CDP play calling

[tech_wreck47]

Can someone please give me tangible reasons as to why he did not do a good job? And I don’t mean stuff like, well, he could have done this or that. Or because the offense wasn’t good. Please brake down what was bad, give examples from film etc. I keep seeing people complain but not give actual tangible reasoning. its just opinions from what I’ve seen.

 

[jgtengineer]

The big thing was the lack of flow in his play calling. It was like he was trying to surprise the opponents ( and sometimes his scripting was spot on see miami) but the truth of it was he was predictibly unpredictable if that makes sense.

First down? Deep shot. When conventional wisdom was to run. Second down if the deep shot failed, inside zone option. 3rd down if that only gained a yard? some sort of crossing pattern.

This is why we had a lot of three and outs. We weren't running to set up the pass, we were attempting to pass to set up the run. Some of it was execution but there are setup plays. Plays designed to get the defense out of position to open up a deep shot or draw. We really weren't running them.

 

[stech81]

Had to use too many timeouts to get plays called. ( This could be him or the QB but he is the OC so he would get the blame) . Really didn't kill us this year but in a close game it could.

 

[IronJacket7]

I like CDP scheme personally. I love the diversity he brings.

5 WR set, Pistol Full House Jumbo, Ace Shotgun, Pistol, etc....

 

[jgtengineer]

I like CDP scheme personally. I love the diversity he brings.

5 WR set, Pistol Full House Jumbo, Ace Shotgun, Pistol, etc....

Those are formations. Not a scheme.

It seems like honestly the closest scheme i can say to what we ran last year was. Air Coryell mixed with read option? Most of our deep shots were Go routes out of the slot, (not even really seam routes they were bending goes with AB) Or go routes on the out outside. We did this out of gun instead of under center but the scheme of pass deep pass often is a stable of this extremely old offense (its from the lates 70s and early 80s).

 

[Oldgoldandwhite]

If he had a scheme, he hid it well. Half time adjustments were non existent.
He tried to do things we didn’t have the talent to do. No misdirection. No short passing game. No short yardage plays.
I’m sure some of it was talent driven, but sometimes you wonder, what is he doing.

 

[slugboy]

From gut feel, out of 130 or so offensive coordinators, I’d say maybe about 10 make a positive schematic difference for their team, being worth a few points in the net plus minus score at the end of games. Possibly as few as 2-5. And that difference is a point or two on average.
Same with defensive coordinators and head coaches.
I’d say there are about 30 or so that make a negative difference. The rest are there in the middle.
For right now, I’d put Patenaude in the middle.

There are other things that coaches do throughout the year that are important—teaching and recruiting are two of the bigger responsibilities


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[stech81]

Another problem I have is he is also the QB coach. But really didn't see any Improvement in the QB play one good game then a bad game. If it's the QB'S we have a bad problem.

 

[Oakland]

Took too long to decide on a starting quarterback.
In some cases did not play to our strengths.
On short yardage, never go backwards to develop a running play.
Too many home run attempts.
Wasted using Oliver for short yardage. Oliver has a knack of falling forward when being tackled.

 

[WearGoldToGameDays]

Another problem I have is he is also the QB coach. But really didn't see any Improvement in the QB play one good game then a bad game. If it's the QB'S we have a bad problem.

I personally think we saw a lot of development with Graham over the course of the season.
I know it took a while but I have no problem using the first 4 games to break in the new QBs to set the foundation moving forward - especially with the injuries we had.

We say competition is king, I’m glad we back it up by giving guys their fair chance to be our guy.

 

[TaxJacket]

Shotgun on 3rd and one... switching QBs at the beginning of the year. Not scoring in two games this year. No adjustments whatsoever. I feel like he didn't really try to tailor this offense to our guys

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

It was like he was trying to surprise the opponents

I'm no offensive genius, but isn't that the object of the game?

 

[smokey_wasp]

Still a lot of vagueness and subjective statements in the responses so far, which is fine. It's valid to have an opinion. But I think this reinforces the OP's point.

 

[TaxJacket]

Still a lot of vagueness and subjective statements in the responses so far, which is fine. It's valid to have an opinion. But I think this reinforces the OP's point.

If I had time to go review game film I would, but I don't.... Those were just the ones off the top of my head

 

[tech_wreck47]

Still a lot of vagueness and subjective statements in the responses so far, which is fine. It's valid to have an opinion. But I think this reinforces the OP's point.

Thank you, I want something that’s not subjective so to speak. For instance @Ibeeballin broke down film during the season and talked about how CDP was calling plays and setting up other stuff by doing so.

 

[Jmonty71]

Can someone please give me tangible reasons as to why he did not do a good job? And I don’t mean stuff like, well, he could have done this or that. Or because the offense wasn’t good. Please brake down what was bad, give examples from film etc. I keep seeing people complain but not give actual tangible reasoning. its just opinions from what I’ve seen.

Overall, it's the predictability. When you have overwhelming talent, being predictable doesn't matter. See Steve Sarkisian, as a great example. He did a poor job at keeping the defense guessing. I would of liked to see ball pre-movement. Maybe some half back screens, to turn aggressive teams against themselves. I would of liked to see high percentage pass plays, like quick slants. We ran too many out patterns that required good timing, arm strength and good route running. We struggled, in all those phases. I just think the offense was too basic, too predictable and too conservative. So, it wasn't a play call, it was more the overall process on how we runs the offense.

 

[slugboy]

We ran quick slants, screen passes, and other high percentage passing plays. We have offensive breakdown threads that show those plays. Inaccurate passes, missed reads, missed blocks, or dropped passes are possible reasons people don’t remember those play calls.
As a thought experiment, what happens to our offense if we swapped OCs with UNC, NCST, Michigan, Iowa, or UCLA. Do their offenses score much differently? Does ours?


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[tech_wreck47]

Shotgun on 3rd and one... switching QBs at the beginning of the year. Not scoring in two games this year. No adjustments whatsoever. I feel like he didn't really try to tailor this offense to our guys

So when other teams like Bama, Oklahoma, LSU etc are in shotgun on 3rd and 1 and make it, is it a good play call? It’s all about execution. Why is shotgun not as good? The RB on a run play in shotgun gets the ball about as deep in as if the QB is under center so is there really a difference?

switching QB’s has nothing to do with play calling imo, we didn’t have a QB that coach felt good about that could do both running or throwing so he had to mix it up, neither guys were blowing it out of the water. It was also a hard place for CDP to be put in (and the players) when he runs a system the guys were struggling with due to what we have ran for so long.

Not scoring in games does not reflect bad play calling when you can watch and point out play after play of simple mistakes being made, like, dropped passes, allowing a defender to run free on a blitz etc.

No adjustments is just false, it was just no execution continuing. It was actually talked about after a game about how there was adjustments that were made. I believe it was with the OL blocking specifically.

he did not try to tailor his offense to the guys this year. It’s been said he was told to pretty much flip it completely around. It calls for probably more losses early, but it also will get the offense set in stone and be more productive down the road. If you slowly implement your offense over three years, by year 3 it won’t be as good as if you just completely flip it over in year 1.

I truly believe we will see everything come together by year 3 and even a tad more next year. If you notice our offense looked ok against bad defenses and bad against good defenses, that lets me know it’s more about the horses and execution than it is about play calling. CDP has not forgotten how to coach, if you want to see what we are working towards go look at his offenses for costal Carolina where he averaged over 30 ppg every season if I’m not mistaken.

 

[BCJacket]

I'm not an expert Xs and Os guy. But I feel like some (alot?) of the criticism of CDP is scapegoating for the bad results. One of the most important lessons I learned at Tech, that has served me well in my career- the quality of a decision can't be measured by the outcome. Good decisions can have bad outcomes, bad decisions can work out well. The difference is maximizing the probability of a positive outcome over time.

The simple fact is we didn't have an established starting QB. We lacked size and depth on the O-line. We had no real TEs. And then injuries decimated what we did have.

Say he should have settled on a QB earlier? What play from any of the QBs justified choosing any of them early on? On the board people were calling for LJ against Clemson, Graham against USF, Oliver again against Cid.

Say we shouldn't run out of the shotgun on short yardage? How many times did our O-line get blown up and pushed back 2 yds on the snap? How many times did we use a speed option from shotgun successfully?

As for the inconsistent play calling, what was working consistently enough to rely on it? Shouldn't we have wanted him to keep trying different things to see what our guys had success with?

I'm not suggesting CDP is great, just that it's difficult to draw real conclusions given the situation.

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

The crux of the matter is that every bad season has to have a boogeyman. There has to be someone to BLAME for our ineptitude this year. CDP is the most obvious choice since the offense is the area where we saw the most regression.

IMO, there is no boogeyman needed because I knew this transition would be rough, and this season went about as well as I expected it would, with the exception of the Citadel loss. If you were somehow convinced we were a bowl caliber team, then someone has to be responsible for the losing. Personally, I was not an overall fan of CDP being hired mainly because I had never heard of him but as @slugboy said earlier, unless you have one of the top 5-6 in the game, then I don't think it will really make that much difference. In the end, there has to be a scapegoat, and CDP, fairly or not, seems to have been assigned that role.

I will add that I do not blame CDP, nor do I think this season is his fault. I think he shares some of the blame, as well as Collins and the rest of the coaching staff. Even though the D was hampered by our offensive inefficiency, they are not faultless either. Our ST were pretty horrid as well. Many of our players made key mistakes throughout the season. Our fans never started showing up and got worse as the season drug on. Everyone can share in the blame. It will get better, but it's going to take some time. In the meantime, just dump this season from your memory and move forward. Easiest way to do that is whiskey clear and cheer for Baylor...