That was.......weird

[MikeDeTiger]

I'm talking about teams with some talent here....obviously teams with a bunch of 2 star kids are going to lose a lot of games based on that alone.  

I've pretty much always been of the attitude that a win is a win however you get it.  It's just that even when we've scraped by inferior teams here and there in the past, I was at least watching a football team underachieve.

Kind of like Texas in the waning Mack Brown years, and then under Strong…..several sub-bowl eligible teams, and when I watched them, I felt like I was watching a team that was very bad at executing their plans.  They couldn’t do their jobs well, so they lost a lot.  If and when LSU ever dropped off the map, I thought it would look like that, which is how most bad teams look.

Last night I’m not sure what I was watching.  This did not look like a bad football team exactly, rather it looked like a talented bunch of guys who weren't really playing football.  I’m not gonna spend a bunch of time detailing everything that was worrisome, I’d have to TLDR the hell out of it.  Rather I’ll just note the overall impression I had, which was that of watching a team that had no coaching staff.  I don't mean that the staff did a horrible job in the way we think of bad jobs.  What I’m saying is the team gave me the impression that those guys don’t exist.  That is…..horrifying.

Like it was a bunch of guys who got together on their own and decided to schedule Syracuse to see how it goes.  Like they had no overall goal, no plan, nobody calling the shots, just 11 guys on the field at various times running around to see what happens.  Like a bunch of kids with zero adult supervision.  There was never anything…I dunno…coherent.  This wasn’t like watching a bad football team, which is usually bad execution or a horrible game plan or something.  This was like watching guys who don’t know what they want to execute and had never heard of anything such as a gameplan.  Like how a team that has no coaching staff would look, I imagine.

I don't really have a comparison, if you didn't watch it.  The closest thing I can think of, I guess, is Orgeron's Ole Miss teams.  


It is just one game, and it was a win, but I can’t shake this growing feeling that things are about to go off the rails.  I hope I’m wrong.  Right now I’m looking at the SEC schedule ahead and I’m struggling to find anything that feels like a probable W.  I know UT and UF fans probably think they can lose to LSU, but unless you're watching us closely you may not understand what I'm talking about.  Either of those teams would've torn us to shreds last night.  Syracuse is not in the ballpark as talented as LSU, and they nearly beat us.  MSU isn't either, although closer than 'Cuse, and they did tear us a new one.  The games were similar.  LSU is just athletically gifted kids who don't appear to know anything about the game of football.  

I could be way off, but based on the last two weeks I'd say missing a bowl is as likely as making one.  I hope this is wild overreaction, but I've never really seen anything like this, so I've got no reference point.  This is not "bad" like UK, UT, or UF (offense) fans are used to talking about bad.  This is utter disorganization at the molecular level.  I've yet to see an SEC team playing worse football, though we might beat Mizzou, maybe Vandy, on sheer talent and fluke big plays, like we did Syracuse.  

Previously, I said this felt like an 8-4 team with the schedule/youth/other factors, which could maybe go 10-2 if things trended up and got some lucky breaks.  8-4 feels like a windfall right now.  

[OrangeAfroMan]

What you're describing sounds like no teaching is going on - like informal football talk.  It's something you have to make time for, because all of the allowable time can be used up doing all the regular coaching stuff - alignments, play calls, goalline O and D, 2-minute O and D, special teams, etc.

But teaching needs to happen, too.  Sit down with the WRs in a relaxed setting, not a 'gotcha' environment, and explain why these 2 WRs are running this route combo and with the QB describing what usually happens on this play, and why he's going to this WR over that one.  

You can draw these things on a board or just have good discussions - but a lot of these 4 and 5* kids were athletic enough to never get the ins and outs of football.  And as the coach at an LSU or a Texas or a USC, you might assume these kids know it or should know it....but it doesn't matter what they SHOULD know, it matters that you need to TEACH them.  

Does that sound right?

[MikeDeTiger]

It makes sense, but I wonder if you could get the same result if the opposite were happening.

One of the first changes Orgeron made was to shorten practices significantly while giving the gained time to classroom teaching.  One of the knocks people had on Miles was they claimed his practices during the week were too long/tiresome and the team was not fresh on Saturdays.  I don't know about that, but I do know Miles had a nearly compulsive way about game walk-throughs and final preps.  

Orgeron has made the practices a lot more intense, but shorter.  The time gained is spent in film study or doing teaching-related things you describe.  It's the Pete Carroll model from his USC days, which is what O is trying to fashion here.  I wonder if you can get these results with philosophical understanding but not enough practice time?  I dunno.  The other thing I wonder is if Carroll's method is really repeatable.  Yeah, it worked for him, but O is not Carroll.  

Thing is, it's not all the players.  There were decisions made in the game at the coaching level which were just bizarre.  Like a kid managing a video game team with no real stakes involved.  One example is pulling the starting QB who is the least of your problems when you only have a 9 point lead, Syracuse is moving the ball at will on you, and your offense has done nothing on the night except for a few single-play big scores, just because you "want to get your backup QB game reps when the game actually matters, not just mop-up duty."  Then when 'Cuse pulls within 2 pts with 5:30 left in the 4th quarter, you put the starting QB back in after he's been on the bench an hour at that point.  

What I find hilarious is how many people put this on "the mess Miles left him with."  It must suck to inherit a 9-3 team (10-3 if you count the cancelled McNeese game) a stacked roster, one of the best DC's in the game and the OC you picked out.    

[OrangeAfroMan]

Well coaches should act like something important is on the line, but I'm also all for NOT doing things the way everyone else does them just because.

That being said, while it can be a unique plan, it does need to be a plan, nonetheless, lol.

[MikeDeTiger]

Agreed.  It was tough to sort through the hodge-podge of play and find any sort of plan, from the game-planning level down to the situational in-game level.  They were coaching decisions, obviously, but that more than the kids themselves is what made me feel like I was watching a game where the kids just made everything up by themselves on the spot.  I don't appear to be alone in thinking the game seemed that way.  

[847badgerfan]

Is Coach O not letting the coordinators do their jobs, or what? Those are some very good coaches on that payroll.

[MikeDeTiger]

Is Coach O not letting the coordinators do their jobs, or what? Those are some very good coaches on that payroll.

Exactly the opposite.  His whole schtick is to be the hands-off CEO and let his coordinators have free reign.  By all reports, that is exactly what he's doing.
I'm not sure that's a great idea.  Head coaches matter.  A team has no identity without the head coach setting it.  You count on coordinators to scheme up the X's and O's, teach the kids and call the plays.  Determining how a team needs to be attacked and defended ultimately falls on the coach.  When players implode and look like they're about to cry because they are helpless and lost, it's on the head coach to regroup them and get them centered.  It's a head coach's job to have a Plan B when the game plan has gone to hell.  It's a head coach's job to know how to manage the game as it happens.  
Right now I'm not seeing any of those things.  
The idea that anybody can succeed with some talent and hotshot coordinators is not something I've ever bought into, and at the moment we're seeing it play out.  Leadership matters.  We looked like a chicken with our head cut off in this game, who ran around and bled its way to an accidental win.  
Youth may be more of a factor here than I realize.  So could the O-line ineptitude.  I could be totally wrong.  Time will tell.  Like I said, I've never really seen anything like this.  This is a different type of bad team than, say, Rutgers or Illinois.  Maybe we'd look different with some experience and a line that could do anything--literally, any little thing--right.  

[847badgerfan]

Definitely it's on the head coach to set the tone for the team. If he's not doing that and not getting involved in the game plan.. What's he doing?

[MikeDeTiger]

Some people whose opinions I tend to respect believe things aren't nearly as dire as I describe.  

Maybe it's a function of a team changing identities and it's been a long time since we had a coaching change.  

Guess we'll see.  

Troy won't tell us much good this week.  Two weeks until Florida to get this mess sorted out.