Our O coaches have to go

[SUbear]

The question is who probably knows how to evaluate another coach better?
A. Another coach with over 2o years experience?
B. A fan who really doesn't know the first thing about coaching?

That depends on whether that other coach is blinded by personal friendship and loyalty. It can depend on the fan, some are actually pretty knowledgable, others do not know squat.

 

[SUbear]

The issue under debate here was not whether GM is a "great" coach. The argument is whether GM sucks (or "can't dance" or has to go or whatever other characterization you have this week) relative to the talent he has on the roster. To be clear, I do think that GM is on a steep learning curve, but you significantly underestimate the talent factor, IMO.

If the measure (today anyway), is that Shafer and D are very good coaches b/c they always keep us in games, let's look at offensive and defiensive efficiency as one way of quantifying that. Efficiency is a formula measuring the contribution to scoring margin on all its plays, adjusted for strength of opposing defenses or offenses faced.

Syracuse is currently ranked 66th nationally in Defensive efficiency.

Syracuse is currently ranked 65th nationally in Offensive efficiency.

Seems like there is enough blame to go around for both sides of the ball. And, we are just starting to face the meat of the schedule.

You are forgetting about scoring efficiency, and that is a far more telling statistic. Offensive efficiency only measures your ability to gain yardage. If that yardage is all outside the twenty and you do not end up scoring it is worthless.

 

[upperdeck]

Play calling is an issue and has been under Mc. The scheme of last nights offense was totally wrong, Notre Dame strength is lateral movement and pursuit we played into their strength by running the ball laterally, the only way to attack that defense is to run straight at them, which the few times we actually did had some success, should have been running right at them all game.
We are running that stupid bubble screen way too much, and frankly it has gained almost nothing so why would you keep doing it to the extent you are. It makes no sense. It too played into their lateral pursuit.
We had are biggest success with downfield passing, but only did that once in the whole first half. Someone has no clue on how to Analize and attack opposing defenses.
We may still have lost, but we could have been much more competitive. After all the defense turned them over five times, so I do not want to hear anything about our defenses short comings, the defense did enough that we could have easily won the game. The offense is and has been the problem. We may not have the overall offensive talent, but we have some talent that is just not being appropriately used.
If nothing is changed in that regard it is going to be a disaster of a season, and believe me I do not want that to be the case.
Shafer, being a defensive coaching specialist needed to hire an experienced OC, which he did not and that is going to be this teams and perhaps Shafer downfall.

so the fact we ran hardly any bubbles and ran mostly up the middle means you really didnt watch the game that closely

 

[SUbear]

so the fact we ran hardly any bubbles and ran mostly up the middle means you really didnt watch the game that closely

No it means you didn't. We threw them in the first half, only throwing down field in the second where we started having some success, but already down 14 to 3 at that point.

 

[Orangeman83]

That's fair--agree to disagree. I do know that you're a big fan [which is sometimes why I get frustrated with your posting about the coaches every year], but clearly we aren't going to change each other's minds. Have a good day.

 

[CuseOnly]

I think that our "turbo" hurry up offense seems to not be in such a hurry.

 

[007]

You are forgetting about scoring efficiency, and that is a far more telling statistic. Offensive efficiency only measures your ability to gain yardage. If that yardage is all outside the twenty and you do not end up scoring it is worthless.

I did? Offensive efficiency is a formula measuring the contribution to scoring margin on all its plays, adjusted for strength of opposing defenses, and not the "ability to gain yardage."

 

[Shrmdougluvr]

I think coaches with "philosophies" can be a very dangerous thing. I recall hearing a an interview with Bill Parcells where he noted the coach should always scheme to the talent on the team. Unrealized philosophy was a large part of this guy's demise

and was nearly the end of this guy...until he figured it out during his fourth season.

.

SU's current offensive "philosophy" has the team scheming to get the ball in space to a bunch of mostly non-existant playmakers, and having our o-lineman looking like they should be playing at Colgate, so they can run a non-existant uptempo offense.

 

[SUbear]

I did? Offensive efficiency is a formula measuring the contribution to scoring margin on all its plays, adjusted for strength of opposing defenses, and not the "ability to gain yardage."

It is still not the same as scoring efficiency, it is part of offensive efficiency but you can do well in offensive efficiency and still be a relative low scoring team, and have low scoring efficiency. Two different statistical measurements.
Five turns by our defensive unit and only one produced points, and that because the defense scored, the offense did nothing with four turns and that is the reason we lost not the defense.

 

[GoSU96]

Certainly credit for successes should be spread around. But the other poster asked when McDonald coached to his players' abilities; you cited the Minnesota game. My understanding (and I'd be happy to be corrected if I'm wrong) is that Lester took over the game-planning and play-calling for the final two games of the season. So while McDonald contributed to a winning team effort against Minnesota, I'm not sure if that's the best example of his having coached around his players' strengths. He struggled with that for a lot of the year; that's part of the reason his boss delegated his responsibilities to someone else.

What's the source on that?

 

[007]

It is still not the same as scoring effeciency, it is part of offensive efficiency put you can do well in offensive efficiency and still be a relative low scoring team, and have low scoring efficiency. Two different statistical measurements.

Never said they were the same thing. That is your Strawman. You said "Offensive efficiency only measures your ability to gain yardage." That it is not even close to correct.

As an aside, can you provide a link to "scoring efficiency" stats for college football? I am not saying they don't exist. It's just that I am more familiar with overall offensive efficiency stats, which take into account...scoring.

 

[SUbear]

Never said they were the same thing. That was a Strawman. You questioned my post with "Offensive efficiency only measures your ability to gain yardage." That it is simply not correct.

As an aside, can you provide a link to "scoring efficiency" stats for college football? I am not saying they don't exist. It's just that I am more familiar with overall offensive efficiency stats, which take into account...scoring.

I probably poorly worded my first comment, but my point was based on your defensive and offensive statistics comparison. Yesterday's game had nothing to do with defense performance and everything to do with lack of offensive performance. When your defense gives you five turnovers and you only manage to get one score by that same defense, losing said game is squarely on lack of offensive performance. Simply no other conclusion to come to. If we score on just two of the others we are in the game, the offense underperformed, and if anything the defense over performed.
Ergo your statistics were not valid as applied to yesterday's game. Get it now?

 

[RF2044]

I probably poorly worded my first comment, but my point was based on your defensive and offensive statistics comparison. Yesterday's game had nothing to do with defense performance and everything to do with lack of offensive performance. When your defense gives you five turnovers and you only manage to get one score by that same defense, losing said game is squarely on lack of offensive performance. Simply no other conclusion to come to. If we score on just two of the others we are in the game, the offense underperformed, and if anything the defense over performed.
Ergo your statistics were not valid as applied to yesterday's game. Get it now?

That is a completely unfounded assertion. How many consecutive passes did the Notre Dame QB complete in a row?

The defense competed strongly--no question about it--and forced several turnovers. The offense did little to capitalize on those opportunities. Both of those things are true. But to say that "yesterday's game had nothing to do with defense performance" is bunk. They exploited mismatches all game long, and made several scores look easy.

There were PLENTY of defensive lapses / issues /costly penalties downfield / etc. yesterday.

 

[OttoMets]

What's the source on that?

None who'd continue to be a source if I were to share...

 

[007]

I probably poorly worded my first comment, but my point was based on your defensive and offensive statistics comparison. Yesterday's game had nothing to do with defense performance and everything to do with lack of offensive performance. When your defense gives you five turnovers and you only manage to get one score by that same defense, losing said game is squarely on lack of offensive performance. Simply no other conclusion to come to. If we score on just two of the others we are in the game, the offense underperformed, and if anything the defense over performed.
Ergo your statistics were not valid as applied to yesterday's game. Get it now?

The debate your interjected your thoughts into had nothing to do with yesterday's game. The response was in reference to the OP's belief that the D coaches are "very very good," whereas the O staff "must go" can't dance, need to fired (not my words). I looked at offensive versus defensive efficiency numbers over the course of the season as one way of looking at that debate from an objective standpoint. The OP and I were not talking specifically about yesterday's game.

You subsequently provided your incorrect opinion on what offensive efficiency is. And then you tried to divert that into the observations in the quote above.

Nice use of "ergo" though.

 

[SUbear]

That is a completely unfounded assertion. How many consecutive passes did the Notre Dame QB complete in a row?

The defense competed strongly--no question about it--and forced several turnovers. The offense did little to capitalize on those opportunities. Both of those things are true. But to say that "yesterday's game had nothing to do with defense performance" is bunk. They exploited mismatches all game long, and made several scores look easy.

There were PLENTY of defensive lapses / issues /cotly penalties downfield yesterday.

Five turns, no points from the offense from those turns, seven points from the defense from the interception. I never said the defense was perfect, in a comparison of what the defense did to what the offense did not do there is no way to say the offensive was not responsible for this loss, unless you were to say Notre Dame was a totally inept offensive team, and that is simply not the case. Sorry if you do not see this but that is the way it is.

 

[RF2044]

Five turns, no points from the offense from those turns, seven points from the defense from the interception. I never said the defense was perfect, in a comparison of what the defense did to what the offense did not do there is no way to say the offensive was not responsible for this loss, unless you were to say Notre Dame was a totally inept offensive team, and that is simply not the case. Sorry if you do not see this but that is the way it is.

That's a far cry from the outcome of yesterday's game having "nothing to do with defensive performance." Sorry if you do not see this.

It is not only a statement of opinion versus fact, but it is fairly inaccurate assessment of how our defense performed, to say nothing of matched up.

For the record, nobody is knocking the way our kids competed. And I'm not throwing the defense under the bus. They were bigger, stronger, and faster while we were slower and smaller. You apparently must have missed all of those pass interference calls downfield, when our guys were beat. Or how ND controlled the line of scrimmage. Or how their WRs ran away from our defenders on several key plays. Or how their QB nearly set a collegiate record for most completed passes in a row. In fact, your assessment is not just inaccurate, its basically indefensible.

I'm proud as hell that our defense kept the score manageable, but if ND doesn't commit several unforced turnovers--and yes, a couple of them were UNFORCED--the score might have gotten out of hand. To a great extent, that masks a fairly one-sided game where their offense had their way against our defense.

As for the defense performing better than the offense, I don't disagree. But I think you are subjectively focusing too much on the turnovers, and ignoring the rest of the empirical data.

 

[SUbear]

That's a far cry from the outcome of yesterday's game having "nothing to do with defensive performance." Sorry if you do not see this.

It is not only a statement of opinion versus fact, but it is fairly inaccurate assessment of how our defense performed, to say nothing of matched up.

For the record, nobody is knocking the way our kids competed. And I'm not throwing the defense under the bus. They were bigger, stronger, and faster while we were slower and smaller. You apparently must have missed all of those pass interference calls downfield, when our guys were beat. Or how ND controlled the line of scrimmage. Or how their WRs ran away from our defenders on several key plays. Or how their QB nearly set a collegiate record for most completed passes in a row. In fact, your assessment is not just inaccurate, its basically indefensible.

I'm proud as hell that our defense kept the score manageable, but if ND doesn't commit several unforced turnovers--and yes, a couple of them were UNFORCED--the score might have gotten out of hand. To a great extent, that masks what was a fairly one-sided offensive game against our defense in their favor.

As for the defense performing better than the offense, well whoop-dee-damn do. That's like commending someone for being the skinniest elephant in the pen.

I fully understand that we were outmanned and that the defense was not perfect, and you can say if you want that the turns were unforced, but the offense did nothing with those turns forced or not the offense did nothing. When you have a five to one turn ratio, and your opponents scores on their one turn, your defense scores on one of their turns, but your offense does nothing with those other four turns I see no way to say the defense did not do its job, but plenty to say about the offense not doing the job whether that is due to play calling, scheme or talent is not relavent to that comparison. Our secondary is not good, no question about that but the defense did enough to keep us competitive if the offense had only scored on two of the four turns. You believe they are equally responsible I do not, end of story.
I believe we probably lose that game things being equal, but in this game the defense outperformed the offense, my opinion you can have yours, but I will stand by mine. Thanks for the discussion though.

 

[RF2044]

I fully understand that we were outmanned and that the defense was not perfect, and you can say if you want that the turns were unforced, but the offense did nothing with those turns forced or not the offense did nothing. When you have a five to one turn ratio, and your opponents scores on their one turn, your defense scores on one of their turns, but your offense does nothing with those other four turns I see no way to say the defense did not do its job, but plenty to say about the offense not doing the job whether that is due to play calling, scheme or talent is not relavent to that comparison. Our secondary is not good, no question about that but the defense did enough to keep us competitive if the offense had only scored on two of the four turns. You believe they are equally responsible I do not, end of story.
I believe we probably lose that game things being equal, but in this game the defense outperformed the offense, my opinion you can have yours, but I will stand by mine. Thanks for the discussion though.

It's pretty clear that you're now attempting to shift the conversation away from the point you made above--which actually is a good bait and switch move, given how easily debunked your assertion was.

And for the record, it has ZERO to do with the play of the offense relative to the defense. I haven't seen anybody in this thread or any other make that comparison, let alone the laughable notion that they are "equally responsible." Complete straw man. The defense played better--relatively speaking--than the offense. Whoop-dee-damn-do. You'd be hard pressed to find ANYONE who'd disagree with that. To say that they weren't responsible in any way for the game's outcome is ridiculous, wrong, and probably not worth debating any more.

 

[SUbear]

It's pretty clear that you're now attempting to shift the conversation away from the point you made above--which actually is a good bait and switch move, given how easily debunked your assertion was.

And for the record, it has ZERO to do with the play of the offense relative to the defense. I haven't seen anybody in this thread or any other make that comparison, let alone the laughable notion that they are "equally responsible." The defense played better--relatively speaking--than the offense. Whoop-dee-damn-do. To say that they weren't responsible in any way for the game's outcome is ridiculous, wrong, and probably not worth debating any more.

You like to say whoop de dam doo and that apparently makes you think better of yourself good for you. Have a nice day.

 

[RF2044]

You like to say whoop de dam doo and that apparently makes you think better of yourself good for you. Have a nice day.

I'm sorry that it hurt your feelings. I was using it for effect, to highlight how irrelevant the comparison was to the original argument you'd constructed about the loss having nothing to do with our defensive performance. You're rationalizing away an awful lot of contradictory evidence. Likewise, have a nice day.

 

[Orangeman]

Play calling is an issue and has been under Mc. The scheme of last nights offense was totally wrong, Notre Dame strength is lateral movement and pursuit we played into their strength by running the ball laterally, the only way to attack that defense is to run straight at them, which the few times we actually did had some success, should have been running right at them all game.
We are running that stupid bubble screen way too much, and frankly it has gained almost nothing so why would you keep doing it to the extent you are. It makes no sense. It too played into their lateral pursuit.
We had our biggest success with downfield passing, but only did that once in the whole first half. Someone has no clue on how to Analize and attack opposing defenses.
We may still have lost, but we could have been much more competitive. After all the defense turned them over five times, so I do not want to hear anything about our defenses short comings, the defense did enough that we could have easily won the game. The offense is and has been the problem. We may not have the overall offensive talent, but we have some talent that is just not being appropriately used.
If nothing is changed in that regard it is going to be a disaster of a season, and believe me I do not want that to be the case.
Shafer, being a defensive coaching specialist needed to hire an experienced OC, which he did not and that is going to be this teams and perhaps Shafer downfall.

This team should be huddling and trying to get first downs. We don't stretch the defense (because we can't) enough to be a up-tempo offense.

But that's OK.

Settle down. Huddle up. Get everyone on the same page to turn 5-6 false starts to 1-2 per game. Give your defense a rest. Run AAM hard straight-ahead, use play-action, bring in Gulley to change the pace, keep everything going forward, once you've established all that the screens might work.

People forget that Marrone and Co. were here 4 years and prob really only got it right for 1.5 of them (I know, talent differential).

All that said, let's not sit here and pretend like great OC's are a dime a dozen….they are hard to find and harder to develop. Let's stay positive and not run out a good asst coach who recruits well because he tried a system that works when it has the right talent (only, we don't have that talent).

Rutgers just hired a 68 year old re-tread and they look much better than they did last year…so that position is impt, but we have a guy that needs to develop vs. a guy who's 68 or a top young OC.

Staying positive and going to the Louisville game

 

[SUbear]

I'm sorry that it hurt your feelings. I was using it for effect, to highlight how irrelevant the comparison was to the original argument you'd constructed about the loss having nothing to do with our defensive performance. You're rationalizing away an awful lot of contradictory evidence. Likewise, have a nice day.

Believe me when I say any comments you have have no effect on my feelings. Bye now.

 

[RF2044]

Believe me when I say any comments you have have no effect on my feelings. Bye now.

Good--because it sure didn't seem that way from your second to last post. I mean that sincerely. There is a place of intelligent dialogue, debate, and disagreement on this board, after all.

 

[corpjet]

I think our OC will be a good one, please note the term will

He's learning on our watch and when the time comes he will be long gone for more money and a higher end football school

As a Bengals fan as well I see the parallels between our OC and what Jay Gruden was to the Bengals, got three years of NFL o coordinator experience then bolted for a HC gig

Because of coach Macdonalds recruiting prowess the same thing will happen with him, I give him one more year then he leaves on his terms