After reading my [insert some large number] thread on this board on this topic something finally dawned on me, and for that lapse I beg forgiveness. Almost this entire board seems not to realize something extremely important about playing modern-offense big time QB in college. Coach has been telling us this for months, but because of old style lack of sophistication in our understanding, we've misinterpreted him.
Coach has been telling us that the reason why Tommy is starting and winning is that he "manages the game". Our pre-modern prejudices take that comment as something minimalist about a quarterback, if not outright demeaning. Being a "game manager" MIGHT have meant an underpowered player merely filling a spot in days gone by, but it is far from that now.
Modern spread football takes place almost as much before the ball is snapped as afterwards. Kelly has told us over and over again, to deaf ears, that Tommy is correctly managing the game [think Peyton Manning pre-snap] and that no one else is ready to do that. {This is, by the way, why Andrew Hendrix just has "a package" and not "managing the whole offense"}. When Tommy overlooks the defensive coverage, it is his responsibility to "get us in the correct formation" to adjust to what that defense is likely to do. Kelly is telling us, and telling us, and telling us that Tommy is the one who can do this now, AND is doing it well. All defenses will fool the offense now and then; that's what makes football. Tommy gets this right most of the time.
People who constantly want to give all the offensive credit to the runners and the O-Line [and yes they deserve a lot of credit] need to open their minds a bit to the role that a Quarterback correctly assessing the D vs O formation plays in this. If a poor game manager has us in the wrong formation, those blocks and those backs aren't going to go so well.
All of this is why we struggle when the defensive coordinators throw us real curveballs. Under those circumstances, Tommy cannot read what this new, unexpected, gimmick defense is going to do pre-snap. Both Kelly and Tommy will tell you in post-game interviews that "they did some different things out there that we hadn't seen". I suspect that most folks on the board have underrated the significance of such statements, not taking into account what that means for the pre-snap reads. We usually adjust pretty well "on the fly" [thus our third quarter success] but great defensive game plans have saved another "trick" for the adjustment.
These realities are very germane to the question as to whether Tommy deserves significant credit for our wins. In my view, very few posters have understood any of this aspect of modern spread football.
