It's 'possible' that a rollout is called in the huddle and based on the defense / edge , the quarterback determines the actual play in his cadence. We used to do that in high school all the time.
Kelly said that (more than once.)
Plays and defenses were called to show Brian Kelly what Brian Kelly wanted to see out of players and position groups. So I have to chuckle when it is announced that Kelly is calling plays for the spring game and someone wants to extrapolate anything about Mike Sanford and his place in the ND coaching staff.
Kelly wanted to see :
EG's footwork and zone read options;
EG keeping depth and not moving his game too close to the line of scrimmage; *
Both quarterback's footwork;
Malik throwing the ball;
Malik's decision making;
The offensive line's ability to execute zone blocking schemes, and ability to dominate;
Evaluate play of some offensive linemen;
Safety play;
Working some of the injured players back in and escaping without injuries.
I am far from knowledgeable about quarterbacking. In spite of that, after hearing more educated sources talk about mechanics, EG playing too close to the line of scrimmage, especially before he makes his reads, about the guys not bringing their hips through, and squaring their shoulders, etc., I wonder if that wasn't full time Mike Sanford's job. After all MZ didn't really throw until his senior year and though he showed well in the Elite competition, his mechanics were labeled as weak.
And EG, went from no QB coach (hyperbole) to La Fleur (worse than no coach????) to the west coast guru. I have always wondered, being from a system design background how going to a "consultant" works for a quarterback playing in a system. How does a kid like EG not suffer from having too many cooks stirring the pot. Or did the west coast guru and Kelly communicate and point out that EG brought his option game too close to the line of scrimmage? Seems like a big thing; and the proof is in the pudding, because Golson's footwork was roundly approved by Flutie yesterday, and his option game was incredibly more effective (by anyone's opinion, wasn't it?)
My observations were :
The O-line is on the path to absolute dominance. Their performance was stunning, and consistent. McGlinchey, Bars, Nelson, and Elmer absolutely destroyed people yesterday! Yes, I didn't mention Stanley, because he was doing that regularly by the end of last year.
I feel there was a lot of observation of offensive line-play (specifics), because the first group played together, in other words Stanley played a lot of the scrimmage for having a place guaranteed, and a potential AA season.+ Though plenty played from the o-line, the perceived starting unit played together throughout. Few subbed in for that first six, until several or more subbed in together.
The running backs seemed to be a different animal. I will need to see a lot more footage of them, but I think AD has them fanatically pumping their legs, and positioning themselves to deliver a blow. I will need to see this all season long, but it looks promising.
I saw some incredibly athletic defense. With the exception of last spring game with BVG having some fun, dialing things up against EG, every spring game we see the same vanilla defense, and hear each other saying the same things about not seeing enough on defense.
Yesterday I saw some of the most athletic defensive plays I can remember in a spring game. Coney, Morgan, Onwualu, and Martini all showed some incredible athletic ability! Grace looked incredibly good! Smith is Smith. Everyone knew exactly where they were supposed to be. Some pursuit to the sideline was at light speed! These linebackers are getting to be fast cats!
The defensive linemen were solid and dependable. They were no pushover for what I see as an improved offensive line. And they were deep. Even guys like Randolph and Williams contributed. Hayes was really good. All the underclass advanced play (Tillery) and Bonner was still out!
+ Forgot to add my hypothesis. Now that the national big name talking heads and recruiting guru's have gone on the record calling Stanley a possible first round choice had he come out in '14, he will make everyone's pre-season AA teams this year. From that, with even a mediocre season he will appear at the end of the season as someone's AA!
