I’m of the opinion this Tech team has the offensive personnel to run a lot of systems successfully.  The foundation of my faith in this assessment is primarily based around Lonnie Edwards, Terry McDaniel, Chris Olson and Justin Keown being more than solid run blockers.  The quality of the 5th starter will be of little significance. 

In the early Leach years, I was a big fan of our throw every down policy.  We simply couldn’t block the defensive fronts of the elite teams.  Our odds of something good happening were much better if we threw it.  We were very likely to have more running plays go for negative yards than positive. 

My sentiments began to change around the point of Matt Moore’s arrival, and for the last 3 seasons, I’ve aggressively campaigned for 30 runs a game.  I’m also a firm believer that if you can run the ball, you should do it until somebody stops you.  It always wins football games. 

None of the top 15 passing teams in the country played in a BCS bowl.  The top 6 total defenses all made it to the big show.  Iowa (116/game), Cincinnati (131/game), and Texas (153/game) were the worst rushing attacks to qualify.  We ran for 88 yards a game this year, which ranks among some of the most inept football programs in college.  You don’t have to run the ball for big yardage.  You just have to run the ball enough to keep your passing attack from getting you beat.   

We lost every game in 2009 that we went 3 consecutive drives without calling a run play.  It’s the law of averages and eventually it catches up to you, if too predictable over time.  So, with this in mind, I’ve done a little more Neal Brown homework to predict some stats for the 2010 Air Raid:

2009 Tech Playcalling  

- The 2009 Tech offense ran 998 plays of which 274, or 27%, were handoffs to a running back.  The remaining balance of 724, or 73%, was allocated to our QB position.  That’s a lot of responsibility for a 1st year starter.  We averaged 6.9 yards per pass attempt and 5.4 yards a carry from the RB position.  Our offense ran an average of 77 plays per game with a 56 passing/21 running split.  We passed for 385 yards a game, which ranked #2 in the country and was effective enough to be shutdown by the Houston Cougar defense. 

2009 Troy Playcalling

- New OC Neal Brown ran 973 plays at Troy this season with 60% (583) passes and 40% (390) runs.  This breaks down to a 75-play per game average of 45 passing attempts and 30 running attempts.  Now, we can do some math.

Projected 2010 Tech Playcalling

Our hypothermal statistical conversion indicator predicts the 2010 Tech offense to average around 325 passing yards per game and 150 rushing yards per game under the new guy, which is approximately 2 more yards per game than 2009.  Let’s just hope we had this thing calibrated right.  It was colder than Dalhart when I ran this test.  The indicator also told me that our chances of scoring a TD inside the 10-yard line increase by 31% if we land a serviceable TE between now and signing day.