Speaking of McCummings, I still think he's too good an athlete to be used sparingly as the wildcat quarterback. Don't know where he would fit, but think it would be a good thing to get him on the field more often.
His best opportunity to impact this season is as the Wildcat QB. It's an important and underrated position. He did a good job at it last year and hopefully he gets even better at it. He also gives us important depth at the QB position. He's UCONN's Tim Tebow, that's not a bad position to be in. He is just as likeable a person as Tebow is too. If he were to convert to another position it would likely be an H back / tight end, we're solid there right now but the top two guys are seniors.
I think the wildcat is a bit of a gimmick. It maybe works on the goal line, maybe in certain situations where a running quarterback is going ot help, but I don't think it is much more than that. If you can catch a team off guard, or gorce them to change their approach which is sometimes tricky, it works, but it would be no different from say Navy suddenly bringing a passer off the bench. The biggest reason it works is because you don't expect it defensively.
I think ANY offensive scheme can work, as long as coaches teach it correctly, spend enough time on it in practice, and have the right athletes in place to carry out the plays. Wildcat is definitely used as a "gimmick" by some teams that look to catch a team off guard, but it can also be implemented as a sound offensive principle-if more time is spent installing a Wildcat package with nuances, then it is not a gimmick, but a well-designed part of the offense that gives offenses an extra blocker since the QB is no longer "wasted" player in terms of the blocking scheme any more. I think in UCONN's case, it is absolutely NOT a fluke that they were successful with it. Just like Navy running the option. All teams have at least a token option play that they can use as a "gimmick" and have a successful play here and there because the Defense isn't focused on that. In Navy's case, that is ALL they do, so they have a more elaborate option scheme and take it beyond the "gimmick" level. Wildcat CAN be a gimmick, and can be part of a more "genuine" offensive package. It all goes back to how much time coaches are willing to invest into implementing Wildcat. My guess is that if we had a juggernaut of a passing team, we would be more of the "token" Wildcat team.....we're not a pass-happy team obviously, so the coaches have invested in making the Wildcat a more substantive part of the offense.
it may be gimmicky, but it was very effective for us last year. it seems like every time we put McCummings in he run twice for a total of 11-15 yards and he'd throw a bomb to an open receiver 50 yards down field with varying levels of success. the plays worked. we didn't always pull them off, but he could move the sticks running and it definitely opened up receivers down field
Definitely agree with that. The game plans, and play calling, put players in positions to succeed. McCummings's threw a few times out of the wildcat and had receivers open downfield ... that underthrow of Griffin still stings ...
In some ways wasn't the whole Tyler Lorenzen offense, especially his last season, just a version of the wildcat but run as an everyday offense? If memory serves, he was the 2nd leading rusher behind Brown. As an offense it worked at least somewhat. The difference was it was pretty much the base offense. It had a passing element but it wasn't all that sophisticated. coachRD, I pretty much agree with you, but I think one reason UCONN's wildcat offense works is that defenses didn't spend a lot of time game planning for it. Some for sure, but teams wouldn't spend too much time and hence opposing players didn't respond as quickly or confidently to that attack. That's not to say UConn didn't run it well, bu tpart of the reason for its success was that the other guys didn't really practice against it. In many respects you can say the same thing about Navy's option...it is a system that nobody runs anymore except Navy so if you only have a week to get ready you need to get everyone to learn a whole new approach to defense, then forget it the next week.
