A few thoughts -
- Louisville is an interesting comparison to Syracuse. Like Syracuse, they had to hire a new coach following the former leaving for greener pastures. Bobby Petrino came to Louisville as a successful offensive coach, so both he and the AD new that they needed to hire a sucessful defensive coach. So what did they do? Louisville opened its wallet, and hired a successful SEC defensive coordinator in Grantham. To date, Louisville has a top 5 defense nationally. Meanwhile when Syracuse hired its defensive HC, they elected not to open the wallet, and hired a MAC positional coach as its OC in MacDonald. You get what you pay for. It starts at the top, if the administration isn't going to allow the HC the budget and resources to build a P5 program, then what are we wasting our time for?
- Can we quit talking about 5* talent, until we figure out how to use 100% of the talent currently on the roster? Right now, we have an offense that runs its "slowest RB" on outside runs, its "quickest RB" on inside runs and its bubble screens are thrown to TE's who have WR's blocking for them!! We have our most talented DE playing on the inside half the time in Thompson. We have arguably our best LB in Lynch covering WR's deep, when he can't cover! The point is, is that this team doesn't have top 25 talent, but it does have top 50 talent, and this staff needs to find and utilize it correctly or else this will just be a top 100 team. Say what you will about FHCDM, he struggled to recruit but he got every ounce out of the talent and hand he was dealt.
- I like Coach Shafer. I like his personality, what he stands for, his vision and his goals. Regardless of how this season turns out, he deserves 2015 to turn this around. However, he has to be able to evaluate, recognize when changes are needed and act. To this day, I am still SHOCKED that this offense literally does not have any goal-line or power packages in its playbook. Following Villanova, I had hoped Shafer would have recognized this missing element and fixed it. To date, nothing has happened and last night we were in the shotgun, First and goal from the 1 yard line. Could not score 6 as a result. Even Dan Conley recognized this problem. The HC has to be able to recognize these errors, be proactive and make changes when necessary. He has missed several opportunities thus far.
A lot has been rebuilt these past 5 years, however if this administration is not careful, it can be erased before they know it. See everyone on Saturday. Go Orange.
- Louisville is an interesting comparison to Syracuse. Like Syracuse, they had to hire a new coach following the former leaving for greener pastures. Bobby Petrino came to Louisville as a successful offensive coach, so both he and the AD new that they needed to hire a sucessful defensive coach. So what did they do? Louisville opened its wallet, and hired a successful SEC defensive coordinator in Grantham. To date, Louisville has a top 5 defense nationally. Meanwhile when Syracuse hired its defensive HC, they elected not to open the wallet, and hired a MAC positional coach as its OC in MacDonald. You get what you pay for. It starts at the top, if the administration isn't going to allow the HC the budget and resources to build a P5 program, then what are we wasting our time for?
- Can we quit talking about 5* talent, until we figure out how to use 100% of the talent currently on the roster? Right now, we have an offense that runs its "slowest RB" on outside runs, its "quickest RB" on inside runs and its bubble screens are thrown to TE's who have WR's blocking for them!! We have our most talented DE playing on the inside half the time in Thompson. We have arguably our best LB in Lynch covering WR's deep, when he can't cover! The point is, is that this team doesn't have top 25 talent, but it does have top 50 talent, and this staff needs to find and utilize it correctly or else this will just be a top 100 team. Say what you will about FHCDM, he struggled to recruit but he got every ounce out of the talent and hand he was dealt.
- I like Coach Shafer. I like his personality, what he stands for, his vision and his goals. Regardless of how this season turns out, he deserves 2015 to turn this around. However, he has to be able to evaluate, recognize when changes are needed and act. To this day, I am still SHOCKED that this offense literally does not have any goal-line or power packages in its playbook. Following Villanova, I had hoped Shafer would have recognized this missing element and fixed it. To date, nothing has happened and last night we were in the shotgun, First and goal from the 1 yard line. Could not score 6 as a result. Even Dan Conley recognized this problem. The HC has to be able to recognize these errors, be proactive and make changes when necessary. He has missed several opportunities thus far.
A lot has been rebuilt these past 5 years, however if this administration is not careful, it can be erased before they know it. See everyone on Saturday. Go Orange.
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