GDL and offensive line

[dsturdy5]

Yesterday morning I was on my way to work and flipped on the NFL station on Sirius. Scott Pioli was co-hosting and was talking about his development as a talent evaluator. Long story short, he had been a grad assistant working with the OL at Syracuse under, who he called, the best technical offensive line teacher he's ever seen, George DeLeon. Pioli put him on par with Ferentz (sp?) who was the OL coach with the Browns when he was there and Scarnecchia (sp) who has been with New England for years.

Pioli did insinuate that perhaps the game had passed GDL by. Pioli spoke a lot in the past tense about GDL's coaching prowess and at the end, almost as throw away line, said "He's still working in football at UConn in some capacity."

Not trying to start a GDL bash-a-thon, I just thought it was interesting to hear the perspective of someone who worked with him during his prime.

 

[pj]

Presumably GDL was in touch with him about a job when he almost got the Giants job, but Pioli didn't offer. Presumably the "in some capacity" means Pioli is not really sure what "associate head coach" means and doesn't want to call him a position coach as that might seem demeaning. Good to hear Pioli thinks highly of him. I hope UConn captured that soundbite and is sending it to o-line recruits; and I hope it's true he can help the o-linemen. If he can get a few of our guys to the NFL, that would be tremendous.

 

[Carl Spackler]

When Bill Parcells had Deleone on his staff, Parcells basically deferred to him, on lots of football technical stuff. The guy is a phenomenal football coach when it comes to technique and positions. My personal opinion,is that Ryan Griffin became and NFL draft pick, because he was taught by Deleone, how to play the position of TE. Call me cuckoo, that's fine. It's what I think.

THe problem with the guy, is that he's TOO smart, and didn't have a feel for the play calling, and flow of the game anymore. He put stuff into game plans, that I guarantee sounded fantastic, and made perfect sense duing the course of a week's practice, nd planning for a season with the film that willb e out, but completely tank during live game time. I think back to a handful of play calls last year, and the year before, that make me want to wring the guy's neck. The wishbone against Buffalo, being the granddaddy of them all.

 

[Doggie Style]

Very few Olineman who have been coached by GDL will say that they didn't improve considerably under his guidance. My brother went to his camps @ Cuse for several years, was recruited by The Fruit but ultimately went to West Virginia. A buddy of mine did the same then played at Brown. Both speak very highly of his knowledge and coaching ability. I do think there is validity to the comment that the game has perhaps passed him by at this point, or at least from an OC standpoint. I do question that thought at the same time however, seeing as he was in the NFL just a few years ago, and there is zero tolerance for lack of performance there. The debate can go for some time, but at the end of the day we have not reached our offensive potential for two years in a row and change had to occur. I'm glad we are moving forward and still think that GDL can bring value to these young players, but our success will absolutely rest on Coach Weist' ability to put point on the boards consistently.

 

[Jimmy Serrano]

When Bill Parcells had Deleone on his staff, Parcells basically deferred to him, on lots of football technical stuff. The guy is a phenomenal football coach when it comes to technique and positions. My personal opinion,is that Ryan Griffin became and NFL draft pick, because he was taught by Deleone, how to play the position of TE. Call me cuckoo, that's fine. It's what I think.

THe problem with the guy, is that he's TOO smart, and didn't have a feel for the play calling, and flow of the game anymore. He put stuff into game plans, that I guarantee sounded fantastic, and made perfect sense duing the course of a week's practice, nd planning for a season with the film that willb e out, but completely tank during live game time. I think back to a handful of play calls last year, and the year before, that make me want to wring the guy's neck. The wishbone against Buffalo, being the granddaddy of them all.

I actually agree with almost all of this. Look at the Temple game. They had a great game plan put together during the week. The first quarter of that game is the best quarter of football we played all year, IMO. The problem was, once Temple made adjustments and started to mix up blitz packages, we were not prepared or able to make our own adjustments. That's on the staff 100%. I cringe every time I read someone blame the Temple loss on the missed FG's. Good God it should've never come to that. We were 3 TD's better than Temple was last year.

 

[uconndogs]

THe problem with the guy, is that he's TOO smart, and didn't have a feel for the play calling, and flow of the game anymore. He put stuff into game plans, that I guarantee sounded fantastic, and made perfect sense duing the course of a week's practice, nd planning for a season with the film that willb e out, but completely tank during live game time. I think back to a handful of play calls last year, and the year before, that make me want to wring the guy's neck. The wishbone against Buffalo, being the granddaddy of them all.

Bang! Hammer on nail.....

We should have been in bowl games the last two seasons and last season should have been something like a 9 win season. We didn't need a sexxy offense. We needed an average running game and play action. Instead we had the most complicated offense known to man. P put himself on the hot seat allowing that to happen.

 

[Excalibur]

The guy is a phenomenal football coach when it comes to technique and positions. My personal opinion,is that Ryan Griffin became and NFL draft pick, because he was taught by Deleone, how to play the position of TE. Call me cuckoo, that's fine. It's what I think.

I don't think that idea is cuckoo at all. It's probably correct. But as good as GDL was at teaching positional skills, he had no freaking clue how to incorporate Griffin's skills into the offense.

 

[ibleedhuskyblue]

I actually agree with almost all of this. Look at the Temple game. They had a great game plan put together during the week. The first quarter of that game is the best quarter of football we played all year, IMO. The problem was, once Temple made adjustments and started to mix up blitz packages, we were not prepared or able to make our own adjustments. That's on the staff 100%. I cringe every time I read someone blame the Temple loss on the missed FG's. Good God it should've never come to that. We were 3 TD's better than Temple was last year.

 

[ZooCougar]

When Bill Parcells had Deleone on his staff, Parcells basically deferred to him, on lots of football technical stuff. The guy is a phenomenal football coach when it comes to technique and positions. My personal opinion,is that Ryan Griffin became and NFL draft pick, because he was taught by Deleone, how to play the position of TE. Call me cuckoo, that's fine. It's what I think.

THe problem with the guy, is that he's TOO smart, and didn't have a feel for the play calling, and flow of the game anymore. He put stuff into game plans, that I guarantee sounded fantastic, and made perfect sense duing the course of a week's practice, nd planning for a season with the film that willb e out, but completely tank during live game time. I think back to a handful of play calls last year, and the year before, that make me want to wring the guy's neck. The wishbone against Buffalo, being the granddaddy of them all.

He is a football scholar, not a football coach.

He may have had it nailed at some point but, the results now speak for themselves.

 

[Waquoit]

At best, GDL is an example of the Peter Principle. He was an unmitigated disaster as an OC. And because of his emphasis on that job, he was equally lousy as an OL coach despite his past track record.. It bears repeating, the OL, our Achilles heel all season received little to no in-game coaching because the OL coach was in the booth. Watch any game with any other team, while on the bench the coaches are constantly working with the players. Not the UConn OL, though. And P didn't seem to have a problem with it.

 

[Chin Diesel]

You can freely subsitute the name Blaney and DeLeone and get the same comments on the basketball board whenever Blaney stepped in to coach for Calhoun.

Both guys seem to be great and have a ton of respect as instructional coaches and game day preparation.

But both were obvsiously over their head keeping up with the ebb and flow of in-game substitutions.

 

[ruskin]

Of all the GDL at UConn flaws, the worst is the eagerness to throw the players under the bus to the media. The Horde didn't invent the "offensive line sucked" meme on its own. They're just repeating what they've been told "off the record"

Here's an example from Silver's recent offensive line analysis.

The good part about the offensive line is that all five starters are returning. . . That should help communication and continuity — two things that the line has lacked in the last two seasons.

. . . The other problem the line had was an inability to adjust on the fly. For example, after gashing Temple this past season the line never could adjust to the different blitzes and pressure the owls bought in the second quarter and on. The line always seemed to struggled with anything new that wasn’t previously on film. Blitzes and protection never did get up to par and the more they struggled handling the pressure, the more it came.

Well, it's tough to "communicate" and "adjust on the fly" when your coach is up in the booth and NO ONE IS TALKING TO YOU when the defense is on the field. Ten points total in the second half of seven conference games? The other coaching staffs are playing chess and GDL isn't even playing checkers.

BTW, based on his track record, Foley probably deserves more credit for Griffin getting drafted than GDL, especially considering how poorly Ryan was used.

I don't think it's Peter Principle as much as the worst kind of old-boy-coaching-network cronyism that Hathaway/McHugh were completely blind to when they bought in PP. There was nothing in GDL's recent coaching history that merited his $272,500 salary. Said it before and will say it again -- the biggest concern for 2013 is how much power GDL will really have and if he's on board with TJ. Based on the past history of phony demotions and the admittedly very small sample size of what I saw at the spring game, I'm dubious. Should know around halftime of Maryland who's really in charge of the offense.

 

[Jimmy Serrano]

Of all the GDL at UConn flaws, the worst is the eagerness to throw the players under the bus to the media. The Horde didn't invent the "offensive line sucked" meme on its own. They're just repeating what they've been told "off the record"

Here's an example from Silver's recent offensive line analysis.

The good part about the offensive line is that all five starters are returning. . . That should help communication and continuity — two things that the line has lacked in the last two seasons.

. . . The other problem the line had was an inability to adjust on the fly. For example, after gashing Temple this past season the line never could adjust to the different blitzes and pressure the owls bought in the second quarter and on. The line always seemed to struggled with anything new that wasn’t previously on film. Blitzes and protection never did get up to par and the more they struggled handling the pressure, the more it came.

Well, it's tough to "communicate" and "adjust on the fly" when your coach is up in the booth and NO ONE IS TALKING TO YOU when the defense is on the field. Ten points total in the second half of seven conference games? The other coaching staffs are playing chess and GDL isn't even playing checkers.

BTW, based on his track record, Foley probably deserves more credit for Griffin getting drafted than GDL, especially considering how poorly he was used.

I don't think it's Peter Principle as much as the worst kind of old-boy-network cronyism that Hathaway/McHugh were completely blind to. There was nothing in GDL's recent coaching history that merited a $272,500 salary

I don't think Silver was told that off the record. That second part of the statement you referenced is a damning indictment on the coaching staff and in particular, GDL.

 

[Carl Spackler]

I don't think that idea is cuckoo at all. It's probably correct. But as good as GDL was at teaching positional skills, he had no freaking clue how to incorporate Griffin's skills into the offense.

I don't know about that. This is all completely heresay and my opinion, but watching, it looked like many times that Deleone was full aware that Griffin was one of our best players on offense. And this is where I say the guy is too smart for his own good. He knows that defenses are going to plan to take away the strenght of our offense, as little as we had. There were many times where Griffin was split wide, and IMO, pretty muchlooked like the game plan, and incorporating those plays, was meant to try to set up to be a 'decoy' for the defense, while we tried something else and the D focused on #94 split wide. Over thinking though, play to your strengths, I think. Use the decoy's and gimmicks in situations where you've got leads on the scoreboard, and have some wiggle room.

THe problem is, overthinking. The McCummings throw at the goal line against Rutgers still drives me nuts when I think about it. What a freaking disaster. To this day, I think that they worked those play calls during the week, and were most likely preparing under the impression that the Rutgers D would respond differently to the play than what happened. That DB on the edge crashed down on the play, that I think should have never happened (and beat not 1, but TWO blockers to rush McCummings and force the bad throw to wide open player.). The play should have worked for so many reasons - except that it was a crunch time situation, we needed points, and we went to every one of our weaknesses on offense, instead of strengths. (i.e. backfield help blocking, and McCummings throwing)

Earlier in the season, we ran th same goal line situations, with McCummings, on the road, against Maryland, and we punched it in on the ground.

Simple principles on offense for me play calling. Have your play calling arsenal stocked and well practiced with options within a game plan, but don't fugging stop using what's working on your own - make the defense stop you before you change it up, and play to your strengths in crunch time situations, not trick and gimmick plays to incorporate into the film for future opponents

Deleone, in his play calling, seem to go the complete opposite, and there are two reasons why that wwould happen, is if you're way too far ahead in your thinking, or too far behind.

Many think the game has passed Deleone by, or was clueless, when it came to play calling, but to me, that's not the case at all, to me, he was thinking too far ahead, and that hurt us, as much as being completely clueless would have.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to football season, and seeing an offense, hopefully that can score TD's regularly. It's been a damn long time since we've had an offense that was a threat to score.

 

[ibleedhuskyblue]

The good thing is that instead of being in charge of nearly 45 people, GDL is now in charge of preparing about 9. Unfortunately, those 9 are really really important. Hopefully TJW has a handle on things.

Im excited to see what TJ can do

 

[ruskin]

What did Woody Hayes say about passing: three things can happen, and two of them are bad?

UConn puts in Wildcat, and: delay of game penalty, unnecessary time out taken, bad snap from recently-subbed-in center, normal QB is taken out of rhythm and throws INT on next play in, and on and on - never mind defense having a pretty good idea what's going to happen. Hope WM had put the kibosh on Wildcat for next year.

 

[Carl Spackler]

BTW: it wasn't just our offense that didn't do well with half time adjustments.

 

[Jimmy Serrano]

Nobody has even brought up the 2 worst play calls of the entire year. The Whitmer concussion against Cincy and the pass at the goal line against Pitt. One play gave us a concussed QB, the other one nearly saw us blow a 24 point lead.

 

[ibleedhuskyblue]

What did Woody Hayes say about passing: three things can happen, and two of them are bad?

UConn puts in Wildcat, and: delay of game penalty, unnecessary time out taken, bad snap from recently-subbed-in center, normal QB is taken out of rhythm and throws INT on next play in, and on and on - never mind defense having a pretty good idea what's going to happen. Hope WM had put the kibosh on Wildcat for next year.

I agree.
I assume they practiced the wildcat all throughout the season, and yet still as soon as McCummings enters the game, there is mass confusion all over the field.

Obviously the teaching method is not productive, or easy to understand. There is clearly a disconnect somewhere.

GDL may know more than anyone about the game of football.......but he is lousy at teaching what he knows to college kids.

 

[ruskin]

BTW: it wasn't just our offense that didn't do well with half time adjustments.

Some truth to that. But defense's struggles in adjusting pale in comparison to offense's.

 

[Husky68]

Of all the GDL OC coaching deficiencies; none are cause he is tooooooooooo smart.

 

[ibleedhuskyblue]

BTW: it wasn't just our offense that didn't do well with half time adjustments.

I tend to put myself in the defense's position....

Think of how they must have felt. They are a top 20 in the nation defense. They hold opponents to less than 20 points most games, some games less than 10.
But most games, after looking at the scoreboard, they see that its the 3rd or 4th quarter, they have held the other offense to 10 points (or so), and we are still losing, with very little hope for a win. They have given the offense great field position, again, and we either get 0, or 3 points out of it.
In that position, its human nature to feel so dejected that your performance suffers, and there is a bit of an "i give up" thing happening. Not necessarily giving up, but a frustration that is hard to overcome.
It's just human nature. Its hard to give it all you got when there is seemingly no light at the end of the tunnel.

 

[Srqhusky]

Thought the op said not to make this a bash gdl thread. We have a new oc to look forward to. Lets forget last season

 

[Jimmy Serrano]

Thought the op said not to make this a bash gdl thread. We have a new oc to look forward to. Lets forget last season

When you become a moderator and start charging us a fee to post here, maybe then you can dictate what people decide to post about. Fair?

 

[Srqhusky]

Yesterday morning I was on my way to work and flipped on the NFL station on Sirius. Scott Pioli was co-hosting and was talking about his development as a talent evaluator. Long story short, he had been a grad assistant working with the OL at Syracuse under, who he called, the best technical offensive line teacher he's ever seen, George DeLeon. Pioli put him on par with Ferentz (sp?) who was the OL coach with the Browns when he was there and Scarnecchia (sp) who has been with New England for years.

Pioli did insinuate that perhaps the game had passed GDL by. Pioli spoke a lot in the past tense about GDL's coaching prowess and at the end, almost as throw away line, said "He's still working in football at UConn in some capacity."

Not trying to start a GDL bash-a-thon, I just thought it was interesting to hear the perspective of someone who worked with him during his prime.

Remember back in third grade when we had to find the main idea of a paragraph. Jimmy what is the main idea. Is that less moderator ish for you