RoadDawg's focus here is questionable IMO
It's clear he doesn't like Smith and is using revisionist history to go back and say that "we glossed over" and "should have know" that we'd expect that while completely discrediting that we have substandard QB play. When QB play is brought up, it circles back to the coaching. Then on top of that, pointing out that Petersen's last 2 years (the years AFTER Kellen Moore) are indications that Petersen is losing it - even though as DNC and HFNY are pointing out there's a lot of cherry picking going on.
I don't know if you were at the Boise game in 2013, but I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt that Boise had no shot of winning that game. I actually thought that considering the circumstances Boise played really well on offense. At no point the entire night were they able to gain any kind of separation in the passing game. On top of that, Southwick was a good, but not great, Boise QB and definitely not a PAC caliber QB game in and game out against a tanned, rested, and focused PAC defense playing at home. Between that game, and looking at a similar situation in Vegas where Boise clearly lacked the athletes on the field yet somehow won the game, convinced me that Petersen was in fact a far better coach than I had historically given him credit for (well before the hire).
You're fitting your narrative into a perspective that you are trying to lead on. What you're not considering at all is how AFTER Kellen Moore games like the 2013 game in Seattle magnified to Petersen how difficult it would be to continue winning at such a high level at Boise. No matter how well he coaches up his players, there's a certain reality that the overall depth and quality of the program will not hold up against a higher end Big 5 conference team. Even with Petersen gone this year, Boise played very well for about 3 quarters in Atlanta this year against Ole Miss before they started to wear down, made some mistakes, and Ole Miss pulled away. In fact, it's a very similar story to what happened in Seattle last year.
There's a reason that Petersen continually is dropping hints to the media talking about how Miles is doing a lot of what they are asking of him but also noting that one of his biggest areas of improvement will come in the area of recognition and playing with anticipation. We've seen 3 QBs play this year and at this point 0 of the 3 show the ability to really do either. That's a MASSIVE problem. With Miles specifically, while you can play the position without a gun for an arm if you can play with anticipation and recognition, it's almost impossible to play at a high level without those traits and an arm. If you have the arm, it can help minimize weaknesses with anticipation and recognition - much like a 100 mph fastball can help offset some problems with location. We talk often about finding ways to get Ross the ball, but a lot of getting him the ball is tied to weaknesses in the QB position as the routes that Ross will run well are the drags and quick slants that you need to throw the WR open vs. waiting for the WR to come open.
There is talent on this offense - but there's also a lot of guys being asked to do things that quite honestly they aren't really prepared to do. Mickens is being asked to be a #1 WR when really he's suited to be a #3 slot WR. One common trait of a great team (regardless of sport) is that players are slotted appropriately and asked to do what they are capable of and not what they aren't capable of. In that regard, we have massive problems on offense.
Things will get better, but it's going to take a little bit of time. We will need a offseason to reassess what strengths and weaknesses we have on offense and find something that will highlight and minimize. All the while, we need to also keep a mindset on what the ultimate vision that we have and finding the players that fit that vision. There will obviously be tweaks in the interim, but the worst thing that we could do is completely switch up our offense to fit the current players and allow the current players (and their existing limitations) shape the future direction and identity of the offense.
In the interim, I'm perfectly content to see incremental progress, the team playing the right way, and learning how to develop the tools necessary to win when the going gets tough instead of just winning the games when we are front running the entire time. We didn't close the game against ASU. But we were down 10-0 with seemingly no expectation of doing anything that would lead us not only back into the game but to win. Instead we find a play out of Timu and then a drive that ideally would have finished in a TD but got us back to level. That doesn't happen last year. The next step in the growth of this program would be the defense coming out and following up the game tying drive by getting a stop and turning it back over to the offense. And the final growth is the offense following up that drive with a game winning drive. This program will grow from this adversity. We'll find ourselves some players and some pretenders.
