Broken record and what not here, but if what we saw against USF was our offense not being very vanilla, Smith isn't what he was billed as. As good as the box score says the scores were, we were very much hanging by a thread the entire game. Two missed field goals, turnover on downs, and a lucky interception shouldn't be totally discounted, but they could've easily had 9-21 more points in the first half. Conversely, we had maybe one opportunity of equal magnitude slip through our hands (literally) with a fumble inside their 30.
Sure, we ran a jet sweep or two (not sure we actually handed it off to them) and we ran a wildcat play, but other than that RB screens and crossing routes aren't what I consider electric. Now, the real question is, how non-vanilla can this offense realistically be? I liked a lot of the things they were doing. Those screens were moderately effective at times--and USC knew they were getting them. Protection issues limit route trees immensely. Our RB core is by far our offensive strength. Corbin and Epstein are two guys who need to be out there constantly. Bonner is a good change of pace, kinda in the opposite theory NFL teams use smaller guys. I liked the RB usage on Saturday. Game script aside, Bonner getting more rushes than the other two is laughable. I don't care if he's always good for at least 2/3 yards.
Passing wise, well like I said, protection just wont be what we need to be creative there. Hopefully, Green and Dorsey can ease some of the drop troubles. Smalling is fantastic, but we need more. Against teams like PSU, our passing game is going to suffer mightily, even against a bad USF pass def, we struggled the entire game to get more than 5/6 yard completions.