Offensive Coordinator Hot Board: Candidates to Replace KC

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Westfield Gopher said:
Keep an eye on this twitter account. He always seems to have information coming from inside the athletic department.

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GWG was right. Rossi was not an interim DC at the bowl game. Both of their tweets are inaccurate.
 

Ben McDaniels is QB Coach at Michigan...was a GA for mason here (and picked up a Masters here)...was on staff with Tampa Bay with Fleck...was on Rutgers staff with Rossi and Norries...good midwest recruiter...worked with Gattis this year on RPO...Is big brother Josh leaving the New England OC job for a head job somehwere?
 
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swingman said:
Ben McDaniels is QB Coach at Michigan...was a GA for mason here (and picked up a Masters here)...was on staff with Tampa Bay with Fleck...was on Rutgers staff with Rossi and Norries...good midwest recruiter...worked with Gattis this year on RPO...Is big brother Josh leaving the New England OC job for a head job somehwere?
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That seems like someone worth keeping an every on. He’s clearly someone who wants to work his way up in the coaching ranks.
 


PJ is innovative. He cultivates attention. He might go with CO OC’s. Somebody probably already does that....so PJ is going to go with alternating QB’s too. One OC champions Zack...he calls his plays for him. Then the other OC calls Tanners plays. They compete week to week with one another. The QBs and OCs each trying to out do the other.

Imagine the harmony and unity. Nothing
accelerates development like competition.

Maybe not in this scenario. My point? We got no idea what PJ is gonna do.
 




Bob_Loblaw said:
GWG was right. Rossi was not an interim DC at the bowl game. Both of their tweets are inaccurate.
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Greder clarified his statement in a twitter exchange with Gobie. He was saying *when* Rossi was the interim he talked to the media, not that Rossi was the interim during the bowl game.
 










Guess we dodged that bullet! Whatcha got now Flugaur??

Come on Polasek! (yeah, right)
 

Supposedly, Simon is the frontrunner, but Fleck is open to bringing in an outsider for recruiting reasons. Texas (not necessarily the school).
 

MplsGopher said:
Guess we dodged that bullet! Whatcha got now Flugaur??

Come on Polasek! (yeah, right)
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I thought the following was an interesting comment from an Iowa fan on Reddit regarding Polasek:

"Our OL has been pretty awful during his time here. If we had even an slightly below average Iowa OL this year, we probably win 2 more games, and that's not hyperbole. So many missed assignments, the interior OL looking lost on nearly every play, and poor mechanics all around. From what I heard about Polasek, NDSU wasn't too sad to see him leave. I'd like to get us back to an Iowa standard."
 

PitinoFan said:
Supposedly, Simon is the frontrunner, but Fleck is open to bringing in an outsider for recruiting reasons. Texas (not necessarily the school).
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This makes sense to me.

Simon has earned it, but if we can land a big time recruiter to co-OC w/Simon, that would be ideal.
 


McPeePants said:
How do you feel about Patterson? Any chance he is getting a look at OC? Move to QB coach?
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They may already have the guys that best fit their system in-house. Both Simon and Patterson will make excellent OCs. However, if they have a run home run hire of someone older and more experienced (maybe a former head coach) who is ready to settle down in one spot who has excellent track record I am all for that. It will be nice if the Gophers can have dynamic stability at both OC and DC.

There are no guarantees that Simon or Patterson will stick around for the long haul. They are very young and probably want their shot at big time coaching too.

It will be great to have coaching system stability like Wisconsin where you can plug in and play a new coordinator, or coaching stability with key coaches staying intact for the long haul like Iowa has.
 
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McPeePants said:
How do you feel about Patterson? Any chance he is getting a look at OC? Move to QB coach?
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Yeah, he could make sense too. I worry about losing Simon because our WRs have been so good and he'll eventually get the call elsewhere. He has also been here a little longer.

Patterson has actually called plays before though, so both could make sense.

As far as moving to QB coach, that depends upon who we bring in. He would make sense though.
 

Simon will be a big loss to our WRs. He and Patterson are auditioning in the Outback Bowl.
 



Here is a good 247 article on Coach Patterson posted on Gopherhole earlier this year that's relevant again: link. Strictly from a personnel retention standpoint, I think the Gophers could promote Simon to OC and make Patterson the Passing Game Coordinator/position coach. A new hire could take the QB or TE coach title with Patterson taking the other. I don't know if that would produce the best results, but I think that would allow us to hang on to both coaches for at least 2 more years. If we bring in an outside hire, I expect at least one of them will move on in the next 2 years.

There are some other interesting tidbits from the article as well. It sounds like Patterson runs an up tempo RPO offense that he learned from Art Briles.

YOU BROKE 28 INDIVIDUAL AND 17 TEAM PASSING RECORDS AT TEXAS A&M-KINGSVILLE, WHERE DID YOU LEARN THIS STYLE OF OFFENSE, AND WHY WAS IT SO SUCCESSFUL?

Patterson: "Being in Texas, when I was at Kingsville, that's when the RPO stuff started with Art Briles at Baylor and Houston... He put me in a room and said, watch some film. And we came up with a system of offense that it changed junior college football, and it was very successful... I think how we played the game with tempo, and the way our kids play, the physicality we brought to the spread offense really kind of took us over the top."
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The quote below talks about the hiring process Fleck used with Patterson. It sounds like he interviewed 6 people during or around the AFCA coaching convention. For reference, Coach Patterson was hired/announced on Jan 17, 2018.

WHAT WAS IT LIKE TO BE RECRUITED / COURTED BY PJ FLECK AS A COACH BACK IN 2018?

Patterson: "It's January... I listen to the voicemail, and so listen to the voicemail, and it starts "Hey, it's PJ Fleck." So I think, okay, he wants one of my players, but turns out he wanted to talk to me about a job and in typical coach Fleck fashion, I went to the AFCA convention that year. I'd already taken an offensive coordinator job at a division one school and said I want to go interview with coach Fleck... [Fleck] interviewed five division one coaches, and myself, and came out of it and hired me... Fleck is talking and he says I want to offer you a job at the University of Minnesota. Then he talks about money, and he way overshot what he needed to."
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The last sentence and some of the other stuff in the article makes me think Patterson has some loyalty and gratefulness to Fleck, but I don't know how long that will last. The below stuff directly speaks to the lack of a TE passing game. It sounds like that was Ciarrocca's decision as Patterson talks about trying to get a piece of the Ciarrocca pie.

WHAT WERE HIS THOUGHTS ON THE LACK OF INVOLVEMENT OF THE TIGHT ENDS IN THE PASSING GAME LAST YEAR (2018)?

Patterson: "For me, It was a transition as a spread guy, as an RPO guy, your tight ends are more receiving guys. But what I told our guys, is we had to earn it. You know, we weren't the most athletic guys last year, we weren't the most dependable guys at times. And they know that and we had to earn it. And you know what we call it the Ciarrocca Pie. And we want a piece of the pie."
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MplsGopher said:
Brian Callahan is the running game coordinator.

I suspect he and Simon will be given a chance at the job via the bowl game. Patterson could be promoted to passing or running game coordinator, if either of those do get the full time OC job.
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Would be interesting if Callahan was promoted to OC, as it would likely leave the OL coaching position open. The Bears just fired Harry Hiestand, one of the best OL coaches around (he developed all those first rounders at Notre Dame a few years ago). I would love to see him on our coaching staff, though I wouldn't be surprised to see him back in South Bend.
 

Matt Limegrover is suddenly available; let go at Penn State.
 




FWIW - I listened to both Justin Gaard (said it will be an outside hire) and Ryan Burns (said Simon is frontrunner) talk about this yesterday. ?‍♂️

Personally, I will be disappointed if we hire Simon. Seems like a great WR coach, but I would be disappointed in hiring anyone with zero OC experience. That is what G5 football is for.
 

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