General News about Key and his Staff

[forensicbuzz]

People need to understand that Key played when Friedgen was the OC at Tech.

It's always been my understanding that offensive linemen are generally the smartest guys on the team.

If I remember correctly, Friedgen was a QB, then a FB, then an OG under 3 different coaches at Maryland.

 

[stech81]

It's always been my understanding that offensive linemen are generally the smartest guys on the team.

If I remember correctly, Friedgen was a QB, then a FB, then an OG under 3 different coaches at Maryland.

Guess I needed to play on the offensive line and not the defensive line.

 

[slugboy]

It's always been my understanding that offensive linemen are generally the smartest guys on the team.

If I remember correctly, Friedgen was a QB, then a FB, then an OG under 3 different coaches at Maryland.

It ain’t the average that gets you, it’s the variance

(Some of them are the smartest, but some ain’t)

 

[forensicbuzz]

Guess I needed to play on the offensive line and not the defensive line.

yeah, DL...not so much. Sorry.

 

[YJMD]

The OC and the OLC hires are both head scratchers for me.

Reportedly, CBK got 30% more for assistants. We don't know the contract details, yet. But I'd be shocked if we were paying either guy big money. Faulkner was making 250k at UGA. He wasn't a hot name for any other OC openings. If we're paying him more than we were paying long ($850k), you'd think we could have hired someone with a more impressive track record. Geep was making $145k at App state so, he's is almost certainly less than we were paying CBK as AHC/OL - $650k. So, it definitely raises the question of: where is the extra money going?

Aside from money, neither one has an impressive resume. Both are ~20 years into their careers and getting their first shot at P5 assistant roles. Faulkner's been at UGA for three years. For all the talk of him being a candidate to succeed Monken, he wasn't well regarded enough there to get promoted to a true assistant position. Nothing jumps out to say that these are coaches that really elevate their position groups. They look like fairly average G5 coaches. Faulkner appears to run a system similar to the last two OCs and he's not a difference-making play caller.

I'm still in the trust-until-proven-otherwise phase with HC Brent Key. My hope is that he has a clear plan and vision for the program and these hires fit into it. We're just not privy to the bigger picture, yet. But these hires don't make a lot of sense on paper, IMHO.

I don't know the numbers. Part of things may be bringing salaries in line with market rate even if our guys are getting significant steps up.

My hope is that there is room in that budget to bring in a number of off-field analyst positions. That also potentially offloads some tasks on our on-field coaches to dedicate more energy for recruiting.

 

[cpf2001]

Hiring from well-run programs is interesting as a strategy. It’s a big change from the sort of “great man” theory of coaching that we had under Johnson and Collins (not saying we hired Johnson using that thought process exactly, but a lot of the support for him has been “we need a genius like him because of our limitations otherwise” and for Collins it was the same thing just flipped - he was the marketing recruiting whiz that we needed to turn things around).

Engineering, on the other hand, is about building machines, so if that’s our approach here, I like it. Would love to see some of that $$$ put towards a bigger and better support staff. Maybe spending it on a star OC gives you 20% better results until that OC leaves and you have to hire again; maybe building up the machine gives you just 14% better results but is also more sustainable? Seems worth a shot, since we can’t afford instability or gambling in just one person being a savior right now.

My qualifications are taking a bunch of prob/stats courses at GT, and if that’s not enough I would like to formally request a refund of tens of thousands of tuition!

 

[takethepoints]

It ain’t the average that gets you, it’s the variance

(Some of them are the smartest, but some ain’t)

As in:

I think Paul would agree with you. Key too, I expect. Fromayan was one in a long line of OLs getting chewed out for missing assignments.

 

[inGTwetrust]

My take … after spending way too much time thinking about this.

Offensive Game Plan & Play Calling: C+ with the hopes of getting to a B+
How have his offenses performed at his most recent stops? To me – MTSU was a pretty good run and Southern Miss wasn’t bad (relatively speaking). Ark State was rough.

OFEI Rank	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021
MTSU	61	81	78	61	55	110	79	74	91	115
Ark State	22	95	67	80	100	92	82	80	42	105
Southern Miss	117	123	105	30	86	102	120	97	96	130

Off PPD Rank	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021
MTSU	35	72	62	59	16	82	65	80	94	93
Ark State	20	69	39	44	90	38	70	45	42	106
Southern Miss	115	119	115	10	56	67	104	77	73	128

This is looking at what percentile the offense finished – relative to the conference. Compared to the rest of the conference he typically finished about middle of the pack. In the ACC, if he can mirror those results, our OFEI & PPD would rank somewhere around 50 - 60.

OFEI Rank	2012​	2013​	2014​	2015​	2016​	2017​	2018​	2019​	2020​	2021​
MTSU	60%​	64%​	46%​	69%​	69%​	36%​	64%​	79%​	54%​	21%​
Ark State	90%​	50%​	64%​	73%​	45%​	50%​	50%​	40%​	60%​	50%​
Southern Miss	0%​	7%​	23%​	85%​	62%​	50%​	21%​	43%​	46%​	0%​

Off PPD	2012​	2013​	2014​	2015​	2016​	2017​	2018​	2019​	2020​	2021​
MTSU	60%​	57%​	54%​	69%​	69%​	36%​	71%​	43%​	31%​	36%​
Ark State	90%​	50%​	73%​	73%​	45%​	75%​	40%​	30%​	60%​	30%​
Southern Miss	0%​	7%​	15%​	85%​	54%​	50%​	29%​	50%​	62%​	0%​

He also has over a decade experience as an OC & play caller. He has been given credit for playing an important role on UGA’s coaching staff. The experience is there – so that’s a win. I’m hopeful he has picked up a lot from how UGA runs things; runs the program, gameplans, an offense, etc. Sure they have talent that we won’t, but they are also coached up as good as anyone.

Recruiting : B
I’d bet we maintain the historical level of GT recruiting. I don’t see him elevating recruiting like Choice. Hard to chalk much up to him as OC when it comes to recruiting – especially his stop at Southern Miss – but history says we should expect … well for history to repeat itself.

Class Ranking	Pre BF​	BF​	Post BF​
MTSU	​	94 (’12 – ’15)​	100 (’16 – ’21)​
Ark State	93 (’12 – ’15)​	96 (’16 – ‘18)​	97 (’19 – ’21)​
Southern Miss	84 (’12 – ’18)​	85 (’19)​	96 (’20 – ’21)​

Avg Recruit Rating	Pre BF​	BF​	Post BF​
MTSU		78.0 (’12 – ’15)​	79.8 (’16 – ’21)​
Ark State	79.1 (’12 – ’15)​	79.8 (’16 – ‘18)​	81.3 (’19 – ’21)​
Southern Miss	79.8 (’12 – ’18)​	81.3 (’19)​	82.6 (’20 – ’21)​

Overall Expectations / Grade: B
I see this as a solid, stabilizing hire. I think expectations should be for him to right the ship, but not make us an elite offense. I’d conservatively guess an offense in the 60-75 range next year and 45-60 from year 2 on. If that's not enough by year 3 or 4, the job will hopefully be much more attractive (with better funding?) that we can target a bigger fish.

Some hope? His OFEI and PPD rankings seem to historically outperform the teams overall recruiting ranking. Should we get our recruiting closer to top 40, maybe we see some offenses in the top 30-40 range after all. The fact that UGA is upset (from what I can find) at him leaving makes me think at the worst – it’s not a bad hire.



I have 2 big hang-ups ….

• Where is all of this $$$ we have for a staff going? Are we adding more support staff or are we overpaying for Buster?
• The staff that we are adding – very much seem to fit the Key personality of get to work. But – do we have any “elite” recruiters? Winning cures all, but getting a few stud transfers/recruits would be a nice jump start.

 

[RamblinRed]

My take … after spending way too much time thinking about this.

Offensive Game Plan & Play Calling: C+ with the hopes of getting to a B+
How have his offenses performed at his most recent stops? To me – MTSU was a pretty good run and Southern Miss wasn’t bad (relatively speaking). Ark State was rough.

OFEI Rank	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021
MTSU	61	81	78	61	55	110	79	74	91	115
Ark State	22	95	67	80	100	92	82	80	42	105
Southern Miss	117	123	105	30	86	102	120	97	96	130

Off PPD Rank	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021
MTSU	35	72	62	59	16	82	65	80	94	93
Ark State	20	69	39	44	90	38	70	45	42	106
Southern Miss	115	119	115	10	56	67	104	77	73	128

This is looking at what percentile the offense finished – relative to the conference. Compared to the rest of the conference he typically finished about middle of the pack. In the ACC, if he can mirror those results, our OFEI & PPD would rank somewhere around 50 - 60.

OFEI Rank	2012​	2013​	2014​	2015​	2016​	2017​	2018​	2019​	2020​	2021​
MTSU	60%​	64%​	46%​	69%​	69%​	36%​	64%​	79%​	54%​	21%​
Ark State	90%​	50%​	64%​	73%​	45%​	50%​	50%​	40%​	60%​	50%​
Southern Miss	0%​	7%​	23%​	85%​	62%​	50%​	21%​	43%​	46%​	0%​

Off PPD	2012​	2013​	2014​	2015​	2016​	2017​	2018​	2019​	2020​	2021​
MTSU	60%​	57%​	54%​	69%​	69%​	36%​	71%​	43%​	31%​	36%​
Ark State	90%​	50%​	73%​	73%​	45%​	75%​	40%​	30%​	60%​	30%​
Southern Miss	0%​	7%​	15%​	85%​	54%​	50%​	29%​	50%​	62%​	0%​

He also has over a decade experience as an OC & play caller. He has been given credit for playing an important role on UGA’s coaching staff. The experience is there – so that’s a win. I’m hopeful he has picked up a lot from how UGA runs things; runs the program, gameplans, an offense, etc. Sure they have talent that we won’t, but they are also coached up as good as anyone.

Recruiting : B
I’d bet we maintain the historical level of GT recruiting. I don’t see him elevating recruiting like Choice. Hard to chalk much up to him as OC when it comes to recruiting – especially his stop at Southern Miss – but history says we should expect … well for history to repeat itself.

Class Ranking	Pre BF​	BF​	Post BF​
MTSU	​	94 (’12 – ’15)​	100 (’16 – ’21)​
Ark State	93 (’12 – ’15)​	96 (’16 – ‘18)​	97 (’19 – ’21)​
Southern Miss	84 (’12 – ’18)​	85 (’19)​	96 (’20 – ’21)​

Avg Recruit Rating	Pre BF​	BF​	Post BF​
MTSU		78.0 (’12 – ’15)​	79.8 (’16 – ’21)​
Ark State	79.1 (’12 – ’15)​	79.8 (’16 – ‘18)​	81.3 (’19 – ’21)​
Southern Miss	79.8 (’12 – ’18)​	81.3 (’19)​	82.6 (’20 – ’21)​

Overall Expectations / Grade: B
I see this as a solid, stabilizing hire. I think expectations should be for him to right the ship, but not make us an elite offense. I’d conservatively guess an offense in the 60-75 range next year and 45-60 from year 2 on. If that's not enough by year 3 or 4, the job will hopefully be much more attractive (with better funding?) that we can target a bigger fish.

Some hope? His OFEI and PPD rankings seem to historically outperform the teams overall recruiting ranking. Should we get our recruiting closer to top 40, maybe we see some offenses in the top 30-40 range after all. The fact that UGA is upset (from what I can find) at him leaving makes me think at the worst – it’s not a bad hire.



I have 2 big hang-ups ….

• Where is all of this $$$ we have for a staff going? Are we adding more support staff or are we overpaying for Buster?
• The staff that we are adding – very much seem to fit the Key personality of get to work. But – do we have any “elite” recruiters? Winning cures all, but getting a few stud transfers/recruits would be a nice jump start.

Thanks for doing this.

I sort of expect the offense in Key's tenure to be more hard nosed run based. That seems to fit his personality, but I could be 100% wrong.
At the very least I am expecting a pretty balanced offense.

FWIW, I don't think hiring Key (and who he is hiring as assts) is likely to provide a huge boost in recruiting. At the end of the day it is still GT, and Key was promoted from a staff that was an abject failure. So I don't expect to see as big of a recruiting jump as you sometimes see when a new HC is hired. With Key and a majority of the staff staying the same I think it is likely to be more gradual - recruits are going to have to see Key's program win before they are willing to jump on board.

 

[Novajacket]

Some more info on Faulkner for those that are interested.
2015 Film Room breakdown MTSU

One thing in looking at his background, he played under Hatcher at Valdosta St in Air Raid system and seems to have implemented that wherever he has been. I think we will see a modified Air Raid system similar to what most of the top offenses are executing today as that is the background he seems to have. Excited for next year.

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

I split what I THINK was all the money ball convo into a new thread. There may have been some collateral damage....

 

[jojatk]

Thanks for doing this.

I sort of expect the offense in Key's tenure to be more hard nosed run based. That seems to fit his personality, but I could be 100% wrong.
At the very least I am expecting a pretty balanced offense.

FWIW, I don't think hiring Key (and who he is hiring as assts) is likely to provide a huge boost in recruiting. At the end of the day it is still GT, and Key was promoted from a staff that was an abject failure. So I don't expect to see as big of a recruiting jump as you sometimes see when a new HC is hired. With Key and a majority of the staff staying the same I think it is likely to be more gradual - recruits are going to have to see Key's program win before they are willing to jump on board.

I completely agree with your assessment of the recruiting impact of hiring Brent and the staff hirings he's made. I expect they know that and are going after players they feel can be building blocks and/or fill some immediate gaps with solid guys who will be on the same page as the coaches are rather than have an expectation that they are just trying to up their value for the next team they will play for. I have a feeling Key has a better picture in his mind of the type of guys he wants from a personality and "fit" perspective than we had the last few years. This does not mean they will sacrifice skill for a kid everyone likes. I think it means they'll focus more attention on what they want for the locker room fit of that hard-nosed team.

If we get a kid who becomes a difference maker from this year's HS and portal recruiting I think it'll be because we identified a guy who just needed a better environment than he was in before in order to flourish versus a guy everyone can easily see is ready to explode on the scene.

 

[g0lftime]

This year is take the best we can get in a coaching transition year. Next year will be a better indicator when the staff has had time to develop relationships with younger players. Most HS seniors have already been targeted and most have made up their minds. The transfer portal is a better pool this cycle.

 

[Heisman's Ghost]

We’ve had two hires so far on offense. I’ll try to collect my thoughts here.

• I’ve seen a couple of posts refer to them as young coaches. Buster Faulkner started as a graduate assistant in 2006. Geep Wade was coaching at Mars Hill back in 2003. That’s 17 years for one of them, and 20 years for the other. That’s halfway through a long coaching career.
• There are some stereotypes that can describe a hire—you can steal a known great coach from another school—that’s what USC and then Texas did with Tashard Choice. Sometimes, that’s a promotion from a position coach to a coordinator or head coach. That’s something that we would do from a smaller school (and people would complain that they didn’t have P5 experience). You can take a coach who has tripped and fallen and give them a chance to rehabilitate their career, and that’s what some of us wanted. You can promote one of your position coaches, which we discussed about Weinke and a lot of people were dreading. Or, you can hire somebody that another team was thinking about promoting—and that’s what we did with Buster Faulkner.
• Because they’re a little unknown, these are higher-risk hires. In the NFL, you had the low risk Jeff Fisher hire that would get you 8 wins and in the good years would get you a few more (that’s 6-7 wins in college). So, the question here is whether Key is just hiring “3*” coaches, or if he’s hiring diamonds in the rough. We’ll see.
• Both coaches are kind of unknowns. I don’t think we’ll see an air raid team, but I don’t know what Faulkner will want to do with our players. Based on MTSU, Faulkner does seem to fit his scheme to his players, and we have a QB, so I think we’ll sling it until we get a back that earns a lot of carries.
• We’ll have Pyron and Gibson (I think we have one more year of Gibson). We need a third QB, so I think we’re looking in the portal.
• I would have liked Ellis from GaSo, and a couple of other coaches. The word was that Key was calling coaches he knew. I think he was looking for referrals, like “this is one of the smarter WR coaches I know”. Again, we’ll see how this works out.
• We talked about some AppState hires. Somehow, the school plays good football, but their coaches move on to other places and don’t look so good. It seems like the school is a bigger part to their success than the coaches.

I really like the “does the other team hate to play us?” metric. I liked it with our defense under Chan and our offense under Johnson.

I also like the “did he get the other coach fired instead of saving the other coach’s job?” metric. Chan saved a lot of other coaches’ careers with a well-timed loss here and there. So did Collins, way too often. Johnson got other coaches fired. I prefer the latter.

Funny you mention that about Chan and teams hating to play Tenuta's zone blitzing schemes. On one of those Athlon anonymous coaching quote articles. One ACC coach said this about Tenuta's defenses: "They are blitzing when they get off the bus and the bastards are coming from everywhere." As for Coach Johnson's offense, one coach said "They are absolutely the worst team to play on a short week" I think that is about what you had in mind.

 

[EddieK]

I wanted to try and find out what OC Buster Faulkner's offensive philosophy is, I found this Q&A from 2016 very interesting (when he was hired as OC for Arkansas State in 2016). Also, I'm sure Todd Monken had influence on him, and Monken has a lot of air raid principles in his offensive scheme too. Snippets of his answers to offensive philosophy below:

Q. How would you describe your offensive philosophy?

A. Well, I think, the first thing is coach Anderson is an offensive minded guy and one of the best in all of college football. So that was an attraction to me, just that alone, talking to him and watching him play over the last five, six years. I remember when he was at Southern Miss and I was at Murray State and I was watching those guys play. I would always say 'Man, we need to go study those guys.' You know, our philosophies are real similar, up pace, play at a fast tempo, throw the ball around, get the ball to your playmakers, keep it simple on the quarterback and just do the things that are necessary to be successful.

Q. How do you measure tempo, and what makes you satisfied you're playing at the right tempo?

A. Well, I think the first thing you look at it is obviously, how quick are you snapping the ball? None of that matters if you're not moving the ball. So we've got to, the biggest thing for us is that when you get the first, first down, usually the tempo is able to take place. So, we want to snap it as many times as we can, but we also want to play with the defense. Each game is different and we just want to make sure we do the things that are necessary to win.

Q. Middle Tennessee played faster in 2015 than in 2014, why?

A. We were definitely faster this year. Played at a much quicker pace. I think the quarterback dictates that. I think he's going to have to be the guy putting his foot down and getting everybody going. He's the control setter.

Q. Is it easier to go fast with an experienced quarterback?

A. Well, we had a freshman this year and he was a freshman all-American. So, the thing is that it's all the urgency that that kid can play with. The players will feed off him.

Q. Where did you pick up your philosophies from? Who are some mentors?

A. Where I've kind of got my background is Chris Hatcher [former Valdosta State coach], the head coach at Samford, he has a Hal Mumme and Mike Leach background. That's where I get a lot of my philosophies from and that's very similar to what Blake's been doing, the air raid type stuff. But he would be the one.

Q&A: Arkansas State's new offensive coordinator, Buster Faulkner | Arkansas Democrat Gazette

Arkansas State was in need of an offensive coordinator after Walt Bell left for Maryland following its loss to Louisiana Tech in the New Orleans Bowl. After a three-week search. Coach Blake Anderson last week announced the hiring of Buster Faulkner, who comes to ASU after five seasons at Middle...

www.arkansasonline.com

 

[JacketFan137]

I wanted to try and find out what OC Buster Faulkner's offensive philosophy is, I found this Q&A from 2016 very interesting (when he was hired as OC for Arkansas State in 2016). Also, I'm sure Todd Monken had influence on him, and Monken has a lot of air raid principles in his offensive scheme too. Snippets of his answers to offensive philosophy below:

Q. How would you describe your offensive philosophy?

A. Well, I think, the first thing is coach Anderson is an offensive minded guy and one of the best in all of college football. So that was an attraction to me, just that alone, talking to him and watching him play over the last five, six years. I remember when he was at Southern Miss and I was at Murray State and I was watching those guys play. I would always say 'Man, we need to go study those guys.' You know, our philosophies are real similar, up pace, play at a fast tempo, throw the ball around, get the ball to your playmakers, keep it simple on the quarterback and just do the things that are necessary to be successful.

Q. How do you measure tempo, and what makes you satisfied you're playing at the right tempo?

A. Well, I think the first thing you look at it is obviously, how quick are you snapping the ball? None of that matters if you're not moving the ball. So we've got to, the biggest thing for us is that when you get the first, first down, usually the tempo is able to take place. So, we want to snap it as many times as we can, but we also want to play with the defense. Each game is different and we just want to make sure we do the things that are necessary to win.

Q. Middle Tennessee played faster in 2015 than in 2014, why?

A. We were definitely faster this year. Played at a much quicker pace. I think the quarterback dictates that. I think he's going to have to be the guy putting his foot down and getting everybody going. He's the control setter.

Q. Is it easier to go fast with an experienced quarterback?

A. Well, we had a freshman this year and he was a freshman all-American. So, the thing is that it's all the urgency that that kid can play with. The players will feed off him.

Q. Where did you pick up your philosophies from? Who are some mentors?

A. Where I've kind of got my background is Chris Hatcher [former Valdosta State coach], the head coach at Samford, he has a Hal Mumme and Mike Leach background. That's where I get a lot of my philosophies from and that's very similar to what Blake's been doing, the air raid type stuff. But he would be the one.

Q&A: Arkansas State's new offensive coordinator, Buster Faulkner | Arkansas Democrat Gazette

Arkansas State was in need of an offensive coordinator after Walt Bell left for Maryland following its loss to Louisiana Tech in the New Orleans Bowl. After a three-week search. Coach Blake Anderson last week announced the hiring of Buster Faulkner, who comes to ASU after five seasons at Middle...

www.arkansasonline.com

this is exactly what i am hoping he brings to the table. hope he still feels this way about tempo

 

[EddieK]

this is exactly what i am hoping he brings to the table. hope he still feels this way about tempo

Yes, my thoughts exactly. We're not going to out-athlete many teams and when you can't do that, you need to out-scheme them. An air raid-type offense allows us the ability to out-scheme opponents. Also, it's exciting for fans to watch.

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

My thoughts on the Air Raid are mixed. Leach was probably the master at it, and he was only able to win 10+ games twice. His record in the Big XII was .661, but dipped to .539 in the PAC and .528 in the SEC. If we try to run pure Air Raid we will probably lose a good bit the first couple of years which was true even for Leach everywhere except Texas Tech. If, however, we mix a limited amount of Air Raid with a power running game, then it's possible we can find success sooner. I just don't think our team is set up personnel wise to transition directly to Air Raid next season.

 

[MountainBuzzMan]

Wonder if there is a way to effectively mix a spread passing & running game in the same offense with the the available practice time

 

[RamblinRed]

Some more metrics based analysis on Faulkner

Georgia Tech Football: Buster Faulkner By the Numbers

What kind of impact has Tech’s new OC had on his last four offenses?

www.fromtherumbleseat.com