FIRE OC

[Dakota2]

The offense should be ok with CAB and Wright hopefully back next week and Potts seems like at least a serviceable Big Ten back. Maybe another will emerge - but not sure why they are riding one guy.

The stupid wildcat variation is just awful. The conservative play calls may be a statement on the state of the WR corps today or just hubris.

Sanford has got to get everyone playing better.

So you think Potts is a "serviceable"

 

[Dakota2]

The offense should be ok with CAB and Wright hopefully back next week and Potts seems like at least a serviceable Big Ten back. Maybe another will emerge - but not sure why they are riding one guy.

The stupid wildcat variation is just awful. The conservative play calls may be a statement on the state of the WR corps today or just hubris.
T
Sanford has got to get everyone playing better.

So you think Potts is a "serviceable" back? He is averaging about 150 yards rushing for the three games he has started. What would you need from him to call him a good back?

The wildcat with Kramer got us our only td Saturday and another good first down. That's also good.

 

[Some guy]

I would say the bigger issue than the OC is the ultra conservative offensive style Fleck was decided to take in these non-conference games. If you continue to take this approach sooner or later when you don’t play well its going to bite you and against Bowling Green it finally did.

I agree with this.
Over the last few years we have been down and out against Fresno twice, in a dog fight with South Dakota state,

It was bound to cost us at some point. If fleck really thinks failure is growth let’s hope he learns from it.

 

[Dakota2]

I haven't looked but I'd like to see the break down of running plays and passing plays on 1st and 2nd. 3rd and long isn't good odds for Tanner and the wide receivers. I watched Fleck's post game and he's clueless saying it was all because of the dropped passes... NO! He talks about situational awareness... maybe you have to be aware that they are daring you to run into stacked boxes, and you do it anyway... then you're forced to try to pass on 3rd and long. (in which they are ready for)

There were dropped passes in the Miami game, not this week. Tanner threw seven terrible balls, two of which were easy interceptions. With most coaches Morgan has now played his way out of the job. Same with Faelele.

 

[Ogee Ogilthorpe]

Some of this. But you also have to remember Bowling green have d1 coaches and players who are trying to win too

Minnesota is not entitled to win the game just because they’re in a better conference

You're not wrong, but with THIS offensive line and the number of games they have under their belt, and THIS QB and his number of starts, not to mention the shear size advantage they had against BG in the trenches when they were on offense, sorry, at some point you have to call out players for not bringing it.

240 yards of offense? Allowing 4-5 sacks or whatever it was? Hard to put play-calling ABOVE a number of players just plain not showing up as higher on the gripe list. And honestly, I'd be surprised if many/any of the people bitching about play-calling have half a clue what the offensive game plan was or know much about play-calling.

 

[Pompous Elitist]

So you think Potts is a "serviceable" back? He is averaging about 150 yards rushing for the three games he has started. What would you need from him to call him a good back?

The wildcat with Kramer got us our only td Saturday and another good first down. That's also good.

Settle down cowboy. Potts is good and at the time I wrote that he had started one game. Did you look at the date? This was after the Miami game. Now, Potts is hurt and that’s probably not going to improve over time as we move into league play. That really sucks. The other guys looked good in their limited time
.

 

[Pompous Elitist]

You're not wrong, but with THIS offensive line and the number of games they have under their belt, and THIS QB and his number of starts, not to mention the shear size advantage they had against BG in the trenches when they were on offense, sorry, at some point you have to call out players for not bringing it.

240 yards of offense? Allowing 4-5 sacks or whatever it was? Hard to put play-calling ABOVE a number of players just plain not showing up as higher on the gripe list. And honestly, I'd be surprised if many/any of the people bitching about play-calling have half a clue what the offensive game plan was or know much about play-calling.

Why do we even have coaches?

 

[goldengophers]

You're not wrong, but with THIS offensive line and the number of games they have under their belt, and THIS QB and his number of starts, not to mention the shear size advantage they had against BG in the trenches when they were on offense, sorry, at some point you have to call out players for not bringing it.

240 yards of offense? Allowing 4-5 sacks or whatever it was? Hard to put play-calling ABOVE a number of players just plain not showing up as higher on the gripe list. And honestly, I'd be surprised if many/any of the people bitching about play-calling have half a clue what the offensive game plan was or know much about play-calling.

It's a coaching problem 95%.

 

[Great Plains Gopher]

Instead of changing uniforms every week, develop an offense than can dominate MAC teams.

 

[kisarazu]

You're not wrong, but with THIS offensive line and the number of games they have under their belt, and THIS QB and his number of starts, not to mention the shear size advantage they had against BG in the trenches when they were on offense, sorry, at some point you have to call out players for not bringing it.

240 yards of offense? Allowing 4-5 sacks or whatever it was? Hard to put play-calling ABOVE a number of players just plain not showing up as higher on the gripe list. And honestly, I'd be surprised if many/any of the people bitching about play-calling have half a clue what the offensive game plan was or know much about play-calling.

If a player has a stinker of a game, that's on the player. A few players, same. But when you have past good performances, good athletes, and entire units are playing badly - coaching is going have a share of the blame. How much? In this case, sure I don't know. But we can't just ignore Sanford's past. I understand that changing coaches is gamble, but if this offensive ship doesn't right itself promptly...

 

[Gophergrandpa]

Morgan got sacked like 5 times with 13 pass attempts. You think they should have passed more? Are we trying to get him killed? The OL was a complete no-show. Period.

Sure, you can say they ran the ball too much, but good Lord, that is several items down the list for why today sucked. This veteran OL was a complete shit-show. Let's be honest about what it was. They should be embarrassed and ashamed of themselves, and I'm sure they are.

I was just wondering if BG found a tell as to when we were going to run and when we were going to pass. It’s like they knew on every play. Is there an O lineman, or something, that is a tell?

If a team runs the ball out of a one back set on 75% percent of the plays, the defense doesn’t need a clue or tip off. Give any gambler 75% odds of success that hold steady and true over 60 to 70 consecutive occurrences, and that gambler will be a multimillionaire at the end of the series.

BTW, statistical clarification: Morgan’s 13 pass attempts were actual throws he made w/o a sack. The sacks he suffered are counted as negative yardage rushing attempts. Morgan was sacked 4 times. He is shown as having 10 yards rushing on 10 attempts. That means that in his 6 actual rushing attempts his total yards gained exceeded the total yards lost in his 4 sacks by 10.

 

[alaska]

I have thought a lot about this and tried to be very level headed, as I dont want to call for a coach's head unless there is reasonable terms to do so. In this case I just can not wrap my head around the idea that we would keep Sanford around even for one more week. Give Simon the reigns, let him do what he did against Auburn and lets move on from someone who has simply shown to be a regressor for all programs he has been apart of. He is not a good XandO guy, and certainly has no sense of game planning. Outside of Colorado, which I believe is not a great program to start with, we have shown little to no adjustments, capability to find mismatches, and put Morgan in horrible positions to throw the ball into areas that are low percentage pass plays. How many times are we going to throw the ball to the sidelines in traffic and hope that something miraculous happens? Follow that up with a Run It Up The Middle against a stacked line. I can call defenses from my living room for christ sake.

 

[MplsGopher]

Well gents, we're going to be stuck in a bit of a paradox, here.

- Fleck won't fire Sanford unless things (continue to) go really bad on offense. I could even make the argument that he won't fire Sanford this season, no matter what.

People were calling for Robb Smith to be fired in 2017. Fleck wouldn't do it. Took until the 2018 was toast, before finally pulling the trigger, and even then probably too many games late.


- but no one wants this season (any season, of course) to go south, like that. We want to win, and we think this can still be a special group and a special season -- I do anyway.

If we keep winning, then obviously Sanford stays.


The only way out of this, is if the defense somehow wins every game. I think our D is plenty good enough, if the O is decent. But they're not that good, unfortunately.

 

[Gophergrandpa]

Here is the great conundrum for me: our coaches talk about what they expect in a game (e.g. lots of blitzes from BG), but the game plan—not just the poor player execution—doesn’t seem to include plays that counter/punish excessive blitzing. And the coaches talk about (or used to talk about!) taking what the defense gives us. But the game plans look scripted and non-adaptive, and often seem to play right into the teeth of what the defense is overloading. Poor offensive play by the OL aside, you are setting an offense up failure if you won’t (or can’t) take advantage of what the defense gives you. BTW, calling for downfield passes with slow developing routes isn’t a great way to take advantage of a team that is blitzing like mad.

If Sanford stays in as OC, the Gophers need to do the kind of in-house review/critique they did after the Illinois humiliation that got Robb Smith deservedly fired. They need to have Rossi and his defensive coaches sit down with Sanford and brutally critique our offensive game planning and play calling. Is it overly predictable? Is it rhythmic or disjointed? Is it aimed to exploit defensive weaknesses or obvious tendencies? Why does he pass so little, rendering our offense so predictable? Why can’t we seem to adapt to circumstances on the field? Why do we play so damn conservatively against inferior foes, allowing them to hang around and gain confidence?

I don’t think Fleck is an x’s and o’s genius. His genius lies in many other head coaching and administration functions. Fleck needs to let some good x’s and o’s guys, game flow guys, critique and challenge Sanford. We challenge players this way all the time; we probably need to do it with coaches, too, from time to time.

 

[MplsGopher]

Here is the great conundrum for me: our coaches talk about what they expect in a game (e.g. lots of blitzes from BG), but the game plan—not just the poor player execution—doesn’t seem to include plays that counter/punish excessive blitzing. And the coaches talk about (or used to talk about!) taking what the defense gives us. But the game plans look scripted and non-adaptive, and often seem to play right into the teeth of what the defense is overloading. Poor offensive play by the OL aside, you are setting an offense up failure if you won’t (or can’t) take advantage of what the defense gives you. BTW, calling for downfield passes with slow developing routes isn’t a great way to take advantage of a team that is blitzing like mad.

If Sanford stays in as OC, the Gophers need to do what they did after the Illinois humiliation that got Robb Smith. They need to have Rossi and his defensive coaches sit down with Sanford and brutally critique his play calling. Is it overly predictable? Is it rhythmic or disjointed? Is it aimed to exploit defensive weaknesses? Why does he pass so little? I don’t think Fleck is an x’s and o’s genius. His genius lies in many other coaching and administration functions. Fleck needs to let a good x’s and o’s guy critique and challenge Sanford.

Fleck's great strengths lie in people skills. He is a tremendous motivator, a tremendous salesman, and a tremendous mentor on a personal level.

I think he goes with coaches based on relationships, too much, at times. That is a weakness, when picking coordinators.

 

[Ogee Ogilthorpe]

If a player has a stinker of a game, that's on the player. A few players, same. But when you have past good performances, good athletes, and entire units are playing badly - coaching is going have a share of the blame. How much? In this case, sure I don't know. But we can't just ignore Sanford's past. I understand that changing coaches is gamble, but if this offensive ship doesn't right itself promptly...

I agree with this, 100%. I said repeatedly, the blame goes across the board, players and coaching staff. Reading the board, the armchair coaches, for the most part seem to want to lay this almost entirely on the OC, or the staff, etc. and that's just plain stupid. Of course if they had it to do over again, I'm sure they would call some things differently.

This was a team effort stinker, plain and simple. To try to lay this mostly on the offensive coaches is galactically stupid. Why is it so hard for some people to just admit the players and coaches both sucked? Coaches coach, players play. The execution was dreadful, missed assignments, effort lacking, etc. I don't know why some have such difficulty criticizing the players when it's appropriate.

 

[MplsGopher]

^^^ spoken like someone who never played.

A horrible playcall can put you in an almost impossible position to be successful.


No one is saying they were all horrible playcalls, and that the players would've only kicked ass with the right calls.

 

[Ogee Ogilthorpe]

^^^ spoken like someone who never played.

A horrible playcall can put you in an almost possible position to be successful.


No one is saying they were all horrible playcalls, and that the players would've only kicked ass with the right calls.

There is a less than zero chance that your college playing career comes anything close to what I achieved when I played in school. Disappointed I clicked "Show Ignored Content" to see this asinine comment. My bad.

 

[Pete smith]

I don’t think you can fire Sanford without also firing the coach responsible for the terrible offensive line play. And since you can’t replace two coaches in mid season, neither one will be fired. Our offensive line has not come close to be what all of us were thinking. Remember 10 all had some starts this past two years. Wouldn’t believe that on Saturday. Big Dan lost lots of money with his inept play. Dunlap should have stayed on the bus. Won’t do any good to change QB, hard to throw from their back.

 

[Pompous Elitist]

Fleck's great strengths lie in people skills. He is a tremendous motivator, a tremendous salesman, and a tremendous mentor on a personal level.

I think he goes with coaches based on relationships, too much, at times. That is a weakness, when picking coordinators.

Without reading too much into it I remember him sort of chiding Kirk C. for being introverted/antisocial, quiet, and sitting in his film room all day. Well, those aren’t necessarily bad qualities in a coordinator. Oil and water personalities can get along, but they have to be self-deprecating enough to recognize and appreciate what each brings to the table which isn’t always the case. We need a better tactician than what we currently have.

 

[Taji34]

Hey, if we fire Sanford, maybe PJ will re-hire Kirk, one can only hope.....

 

[Pompous Elitist]

I agree with this, 100%. I said repeatedly, the blame goes across the board, players and coaching staff. Reading the board, the armchair coaches, for the most part seem to want to lay this almost entirely on the OC, or the staff, etc. and that's just plain stupid. Of course if they had it to do over again, I'm sure they would call some things differently.

This was a team effort stinker, plain and simple. To try to lay this mostly on the offensive coaches is galactically stupid. Why is it so hard for some people to just admit the players and coaches both sucked? Coaches coach, players play. The execution was dreadful, missed assignments, effort lacking, etc. I don't know why some have such difficulty criticizing the players when it's appropriate.

Some have a track record of success, some don’t. To me it’s that simple. My eyes aren’t deceiving me, I don’t think. The numbers don’t lie, or the choices made in certain situations. If, eg Morgan continues to throw it to the other team he will be benched, and rightfully so.

 

[stocker08]

You're not wrong, but with THIS offensive line and the number of games they have under their belt, and THIS QB and his number of starts, not to mention the shear size advantage they had against BG in the trenches when they were on offense, sorry, at some point you have to call out players for not bringing it.

240 yards of offense? Allowing 4-5 sacks or whatever it was? Hard to put play-calling ABOVE a number of players just plain not showing up as higher on the gripe list. And honestly, I'd be surprised if many/any of the people bitching about play-calling have half a clue what the offensive game plan was or know much about play-calling.

Mostly nonsense. Yes....the offensive line played terrible.....but the fact is that our offensive play calling was so bland and obvious that the BG coaching staff hardly had to make an adjustment. Despite being 5/7 passing on first down up until the last two drives.....the majority of the four down sets were run, run, pass. The BG coaching staff sold out on the run. Even if the Gophers (and they did) pick up a few first downs running on first and second.....all it takes is one set of downs to stuff a couple of runs and get the Gophers into a long 3rd and an obvious passing down. BG blitzed on those third down opportunities and came away with I believe all but one of their sacks.

There was zero imagination. The coaching staff was clearly pretty cocky....because they didn't change shit all game.....despite BG basically selling out on the run, run, pass offense that resulted in ten points. That's on the coaching staff first and foremost. No in-game adjustments to account for the fact that the offensive gameplan WASN'T working against a team that knew exactly what was coming.

 

[Wally]

We can have him call the same plays that Sanford is calling and the wideout still won’t be able to get separation

Don't think we get a new OC to run "the same plays"

 

[swelna]

The thing I never understood was why we hired from the outside when Kirk left. Simon did a great job during the Auburn game, but I guess you can argue experience and the whole qb coach thing. However, you also have Clay Patterson on the staff and look at this blurb about his experience before getting here:

"Patterson, who is from Morris, Okla., led the Norseman to a 9-3 record in 2017 after going 5-5 in 2016. In 2017, the program claimed its first Southwest Junior College Football Conference (SWJCFC) championship since 2003 and played in its first bowl game since 2012. Patterson earned conference coach of the year honors as his team averaged 524.5 yards per game (253.8 rushing and 270.6 passing) and 36.2 points per game.

Prior to his time at Northeastern Oklahoma A&M, Patterson spent three seasons at Trinity Valley Community College, as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. During his time at Trinity Valley, he helped lead the team to five SWJCFC championships (three conference and two conference playoff) and to two Heart of Texas Bowl championships. His offense broke the all-time yards per game record at any level of football with 656.1 yards per game during the 2015 season.

Other National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) records set under Patterson’s leadership included total offense (7,778 yards in 2014), yards per game (656.1 in 2015), and plays in a season (938 in 2014). Patterson coached 35 games as offensive coordinator for Trinity Valley. His team scored more than 50 points 23 times, more than 60 points 13 times and more than 70 points eight times. The team was 29-5 while he was at Trinity Valley and averaged 54 points per game and 604 yards per game. "

Not only did he have OC experience, but also qb coach experience. I thought I had heard when he was initially hired that he also ran a similar offense to what PJ wants, but that could be wrong. Another knock would be that the offensive coordinator experience was at a lower level, but still better than nothing.

All I can think of is that PJ either didn't like the lack of FBS co-ordinator experience from either and chose to hire outside, obviously that doesn't seem to have gone well for him.

 

[MplsGopher]

The thing I never understood was why we hired from the outside when Kirk left. Simon did a great job during the Auburn game, but I guess you can argue experience and the whole qb coach thing. However, you also have Clay Patterson on the staff and look at this blurb about his experience before getting here:

"Patterson, who is from Morris, Okla., led the Norseman to a 9-3 record in 2017 after going 5-5 in 2016. In 2017, the program claimed its first Southwest Junior College Football Conference (SWJCFC) championship since 2003 and played in its first bowl game since 2012. Patterson earned conference coach of the year honors as his team averaged 524.5 yards per game (253.8 rushing and 270.6 passing) and 36.2 points per game.

Prior to his time at Northeastern Oklahoma A&M, Patterson spent three seasons at Trinity Valley Community College, as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. During his time at Trinity Valley, he helped lead the team to five SWJCFC championships (three conference and two conference playoff) and to two Heart of Texas Bowl championships. His offense broke the all-time yards per game record at any level of football with 656.1 yards per game during the 2015 season.

Other National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) records set under Patterson’s leadership included total offense (7,778 yards in 2014), yards per game (656.1 in 2015), and plays in a season (938 in 2014). Patterson coached 35 games as offensive coordinator for Trinity Valley. His team scored more than 50 points 23 times, more than 60 points 13 times and more than 70 points eight times. The team was 29-5 while he was at Trinity Valley and averaged 54 points per game and 604 yards per game. "

Not only did he have OC experience, but also qb coach experience. I thought I had heard when he was initially hired that he also ran a similar offense to what PJ wants, but that could be wrong. Another knock would be that the offensive coordinator experience was at a lower level, but still better than nothing.

All I can think of is that PJ either didn't like the lack of FBS co-ordinator experience from either and chose to hire outside, obviously that doesn't seem to have gone well for him.

Fleck said it was because he wanted a QB coach to be coordinator. That was the simple excuse he gave for not hiring Simon.

 

[markmcgree]

IMO, Fleck and Coyle need to eat some humble pie and bring back Ciarrocco as OC and Claeys as DC.

 

[markmcgree]

You're not wrong, but with THIS offensive line and the number of games they have under their belt, and THIS QB and his number of starts, not to mention the shear size advantage they had against BG in the trenches when they were on offense, sorry, at some point you have to call out players for not bringing it.

240 yards of offense? Allowing 4-5 sacks or whatever it was? Hard to put play-calling ABOVE a number of players just plain not showing up as higher on the gripe list. And honestly, I'd be surprised if many/any of the people bitching about play-calling have half a clue what the offensive game plan was or know much about play-calling.

I wonder if Fleck's philosophical approach, e.g. row the boat, gets old for players now in their 5th or 6th year?

 

[Word]

IMO, Fleck and Coyle need to eat some humble pie and bring back Ciarrocco as OC and Claeys as DC.

Zero chance Coyle would ever allow Claeys even if PJ was ok with it (personally I would love it, but Coyle would never allow it after the way he fired him).
Ciarrocca, maybe but also doubtful if PJ would be ok with it. Personally I'd welcome KC back in a heartbeat.

 

[Word]

I wonder if Fleck's philosophical approach, e.g. row the boat, gets old for players now in their 5th or 6th year?

Any voice can get stale in 6 years (imagine the boredom of 6 years of Paul Chryst). Look at how often many NHL teams shuffle coaches just to get a "fresh" voice. That's not gonna happen in college football (nor should it).
My impression though is PJ has recruited players that 100% buy into his style.