Kelly said at halftime we have to run the ball to win

Playing not to lose instead of play to win. USC coach probably said we can pass and win, No pressure on QB. He was comfy back there moving the chains.

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I just don’t understand why coaches get away from what’s working.
Nuss and Lacy in the first half looked like Burrow and Chase. Then poof, gone like a fart in the wind.

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Exactly. He sits there and says we have to run the ball to win at halftime. No. No we didn't when Nuss had nearly 200 yards passing in the first half and an 80% completion percentage. If he was 5 of 20 for 30 yards then I'd agree with him.

That line of thinking is why we lost the game. Because we had multiple possessions with the lead and a chance to go up 2 scores and we just bullishly kept trying to run even though it only worked well on basically 1 drive all night.

Had we kept doing what we were doing in the 1st half we would've been up multiple scores late in the game and ultimately won the game.

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The silver lining is that Nuss was on point most of the night and the receivers were getting open and making grabs.

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The problem I had with the receivers, is that they were rarely open down the field. There was a lot of dink and dunk, and USC sat on it more and more, and it bogged down a lot of drives, as did the lack of running lanes.

And that makes it hard for me to judge what Nuss did. His numbers look good on the surface, but it didn't result in many points, for the reasons I already stated. I think he would have loved to push the ball down the field, but whether it was poor play calling, or bad route running, guys just weren't open downfield.

I stated in another thread that I wished we would have used Green and Pimpton to create some mismatches. Those are the guys you can "throw open", because they can jump over you and wall you off. I thought that was the point of recruiting such players. I know they're young, and they have warts to work out... but if you're going to send them out to run-block, when that isn't what they are known for, why not let them make some plays?

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I just don’t understand why coaches get away from what’s working.

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This is what ticks me off.

And then to stick with what’s not working.

Yep

Said that more than once last night

1st down is such an important play. Gotta get positive yardee
Beat them up in the first half with short intermediate throws less than 10 yrds


I kept thinking running game was gonna open up
Never did really for the most part

Execution was the issue and our guys gas them in the second half. Just be real and admit the plays that were there were not made when they needed to be made just like the tight end routes and the crossing routes that NUSS never even looked for. Then he just didn’t do well on third down execution. Maybe it was the receivers and not having Hilton

Maybe in 4-5 years Joe Brady will be open to the idea of being a college head coach.

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Seemed like we ran same play too....
one back set out shotgun with a lead play up the middle

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Exactly. And this play works 100x's better with a QB who's a threat to run. D ends can crash down without worrying about Nuss keeping it thus clogging up the middle too much. Last year with Jayden he keeps half of those runs so it opens up the middle way more.

Without a running QB you have to become more diverse with your running plays but evidently the offensive coaching staff hasn't figured it out.

But with all that said you dont HAVE to run if you can't especially when you were throwing it at will. If that's what you can do and what you do best then keep doing it.