A key point to understand when talking about Graham and staff’s aerial attack is that this offense’s short & intermediate passing game requires the ball to leave the QB’s hand in between two seconds and three seconds respectively.  That’s what they mean when they say “One, two, go!” and “One, two, three, go!”; the shorter period on the pure passing plays and the longer on the pass off of the option fake or the deep ball attempt.  On Saturday’s broadcast, Urban Myers, who knows a thing or two about football, said that protection from the OL is designed to hold for between 1.5 – 2.0 seconds on a three-step drop (or shotgun).

   This is what is driving Graham and Magee/Norvell crazy and why before and after each game our HC keeps talking about the ball being held too long.  The QB in this system has to combine quick recognition with a quick release to get these plays started.  Ideally, the targets for this quick pass will be speed on the receiving end.

   I was timing some of Sunseri’s ‘snap to release’ on Saturday and he was averaging between three to five seconds for almost all the plays I timed.  On the plays where he did get the ball off immediately he was usually able to complete the pass and make a good, accurate throw to the receiver.  But it seems like those plays have to almost be scripted in for him to make that work.

We saw an example of this on our last drive against ND at the end of the game Saturday. We went to a series where the plays that are called don’t require much decision making by the QB but are planned to get the ball directly into the designated receiver’s hands. You’ll see either a no back set or no option-read on most those plays.

   In that series, notice Sunseri’s receivers when he was completing passes where these quick hitters were called, or where he went right away to his safety valve in Ray Graham out of the backfield.  Sunseri played well when he made six of seven pass attempts to our quick, speedy players – it worked as it should have.

Overall, 13 of Sunseri’s 21 completions in the game went to the four quick receivers; Saddler, Jones and Brinson and Ray Graham, all who played key parts in that last drive.

   This is what Todd Graham is talking about when he says that a large part of our passing game is designed to be ‘long handoffs’.  But also shows the type of receivers we are beginning to field this season as this offense needs fast off the mark WRs, guys with the ‘quick-twitch’ muscles if you will.  We really didn’t have that type of receiver returning on roster and ready to play with any regularity, save Saddler.

   What we do have as WR starters are Shanahan and Street who, in their own right, are very good receivers but don’t fit the criteria mentioned above.  Quickness and speed is not the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about those two.  They are good at getting open for the longer intermediate and deep routes however. They have been a big part we know, we’ve had successes with them and they will be a solid component.

But in the future we can’t live by passing to them, or to our 3-backs Graham, Carswell and Gonzalez, alone.  In the long run the Graham offense is built for more speed in the receiver corps to maximize yards after the catch and we must to have that to open up his playbook.  For this reason I think we’ll see more of a shift to plays called for the speedier players as the season progresses and as we saw Saturday.

   This is what we are seeing in our staff’s recruiting efforts also.  The emphasis on receivers now and in the future is going to be, you guessed it,  speed and more speed, which is evidenced by 1^st year guys Jones, Brinson and Darius Patton (who we’ll see more of) getting more playing time at receiver as the season progresses.

  But, to go full circle, it again demands a QB who can make those quick decisions and can get the ball released in the minimum amount of time.  Along with that, our QB has to be able to sell the keeper rush off the option.  He needs to be able to hold the LBs and slow down the pass rush if they think the QB has the ability to make gains on those option plays.  We did see Sunseri execute the option more against Notre Dame and it worked pretty well, but it has to be a normal part of the QB play and not the exception.

We’ve recruited QBs who fit the needed pass/run criteria already, one in Anderson and we have Voytik ready to come onboard for 2012.  At this point no one knows how our QB position will shake out over the remaining eight games, but we do know that we need to see a more positive change in fundamental QB play from our starter if we want to have a decent shot at a winning season.