If Kelly was playing stress manager with Golson, why did he have the referee turn the play clock OFF? That's the only reason the delay calls stopped. Kelly had the play clock turned off.
I mentioned in the B&G thead that Kelly gets too involved with "teaching moments" from the previous play be it with a QB, RB, WR, etc. For two years Crist, Rees, and Hendrix all have had to wait too long for the next play to be sent in. Kelly counsels someone, THEN, takes to his OC via headset, peruses his omnipresent laminated play chart, picks a play, tells the Red Army what to signal it in, The Red Army wags, The QB digests, Finally, calls the play, the center barks out line calls, a safety moves up a two steps, the QB recomputes and calls an audible, while the entire offense reajust their individual assignments on the NEW play, a whistle blows, and it's either "DELAY OF GAME!" or "FALSE START!"
The QB isn't the only one under time pressure with this system.
3rd and 1 is now 3rd and 6, 1st and 10 is now 1st and 15, doesn't really matter the down nor the distance. It's now more yards with less time on the clock. In the past two years there have been a number of ND "two minute drives" where the plays got in quickly and the TEAM played with high tempo. It doesn't take a time management study to realize there are too many steps in that process. It starts slow and stays slow. BUT sometimes hums along when the lead person, the head coach, exhibits tempo.
I didn't follow UC but what little I did see of them on TV, they had crisp tempo under Kelly. How do you get crisp tempo in any offense, regardless of QB, if you can't get the play in quickly?
In the B&G game Golson had difficulty with reading the signals, he had difficulty getting players in the correct alignment (part player and position coach problem there, as well). Golson has work to do there BUT Kelly still has to get the plays in quicker, not some of the time, all the time.
When Kelly came to ND the buzz was ND was going to run 80 plays a game, every game. Last year ND did it twice, PU and UMD. 80 plays a game would be 1040. In 2011 ND ran 906 or 69 plays/game. That's only 19 plays more in the season than opponents ran and it's comparable to the Weis years. Increased Tempo has been as effective as Weis's Schematic Advantage.
Here's the game by game breakdown, mileage may vary by turnovers (rarely plus moreso minus) and runs versus pass, opponents strength, blah, blah, blah
HTML:
Team Plays
USF 78
UM 72
MSU 58
PIT 73
PU 81
AF 65
USC 57
USN 60
WF 62
UMD 84
BC 78
SU 68
FSU 70
Total 906
