Monkeypox

All of this is still in the theoretical, since none of it's official, and I recognize at this point it's all wild speculation. Replacements: Well, first, forget any big names. While I may want change in the coaching ranks, you've got to deal with reality there. So here's what you look for: 1) Has to be a step up. So, for an offensive coordinator, you're looking for an offensive coach - RB coach, O-Line coach, something of that ilk OR for an offensive coordinator from a smaller school. Personally, I'd rather not delve into Div 1-AA unless I had to, so I'd be looking at the lesser coaches at bigger schools. 2) Someone with a lot of experience, and hopefully in the South/Southeast. We've got to get somebody familiar with the area of the nation we recruit in AND recruit against. Also, since in this scenario you're looking at a coach with a verty specific task, you want them to have experience at a number of offensive positions. You don't want someone who's ONLY coached running backs or offensive linemen or quarterbacks. 3) Someone with experience at BIGGER schools. While some of that naturally would come with their current position, I think there's a lot to be said for someone who's been an assistant at a number of BCS schools. They will have worked with great coaches, and you absorb something from what you're around. 4) A coach working in a school in flux. You're more likely to pull from a school where the coaching situation is a little tenuous. Unfortunately, ours is not necessarily stable at the moment. 5) Someone for RV. There are some who believe DD is protected from on high, and that RV is not able to put his stamp on the football program as he would like (I don't know, myself, so I'll leave that for others). Whether or not that IS the case, I would want/hope for our new offensive coordinator to be MORE tied to what RV wants than Dickey. It's got to carry RV's stamp. Then, it's up to them all to work together. Personally, I don't think this University can quite afford to get rid of DD just yet, as much as I hate to admit it, but I don't believe we will take the next step until we do. Given our situation, you want someone hopefully familiar with RV, or at least with coaches and people RV is familiar with AND (this is very important), the potential to be groomed into a head coaching position. You set yourself in several ways with this: a) It provides you with a possible replacement plan that would NOT effect long-term stability and Even if they move on to be a head coach elsewhere, it points to NT as a good stepping stone. While some may not find this ideal, it's a good way to get personnel in, and then it's up to us to keep them here.

Yep.

I like how the risk of injury is somehow the biggest risk to the future. Don't play him the last two games because he might get injured for his entire career. In that case, we'd better bench everyone who doesn't suck and isn't a senior or better yet forfeit the last two games so no one gets hurt. But, to be truly sensible, we should probably refrain from playing our BEST players until they're seniors, so as not to waste their potential should they get career-ending injuries. So we'd probably need to fill half of our roster with horrible football players we can use in the meantime until everyone else develops with the time we give them at the end of the last two games of their first three years. It's a BRILLIANT plan. That would be the best for the future. If players get injured, they get injured. NOT PLAYING a freshman with potential is much worse for the program. And, in turn, what he appears to be favoring is playing a just-recently-concussed QB who has not shown us a tremendous lot in his 9 games and, despite the many protests during the offseason, a huge injury risk.

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I wouldn't say it was a lot of people, especially since the rumors about Byerly being academically ineligible had been raging since mid-summer. People wanted Meager because he didn't fail out, though there were also contingents for Phillips, Warren, Haynes, etc... Again, I'm not sure which "you" you are referring to or how many you consider a "great many." I would say there were SOME who wanted these things, but in no way is it a characteristic that somewhow defines those who feel Dickey has not achieved this team's potential in his tenure here. So is your contention that Dickey gave this group of people what they wanted and it failed, so it's THEIR fault for suggesting it? Besides, Dickey didn't really accomplish this anyway. All you succeeded doing here was pointing out another place where one could claim Dickey failed this season. As I said earlier, there were some people suggesting Phillips as an alternative MUCH earlier in the season, when it first appeared that Meager might struggle significantly and that Meager was virtually neck-and-neck with Phillips in the practices despite being in the system an extra year. What??? If anything playing Phillips more now is thinking more about the future of the team than less. You want to see as much of as many QBs as possible at this stage in the game, so if you put in a QB like Meager (that many got railed on for saying is "injury prone"), you'll have a competent backup and you might possibly find out you've got a better QB somewhere on the roster. You're kidding, right?

While I do not believe in the young excuse, 2003 was our most experienced team. Experience is different from talent. Compare our team now to what you thought of that 2003 team back in 2001.

I agree. I believe that, while we have a few holes, our overall talent is getting better. We are simply not reaching potential with the talent we have.

I wouldn't downplay the talents Phillips has and what he accomplished at Lakeview. The guy played in a very advanced offense.

I was actually going to make that same comparison.

I said passing-oriented, but I don't know that they really have to be. They've simply been more passing oriented than ours. Our offense would be more passing deficient.

I dont' remember all the details, but I was at every home game from 1994-2001. Hall played in 9 games his freshman year. He was basically worked into the QB position. We had mostly rag-armed QBs back then and ran an option-based offense. In the opener vs. Baylor (we lost 20-7, I believe), Bridges had one throw for 51 yards. It would've been a TD but the receiver actually had to almost STOP on his route to wait for the ball. Nothing happened on offense until Scott took over and led the team 80 yards for a score in the 4th quarter when they KNEW we'd be throwing. That was the mark. He was night and day with the other QBs we had on the rosetr in ability. Hall threw for 937 yards and 6 TDs his freshman year with a QB rating of 123.6 (I believe this is the one you would find listed on ESPN, if it were still on there). He also ran for 230 yards. Again, I think it was 9 games that year he played, but I don't think he started all of them. My main problem with Meager has been the PHYSICAL ability to make the throws. It might be just his shoulder, but I really haven't seen any touch on his deep balls, and many of them have been underthrown. So we've had to go with a more dink-and-dunk offensive approach which only moderately backs people off the run. The design of the offense has been to GET them to put 8 and 9 in the box so we can hit them deep for big gains on play-action. It doesn't work with screens and flares and 7-yd outs (unless you use the out to set up the out-and-up). Right now, I think we're making a gamble with Meager that's unnecessary by banking on his long-term potential. I'm hoping to see us rotate QBs more, for the future of the program. At this point, I think there's more long-term value in finding out what we have than winning out in the Belt.

Exactly, which was my point. There's always gonna be times when you're forced to start young players. If you have to have juniors and seniors at every position in order to win, then you'd better get used to losing.

I believe we lose our two starting corners. So one half of the secondary will be more developed. The other half will be brand new.

I dunno, having your guts ripped out by an eagle on a daily basis sounds like life as a NT fan to me.

People complain about someone's work all the time, but the fact that it's a KNOWN FACTOR in coaching and playing sports make it especially hard to accept from those who show an inability to take it. I'd get death threats as a UIL ref, didn't matter if it was 7th grade girl's basketball games or varsity boys. DEATH THREATS from the stands, but I never let it get to me, because that COMES WITH THE TERRITORY. You can't take the criticism you get from coaching the worst offense in the country, then it's time to do yourself a favor and quit. Unfortunately, though, wherever you go there's gonna be someone to whom you're accountable, and a lot of times there's no law saying they have to be nice about it.

Well if RF's fighting is anything like his football, I wouldn't be too worried, as I'd expect it to be completely punchless.

Agreed emmitt. As long as Dickey's here, we'll have to lower our expectations.

I agree. On the QB situation. I don't believe Dickey is REALLY about competition at the position. Unless someone just completely dominates, he's gonna go with the more experienced player. It's not just his offense that's conservative, IMO. SO, next year he'll probably have Meager "compete" with Phillips/freshman/wildcard, but even if they're better than Meager in ability for the long-term, unless they just beat him bloody in that competition, Dickey will go with experience. Again, this is just my belief, but I don't disagree with it as a policy. You have to light it up to beat an incumbent. Now, the only wrinkle in that may be the kid (Coffman) from Missouri. Landing him could be huge (not getting my hopes up), and I believe one of the things he wants is to play early. It might be hard for DD to keep him off the field, if that's the case.

To some degree i agree with you. I didn't complain until it started getting ridiculous. I think you do have to get the backups meaningful time, and it's up to us to stop them, but i do not believe that their backup QB was learning much of anything airing it out up 40 points. It was also a fairly minor quibble, and not that big of a deal to me.

He banged up his ankle last week and it was bothering him. That's what I heard, but there hasn't been any real confirmation.

Yeah, this game was pretty good overall. Positive: Run game. Meager. Offensive line facing a blitz all night. Quinn. Weathers. Baz. Gillmore. Negatives: Pass defense. Miles running up the score. Not getting backups any meaningful time. Red Zone offense.

We ran well early and didn't turn the ball over. Also we mixed up the play-calling a good bit. Amazing what that will do. Aaron Weathers = playmaker. Meager's been more good than bad. I still would like to see more out of his arm, and he's done a couple of dangerous things, but to some extent those are acceptable to me for a freshman. Very positive day for him. The offensive line has done a solid job. Baz with a 50-yarder in a hostile stadium.

We may not have a bowl-eligible team in the whole conference.

From what I'm looking at, a lot of these appear to be INFLATED vs. rivals and other recruiting resources, so I'm guessing/hoping that the recruit list is more accurate and updated, which still makes these guys undersized. There's really only one or two linemen that I would consider acceptable in the size department. And, I realize that size isn't the be-all end-all (as we had a pretty good undersized center here). However, given the current state of our team along the lines, I would hope for some people to be able to provide more immediate help. Anyway, it's still super early. One thing that I seem to notice, which may or may not be a trend, is that many of the guys who HAVE that size in high school do not have that well developed skillsets. They get by on raw talent and natural ability. The smaller guys tend to have better technique, because they have to, but they're not gonna be ready to play right away at the next level, because they'll be overmatched physically. So you have to pick your poison. Do you want the guy with good technique but undersized, or the huge guy with poor technique (knowing, of course, that the big boy schools go for size first, as they'll have their time to develop the technique). Okay, that was a bit of a ramble, but, basically, our options on the lines are pretty rough.