Any Downside to Demoting or Releasing Sanford Jr?

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Pompous Elitist

Pompous Elitist

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Let’s help PJF process this decision. It’s never easy giving a buddy bad news, but sometimes it has to be done. Is there any upside to keeping Sanford Jr? Are there any conceivable downstream consequences to releasing or demoting him - recruiting relationships, fear of a less effective offense going forward and so on?
 
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Losing playbook continuity and potentially worsening play as a result of a change at OC? Recruiting hit, no idea. I want to say no change. But how many clunkers does it take before you pull the trigger? From a playcalling perspective, I feel like it would be difficult for Simon to do worse.
 




I don’t think recruiting would matter, it’s a small class and with the portal lots of options. He hasn’t been here long enough to have long term concerns I wouldn’t think. Offensively another poster said that Sanford acknowledged that Simon is much more creative. I especially liked the one game demo with Auburn. I would be good with the switch just like I wanted Limey out under Kill. I think now is as good of a time as any but don’t think it will happen.
 


Agreed I don't think he makes a change until after the season with us sitting at 6-3 and still a chance to win the west.

And then I think he only makes the change if we lose 2 OR 3 of the last 3 or so here. Not a fun position to be in as a fan.

I'd be shocked if we don't see some sort of play-calling changes though as far as aggressiveness goes even if Sanford is still calling the plays. At this level, with what we've shown when we get down in games, that has to be priority 1 is to adapt this week....I would hope.
 

Well, the only downside for Fleck is that if/when the next OC struggles, there's only one way to point the finger.
 



Does anyone know what the financial implications would be if they got rid of Sanford?
 


The main thing I would worry about -- while we're still in contention -- is introducing a distraction to the players.

When Smith was canned, we were out of the West race, I believe.


Not sure if doing an "internal demotion" is a realistic thing. Sanford could just stomp off.


We have Patterson who could pick up QB coaching. In theory, Fleck could also (help) coach WRs.
 




At this point of the season, nothing is going to change until the end of the season.
 


Right .... but Florida is well out of contention now. After losing to South Carolina even, and only scoring 7 points in doing so.


If the offense looks horrible in Iowa City ... maybe we'll see something for the last two games.
 

matt said:
We would be without a QB coach and someone would have to pull double duty. However, that might be a positive as there is no evidence Sanford’s QB coaching has helped.
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Take Brian Sheppard our offensive QC coach and make him coach quarterbacks (he did so at VMI) and then no one is doing double duty except playing calling / coordinating is now fully on Simon (or Patterson).

MplsGopher said:
The main thing I would worry about -- while we're still in contention -- is introducing a distraction to the players.

When Smith was canned, we were out of the West race, I believe.


Not sure if doing an "internal demotion" is a realistic thing. Sanford could just stomp off.


We have Patterson who could pick up QB coaching. In theory, Fleck could also (help) coach WRs.
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I get what you are saying in principle Mpls, but I think that the risk of a distraction is lower than the risk of already being out of contention with the play calling that we've seen against BG and Illinois.
 

If the offense had been sputtering and looking awful in the previous four wins, but we somehow still got the wins, say .... then I think this OP and thread would have a much stronger case.

It's not like the offense blew the doors off against Purdue and Nebraska, but they didn't look embarrassingly bad.

And they scored plenty of points against Mary and NW.
 

I also highly doubt that the defensive staffs of Purdue, Neb, Mary, and NW weren't also trying to sell out to stop our running game. I'm sure they were.

Why did they fail, yet Illinois so massively succeeded? Sure, we had Potts for Purdue. But I feel like that can't be the whole thing.


There is some specific, scheme related thing ... that BG did, and I think Illinois was also able to do ... that we were not able to figure out and respond to.


I don't know what it is. But they both exposed this flaw in our offensive system. I don't know how the hell the rest of the teams we play don't just try to do exactly whatever that is.
 


MplsGopher said:
If the offense had been sputtering and looking awful in the previous four wins, but we somehow still got the wins, say .... then I think this OP and thread would have a much stronger case.

It's not like the offense blew the doors off against Purdue and Nebraska, but they didn't look embarrassingly bad.

And they scored plenty of points against Mary and NW.
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If one TD per game is acceptable versus mediocre or bad competition then one would agree with you. MN is currently 83rd in the nation in scoring offense, 97th in total offense. Given the Iowa and Wisconsin defenses looming those numbers will very likely worsen although Sanford might pull a rabbit out of his hat. It’s not unthinkable to say the Gophers will finish in the bottom quintile in the nation in scoring and total offense.

Is this acceptable. Given the perplexing things we’ve seen with the scheme, does it make sense to retain or cut loose immediately?
 

What are the upside of keeping this clueless OC? We will get the same old playcalling with little to no in-game adjustments. I would also like to see who truly believes that we still have a good chance to win the West with him as OC? We may not have Mo as RB anymore but it is not a completely depleted team as some of the posters trying to depict here. Even if it is very thin with skilled players, whose responsibility is that? The DC saw DL and LB core is weak, so he went out and get some reinforcements. What was this incompetent OC doing after seeing the whole unit for almost two years? Is this his plan just to rely on players recruited by different OC? Not a fan of him from the beginning and making me furious to keep on seeing him as OC. I am livid with PJ about this hire as well. He got hired not because of his coaching acumen but hasn't been able to dig out the hole he is in. His last and first name is different he will be coaching at Missouri valley conference if he is lucky.
 

Pompous Elitist said:
If one TD per game is acceptable versus mediocre or bad competition then one would agree with you.
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So you ignored the post.

One game. Point being, if it was more of a trend, then you have a stronger case. Not saying your case now is zero. It is valid, even with the one game.

Pompous Elitist said:
does it make sense to retain or cut loose immediately?
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I'm afraid it just doesn't work like that. To be that reflexive.

Big heavy ships take a long time to turn, even when they should've started turned in the past.
 

I mean, I've long brought up my Sanford concerns, and mostly been dismissed.

The whole 2020 season was pretty much waived away, with how solid the offense played against Ohio State. Right? I was right there in that same boat. Surprised it was the defense, not the offense, that was mostly to blame.

We all figured "well, it was the covid year, no pre-season, etc. He's figured it out."
 

Sanford isn't going to get sacked because the offense simply isn't bad enough yet.

The Gophers have scored over 30 points in 6 of 9 games this season, and that's with 1 defensive TD, no special teams TDs, the fewest INTs in the Big Ten, low % FG kicking, and a slow offensive tempo. This is while down to the 4th/5th string RB. It could be far worse.

The problem for the Gophers in 2021 has been more acute than "the offense is bad", and it's been mostly confined to 2 games. There's something that BG and Illinois did to exploit our OL and passing scheme/protection that needs to be fixed. Otherwise, the Gophers have been pretty competent on O this season.

After the season? Let's do something. But don't count on an outrage move right now.
 

fmlizard said:
There's something that BG and Illinois did to exploit our OL and passing scheme/protection that needs to be fixed. Otherwise, the Gophers have been pretty competent on O this season.
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Right.

What I just can't fathom is: why didn't Purdue, Nebraska, Maryland, and Northwestern just do exactly the same thing????

What was Bert able to see, that none of those four could figure out?? Bert!!! :ROFLMAO:
 

MplsGopher said:
Right.

What I just can't fathom is: why didn't Purdue, Nebraska, Maryland, and Northwestern just do exactly the same thing????

What was Bert able to see, that none of those four could figure out?? Bert!!! :ROFLMAO:
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It's clearly the Gophers Chrysophobia, or fear of the color orange. (not the fear of Paul Chryst)

Another road game vs a black and gold team coming up!
 

The only other parallel you can try to draw between BG and Illinois is something like "they were both home games and coming into them they were both feeling really good about themselves, therefore ... x,y,z"

Probably a non-zero factor there. But who can possibly say.
 

Pompous Elitist said:
Let’s help PJF process this decision. It’s never easy giving a buddy bad news, but sometimes it has to be done. Is there any upside to keeping Sanford Jr? Are there any conceivable downstream consequences to releasing or demoting him - recruiting relationships, fear of a less effective offense going forward and so on?
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If I am in his shoes, I give primary responsibility to Simon. Nobody outside the coaching ranks needs to be made aware of it until after the Iowa game. See how it goes. The one game sample we have of Simon turned out pretty well (Auburn). Maybe that would be a boost for Tanner, going back to that creativity and guy that helped him kill it in the Outback Bowl.

Something is just off with this offense. Maybe Sanford is an offensive genious but his schemes are so advanced as to not be practical. I believe that was one of the complaints leveled at Robb Smith, and using the exact same personnel, Rossi turned it around literally overnight by simplifying things and letting guys make plays.
 

Sanford has 2 jobs right?
1. OC - his play calling sucks if his initial plan to start the game isn’t working. He can’t adjust and take what the defense is giving him. It either works or it doesn’t work.
2. QB COACH - his 5 th year senior QB came off the 2019 season as a likely draft pick. Is he on any draft forecasts now? I doubt it. He has gotten worse.
So why are we keeping him?
 

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