Kevin Craft is tough, experienced, and mobile. And every defensive coordinator in America knows he has all the range of a leaky Super Soaker rifle.

M

The fact is that there is a lot of pressure to perform now even with lowered expectations (7 wins). Craft gives us the best chance to win now and Bre makes us better in the long run. fans want to win now…it’s nature.

Nestor, you brought up a good point earlier talking about the silly procedural mistakes. Craft’s strength is his experience that makes him better equipped to deal with the false starts, etc. for all his talent, I think those hicups would shake Bre a lot more.

I don’t fault CRN for the choice. I think he’s doing what it takes to get to a Bowl this year. . I would have preferred to see Bre from the start. that said, I respect CRN for sticking to his guns. As good as competition is, it can play. mind tricks – especially with QB’S and CRN has said so since last year. I had the benefit of seeing a practice and being at the scrimmage (not that that makes me an expert). There isn’t any question Brehaut’s arm is a world away from Crafts ability. Personally, I think if Brehaut started against KSU, the game would have gone worse and we probably lose to Stanford anyway. But, I’m willing to take that and could tolerate a loss (if that’s possible) to see a young talent mature. For me, it isn’t a debate of “we know what Craft can do, let’s see Brehaut”. I’m willing to sacrafice a game or two this season because, I think next year is when we turn the corner. but, you can’t really do that as a head coach and you certainly can’t say that you are.

I appreciate what Craft has done for this team, but the truth is, he just doesn’t seem to have the arm strength. Everything over 20 yards is a floater. And the lack of any sort of deep-strike threat (especially with some of the burners we have on this team) really holds our offense back. That said…

…so does the playcalling. The coaching staff is obviously trying to play it safe with Craft, but I think they’re playing a little TOO safe. It’s one thing to not throw it downfield like crazy, it’s another to go run-run-pass every series. Craft actually looks pretty good when we’re in the 2 minute offense and constantly throwing 10 yard strikes. Its helps immensely that we’ve got lots of good TEs and big receivers to catch those medium-range passes. Craft actually looked pretty accurate at times, and I wish Chow/Neuheisel would open up the offense a bit more.

Some of that is Craft’s fault… it drives me nuts when it’s 3rd and 10 and he throws a pass to a receiver on the line of scrimmage for a 2 yard gain… but I think if they open up the offense a bit, he’d be up to the task. Nothing crazy, just throw in some more dinks and dunks to break up the running on 1st and 2nd down.

Thing is, it doesn’t really seem that the coaching staff trusts Brehaut at this point either, so I’m not sure a QB change would help.

They see what’s going on in practice each and every day. KC’s already got a year of experience behind the center as well; something that Brehaut doesn’t have. Also, as I pointed out Saturday, Craft did not lose this game for us. Yeah, I wish we would have opened it up a little more offensively but we were still down only one score. We just didn’t get it done when we needed to. That, and all the freaking ridiculous penalties and mistakes did us in.

I DO hope we can get Kevin Prince back A.S.A.P. but I want him to be fully recovered and ready when he does get the nod.

Watching the game firsthand at Stanford Stadium, I could see that the offense when Craft is under center is very different than when Prince is in. Prince can air it out downfield, whereas Craft struggles in that department. The question then becomes, why does our #2 QB who is an injury away from being our starter demand a huge shift in offensive philosophy? I don’t question Craft’s heart, or his place on our team. He was a warrior on Saturday. But why should we expect such a conservative offense when he comes in? The coaching staff had a full year to prepare for this. They couldn’t expect Prince to play all year injury-free. Then, why not prep Craft better in the offseason? Why not focus on his arm strength? Why not work more on his downfield throws? Why not put ourselves in a position where if he has to come in, we don’t see such a huge dropoff in production?

Okay, I’m not being very productive by focusing on what we didn’t do. Let me shift to what I noticed on Saturday, and whether putting Brehaut in would have helped. Craft isn’t comfortable as a pure pocket QB. He relied on the short dumps to his TE’s and WR’s for short gains. His deep(er) passes came when he scrambled out of the pocket and improvised. This led to 3 and outs and put our defense on the field for long spurts of time.

Could Brehaut have shown something different? Possibly. Should he have had a chance? I think so. There was a point in the 3rd Quarter where we switched things up and put in Thigpen at RB. It was electric! He immediately made an impact with some good runs and just put a spark in our offense. That could have been a good series to bring in Brehaut. We weren’t finding production with our starters. Switching things up would have thrown something new at the Stanford D, and given our offense some energy.

Back to my original point, our backup QB’s should be expected to run the same offense as our starter. If they can’t, then they shouldn’t be backups. Maybe I’m being delusional, but why can’t we expect our #2 to play like Landry Jones instead of Brady Leaf? Again, we have had a full year to prepare for this.

I’m sorry, but I’m just a little frustrated after this loss. I’ll be a little more positive later today when I post pics from the Bruin Bash tailgate. Got some great shots of crowd, the band, and of course our cheerleaders.

One topic I would like to bring up is the changing of plays at the LOS.
We seem to still have the problem of getting plays in late to the huddle. I am not sure if our current QBs have the knowledge or have been giving the ability to change plays. With the plays coming in late it really hampers the ability to do this.
This particular skill is invaluable and I feel is the reason most highly achieving offenses are run by veteran QBs.
I have not noticed any plays being changed. Does anyone has more info or insight into this matter.

Fact: CRN and NC have had to change the offensive scheme to accomodate KC
Fact: KC is not getting the job done
Fact: College football is big business, and requires tough decisions
A lot of you out there didn’t hesitate to condemn Dorrell (rightfully) without access to HIS data points. Yet, you sycophantically protect CRN’s very poor decisions. With regard to the Stanford game, UCLA had the opportunity to be sitting atop the PAC10 with a modicum of respect. It was apparent to me that this one would be lost very early on. Dumbed down play calling, ineffectual stategy, extremely average quarterback. It is mystifying to me, that under the circumstances, why CRN wouldn’t call RBs number. They literally had nothing (more) to lose. Others out there have posited that they may be attempting to salvage RB’s redshirt. I am not at all familiar with the requirements involved in such an undertaking, however, it would seem the only valid reason for keeping KC at the helm.

I would have liked to see them run the ball in for a TD on the first scoring drive. I think that would have changed the complexion of the game. But that’s a play calling change.

After that it was penalties and our defense wasn’t stopping the cardinal.

You can’t really blame Craft. He did about as good as anyone could expect him to.

Tasser, you seem like an equanimous individual and you make some very thoughtful
observations. Even though I tend to draw a much harder line (for better or for worse), your approach may serve the team better in the long run. I hope I am proved wrong.