COMMENTARY: Potent offense now a thing of the past

By: Brandon Wise / Staff Writer

For many southerners, mudding is a way for people to go out and show off their powerful trucks to see if they can make it through a trail of mud. If their truck is not powerful enough to make it, the truck will sink and has to be towed out by another.

The Golden Panthers offense has been treading in the mud throughout the season. Luckily, their engine, Wesley Carroll, found a way to get them out and lead the Golden Panthers to victory.

However, the once prolific FIU offense has slowed down and has required the defense to give them a tow quite a few times.  Ever since exploding for 41 points against North Texas, the Golden Panthers have been spinning their wheels in the mud, trying to find traction. The traction has come in the form of kicker Jack Griffin going 6-7 on field goal attempts the past two weeks. This high-flying offense has turned into a ground and pound attack, trying to run the opposing defenses to death with Kedrick Rhodes.

When the opposing defense knows that the offense is going to run nearly 60 percent of the time, it can load the box and stack up against the run. Rhodes had a career high 172 yards on 30 carries, but his longest run was only for 18 yards. This offense is slowly becoming a three yards and a cloud of dust attack. Instead of using the talent that surrounds Wesley Carroll at receiver, the play calling has become very conservative, only looking for the big play in a must score situation.

Sure, Wayne Times broke out for a 76-yard touchdown in the third quarter, but the first half of play saw the Golden Panthers struggle mightily against one of the worst defenses in college football.

The offense looks great for the first 50 yards of each drive. They can move the ball methodically down around the opposition’s 30 or even 20-yard line. Then, it is almost like they become a ship in a hurricane at sea: lost.

There is no excuse for accepting field goals in exchange for touchdowns in college football.

The offense survived this week thanks to a stellar performance by Tourek Williams and the rest of the Golden Panther defense. The Troy offensive line could not figure out where Williams was coming from, as he was in quarterback Corey Robinson’s face all night. It was his second worst performance of the season and he will be seeing Williams in his nightmares for the next few weeks along with his hopes for a fifth-straight conference title for the Trojans.

This has been an up and down season thus far for the Golden Panthers. Early on, the defense was carrying the load, only allowing 14 points per game through the first three games of the year. Then, the offense had to keep them in games because the defense was allowing 29.5 points per game in the next four games. Now, we do not know what to expect because the defense had to keep them in the game last night and should get most of the credit for the victory.

The offense needs to find a way to become more efficient than it has been the past two weeks in scoring chances, or else this team will not survive through the end of the season.