A comparison of the OCs of PJ Fleck's career at Minnesota

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Taji34

Taji34

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I figured it would be interesting to see a comparison of the season stats for OCs at MN during PJ Fleck's tenure. I'm pulling these stats from sports-reference.com, so any errors are from that. The stats listed are the aggregate per game stats. I'm not going to add any analysis right away, just leave the stats for everyone to look at and discuss.

* I did not take the time to remove defensive scores from the final score metric

Kirk Ciarrocca:
YearAvg Pass CompAvg Pass AttAvg Pass comp percentageAvg Pass YardsAvg Pass TDsAvg Rush AttAvg Rush YardsAvg Rush yards per attAvg Rush TDsAvg Final Score*
20179.219.447.2126.10.843.8182.44.21.722.08
201814.626.654.9208.81.540.2171.24.31.828.92
201916.324.865.6253.32.443.1178.74.11.934.07
202213.221.661.2182.20.944.7207.34.62.528.23
Average13.323.157.22192.61.442.95184.94.31.9728.32

Mike Sanford Jr.
YearAvg Pass CompAvg Pass AttAvg Pass comp percentageAvg Pass YardsAvg Pass TDsAvg Rush AttAvg Rush YardsAvg Rush yards per attAvg Rush TDsAvg Final Score*
202015.326.358.2199.11.042.6191.94.52.727.28
202111.719.859.1162.00.945.8199.34.32.125.46

Greg Harbaugh Jr. (season through @Purdue)
YearAvg Pass CompAvg Pass AttAvg Pass comp percentageAvg Pass YardsAvg Pass TDsAvg Rush AttAvg Rush YardsAvg Rush yards per attAvg Rush TDsAvg Final Score*
202312.924.951.8158.21.340.1160.44.01.022.5

And here are graphs so you can see visually the trends:
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obvious question - is it the scheme or is it the personnel?

would Sanford or Harbaugh have had more success with two all-conf WR's?

would Harbaugh be having more success with a more accurate QB, or healthy RB's?

I suspect that it's a combination of scheme and personnel. but how you divide that out is hard to say.
 


Here are the graphs where the X axis is instead number of years as OC:
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I'm no statistician, but it appears that scoring touchdowns improves your standing as an OC.

that is not supposed to be a smart-*ss comment. the play-caller needs to call plays that can result in a touchdown, and the players have to execute those plays.

one way or another, those touchdowns are not happening as frequently this season.
 

I think Fleck & Co will have trouble winning at more than a 50% clip with this offense.
 

Well, the Buffalo Bills fired their OC Ken Dorsey. He was a good college QB, so could be a help to AK. However, it’s probably not a realistic option. Guessing he’ll get one more shot in the NFL, and if he did land a job in college it would be a bigger name school. Plus, I have no idea if he has the skills to deal with college age young men.
 




I am in the corner of the most important stat for a QB in our offense is accuracy. So I look at our completion percentage yes, but that can be helped with a couple of great receivers (Johnson and Bateman), so I also trust the "eye test" and Kaliakmanis just has too many throws that are missed to open receivers. You can see the body language of the receivers when they are open and the ball comes their way and is completely uncatchable.... Their heads immediately drop and they start walking slowly to the sideline or back to the huddle. I've coached for enough years to know "that" look, and there isn't much you can say to fix it.
 

It pretty much boils down to:

- Fleck has had some decent offenses with the KC RPO
- Fleck has had horrible offenses, including night & day with the exact same QB's, twice now, when switching away from the KC RPO.


I have no idea why this would be true, but so far it has been proven true. Fleck has never had a good offense outside of KC (and Matt Simon vs Auburn).

Somehow, he is unable to identify and hire a solid OC.
 

I know this question has been asked before, but if we are only going to throw 20 passes per game and complete less than 60% of them...why don't we just play a running QB?
 



Arnold Babar said:
I know this question has been asked before, but if we are only going to throw 20 passes per game and complete less than 60% of them...why don't we just play a running QB?
Click to expand...
Seems like a fair question.
 

MplsGopher said:
It pretty much boils down to:

- Fleck has had some decent offenses with the KC RPO
- Fleck has had horrible offenses, including night & day with the exact same QB's, twice now, when switching away from the KC RPO.


I have no idea why this would be true, but so far it has been proven true. Fleck has never had a good offense outside of KC (and Matt Simon vs Auburn).

Somehow, he is unable to identify and hire a solid OC.
Click to expand...
KC has been bad since 2019 and bounced around. Fleck needs to find a way to get back to 9 wins. That’s evaluating the program top to bottom and growing from failures.

I’d pour more into supporting Rossi and defense and tweaking offense with running QB option.
 

For those placing KC on a pedestal, don't. I was as critical of Sanford as anyone, but the two post-Sanford years including KC last year have been horrendous (especially BG10 play).

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2020 doesn’t count for anything. Although Sanford’s offense was so good … we lost st home 0-35 to Iowa if I recall.

Yards and points per game in a vacuum is bunk analysis.

If that’s all that mattered … then why did we lose and why were people so unhappy with the offense?

Nope


Also, while it can’t be proven unless someone wants to go tell all, I say Sanford was fired in 2021 staring with the Iowa game.

Sanford’s “vaunted” offense in 2021 led to the Bowling Green and Illinois losses.

Don’t try to sell my dogcrap and tell me it’s perfume. I see right through it
 

Also, Sanford, ya know, got fired.

PJ never fired KC and never would have. He took opportunities to move back closer to home, back East both times. He’d still be OC here today if Fleck had his way.
 

MplsGopher said:
2020 doesn’t count for anything. Although Sanford’s offense was so good … we lost st home 0-35 to Iowa if I recall.

Yards and points per game in a vacuum is bunk analysis.

If that’s all that mattered … then why did we lose and why were people so unhappy with the offense?

Nope
Click to expand...

I'd take the 2020 offense in heartbeat over the shitshow show on the field this year. The 2020 defense gave up 416 ypg and 30 ppg.
 

Sanford is better than Harbaugh, OK.

But we were saying KC?
 

short ornery norwegian said:
I'm no statistician, but it appears that scoring touchdowns improves your standing as an OC.

that is not supposed to be a smart-*ss comment. the play-caller needs to call plays that can result in a touchdown, and the players have to execute those plays.

one way or another, those touchdowns are not happening as frequently this season.
Click to expand...
I think it’s the Red Zone offense that is a main reason we haven’t won more. Often, we have a nice drive, get in the Red Zone and can’t punch it in. It’s seems worse inside the 10.
 

The common denominator is Fleck, and I think he has been a great coach. However, the biggest risk to success is never taking any chances, and he seems to have really gone into a shell the past few seasons.

Had a baseball coach that instilled in us never to take a called third strike. If it was close, go down swinging. Fleck for whatever reason seems content to try and draw walks because he's afraid to strike out. I don't get it.
 

WAGopher said:
I think it’s the Red Zone offense that is a main reason we haven’t won more. Often, we have a nice drive, get in the Red Zone and can’t punch it in. It’s seems worse inside the 10.
Click to expand...
Offense is just inconsistent. In large part because of 3 things:
Inconsistent QB play
Revolving door of RBs
The drops

Inconsistent QB play maybe is on the coaches coaching
The others are maybe on the coaches recruiting


All 3 may be solved simply by running it back next year.
Simply running it back next year may solve none of the 3

Next year is a big year for Fleck.
8+ wins and Fleck is probably the coach for another 7 seasons.
4 or fewer and it may be flecks last year.
5-7 wins and fleck is probably Coaching for his job in 2025.
 


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