Grading First Year Head Coaches (with two games to go)

[UNTBill]

2 hours ago, NT93 said:

If a coach is a 3-3-5 coach, he’s going to run a 3-3-5.  I don’t get how people don’t understand that.

If a coach is a 3-3-5 coach. I would think he'd know the type of players needed to run it effectively. I hope that justifies my square peg/round hole comment.

[NT93]

26 minutes ago, UNTBill said:

If a coach is a 3-3-5 coach. I would think he'd know the type of players needed to run it effectively. I hope that justifies my square peg/round hole comment.

No doubt, but in his first year here he doesn’t have those players.  Were mistakes made in evaluating the current players?  It certainly seems that way. Were mistakes made by not bringing in players from the portal?  Probably (I say “probably” instead of “yes” because I have no idea how much effort was put into bringing in players).  

[keith]

9 hours ago, NT93 said:

No doubt, but in his first year here he doesn’t have those players.  Were mistakes made in evaluating the current players?  It certainly seems that way. Were mistakes made by not bringing in players from the portal?  Probably (I say “probably” instead of “yes” because I have no idea how much effort was put into bringing in players).  

Perhaps it was a mistake in evaluating the DC.

[Jonnyeagle]

Morris will get another year but man he has made some major mistakes.  Very disappointed in his decision to hire Caponi.  He can only own things fo so ling until the fan base gets tired.  We hired him to be a McCasland type coach.  We already had Littrell.

[NT93]

2 hours ago, keith said:

Perhaps it was a mistake in evaluating the DC.

From the standpoint of hiring Caponi or of hiring a 3-3-5 coach?  Could have been a mistake either way or both ways  I guess.

[akriesman]

If Caponi wants to find players to fit his system, he needs to hit the transfer portal hard this offseason.   He doesn't have the time to wait on HS recruits to improve his defense.  You can't have the worst defense in the FBS and expect to keep your job more than 2 seasons (or 1 season for many programs).

A couple quotes from Syracuse Head Coach Dino Babers when they switched to the 3-3-5 in 2020.

"In theory, the 3-3-5 is fast, malleable and conducive to an undersized defensive line.   If you’re at a place where you have the ability to get a lot of good defensive linemen all the time, you don’t have to go to it,” 

The 3-3-5 has worked pretty well for Syracuse since then.  As large defensive linemen are at a premium, it would seem to make sense for a school like North Texas to try and switch to a 3-3-5 (at least on paper).  

[Monkeypox]

1 hour ago, akriesman said:

If Caponi wants to find players to fit his system, he needs to hit the transfer portal hard this offseason.   He doesn't have the time to wait on HS recruits to improve his defense.  You can't have the worst defense in the FBS and expect to keep your job more than 2 seasons (or 1 season for many programs).

A couple quotes from Syracuse Head Coach Dino Babers when they switched to the 3-3-5 in 2020.

"In theory, the 3-3-5 is fast, malleable and conducive to an undersized defensive line.   If you’re at a place where you have the ability to get a lot of good defensive linemen all the time, you don’t have to go to it,” 

The 3-3-5 has worked pretty well for Syracuse since then.  As large defensive linemen are at a premium, it would seem to make sense for a school like North Texas to try and switch to a 3-3-5 (at least on paper).  

Agreed. I don't have a problem with the 3-3-5 itself. Many successful programs are running it these days. 

But we hired a first-time DC who only knows that system late in the cycle and without the personnel to run it, then we didn't do a very good job of getting that personnel. Also, in a number of programs that have shifted to it, there appears to be a steep learning curve. I think it's important we not only get some transfers in, but some transfers in that have experience in the 3-3-5, if that's what we're going to run.

[3_n_out]

2 hours ago, akriesman said:

If Caponi wants to find players to fit his system, he needs to hit the transfer portal hard this offseason.   He doesn't have the time to wait on HS recruits to improve his defense.  You can't have the worst defense in the FBS and expect to keep your job more than 2 seasons (or 1 season for many programs).

A couple quotes from Syracuse Head Coach Dino Babers when they switched to the 3-3-5 in 2020.

"In theory, the 3-3-5 is fast, malleable and conducive to an undersized defensive line.   If you’re at a place where you have the ability to get a lot of good defensive linemen all the time, you don’t have to go to it,” 

The 3-3-5 has worked pretty well for Syracuse since then.  As large defensive linemen are at a premium, it would seem to make sense for a school like North Texas to try and switch to a 3-3-5 (at least on paper).  

We should be really good then coz we have the smallest DL ever

Edited November 15, 2023 by 3_n_out

[Pavlovs Eagle]

On 11/14/2023 at 8:20 AM, SMU2006 said:

You mean when FSU comes to Ford next year? 

The real question is: will any SMU fans come to Ford next year?

[SMU2006]

Just now, Pavlovs Eagle said:

The real question is: will any SMU fans come to Ford next year?

Now that we have a schedule that isn't among the worst in college football?  yep.

[Mean Green 93-98]

4 hours ago, akriesman said:

"In theory, the 3-3-5 is fast, malleable and conducive to an undersized defensive line.   If you’re at a place where you have the ability to get a lot of good defensive linemen all the time, you don’t have to go to it,” 

That doesn't make much sense to me.  If you're putting one guy to stuff the A gap instead of two, that guy is going to have to be bigger.  And since the two ends on either side of him are moving inside with less inside help, it follows that you probably want them a little bigger as well.  Obviously, you can slide LBs up or you can blitz to offset that; but if your base look is a 3-man front, don't you need bigger than you would in a 4-man front?

[wardly]

20 hours ago, Monkeypox said:

Agreed. And it would be one thing if he had a bunch of experience in various systems, but this is a guy who's never been a DC and who's only been in a 3-3-5 since he was a GA at Pittsburgh in 2011. 

So it's not JUST that he's a 3-3-5 coach. He's ONLY a 3-3-5 coach.

Didn't SMU run the 3/3/5 against us or am I dreaming?

[VideoEagle]

41 minutes ago, Mean Green 93-98 said:

if your base look is a 3-man front, don't you need bigger than you would in a 4-man front?

After checking 3 different coaching sites,  the answer is not with a 3-3-5. The whole idea of the 3-3-5 is it works as an alternative for teams with smaller, but relatively faster linemen. 

[Mean Green 93-98]

35 minutes ago, VideoEagle said:

After checking 3 different coaching sites,  the answer is not with a 3-3-5. The whole idea of the 3-3-5 is it works as an alternative for teams with smaller, but relatively faster linemen. 

Could you explain why?

And if that's the case, shouldn't our smaller D-linemen already be perfect for a 3-3-5?  And why have we been recruiting generally bigger D-linemen since Morris arrived (recently offered a guy 6'5", 325 lbs.)?

[97and03]

I would say a big difference is the number of big DTs you need with only three down lineman. You still need some size at DE (as we can see having a 240lb DE in this system doesn’t work at all) but you don’t need six DTs around 300 to have sufficient depth like in a four-man front.  We should, however, have guys over 260 playing DE, imo. Mazin should be at OLB, as that would allow him to be a pass rusher and it would also be a more appropriate size LB to support this system. Our LB size might be as big of a shortcoming as our DE size. Maybe more? 
The truth is that we probably had enough DL depth to run a hybrid system with more four DL but I think they made a conscious choice to reduce DL depth in favor of DB depth. Then when the three man front wasn’t working, we didn’t have enough depth with size to run four consistently. 

[Jonnyeagle]

7 hours ago, 97and03 said:

I would say a big difference is the number of big DTs you need with only three down lineman. You still need some size at DE (as we can see having a 240lb DE in this system doesn’t work at all) but you don’t need six DTs around 300 to have sufficient depth like in a four-man front.  We should, however, have guys over 260 playing DE, imo. Mazin should be at OLB, as that would allow him to be a pass rusher and it would also be a more appropriate size LB to support this system. Our LB size might be as big of a shortcoming as our DE size. Maybe more? 
The truth is that we probably had enough DL depth to run a hybrid system with more four DL but I think they made a conscious choice to reduce DL depth in favor of DB depth. Then when the three man front wasn’t working, we didn’t have enough depth with size to run four consistently. 

An example would be moving Roderic Brown to Mazin’s down lineman spot instead of being the nose.  And them move Mazin to his natural postion of linebacker or outside edge so he can rush.

[UNTcrazy727]

18 hours ago, SMU2006 said:

Now that we have a schedule that isn't among the worst in college football?  yep.

Outside of FSU, there's no one on SMU's home schedule fans care about. 

[97and03]

6 hours ago, Jonnyeagle said:

An example would be moving Roderic Brown to Mazin’s down lineman spot instead of being the nose.  And them move Mazin to his natural postion of linebacker or outside edge so he can rush.

Or playing Rausaw or someone else of similar size in Mazin’s spot. We seem to have lost all the former inside guys we had so I think it’s just Brown and Moore who are solid enough to play the nose tackle spot. LeBlanc, TaShon, and Enoch all gone. 

[SMU2006]

6 hours ago, UNTcrazy727 said:

Outside of FSU, there's no one on SMU's home schedule fans care about. 

2024 - Florida State, BC, PITT, TCU, BYU, and CAL 

2023 - LA Tech, Charlotte, UNT, Tulsa, Navy

 

Hmmm which do you think will garner more interest?

[cousin oliver]

4 minutes ago, SMU2006 said:

2024 - Florida State, BC, PITT, TCU, BYU, and CAL 

2023 - LA Tech, Charlotte, UNT, Tulsa, Navy

 

Hmmm which do you think will garner more interest?

I thought you cancelled TCU or vice versa?

[UNTcrazy727]

8 minutes ago, SMU2006 said:

2024 - Florida State, BC, PITT, TCU, BYU, and CAL 

2023 - LA Tech, Charlotte, UNT, Tulsa, Navy

 

Hmmm which do you think will garner more interest?

You think SMU fans are suddenly going to start showing up in droves for BC and Pitt? I doubt it.

Florida State will garner a lot of interest and TCU (maybe BYU) will fill your stadium for you, but outside of that it will be the typical 19K-24K crowds. 

 

Edited November 16, 2023 by UNTcrazy727

[SMU2006]

4 minutes ago, cousin oliver said:

I thought you cancelled TCU or vice versa?

Replacing TCU with Notre Dame every 2-3 years.  Good riddance.

[SMU2006]

11 minutes ago, UNTcrazy727 said:

You think SMU fans are suddenly going to start showing up in droves for BC and Pitt? I doubt it.

Florida State will garner a lot of interest and TCU (maybe BYU) will fill your stadium for you, but outside of that it will be the typical 19K-24K crowds. 

 

[GrandGreen]

There are two games to go and I think how NT finishes is important in any evaluation.

NT should win both, and failure to do so will not help Morris.

NT defense was the worst in D1, but IMO they have made significant improvements later in the season. 

It is easy if a defense does bad to blame it on the Defensive coordinator.  NT lost the core of their defense to the portal and didn't replace them in the portal.  

I unlike many apparently have not concluded Morris was a bad hire. He was a risky hire, but I am not unhappy with the progress he/NT made after a horrible start.  Caponi, may need to go or may be a victim of just not having enough real D1 talent to compete.  

[Monkeypox]

9 hours ago, GrandGreen said:

I unlike many apparently have not concluded Morris was a bad hire. He was a risky hire, but I am not unhappy with the progress he/NT made after a horrible start.  Caponi, may need to go or may be a victim of just not having enough real D1 talent to compete.  

I was meh on Morris to begin with and nothing has changed in my assessment so far. I mean, I LIKE him more than Seth, but still in a "wait-and-see" mode.