. They weren't all chuck-it-up-and-pray.

I thought Cam called a very good game against Auburn. Syracuse was a disappointment and, no, the drops didn't help but that's all part of it. The EMU game was as vanilla as I've ever seen. I think Cam and Miles were very concerned about embarrassing EMU and wanted to see what they could get done without scheming at all. In hindsight, not much.

All this to say, we have a very good offensive coordinator. The passing game will continue to develop (everywhere he's been he's been criticized for it's slowness to develop but everywhere he's been he's been working with very inexperienced quarterbacks). It's clicked with Randle El, with Brees, with Rivers, with Flacco, with Mettenberger, and having watched those guys closely I see a very similar track with Brandon Harris.

There are going to be struggles and growing pains over the coming weeks but facts support Cam continuing to move this offense forward very effectively.

Most importantly, Cam has won as a coordinator wherever he's been (122-69 overall record as NFL and college offensive coordinator since 2002). I'm fully confident that this offense is going to become really special over the next few years.