BarrelORum
Mediocre Poster
- Joined
- Jul 24, 2002
- Messages
- 16,274
and unbelievably enough, I found it on Buzzoff. This was posted by WipeMyGailey in reference to a friend's words. Its particularly interesting to think about all the dead weight Chan has hired or tried to hire during his tenure.
Nix by all means is to blame, right along with Gailey
He is the only coach Reggie Ball has ever had at Tech.
You mention we have a QB who likes to back up and throw off his back foot, and seem to think the coach has no responsibility for these shortcomings.
Those are mechanical and fundamental issues. What the hell do you think the
coach is for? How does it make you feel when you see freshmen on other
teams, like Riley Skinner, who was under pressure all game, got sacked 4 times, but still stepped UP in the pocket, stepped into a throw and hit a strike 40 yards down field to set up the game winner?
Reggie's mechanics are atrocious. When he steps into a pass, he throws a decent ball because he has a strong arm, but his fundamentals are so erratic, it shouldn't suprise anyone that the results so often stink.
And the big problem most people on here don't realize is that the bigger problem is the system with regards to our passing offense.
We threw 3 balls out of 29 between the hashes. A high school coach will tell you the hardest area of the field to defend is between the hashes. You would think we might run some crossing paterns and get Calvin in the middle against a linebacker in a zone, or else let a corner chase him all the way across the field (good luck), but no, we're forced to have to make the toughest throws in the game outside the numbers OVER AND OVER. Godsey threw for over 400 yards against Clemson and Virginia by killing teams over the middle when he wasn't taking what teams were giving us and checking to the hitches and outs. And don't tell me Reggie is too short to throw in the middle of the field. Joe Hamilton used to pick teams apart across the middle. You look at Calvin and he's often double teamed, so what do we do?
We triple team him by having him run routes outside the numbers where the sideline is the third defender.
What's the easiest way to beat a double team? Run a freaking slant! You get inside the corner and the safety over the top can't make the play, yet we NEVER do it. We run Calvin on long double moves that take 10 seconds to develop.
That brings me to the other problem. There is no flexibility in the passing game. I was in the program when Godsey and Hamilton were here. You see a soft corner playing loose man or cover three, and we're throwing a hitch or a quick out and the ball is there out of the break. Calvin Johnson has the best body of any WR in all of college football, so you don't think he can't box a guy out on a hitch? In the good old days, we would change the routes at the line of scrimmage, or one of the bread and butter plays was "all choice", where the receivers would run option routes based soley on reading the coverage. With Nix/Gailey, the play is called based on what they THINK the defense will do. Sometimes they're right, but if they're wrong we have to run the play anyway.
For instance, on 2nd and 10 on the last drive Calvin had 8-10 yards of cushion. If we could have checked the route based on the presnap read, we could have thrown an out or a hitch and picked up the first down. What happened? The corner is in loose coverage and we throw a bomb 20 yards over Calvin's head and 10 yards over the corner's head who was playing loose enough to get a great break on the ball and would have picked it off had it not been in the next zip code.
That falls on Gailey and Nix. People don't realize how often we used to check plays in the Friedgen/pre-Gailey O'Brien system. In the current offense, all we have is a built in bubble screen to Calvin on run plays if Reggie likes the matchup when Calvin is in the slot. We hit it a lot this year and it was successful, but it's not enough.
It's a travesty that redshirt freshman like Riley Skinner and Matt Stafford can come to the line of scrimmage, get a presnap ready against the defense (especially one like ours that disguises so well) and then regularly change plays to get the offense out of disasterous plays so you can live to play another down.
Why do you think we waste so many timeouts? We come to the line of scrimmage, we see a look we don't like, and our QB who has started 50 games can't get us out of a play. And we have a head coach who is a former NFL OC, yet we have one of the most basic and least intuitive offenses in the country!
Pat Nix was what, 3-19 as a head coach in DII ball? He had never coached at the I-A level before coming to Tech, and he cut his teeth under Gailey in a dumbed down pro-offense that was never better than 75th in the nation and more routinely closer to 100th.
How can you not blame Nix and consequently Gailey!? Look at his resume!
Find another offensive coordinator in the ACC or another major conference who is LESS qualified! Everyone loves to hate Bill O'Brien and might say he was less qualified, but the numbers he put up with AJ Suggs, even after Gailey dumbed down the offense, were the best we've had in Gailey's tenure at Tech, and that was with the QB Gailey gave up on in favor of freshman Reggie Ball the next year, so don't pull the "Reggie just isn't very good it's not Nix or Gailey's fault that he's the best we got" cop out! We all know Godsey set the single season Tech passing record with over 3,000 yards under O'Brien, with Billy calling the plays and Goose checking at the line.
If you have a fourth year starter who isn't developed enough to de-Mickey Mouse your offense with and let the kid think at the line of scrimmage then you should have never went with him to begin with. That or you should have been in the Darren McFadden tricked out high school wing T offense exclusively.
Gailey doesn't need to go just yet so all the recruits don't bail on us, because Giff Smith and Geoff Collins have put together a great class. But Nix? You think anyone wants to come play for this offense? I hope you get offered the Tulane job. Can you imagine the sack on this guy. He's been associated with Division IA offenses ranked between 75th and 105th and he thinks he's qualified to be a head coach at the Division I level? Yeah, I'm interested in being CEO of Microsoft, maybe I'll send over my resume.
Truly pathetic.
There's a reason that the only kids in our program from the last 5 years that are contributing in the NFL played under Tenuta on the defensive side of the ball. He gets results. Smith, Butler, Landry, Wilkinson, Hargrove.
Sure there are a couple offensive guys on rosters, but the point is glaring.
And don't say it's because we load our best recruits on defense because Gailey is an offensive coach like some of these clowns say. Do you realize how little sense that makes. Spurrier used to put every athlete he had at Duke on his offense and he would tell his defensive coaches, "What are you still doing at the office? all you gotta do is get 2 stops a half and we'll win!" And he did something Gailey couldn't do, win the ACC, and don't tell me it's because the conference is tougher now, because this year was pathetic. To suggest as I've heard many that Gailey intentionally puts our best prospects on the defense and that's why our defense is always our strongsuit is preposterous. We recruit positions where we need guys. The fact that the only guys who consistently develop play under Tenuta isn't surprising.
You watch us on special teams, and it's like men against boys. The only guy on the field who can make a play is 93. If he doesn't make the tackle, hold onto your balls. Why our coaching staff continues to think we can try to hide scrubs on our cover teams is beyond me. You want to let slapdicks get on the field, put them on your return teams, and trust me they are certainly there for us if you've ever seen how unexplosive and completely threatless we are on the vast majority of our returns. You can't hide guys on the cover teams, but we keep doing it. I guess as long as Tenuta keeps bailing us out and keeps teams off the scoreboard after they start drives from the 45 it's okay.
Again, the two phases of our program that don't have Tenuta's direct input and involvement are coincidentally enough after 5 years, STILL THE WEAKEST.
Maybe Gailey might continue on the right path after he ran off Tommy Robinson and Dave Wilson, two blights on Tech's otherwise long pedigree of distinguished assistant coaches, and get rid of some of the guys who continue to not develop players. I actually thought Gailey might have started to get it when he ran those guys off, late as it was, and I think it was about 2 years after it became obvious those guys gave our staff nothing from my humble observations. The only way he can salvage any of the borderline good will he has tried to earn this year is to fire Nix.
Make no mistake about it, Gailey will never win without Tenuta. I've said it many times, Tenuta is the anti-Gailey. Polar opposites in approach.
Gailey backed into Tenuta and never would have sought him out without Braine's suggestion. I've said it many times, that had Gailey's original DC choice Rick Smith not get fired for the fudged resume, we'd be in about the 3rd year of a new coaching regime because Gailey would have been fired long ago.
You think about how bad Gailey's offenses have been. Rick Smith went on to be the DC at Louisiana Tech after he left Gailey's staff and preceded to have the 118th ranked defense in Division IA (there were only 118 IA teams that year) in the WAC, a conference Louisiana Tech won several years before.
Does that surprise you? Yet people still have faith in Gailey to lead our program, when the only reason we are respectable is because he pulled the proverbial blind squirrel and found a nut in Tenuta.
Gag me with the Humanitarian Bowl trophy.
