GT hires Chip Long as new OC/QBs Coach

Techster

Techster

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slugboy said:
So, in summary
  • We’ve hired an OC
  • Long likes to pass more than the average OC, but he’s not in Air Raid territory
  • He’s used a “standard” blocking philosophy, not the wide splits we moved away from three years ago
  • We can guess that Key keeps coaching OL in pretty much the same way
  • How this affects our offensive coaching assignments is unknown
  • He’s coached some good offenses. This past year may have been his worst.
  • It’s unclear whether he’s been a marked upgrade over the OCs he’s replaced. He’s done better, and coached in some of the biggest stages possible, but he’s also had some underwhelming stops.
  • If you’re looking for the consistency we’ve been missing (regularly staying ahead of the chains), he doesn’t have a track record as a miracle worker in that area.
  • He’s really good with TEs, but he’ll be coaching QBs. He’s had success with QBs
  • Whether our OL gels this year is unknown. It’s our biggest need, but it’s not something most OC hires will cover
  • The stats seem to tell a cloudy story. There aren’t many OCs who are going to be clearly separated from the pack, though.
So, we’ll see. This probably isn’t going to be an instant fix, even if we got Lane Kiffin to give up his head coaching job and be our OC.

For me, I won’t have a read on this until he starts coaching. The last couple of spring practices haven’t given me any indication on the team’s progress, but it’s still where I’d look to see an indication of offensive progress with the new OC—I guess I don’t learn.
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IMO, Long will be a good OC. Will he be in the elite category like the Flex option and Air Raid coaches? Probably not, but he doesn't need to be. He's had one offense that knocked on the door of elite (2017 Notre Dame), but his other offenses have been very good (20's-30's OFEI). His Tulane offense had some extenuating circumstances, so I wouldn't read too much into the 70's OFEI. From reports, it wasn't his on the field production that got him fired at ND, but as the cool kids these days like to say, he needed to work on his emotional intelligence and soft skills. Hopefully the year being an analyst at UT and a year at Tulane have humbled him. He's still a young guy, and can be a very good head coach one day. People rave about his offensive acumen and knowledge of developing talent...there's not a question there.

My hope is that Long will be CGC's Friedgen. The pieces are there for Long to have a good to very good offense. There's no reason this team can't compete on talent alone...but CGC needs to do better with the coaching aspect of being a HC.
 
forensicbuzz

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jandrews said:
He didn't face the three toughest defenses. The coastal was a mess this year. His stats are a marginal improvement from last year. He averaged 188 pass yards per game in 2020. 183 yards per game in 2021. Less ints this year but 1 less TD as well. Mixed bag statistically but in no way do I think he really took a step forward. Especially given the level of competition he didn't play against.
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I'm not just looking at his stats, which are much improved. I'm looking at how he handled himself in the games. I'm looking at the decision-making in the games. He made plenty of mistakes, but his play was much improved over last year. He actually progressed through reads sometimes. He also stared down receivers sometimes too. He played better this year than he did last year. I guess you can try to minimize his improvement for whatever reason works for you, but it's certainly not to the benefit of the team that everyone professes to love. I just don't see why people try to tear our players down publicly. Stop trying to minimize the accomplishments of our players because you're miserable about the coaching situation or whatever else has a bug up your butt.
 
okiemon

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GTNavyNuke said:
I thought this post was about Long.

Give peace a chance as John Lennon would've said.
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Isn’t this great? It’s one of two threads where we can read endless arguments about Jeff Sims, even though he is (supposedly) the subject of neither. Oh, and in the thread about the transfer portal, there’s a nice long discussion about whether or not Calvin Johnson was a good student.
 
forensicbuzz

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okiemon said:
Isn’t this great? It’s one of two threads where we can read endless arguments about Jeff Sims, even though he is (supposedly) the subject of neither. Oh, and in the thread about the transfer portal, there’s a nice long discussion about whether or not Calvin Johnson was a good student.
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Hey! Calvin was a good student!! :oops:

And as long as I've been on this board (about 8-1/2 years), we've always followed the thread where it leads. It's all you new guys that want us to follow the rules about staying on point. Where's the fun in that? ;)

edit: forgot my emojis. I always forget the emojis.
 

jandrews

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forensicbuzz said:
I'm not just looking at his stats, which are much improved. I'm looking at how he handled himself in the games. I'm looking at the decision-making in the games. He made plenty of mistakes, but his play was much improved over last year. He actually progressed through reads sometimes. He also stared down receivers sometimes too. He played better this year than he did last year. I guess you can try to minimize his improvement for whatever reason works for you, but it's certainly not to the benefit of the team that everyone professes to love. I just don't see why people try to tear our players down publicly. Stop trying to minimize the accomplishments of our players because you're miserable about the coaching situation or whatever else has a bug up your butt.
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His ceiling is significantly higher than what the coaches are getting out of him. I think we can agree on that? I'm not putting him down just saying that the coaching staff is letting down these players. I hope that Coach Long can some of those inconsistency that you mentioned and make him take the next big step forward. There's plenty of blame to go around on the coaching staff. The defensive side stunk it up significantly but the lack of progress on the O. We averaged ~390yds/gm last year. This year it was 367yds/gm. The only reason Pnaude wasn't in the headlights was due to how piss poor the defense was performing.
 

SWATlien

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Techster said:
I would focus on the ND years. He spent one year as OC with Memphis (good), and one year with Tulane (below average). At both Memphis and Tulane, he inherited players that he didn't help recruit, or were recruited for another offense (mainly Tulane).

At Notre Dame, the offense immediately improved from good to close to elite (from 37 to 12), then settled into the 20's after having his hand on the offense for 3 years. Long has only been an OC for 5 years. His track record was not bad, outside of Tulane. Personally, I would not pin Tulane in 2021 all on Long. Fritz seems to be transitioning away from an option heavy spread where he had a lot of success to a more "traditional" spread with RPO and vertical passing. That takes the right QB and WRs...which Tulane really didn't have this season. It was going to be a 2-3 year transition for Tulane. Long only had one season at Tulane.

He'll have the personnel here. We are in on some big pieces along the OL, and rumored to have some nice offensive skill players as well. He'll have 2 Elite 11 QBs in Sims and Pyron, a good passer in Peery, and possibly a third Elite 11 to work. He'll have two 4 star RBs, and a VERY good RB in Smith. WRs are better than some on here think, and there are multiple 4 stars. OL could have two 4 stars join us, along with a group of OLs with the size and length Key covets. They will be Sophomores and JRs, plus a couple of 4 star OL recruits.

I think Sims will be on a short leash next season. CGC will be fighting for his job, and and Long will be fighting for his job and reputation as well. Is Long the ideal OC that I wanted? No...but he's much better than some on here think. If he can improve our FEI to the 30-40 range, we could be playing for a bowl. If not, CGC will be gone anyow and this Long experiment will follow him out.
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Long signed a 3 year deal. Highly doubt he’ll be just ushered out.

Not sure why there’s any beef with Long, to me he’s ideal. Proven success in a high P5 environment. The offense fits the personnel. Is a hard nose coach that’s still young.
 
bobongo

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jandrews said:
His ceiling is significantly higher than what the coaches are getting out of him. I think we can agree on that? I'm not putting him down just saying that the coaching staff is letting down these players. I hope that Coach Long can some of those inconsistency that you mentioned and make him take the next big step forward. There's plenty of blame to go around on the coaching staff. The defensive side stunk it up significantly but the lack of progress on the O. We averaged ~390yds/gm last year. This year it was 367yds/gm. The only reason Pnaude wasn't in the headlights was due to how piss poor the defense was performing.
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Amazing how much of Jeff Sims' talent is still undeveloped to this day. He's probably going to be the biggest beneficiary of this OC/QB coach hire.
 

SWATlien

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I have NO idea why people are so fascinated with Kittley who runs a basic air raid (0 run game) as opposed to Long.

Air raid offenses always put up numbers but they soft as hell and don’t win big enough for me. Has one air raid offense won a title outside the Big 12? Leave the gimmicks alone.

I’m thankful coach identified his guy and closed cause it’s coaching chaos right now and that’s at least one piece this team doesn’t have to deal with.
 

SWATlien

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Techster said:
IMO, Long will be a good OC. Will he be in the elite category like the Flex option and Air Raid coaches? Probably not, but he doesn't need to be. He's had one offense that knocked on the door of elite (2017 Notre Dame), but his other offenses have been very good (20's-30's OFEI). His Tulane offense had some extenuating circumstances, so I wouldn't read too much into the 70's OFEI. From reports, it wasn't his on the field production that got him fired at ND, but as the cool kids these days like to say, he needed to work on his emotional intelligence and soft skills. Hopefully the year being an analyst at UT and a year at Tulane have humbled him. He's still a young guy, and can be a very good head coach one day. People rave about his offensive acumen and knowledge of developing talent...there's not a question there.

My hope is that Long will be CGC's Friedgen. The pieces are there for Long to have a good to very good offense. There's no reason this team can't compete on talent alone...but CGC needs to do better with the coaching aspect of being a HC.
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His highest performing offense was at Memphis.
 
bobongo

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SWATlien said:
Long signed a 3 year deal. Highly doubt he’ll be just ushered out.

Not sure why there’s any beef with Long, to me he’s ideal. Proven success in a high P5 environment. The offense fits the personnel. Is a hard nose coach that’s still young.
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There's a lot to like with this hire and all-around seems about the best one we could have made at this point for just the reasons you mention. I think TStan hit this one out of the park.
 
Techster

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SWATlien said:
Long signed a 3 year deal. Highly doubt he’ll be just ushered out.

Not sure why there’s any beef with Long, to me he’s ideal. Proven success in a high P5 environment. The offense fits the personnel. Is a hard nose coach that’s still young.
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2 year deal. IF CGC goes, Long will go with him. For the vast majority of cases, new HCs don't keep the previous coordinators regardless of contract structure.

No OC was coming to GT with less than 2 year contract given the very public knowledge that CGC has one year to right the ship. I wouldn't read too much into how many years Long was given on his GT contract...it doesn't mean any kind of commitment to him in terms of potential head coaching changes.
 
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