Money quote

[kingottoiii]

“The tendencies we had seen, it was completely the opposite,” said offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett. “A lot of the plays we were going to run against those tendencies they took away. We had to kind of readjust everything.”


That my friends is why we struggle at the start of games. Instead of running what you do best, we gameplan against what we think we will see. How many times have we seen the above quote or something similar? Rahme can pretty much skip the post game pressers and cut and paste these quotes.

Yes it is important to study our opponents and look for weaknesses/tendencies. Yes it is important to have plays prepared to attack that. However this is CFB where 90% of the Ds you face will not be good enough to stop what you do your best. K.I.S.S. IMO our coaches are over thinking things. We are out coaching ourselves.

Run the plays you are the most successful at executing and make the other team stop you. The majority of teams you face will fail to do so. Changing what you do so you can exploit a possible weakness doesn't make sense. Especially if that change is something that you are not good at executing. Or in this case if it against a friggin 1AA opponent.

This isn't the NFL where you need to find a weakness and exploit it. In CFB you can do plenty good on O without even giving a crap what the other team is or is not doing. We are best at being a pass first team where those passes are in the intermediate range. That is how we should start games off.

We are not good at executing screens. I think I can count on one hand the number we ran the first two games and none were all that successful. So why run 10 of them against Stony Brook? Sure one of them worked like magic but the other 9 resulted in a combined 29 yards and killed some drives. Our success rate on those 10 plays was 30%. Even with the big play, the screens averaged less yards per play than the other passes. I rather have a 65% success rate and keep drives going, rather than have a 30% rate just so you can get that 1 in 10 big play. Not saying do not try for the homerun, but do not always swing for the fences.

 

[rrlbees]

Marrone said the same thing in the live presser.

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[Fjoinkay]

Marrone needs a confidant among the coaches who can say- yes, you know all of the angles, but what do you FEEL? His game time decisions so often seem out of rhythm. He always has a great rationale for the decision, but reason is only part of the equation and it is often used for non-rational purposes. It's not so much about what SU ought to be able to do in the particular situation, but rather what do you feel SU can do in that situation based on what is going on during the drive or the quarter etc.

Marrone seems like a heavy analytical thinker with a great memory for details. These are awesome traits. Sometimes it leads to drowning in data and allowing the head to get in the way of emotion. Gut checks are important too.

 

[kingottoiii]

Marrone needs a confidant among the coaches who can say- yes, you know all of the angles, but what do you FEEL? His game time decisions so often seem out of rhythm. He always has a great rationale for the decision, but reason is only part of the equation and it is often used for non-rational purposes. It's not so much about what SU ought to be able to do in the particular situation, but rather what do you feel SU can do in that situation based on what is going on during the drive or the quarter etc.

Marrone seems like a heavy analytical thinker with a great memory for details. These are awesome traits. Sometimes it leads to drowning in data and allowing the head to get in the way of emotion. Gut checks are important too.

I agree. Marrone just doesn't seem to have a feel for the game. I think he knows a ton about the game. And I think he is relatively smart. Just listen to him talk about football. If you give him X he can spit out the football Y. But his reliance on stats (which IMO seem to be slanted to NFL way and not so much CFB) kinda gives him a robotic way of coaching. That IMO is not what makes a good HC or OC. I think the best HCs and OCs are one of a kind people, who do things their way and not by the book. I think Marrone is an example of why the stat geek's way of thinking in MLB and football does not work. They don't take into account variables that change situations and make every game unique. I think there is too much reliance on what the chart or binder says in sports coaching today. What makes sports so great is that Team A should win on paper but Team B can still win. This isn't a game of Blackjack where there are only certain mathematical outcomes. Football is played by humans and there will always be unforeseen curve balls.

We have heard Marrone say he has studied this or studied that. He has often thrown around stats on even the littlest of things. I do not think his issue has anything to do with knowledge or smarts. I think he is good at those things, which makes him great Monday through Friday. But I think he is lacking a feel for the game. Right now I feel like he is over thinking things. It is almost like he is trying to hard when he really needs to just keep things simple. That thinking might be better suited for the NFL where things are a lot more complex and there are a lot less variables to deal with week in and week out.

 

[GoSU96]

“The tendencies we had seen, it was completely the opposite,” said offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett. “A lot of the plays we were going to run against those tendencies they took away. We had to kind of readjust everything.”


That my friends is why we struggle at the start of games. Instead of running what you do best, we gameplan against what we think we will see. How many times have we seen the above quote or something similar? Rahme can pretty much skip the post game pressers and cut and paste these quotes.

Yes it is important to study our opponents and look for weaknesses/tendencies. Yes it is important to have plays prepared to attack that. However this is CFB where 90% of the Ds you face will not be good enough to stop what you do your best. K.I.S.S. IMO our coaches are over thinking things. We are out coaching ourselves.

Run the plays you are the most successful at executing and make the other team stop you. The majority of teams you face will fail to do so. Changing what you do so you can exploit a possible weakness doesn't make sense. Especially if that change is something that you are not good at executing. Or in this case if it against a friggin 1AA opponent.

This isn't the NFL where you need to find a weakness and exploit it. In CFB you can do plenty good on O without even giving a crap what the other team is or is not doing. We are best at being a pass first team where those passes are in the intermediate range. That is how we should start games off.

We are not good at executing screens. I think I can count on one hand the number we ran the first two games and none were all that successful. So why run 10 of them against Stony Brook? Sure one of them worked like magic but the other 9 resulted in a combined 29 yards and killed some drives. Our success rate on those 10 plays was 30%. Even with the big play, the screens averaged less yards per play than the other passes. I rather have a 65% success rate and keep drives going, rather than have a 30% rate just so you can get that 1 in 10 big play. Not saying do not try for the homerun, but do not always swing for the fences.

Did you see the defense SB was playing in the first half?

 

[qdawgg]

Right now I feel like he is over thinking things. It is almost like he is trying to hard when he really needs to just keep things simple. That thinking might be better suited for the NFL where things are a lot more complex and there are a lot less variables to deal with week in and week out.

Not specifically defending him, although I guess it will sound that way. I'm also not accusing you of never having a job like this; but I think the stress of winning can cause these things. He wants to win for the players, the fans, the school, and the administration that took a chance on him. It's a risk - reward type of job and sometimes it causes you to overthink every action taken. You don't feel like you have the luxury to make a mistake so you go by the book based on all of the data you have. I agree with you though, some coaches don't react this way and others do given the same situation.

 

[longislandcuse]

This is maddening. As someone who overthinks things way too much, even I consider this way overthinking things. We have a senior QB putting up numbers as good as anyone in College Football with an offense he should know like the back of his hand. Play to your strengths, not to the other teams tendencies. Obviously that's part of gameplanning but it shouldnt be your main point of the gameplan, where we're thrown into a mess if other team changes their tendencies.

 

[OrangePA]

“The tendencies we had seen, it was completely the opposite,” said offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett. “A lot of the plays we were going to run against those tendencies they took away. We had to kind of readjust everything.”


That my friends is why we struggle at the start of games. Instead of running what you do best, we gameplan against what we think we will see. How many times have we seen the above quote or something similar? Rahme can pretty much skip the post game pressers and cut and paste these quotes.

Yes it is important to study our opponents and look for weaknesses/tendencies. Yes it is important to have plays prepared to attack that. However this is CFB where 90% of the Ds you face will not be good enough to stop what you do your best. K.I.S.S. IMO our coaches are over thinking things. We are out coaching ourselves.

Run the plays you are the most successful at executing and make the other team stop you. The majority of teams you face will fail to do so. Changing what you do so you can exploit a possible weakness doesn't make sense. Especially if that change is something that you are not good at executing. Or in this case if it against a friggin 1AA opponent.

This isn't the NFL where you need to find a weakness and exploit it. In CFB you can do plenty good on O without even giving a crap what the other team is or is not doing. We are best at being a pass first team where those passes are in the intermediate range. That is how we should start games off.

We are not good at executing screens. I think I can count on one hand the number we ran the first two games and none were all that successful. So why run 10 of them against Stony Brook? Sure one of them worked like magic but the other 9 resulted in a combined 29 yards and killed some drives. Our success rate on those 10 plays was 30%. Even with the big play, the screens averaged less yards per play than the other passes. I rather have a 65% success rate and keep drives going, rather than have a 30% rate just so you can get that 1 in 10 big play. Not saying do not try for the homerun, but do not always swing for the fences.

What did Shaffer say about our defensive scheme and adjustments at halftime?.

 

[CIL]

The O we ran on Saturday was as KISS as you are going to see out of this team. For better or worse (you can make the argument either way), Marrone and Co did not want to show Minny any wrinkles whatsoever.

 

[SoBristol]

There was a similar quote from Schafer on the defensive side -- that SB came with schemes we hadn't anticipated from our scouting. He explained why he felt he had to wait until the half to make the changes.

So, first, give SB's coaches some credit for what they brought.

It seems smart (but simplistic) to say we should just start Q1 with our strengths (what worked best against NW & USC). What do you mean -- particular passing routes by Sales & West in an up tempo passing attack? The ones that SB saw in its scouting and double covered?

 

[SmilinBob]

Is Clark hurt? I thought he would have done some damage to SB in this game.

 

[RMH44]

The O we ran on Saturday was as KISS as you are going to see out of this team. For better or worse (you can make the argument either way), Marrone and Co did not want to show Minny any wrinkles whatsoever.

Not to mention that we piled-up almost 600 total yards again but left 20 points on the field. If we punched-in the two drives that were stopped at the goal line and successfully kick two easy FG's we don't hear from all the Curmudgeons. Many of whom are far more guilty of "over thinking" game results than HCDM and staff are at "over thinking" game plans.

 

[Cuseman78]

I get what you are saying and think its a fair point. Often times, he does seem almost over analytical about the opponent and acts in a reactive manner as opposed to going out there and trying to assert your game. I'm an analytical guy myself, so I do appreciate that Marrone is able to evaluate the opponent's tendencies and prepare a game plan based upon that. But at the same time, I don't like the fact that it's taken until half time in 3 straight games to make adjustments. We clearly came out, tried to establish the run, threw a ton of screens early, and had to get back to our bread and butter in the 2nd half to ensure victory.

I think CIL is right too in that we probably came out and wanted to give Minnesota absolutely nothing. I think this upcoming game is really, really important. 2-2 is sooo much better than 1-3.

 

[kingottoiii]

The O we ran on Saturday was as KISS as you are going to see out of this team. For better or worse (you can make the argument either way), Marrone and Co did not want to show Minny any wrinkles whatsoever.

-This is an issue for us every game

-We never run screens yet I believe we ran a half dozen in our first three drives. That is changing things not KISS

-If Minny pays more attention to what we did against SB than what we did against NW or USC, then they deserve to lose.

 

[SmilinBob]

Not to mention that we piled-up almost 600 total yards again but left 20 points on the field. If we punched-in the two drives that were stopped at the goal line and successfully kick two easy FG's we don't hear from all the Curmudgeons. Many of whom are far more guilty of "over thinking" game results than HCDM and staff are at "over thinking" game plans.

Good points but to be honest if SU scored a td SB would not have had to drive 98 yards twice and we don't know what would have happened but again you are right, they left too many points off the board. I thought the offense played pretty well and just didn't finish and we HAVE to improve the 3rd and shorts, didn't the offense struggle with that last year as well?

 

[kingottoiii]

Not to mention that we piled-up almost 600 total yards again but left 20 points on the field. If we punched-in the two drives that were stopped at the goal line and successfully kick two easy FG's we don't hear from all the Curmudgeons. Many of whom are far more guilty of "over thinking" game results than HCDM and staff are at "over thinking" game plans.

The first half was awful. Saying we got almost 600 yards and ignoring the awful start is silly. Why not have a big first half vs SB get a lead and cruise toward victory in the 2nd half? We CANNOT get to a Bowl this year if we have to always wait to the 2nd half to be successful. We can't afford to keep falling behind. Why is it that our opponents are dictating how every game is being played? Why do we always react to what they do and we rarely (WV comes to mind) try and dictate how a game is played? Isn't a huge part of the game of FB to impose your will? IMO using a strategy of keeping things tight and waiting to counter punch in the second half runs a huge risk of getting caught with a punch in the first half that you never recover from.

 

[rrlbees]

The O we ran on Saturday was as KISS as you are going to see out of this team. For better or worse (you can make the argument either way), Marrone and Co did not want to show Minny any wrinkles whatsoever.

I understand the whole concept of KISS when playing a weaker opponent and not showing your next opponent much, but at some point they must have said screw this, we have to win this game first. The game wasn't over until late 4th.

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[Aweart23]

Or maybe, as usual, it's someone reading way too much into one statement

From Axe's article

So, Coach Marrone, what's up with all these slow starts?

"You want to get off to a good start. You want to get into a rhythm as fast as you can. It’s difficult. We are working extremely hard to figure out what that right rhythm is for us. We just keep going down this little sheet or big sheet of what we have play wise. We start like this. Oh, we didn’t do well there. Let’s see if we start out like this. We are going to keep going down until we find out what is good for us. A LOT OF THAT IN STARTING OF THE GAME, ITS NOT DICTATED FROM A DEFENSIVE STANDPOINT AS PEOPLE MAY THINK. A lot of it is dictated on our standpoint, trying to find out what we need to do to feel comfortable and then make plays.”

 

[kingottoiii]

There was a similar quote from Schafer on the defensive side -- that SB came with schemes we hadn't anticipated from our scouting. He explained why he felt he had to wait until the half to make the changes.

So, first, give SB's coaches some credit for what they brought.

It seems smart (but simplistic) to say we should just start Q1 with our strengths (what worked best against NW & USC). What do you mean -- particular passing routes by Sales & West in an up tempo passing attack? The ones that SB saw in its scouting and double covered?

Double covered? Those guys were open all day long. We called designed screens from the get go. That wasn't because of the D they were showing that was the gameplan. We didn't even try and get the ball into Sales' hands until the 4th Q. Were they not trying to cover him then when it was a 4 point game? His biggest gain came the third play of the 3rd Q. He did not see another pass until halfway through the 4th Q. That IMO is unacceptable.

BTW who do we have in the coaches booth for the O taking a look at the opponents D during a game? You can sometimes see how a D is playing you better from up top. As far as I can tell we have ZERO guys up there on O. Isn't that a disadvantage? Do we really need all of them on the sideline?

It has been nearly 15 straight games now where the O has been falt from the start. Whatever we are doing is simply not working.

 

[SmilinBob]

I truly believe Marrone/Hackett want to get Nassib comfortable and don't throw long 25+ until later in the game. Short passes along with quick out outs...guys were open long but Ryan did not either have the time or just didn't look until later in the game.

 

[rrlbees]

Or maybe, as usual, it's someone reading way too much into one statement

From Axe's article

So, Coach Marrone, what's up with all these slow starts?

"You want to get off to a good start. You want to get into a rhythm as fast as you can. It’s difficult. We are working extremely hard to figure out what that right rhythm is for us. We just keep going down this little sheet or big sheet of what we have play wise. We start like this. Oh, we didn’t do well there. Let’s see if we start out like this. We are going to keep going down until we find out what is good for us. A LOT OF THAT IN STARTING OF THE GAME, ITS NOT DICTATED FROM A DEFENSIVE STANDPOINT AS PEOPLE MAY THINK. A lot of it is dictated on our standpoint, trying to find out what we need to do to feel comfortable and then make plays.”

That is what he said during the presser and I understood what he was saying. But at the same time, what made it confusing was that while he talked like they had a prepared list of plays they would try regardless of opponent, he also talked about wrinkles the defense put in that they weren't prepared for.

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[SmilinBob]

That is what he said during the presser and I understood what he was saying. But at the same time, what made it confusing was that while he talked like they had a prepared list of plays they would try regardless of opponent, he also talked about wrinkles the defense put in that they weren't prepared for.

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True but that was a big beef I had with coach P, the lack of adjustments at the half and I thought the staff and players did a nice job of making adjustments at halftime.

 

[rrlbees]

True but that was a big beef I had with coach P, the lack of adjustments at the half and I thought the staff and players did a nice job of making adjustments at halftime.

They did a great job of making adjustments at the half. But I was addressing the conflicting statements about the slow start.

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[Aweart23]

That is what he said during the presser and I understood what he was saying. But at the same time, what made it confusing was that while he talked like they had a prepared list of plays they would try regardless of opponent, he also talked about wrinkles the defense put in that they weren't prepared for.

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I took the wrinkles quote to mean SB looked at what we had done the first two games and put wrinkles in to defend/take away what we have been doing successfully against USC and NW. And that relates to what HCDM is quoted as saying...I don't know how they are conflicting statements..

This is what we are going to run no matter what...well they did some things to take that away...then we adjusted...

But your post and mine is different from the original post...which was we didn't run what we have been good at to start the game due to bad game planning

 

[SmilinBob]

They did a great job of making adjustments at the half. But I was addressing the conflicting statements about the slow start.

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I firmly believe that the slow starts are a combo of Nassib not looking and going long. Not always 50 yards but stretching the defense out as there is a huge congestion by the line of scrimmage.