George Henshaw, who coached for two decades in the NFL as an offensive coordinator and position coach and also worked for many years at the college level -- including seven seasons under Bobby Bowden at Florida State -- will offer insights to Warchant.com readers during the 2018 season.
In this week's conversation with Warchant.com managing editor Ira Schoffel, Henshaw talks about offensive adjustments, ball security, winning 1-on-1 battles and more.
Warchant: Going into last week's game against Northern Illinois, we talked about adjustments on offense. And it seemed like there were some changes in scheme, mostly in terms of providing extra help to the offensive line. That seemed to pay off with some bigger plays in the passing game.
Henshaw: Yes, there definitely were some adjustments that were made, and they were able to help the offensive line in certain ways. We didn't do it all the time, but we did it sometimes, and it was enough to really help us out quite a bit in the passing game. Because the quarterback didn't get hit nearly as much as he has been. That's a big-time plus. And one of the best plays in the game was the long touchdown pass (a 78-yarder from Deondre Francois to Tamorrion Terry). On that play, you saw great protection, a great throw, a great route and catch. All of it went together, and it shows you what they're capable of.
There also were some outstanding running plays. The second touchdown we had in the game was really a well-blocked and well-designed play. I believe we had an H-back in that particular situation that came around and threw a key block. So we made some adjustments, and that was absolutely fabulous after what happened the week before. It helped us win the game.
Warchant: So when you make some adjustments like that -- leaving in additional blockers, etc. -- do you just stick with that approach as long as you need?
Henshaw: Well, now other people are going to adjust to what you did. That happens all season from week to week. The other teams' defensive coaches are gonna look at that film and say, "OK, they did X, Y and Z in this game that they did not do in the first three games, and it seemed to help them. Now, what are we going to do to counter it?" So, our coaches will have to constantly make adjustments as we go along. That's just part of it. But it's a step in the right direction.
Another good thing on offense from that game is that we didn't have nearly as many penalties as we had earlier in the year. Especially in the first half. And on defense, I thought that we had some really nice tackles -- some really good hits. So all of that was very positive. Our team played better in this game.
