On the Olympic and really high-level, they use six-rotation outsides. I think that was Hugh's strategy, to try to emulate that style of play and attract players who want to get to that level.
Didn't work. None of the other major college programs do it like that, in college. Or at least to that level.
That should just not be what it is in college. We need to emphasize and use DS's, and have front court players specialize in attacking and blocking.
Yes Hugh believes in the 6R OH offense. When you look at that, most opponents were too and Landfair was getting served a lot. Very similar to when we had Adanna Rollins. Not that Landfair was all that bad, but she certainly had room for improvement and that takes time.
CC was not always on her game and Kilkelly certainly struggled with serve/receive too. That is why we also saw Kilkelly targeted a lot by our opponents leading to poor passing.
Take a look at our USA Pro team. Since Jordan Larson left, we don't have an OH capable of filling her shoes. By far Larson was and is the BEST 6R OH the USA has and will probably ever see. One thing for sure, it didn't happen overnight for her.
So I think both you and I are looking at it the same way. The DS role was created for a reason, so coaches should be using these players to their advantage.
Hugh was about developing the pins to become a 6R player and was very successful at it. Therefore, we played a lot of OOS volleyball and very little utiization of a DS player. However, I feel developing such players under Hugh has cost us from taking Gopher Volleyball to the next level.