Last night within 30 minutes of one of the greatest victories at "Death Valley" we had a several of us posting about hiring a "real" offensive coordinator, or that our offense would "cost us a shot at the playoffs."
I responded by stating that to say such things meant folks had no real football acumen. Simply put I suggested to folks making knee jerk decisions and rants such as those did not have good judgement and the ability to make quick decisions in a football sense.
Some people think that my distant past association with Clemson football is how I derived my view of our current state of Offensive Play Calling... and that would be a mistake. My time as a member of Clemson's football team plays no bearing on what I am about to say...
What does have bearing is that I, like many others on here, have coached... and coached successfully. My 15 years of coaching high school kids who racked up wins against Grayson, Buford, Peachtree Ridge, Norcross, Parkview, and Brookwood (when they were at the top of their game) Walton, Lowndes County (at the Concrete Palace too) Warner Robbins... is what leads me here to argue against some of the criticism of our Offense Coordinators...
Argument One (We got too conservative) Out of all the criticism, this is one where I concur albeit not as vindictive as some. I think the weather played a huge role in our play calling in the 2nd half, and when we were doing things effectively, we got away from it when we didn't need to. ND basically said (just like Louisville) you are gonna have to run it to beat us. Well we did, and we did. We ran it against some future NFL kids out there folks... with a true freshman on the OL! Meanwhile we forced ND to try and beat us with the pass, and that lead to turnovers which was a huge reason they lost. We have yet to establish a deep threat since the loss of Mike Williams, but that's not a coaching fault. I think a lot of this criticism comes from an off game on the road on a Thursday night, couple with a game in horrid conditions. It's just not that easy to scheme around weather, other than to run the ball when you can. Hell it wouldn't surprise me if some of our plays were changed as there seemed to be a break in the rain. But I think overall our play calling was scripted last night with the following things in mind: No deep threat, youth and inexperience, and the weather.
You've heard this coaching staff (even when Chad was here) reiterate the same thing over and over, we do not want to put too much on a kid in a game. If they can't handle it they don't play. Well by necessity, we have a lot of kids playing right now that would've usually gotten a year or maybe two under their belt.
Argument Two (With #4 I could put up 40, or #4 is the greatest and we aren't using him) This argument is ridiculous. He might turn out to be the greatest QB we've ever had, but his youth and inexperience is still a reason to curb your enthusiasm. I've noticed that DC's who have pro experience...(see Grantham and VanGorder) are able to dial up schemes that even DW hasn't fully mastered in decoding. That's not OC problems, thats youth.
Argument Three (This play calling will cost us a game/shot at playoffs) Another incredulous argument. Were we lucky last night? No. We were the better coached team. We committed fewer turnovers, and we scored more points. That didn't happen because of luck, and if we don't make the playoffs, it'll be because we dropped a game we shouldn't have... and that will be due to poor execution. Every coaching staff makes mistakes. Every top 10 team yesterday made incorrect calls on everything... can poor play calling cause a team to lose a game? Absolutely, but I see a few bad calls vs just no grasp of how to run our offense.
Argument Four (The bad play calling gassed our Defense, too many 3 and outs) I can see this argument, but I submit this...perhaps the reason we slowed down our tempo was because the D was already gassed? What if our OC's were trying to buy more time for the D because we had no deep threat and did not want to turn the ball over with bad field position for them? Either way, I disagree with that mentality as our offense is designed to go fast. I still remember the arguments about our Offense moving TOO FAST and that's why Kevin Steele's defense couldn't stop anyone... we scored too quick.
Anyway this isn't designed to be a slam on any Tiger fan. I just wanted to make my record clear... I think our play calling was suspect last night, but not due to lack of talent of our coaching staff. I think many times we do glass over the important things... and those of us even debated last week just how difficult this game was going to be. Threads were started about how the running team wins games like these, therefor ND would win. Well those very people seem to criticize our staff for figuring that out and using the formula to our advantage.
Look at this level, I'll take wins everyday over well coached losses. I just believe that there is a lot of misplaced anger and opprobrium about our Offensive Staff at the moment and I think we need to approach it with a broader view.
I responded by stating that to say such things meant folks had no real football acumen. Simply put I suggested to folks making knee jerk decisions and rants such as those did not have good judgement and the ability to make quick decisions in a football sense.
Some people think that my distant past association with Clemson football is how I derived my view of our current state of Offensive Play Calling... and that would be a mistake. My time as a member of Clemson's football team plays no bearing on what I am about to say...
What does have bearing is that I, like many others on here, have coached... and coached successfully. My 15 years of coaching high school kids who racked up wins against Grayson, Buford, Peachtree Ridge, Norcross, Parkview, and Brookwood (when they were at the top of their game) Walton, Lowndes County (at the Concrete Palace too) Warner Robbins... is what leads me here to argue against some of the criticism of our Offense Coordinators...
Argument One (We got too conservative) Out of all the criticism, this is one where I concur albeit not as vindictive as some. I think the weather played a huge role in our play calling in the 2nd half, and when we were doing things effectively, we got away from it when we didn't need to. ND basically said (just like Louisville) you are gonna have to run it to beat us. Well we did, and we did. We ran it against some future NFL kids out there folks... with a true freshman on the OL! Meanwhile we forced ND to try and beat us with the pass, and that lead to turnovers which was a huge reason they lost. We have yet to establish a deep threat since the loss of Mike Williams, but that's not a coaching fault. I think a lot of this criticism comes from an off game on the road on a Thursday night, couple with a game in horrid conditions. It's just not that easy to scheme around weather, other than to run the ball when you can. Hell it wouldn't surprise me if some of our plays were changed as there seemed to be a break in the rain. But I think overall our play calling was scripted last night with the following things in mind: No deep threat, youth and inexperience, and the weather.
You've heard this coaching staff (even when Chad was here) reiterate the same thing over and over, we do not want to put too much on a kid in a game. If they can't handle it they don't play. Well by necessity, we have a lot of kids playing right now that would've usually gotten a year or maybe two under their belt.
Argument Two (With #4 I could put up 40, or #4 is the greatest and we aren't using him) This argument is ridiculous. He might turn out to be the greatest QB we've ever had, but his youth and inexperience is still a reason to curb your enthusiasm. I've noticed that DC's who have pro experience...(see Grantham and VanGorder) are able to dial up schemes that even DW hasn't fully mastered in decoding. That's not OC problems, thats youth.
Argument Three (This play calling will cost us a game/shot at playoffs) Another incredulous argument. Were we lucky last night? No. We were the better coached team. We committed fewer turnovers, and we scored more points. That didn't happen because of luck, and if we don't make the playoffs, it'll be because we dropped a game we shouldn't have... and that will be due to poor execution. Every coaching staff makes mistakes. Every top 10 team yesterday made incorrect calls on everything... can poor play calling cause a team to lose a game? Absolutely, but I see a few bad calls vs just no grasp of how to run our offense.
Argument Four (The bad play calling gassed our Defense, too many 3 and outs) I can see this argument, but I submit this...perhaps the reason we slowed down our tempo was because the D was already gassed? What if our OC's were trying to buy more time for the D because we had no deep threat and did not want to turn the ball over with bad field position for them? Either way, I disagree with that mentality as our offense is designed to go fast. I still remember the arguments about our Offense moving TOO FAST and that's why Kevin Steele's defense couldn't stop anyone... we scored too quick.
Anyway this isn't designed to be a slam on any Tiger fan. I just wanted to make my record clear... I think our play calling was suspect last night, but not due to lack of talent of our coaching staff. I think many times we do glass over the important things... and those of us even debated last week just how difficult this game was going to be. Threads were started about how the running team wins games like these, therefor ND would win. Well those very people seem to criticize our staff for figuring that out and using the formula to our advantage.
Look at this level, I'll take wins everyday over well coached losses. I just believe that there is a lot of misplaced anger and opprobrium about our Offensive Staff at the moment and I think we need to approach it with a broader view.
