coaching/QB discussion from Clayton thread

dressedcheeseside

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Sorry, but this is a terrible take. Those of us who coach understand. No serious ball coach plays inferior players for the sake of the future. There's a difference in working in younger players along the way, and full-on playing guys you think won't help you win. This is one of those popular fan theories that gets laughed at by actual coaches.

Again, you may disagree with the decisions made, but be certain that coaches are trying to WIN. Every game. Every year.
Watch this guy’s take on last year’s decision on offense strategy.
 

takethepoints

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All I hear is “They will be a force in the ACC as soon as their personnel develops to fit their scheme.” I agree.
The video is very well done.
Well … maybe. The other thing here is that the coaches a) improve or b) learn what they are doing. We have several coaches who are in their second or third year of P5 ball and, in some cases, they had minimal experience before. That doesn't mean they won't get better as they learn, but they are learning. Also, not to put too fine a point on it, I wasn't all that impressed by the experienced coaches last year either. Recruiting is only half the battle, as our adversaries tomorrow illustrated over the last few years.

Well, we'll see how things are going directly. Hope we win.
 

Techster

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Watch this guy’s take on last year’s decision on offense strategy.


Not much of a mention about how the OL limits what we could do last season. Also, some of those clips shows how we had open guys, but we just couldn't get them the ball. He's not wrong on some things, but he does overlook some pretty obvious parts of the offense that affects the whole offense. I expect us to show more this season with a better OL, and QBs that are better in the passing phase. I do agree we need to scheme better for our read option plays, of course, that also goes back to the ability of our OL. We'll see some more wrinkles Saturday...you can count on it.

On defense, he pretty much says what an ACC coach said: CGC knows how to wreck you. We just need the athletes...especially at LB. Speed at LB (or lack thereof) is really hampering what CGC can do. Once we get some speed at LB, it's not going to be fun playing QB against us.
 

SWATlien

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How could you not be impressed by some of the coaching? With what he was working with on the o & d lines. Transitioning a team away from the triple option with a decimated OLine and the defensive gains with an undersized front 4 and limited linebacker talent. Outside of the debacle of the Citadel the team played hard and in the end things started to click.

Anyway I thought the clip was good and yes the staff decided to go all in on the system and away from the option. Remember the first game started Tobias. Well they ditched it to take their lumps. We’ll see a different team tomorrow.
 

LibertyTurns

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How could you not be impressed by some of the coaching?
Recommend you go back and listen to the video commentary. Most of the OL “can’t” complaints were dismissed by showing with discrete examples the similarity in the OL blocking for most of the plays from one scheme to another. The “our remaining OL don’t know how to pull, zone block, gap block, drive block, double, trap, etc” is all just hot air. Pass protection, yeah I get it they have less reps & were less capable coming into the season than other programs. I get the injuries, the roster mistakes, etc which exacerbated the issues. I just don’t get the poor coaching & excusing all of it on lack of talent is foolhardy. These guys need to earn their paycheck and show they can drive fundamental skills into in game execution. I did not see that last year.

It wasn’t really dwelled on but he did make mention that we didn’t run the RPO we claimed to be running. That much was obvious throughout the season. Maybe someone has a clue as to why P’nut kept referring to the RPO when he wasn’t running it? It’s just me but that drives me nuts when coaches use improper terminology.

One new thing I took away from that is I had no idea how many times we ran the exact same play 2 times in a row. I missed that rewatching the games.

I’m just hopeful an offseason to reflect on what they tried to do as opposed to what they should have been doing yields some positive results. P’nut’s really a brand new P5 coach trying to learn the ropes. This is only year 2 for him.

About 9 hours from now we’ll have our first glimpse of where we’re at. Hope it’s significant improvement.

Go Jackets!
 

4shotB

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The thing that stood out to me was that the blueprint was already written if we just followed what Georgia Southern did. Transitioning from triple option to read option did not have to be immediate and total, it could have been gradual. It had already been done. And done pretty well.

IMO, the takeaway from all these conversations boils down to either A) the coaches didn't really know what they were doing or B) were deliberately taking a long term approach that sacrificed short term gains ( a few more W's last year) and were comfortable doing so. Because B is very unconventional in the "next game is our most important game" mindset of sports a great many struggle to accept this as a way to coach a team. I probably lean to B as I am usually a 'glass half full" kind of guy. And maybe I am afraid of thinking of option A as the truth.

The reality is that none of us know at the moment and it may take a few years yet to know. If he succesfully executes plan B, CGC will certainly be one of the more unconventional FB coach I have ever seen in my lifetime.
 

g0lftime

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IMO, the takeaway from all these conversations boils down to either A) the coaches didn't really know what they were doing or B) were deliberately taking a long term approach that sacrificed short term gains ( a few more W's last year) and were comfortable doing so. Because B is very unconventional in the "next game is our most important game" mindset of sports a great many struggle to accept this as a way to coach a team. I probably lean to B as I am usually a 'glass half full" kind of guy. And maybe I am afraid of thinking of option A as the truth.

The reality is that none of us know at the moment and it may take a few years yet to know. If he succesfully executes plan B, CGC will certainly be one of the more unconventional FB coach I have ever seen in my lifetime.
Plan B is a lot easier if you have a 7 year contract.
 

jacketup

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The thing that stood out to me was that the blueprint was already written if we just followed what Georgia Southern did. Transitioning from triple option to read option did not have to be immediate and total, it could have been gradual. It had already been done. And done pretty well.

And with our OL we would have won maybe--maybe--one or two more games. On the recruiting trail we would have heard opposing coaches say "they are a still an option team, let me show you why...."

We aren't recruiting against teams GA Southern recruits against...not now anyway. Apples and oranges.

I'll take our top 25 recruiting year over a 4-8 or 5-7 record that might have occurred by sticking with more option.
 

takethepoints

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One new thing I took away from that is I had no idea how many times we ran the exact same play 2 times in a row. I missed that rewatching the games.
Paul used to do that all the time. He'd look at what the D did to stop a play, then adjust the blocking scheme to get at the players who stopped it the first time. Also, if he saw that a D couldn't stop a play, he'd keep running it until they did. The best example of that was the belly series trap we ran in the 2014 Orange Bowl. They couldn't stop it, so we kept doing it.

The problem our FSU critic was referring to was that we ran exactly the same play 2 times in a row. Without adjustments to the blocking, that's asking for it.

Well, we'll see if that's improved as well.
 

takethepoints

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And with our OL we would have won maybe--maybe--one or two more games. On the recruiting trail we would have heard opposing coaches say "they are a still an option team, let me show you why...."

We aren't recruiting against teams GA Southern recruits against...not now anyway. Apples and oranges.

I'll take our top 25 recruiting year over a 4-8 or 5-7 record that might have occurred by sticking with more option.
1. The OL shouldn't be blamed for last year, just as our FSU critic points out. The main problem was a startling lack of continuity. After the first two games we started to bleed OLs due to injury and the bunch never got to play together as a unit. When they did toward the end of the year, they improved. If we had been able to keep the top 7 from injury - I'm not talking minor dings - for the season, things would have been better.

2. And, again as our FSU critic points out, opposing coaches would say pretty much the same thing. But … almost all P5 teams are, basically, option teams in the first place so this line wouldn't work that well.

3. Problem = you won't get consistent even top 30 recruiting classes if you put up years like we did in 2019. Talking about a transition and telling recruits what we are moving to would be as successful, imho, and I wouldn't feel like I paid for my season tickets to watch the coaches try in vain to generate an offense.
 

CuseJacket

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Nice clip. A lot of people need to watch this and listen carefully to the commentary although I doubt it will change their minds.
I gave it a shot and think it's all in the eye of the beholder.

"Another curious thing about Tech's offense this past year is that they had a weird tendency to call the exact same play twice in a row if it was successful the first time. This didn't work very often and I don't know why they did this. This brings me to the crux of my complaint about GT's offense..."

One of my favorite things about CPJ was his willingness to call the same play as many times in a row as possible when the defense did not stop us the first time. I doubt this takeaway will change the minds of those stuck on the under center option or who have a beef with our new OC.

I'm not here to say our new OC is perfect nor do I think he is definitively a problem. I enjoyed the option, and believe our failure with the past regime ended up being the other 2/3 of the game.
 
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