Assistant coaching news...

[ZooCougar]

Who would you suggest? I think its impossible to judge any hires right now until we see the first few games of the season. We have no way of knowing how all the parts will fit together - overall philosophy which leads to teaching the xs and os which leads to getting the players who can execute which then leads to calling the right plays which then leads to actual execution. So how the hell can we even begin to judge the naming of individual coaches as this point when they are just one part of an overall process. It's impossible

Oh backpedaling. So I guess there is a middle ground.

I would suggest an OC from a place that didn't have a mediocre offensive performance and called the plays.

Do you think we could find one of those?

Like I already said. There must be something to this guy, but it's not apparent.


And anytime someone says to me: "you just can't see how all the parts fit together" then I sense that there is weakness.

This is a weird hire.

 

[Carl Spackler]

In my world, play calling is highly overrated. It's much more about the person, than the offense. Shane Day, I believe, will make a great play caller somewhere. George Deleone for example, is frigging awful. The difference between two, is not in the individual calls, it's in their ability to see big pictures. It's all mental. A good play caller is never focused on what's actually happening on the field, but a few plays ahead.

There are option offenses and there are straight forward offenses. There are different philosophies on how to move the ball and attack vertically and horizontally on the field. The key to any success is consistency. If you have to resort to trickery in play calling as a part of your game planning, (and an option offensive system is not trickery) - there is nothing tricky about a Chip Kelly offense - then it's usually probably not such a good thing for your offense - IMNSHO.

Diaco, laid out what he liked to see in a UCONN offense very colorfully in the press a few weeks ago. It meshes exactly with what Foley was able to accomplish with an offensive line in the past. We were never really able to build the passing offense to go along with the control of the line of scrimmage in the run game on offense under Edsall. Remains to be seen if we can do it under Diaco, but we seem to have a bunch of young Quarterbacks and a couple of very good receivers going into 2014 to try to make it work.

The best play callers are more like artists or musicians, than you would think, these guys know what the painting or song should look like or sound like, before they pick up a brush and make the first stroke or play the first note It's a matter of having a good system, that fits your players, and then executing it.

Happy New Year All!

I'm excited for 2014, and thankful for all I've got through 2013.

 

[sportsart]

He didn't even call his own plays.

You said.....

"Cummings put up over 30 points just twice last year, against two of the worst teams in FBS. CMU got held to 27 by Western Michigan, one of only 3 teams that WMU held under 30 points last year. I know he had a good 2012, but that was 2012".

So which one is it slick?

 

[UconnFamily]

Who would you suggest? I think its impossible to judge any hires right now until we see the first few games of the season. We have no way of knowing how all the parts will fit together - overall philosophy which leads to teaching the xs and os which leads to getting the players who can execute which then leads to calling the right plays which then leads to actual execution. So how the hell can we even begin to judge the naming of individual coaches as this point when they are just one part of an overall process. It's impossible

Cummings is an O-Line coach, he NEVER called plays for CMU. In the past 4 years CMU's offense is/was in-between the rankings of 50th to 110th overall offensively. Uconn was even ranked higher then CMU were in 2013 offensively.

2013 total offense stats
1Baylor
2Oregon
3Fresno State
4Texas A&M
5Florida State
6Northern Illinois- Could have payed there OC more money at Uconn
7Ohio State
8Texas Tech
9Indiana- Same here
10Auburn
11Clemson
12Marshall- same here
13Washington
14BYU- same here
15San Jose State- same here
16Missouri
17Georgia
18Wisconsin
19Ball State- same here
20Boise State
21Mississippi
22Wyoming- same here
23Cincinnati
24Colorado State- same here
25East Carolina- same here
26Oregon State
27LSU
28Troy- same here
29Louisville
30Bowling Green- same here
31Western Kentucky- and same here

So why an OC who never called plays?? His specialty is obviously the O-Line and so is Foley's, so why Cummings?

http://www.cfbstats.com/2013/leader/national/team/offense/split01/category10/sort01.html

 

[Carl Spackler]

I really don't get the angst over play calling. Shane Day never called plays ever, and was a baseball player in college I believe, not sure how he got into coaching football, but he did fine. I'm much more interested in the actual offense.

For the love of Carl Bond, can we all calm the down?

 

[ZooCougar]

I guess I would be less concerned if he hired a DC who had not called his own plays since Diaco is a defensive guy.

 

[sportsart]

Great Post. I am nervous. If his friends don't get the job done like GDL does he have the guts to fire them. Coach P's only significant mistake was hiring his buddy and not having the guts to fire or demote him until he was forced. His other non-friend and objective staffing choices were good. Don Brown was a great choice. Shane Day good choice.

Also does anybody know if this standard practice? It seems odd that you would fire the whole staff and replace them with your buddies. If you did this in the business world it would look like nepotism. Is coach BD saying that nobody on the current staff was any good.

Here is what coach BD has done so far

1 Fire everbody
2. Go on vacation
3 Hire his buddies

PP would have hired his friends but they were all dead. Except for GDL. But thank you for your interest in UConn football.

 

[UconnFamily]

You said.....
"Cummings put up over 30 points just twice last year, against two of the worst teams in FBS. CMU got held to 27 by Western Michigan, one of only 3 teams that WMU held under 30 points last year. I know he had a good 2012, but that was 2012".

So which one is it slick?

"While Cummings did not call the offensive plays at CMU as Enos handled those responsibilities" http://www.themorningsun.com/sports...ummings-accepts-job-in-same-capacity-at-uconn

 

[Husky25]

I'm not a coach at any level...yet. At barely 17 months, my son is too young, but from my experience in team sports and conversations with people in the coaching business, I believe that play calling is as much smaller slice of the pie than recruiting, teaching, and personality management. Former "Coach" DeLeone professes he could wallpaper his office with his plays, but he appeared to have no idea when to call which. All of these guys being brought on have had a hand in game-planning for teams at high levels of college football. Coach Diaco was intimately involved in both the defense and offensive game plans as Assistant Head Coach at Notre Dame and despite what I said yesterday (albeit in jest), I'm quite sure there is a method to his madness and he's not just asking a few friends to come along for the ride. UConn has experienced that already over the last three years and Mr. Manuel is well aware what's at stake should it continue. Nothing leads me to believe otherwise that Mr. Manuel had it in the back of his mind during the interview process what kind of coaches Coach Diaco was going to bring aboard and he probably questioned him about it directly. Further, nothing leads me to believe otherwise that they talked about 2nd and 3rd choices in case the pie in the sky circumstance did not come to pass. Patience, Grasshopper(s).

You are right, we don't know. But Diaco is making a lot of first time Head Coach mistakes. He blows out the old staff. He replaces them with a lot of friends of his who are getting pretty significant promotions. And we don't see a single guy on the list that looked like he was in demand with other schools.

I thought Pasqualoni was a silly old fossil, but the resumes of some of the coaches that came in were solid if not outright impressive. The only mistake he made on the staff was bringing in his friend.

We are where we are, and this program and entire athletic program is totally $%@ed if Diaco doesn't work out, so we got to root for him. Let's hope for the best.

Nelson, I don't know you personally from Adam...only what you post here. Be that as it may, I'm willing to bet that the next job you are offered at the Football Bowl Sub-division level will be your first.

I doubt very much that coaching staffs relate directly to the typical business world and an extensive, but not exhaustive, Internet search supports Coach Diaco in his endeavors to fill out his staff.

The last 7 National Championships were won by 4 schools.

1. 2007: Alabama Hires Nick Saban. He kept exactly zero coaches from Mike Sula's 2006 staff (Took 2 coaches - K. Smart and B. Davis - from the Miami Dolphins, who also coached with him at LSU)
2. 2009: Auburn Hires Gene Chizik. He kept exactly zero coaches from Tommy Tuberville's 2008 staff. (Took 2 low level coaches from Iowa State)
3. 2005: Florida Hires Urban Meyer. He kept exactly one coach from Ron Zook's 2004 staff (Took 4 coaches with him from Utah*).
4. 2005: LSU hires Les Miles. He kept exactly two coaches from Nick Saban's staff and one was the Asst. Strength and Conditioning coach. (Took 3 low level coaches from Okla. St.)
*Undefeated. BCS Buster

Now granted, these are established head coaches coming from previously successful programs so of course the coach is going to bring some talent with him. As noted, however, the talent brought is typically at best, second tier (I.e. position coach, Off/Def/ Spc., S&C coach).

1. In 2012, Pittsburgh hired Paul Chryst, former Wisc. Defensive Coordinator. Pitt has gone 6-7 and 7-6, with 2 bowl appearances. Coach Chryst kept zero from Todd Graham's staff and was able to pry 2 coaches from Wisconsin.
2. In 2013, Northern Illinois promoted their Offensive Coordinator Rod Carey. While historic asst. coach information is not readily available for a MAC team, Comparing the 2012 staff and the 2013 staff of NCSU, Dave Doeren brought most of his staff with him to NC State. I.e. a new NIU staff coached the Huskies to 12-2 and a bowl appearance. Carey also coached in a BCS bowl game.
3. In 2013, Texas Tech hired former Texas A&M Offensive Coordinator, Kliff Kingsbury. Coach Kingsbury brought one coach from Texas A&M, making the Aggie's LB coach the Texas Tech DC. Zero Coaches were retained. The Red Raiders went 8-5 and just won the Holiday Bowl.
4. In 2013, Utah State promoted OC Matt Wells. Again, this is a MAC team, but Coach Andersen took then Defensive Coordinator with him to Wisconsin. While 3 defensive coaches seemed to have stayed (per the USU website), Coach Wells had to filled out his Offensive staff and DC with new personnel, including his brother, Luke (Nepotism). USU went 9-5 and beat NIU in the Poinsetta Bowl.

One more...

5. In 2012, Fresno State Hire Tim DeRuyter, Former Defensive Coordinator at Texas A&M. DeRuyter was Interim HC upon the Firing of Mike Sherman in 2011. He brought two coaches with him from A&M including a grad asst. DeRuyter kept only the RB coach from Pat Hill's 4-9 team in 2011.

 

[ZooCougar]

I really don't get the angst over play calling. Shane Day never called plays ever, and was a baseball player in college I believe, not sure how he got into coaching football, but he did fine. I'm much more interested in the actual offense.

For the love of Carl Bond, can we all calm the down?

Shane Day played football in college. He was a classmate of mine.

 

[HawkHusky]

In my world, play calling is highly overrated. It's much more about the person, than the offense. Shane Day, I believe, will make a great play caller somewhere. George Deleone for example, is frigging awful. The difference between two, is not in the individual calls, it's in their ability to see big pictures. It's all mental. A good play caller is never focused on what's actually happening on the field, but a few plays ahead.

There are option offenses and there are straight forward offenses. There are different philosophies on how to move the ball and attack vertically and horizontally on the field. The key to any success is consistency. If you have to resort to trickery in play calling as a part of your game planning, (and an option offensive system is not trickery) - there is nothing tricky about a Chip Kelly offense - then it's usually probably not such a good thing for your offense - IMNSHO.

Diaco, laid out what he liked to see in a UCONN offense very colorfully in the press a few weeks ago. It meshes exactly with what Foley was able to accomplish with an offensive line in the past. We were never really able to build the passing offense to go along with the control of the line of scrimmage in the run game on offense under Edsall. Remains to be seen if we can do it under Diaco, but we seem to have a bunch of young Quarterbacks and a couple of very good receivers going into 2014 to try to make it work.

The best play callers are more like artists or musicians, than you would think, these guys know what the painting or song should look like or sound like, before they pick up a brush and make the first stroke or play the first note It's a matter of having a good system, that fits your players, and then executing it.

Happy New Year All!

I'm excited for 2014, and thankful for all I've got through 2013.

Agree. Quality players are more important than play callers. Diaco's big emphasis has been on getting great players to come to UCONN (hence the constant talk about great players in the Northeast). His hires to date have expertise in recruiting and getting guys to believe in their systems. Being able to tell a recruit that your OC helped produce a #1 overall NFL Draft pick is a pretty good asset.

 

[Skiblets]

Oh backpedaling. So I guess there is a middle ground.

I would suggest an OC from a place that didn't have a mediocre offensive performance and called the plays.

Do you think we could find one of those?

Like I already said. There must be something to this guy, but it's not apparent.


And anytime someone says to me: "you just can't see how all the parts fit together" then I sense that there is weakness.

This is a weird hire.

My post about Kelly and Payton was just to show how extreme people are being with the unwarranted criticism. We have nothing to go on. Not backtracking at all just pointing out how useless it is to criticize an individual hiring in December that's all

 

[Carl Spackler]

Shane Day played football in college. He was a classmate of mine.

Cool. Tell him thanks for the work he did at UCONN.

 

[BlueDogs]

I really don't get the angst over play calling. Shane Day never called plays ever, and was a baseball player in college I believe, not sure how he got into coaching football, but he did fine. I'm much more interested in the actual offense.

For the love of Carl Bond, can we all calm the down?

Our memories are short. Remember Pistol Hand-off, Pistol Hand-off, Badly Run Short Route Pass and Punt. Rinse and repeat.

 

[ZooCougar]

Cool. Tell him thanks for the work he did at UCONN.

I will, if you do your best to stop talking out of your butt.

 

[Husky25]

Great Post. I am nervous. If his friends don't get the job done like GDL does he have the guts to fire them. Coach P's only significant mistake was hiring his buddy and not having the guts to fire or demote him until he was forced. His other non-friend and objective staffing choices were good. Don Brown was a great choice. Shane Day good choice.

Also does anybody know if this standard practice? It seems odd that you would fire the whole staff and replace them with your buddies. If you did this in the business world it would look like nepotism. Is coach BD saying that nobody on the current staff was any good.

Here is what coach BD has done so far

1 Fire everbody
2. Go on vacation
3 Hire his buddies

Nepotism relates to relatives, not buddies. The term comes from Italian word nepotismo,[1][2] which is based on Latin root nepos meaning nephew.

Hiring buddies happens in every single walk of life. It's not nepotism, its having the right connections.

 

[sportsart]

...And the Yard reverts to its usual camps: A) HC can do no wrong loyalists casting firebombs at anybody that raises an objection vs. B) the perpetually dissatisfied who see total destruction at every turn challenging the intelligence of the sheep.

Its good to be back to normal.

My take is we have to let HCBD play out his hand. Way too early, but I have rising concern about his choices. Buffalo and MAC makes me worried. This is not an elite staff targeting BCS level programmatic levels on its face. But, we have to hope HCBD knows a lot more than us about these guys and what they can bring. Stay tuned.

You must do a better job of covering your tracks. You are the proverbial "B" and you went right to it after...way to early, BUT....

At least be honest with yourself. I'm in the "A" group and always will be. I'd rather get sun burned than get rained on all day.

 

[ZooCougar]

My post about Kelly and Payton was just to show how extreme people are being with the unwarranted criticism. We have nothing to go on. Not backtracking at all just pointing out how useless it is to criticize an individual hiring in December that's all

There is nothing wrong with critical thinking. We have a defensive head coach. We're all hoping for an exciting and potent offense. So I guess some of us were hoping that we would bring in someone that had a track record of doing just that.

This one seems underwhelming at first glance. And maybe the second glance.

 

[Carl Spackler]

Our memories are short. Remember Pistol Hand-off, Pistol Hand-off, Badly Run Short Route Pass and Punt. Rinse and repeat.

You don't have a short memory?

 

[UConnDan97]

For the love of Tory Taylor...

 

[Carl Spackler]

I will, if you do your best to stop talking out of your butt.

Impossible.

 

[HobokenHusky]

...And the Yard reverts to its usual camps: A) HC can do no wrong loyalists casting firebombs at anybody that raises an objection vs. B) the perpetually dissatisfied who see total destruction at every turn challenging the intelligence of the sheep.

Its good to be back to normal.

My take is we have to let HCBD play out his hand. Way too early, but I have rising concern about his choices. Buffalo and MAC makes me worried. This is not an elite staff targeting BCS level programmatic levels on its face. But, we have to hope HCBD knows a lot more than us about these guys and what they can bring. Stay tuned.

We have to hope Diaco knows more than us about these guys? Well to start, he has met them all, so that right there would put him ahead of everyone on the Boneyard. Add to that that he was coached by, or coached with, every single one of these guys at some point, and it would lead me to believe he has a great understanding of what these guys bring to the table.

I am not worried or excited about this hire, but it cracks me up to read the negative posts where people simultaneously do not give him credit for the good offenses when he was OC (anything over 60 is good enough to be a very good team) because he didn't call the plays, but then s&^t on him for their 2013 crappy offense b/c he was the OC. Which one is it?

The fact that he didn't call plays does not worry me in the slightest. That is all HC preference. Diaco thinks he has a good mind to call the plays for him. Everyone seemed to like Diaco. Lets give him and his crew a shot to get on the field before we bring them to the gallows.

It's like the entire board has PTSD from the past few years.

 

[BlueDogs]

You must do a better job of covering your tracks. You are the proverbial "B" and you went right to it after...way to early, BUT....

At least be honest with yourself. I'm in the "A" group and always will be. I'd rather get sun burned than get rained on all day.

I am definitely a B camp guy. Hey, we all have our defects. Remember, the sun gives you skin cancer.

 

[Dove]

PP would have hired his friends but they were all dead. Except for GDL. But thank you for your interest in UConn football.

I posted a picture of PPs staff similar to this...

...upon PP's hiring and the naming of staff. It was not well-received.

 

[sportsart]

Doesn't the position of OC call for the designing and teaching the offense to the players AND calling the plays? You can't tell me Cummings was just an OC in name only because they had money in the budget and someone had to get it.

I seriously doubt the CMU head coach designed, taught and called the plays. None of us here no exactly what Cummings did there but I'm going to guess HCBD has a clue and certainly knows the story of PGDL.

I'd bet Foley has been around long enough to not only teach an offense but call plays as well. Shane Day proved it's not rocket science.