Unconquered

I believe your answer to be best, but after 6 (maybe 7?) years of Jimbo's offense, the players have not been able to do so. This is not the NFL where playing is the player's only job. They are student athletes who have to study, and are young and still like to go out and party. Their entire focus can not be on learning the playbook. I have never been a coach though and do not know the ins and outs as some in here do-the reason i posed the question.

Jamarcus Russel succeeded in this offense and won a national championship. Our O-line has been more of the problem as of recent.

Does Jimbo overcoach the QBs? I think he does BY A HAIR. It just seems like for our QBs his mantra of "Just go out and play" isn't backed by his coaching style. That said, EJ needs to freakin learn it and make the reads.

As for the young guys, if you question them then you've never seen a major college playbook. I'll tell you the truth and if you don't like it or feel im arrogant then Im sorry, just trying to make a point.

I had a 32 on the ACT and when I got to look through Lane Kiffin's offensive playbook, which is very likely very similar to Jimbo's, I said to myself, "it would take me 12 months of studying this being my full time job to get it all in a game. It is A LOT of stuff.

Exactly my thoughts haha.

You are correct. I apologize, but he was highly successful in his last two years and skipped his senior season. I would venture to say that EJ, as well as probably every player on offense, have a higher intelligence level than Russell.

A playbook for an offense like what Morris runs at Clemson likely has 200 pages I bet and can be learned in an offseason. Kiffin's had like 750 pages and honestly I was blown away that these kids with 16-19 ACTs were ever able to learn it. And that's not a knock. It's like the first time you ever get that BIG BOY college Chemistry book except you know the test will be dynamic and frequently shifting and you have to take it in front of 85K crazy people.

Exactly. And the ability to explain your offense occurs on a continuum as well. We can all agree Jimbo is maybe 75% as good an offensive coach as Bobby Petrino. That said, if they sat in a room I bet Bobby would consider Jimbo his equal in terms of acumen and ideas. Petrino just makes his playbook come alive for the players and it becomes this organic, dynamic expression. Jimbo's O just comes across as Calculus 3. JMO

I believe the answer is Jimbo relinquishing OC duties because he's twice as good as a CEO. Pride included into the mix and I'd say he's gotta recruit QBs, somehow, who have extremely high football IQs. This is difficult because recruiting rules keep you from spending the time necessary to establish this.

Winston is known as an absolute sponge for football. He may well be a great one. He and Coker are a brighter future than our present IYAM. EJ is a very affable, smart young man but Jimbo asks him to think too hard during plays and it confounds him. He'd have dominated some other places. He will still be "good" this year though. But he just can't read two safeties on the same play and constantly leads WRs directly into defenders. It's uncanny.

Either that or we need a QB who can listen to Jimbo, know who's running what routes and then he throws Jimbo's desires to analyze everything to the nth degree and merely makes plays. Fans rarely know how much some star players have actually overcome their playcallers to be superstars.

Russell looked terrible in Knoxville that year as well. I was in the South Endzone and saw him just try to "99 throw power" his way to a victory. It was ugly.

No disrespect but he "99 throw powered" his way to 3000+ yards and 25+ tds that year with only 8 picks. Not saying he didn't have talent around him, but you don't just put those stats up in the sec because you have a strong arm.

I don't think it is a matter of the Playbook being too involved. I think some players just don't do what it takes to grasp it. Trickett certainly seemed to understand it last year. I am not saying Trickett is better, nor am I saying the Playbook was completely open to him. What I am saying is that the Playbook is not the issue. EJ has a big confidence problem and it shows in his play at times. Not to mention our O-line wasn't exactly all world last year.

A playbook can be very thick but if it is based on a logical system which ours is it is not that hard to learn.

Trickett can understand the playbook all he wants to. Heck EJ probably understands it better than we are giving him credit for. The problem is every skill player has to understand the playbook to its fullest for our offense to sustain drives. The expectations are too high as the probability of every player getting it right on crucial plays of a long, sustained drive drops with every player responsible and every play that becomes crucial.

It's not hard to understand why our offense that is supposed to be methodical usually stalls and sputters and looks methodical for about 2-3 drives per game, gets lucky for another drive or two where we have a big play, and we usually win by out-talenting the other team and having a great D.