Incompetent and Cowardly

[Tenspro2002]

Diaco is both.

The incompetence comes in game management: wasted timeouts, failure to get play calls into the huddle.

The cowardliness is in strategy: run, run, pass, punt; refusing to open up the playbook; coaching to avoid mistakes rather than to make the big play.

Competence you can improve on, though 3 years in, you expect more than this. It's obvious he's not learning quickly enough.

Cowardliness doesn't go away. A conservative, play-not-to-lose mindset is innate. It killed the New York Giants under Tom Coughlin the last 4 years, and it will kill this program for as long as Diaco is here.

FBS football, P5 football in 2016 is about excitement; Diaco is a sleeping pill.

 

[TouchdownHusky]

Diaco is both.

The incompetence comes in game management: wasted timeouts, failure to get play calls into the huddle.

The cowardliness is in strategy: run, run, pass, punt; refusing to open up the playbook; coaching to avoid mistakes rather than to make the big play.

Competence you can improve on, though 3 years in, you expect more than this. It's obvious he's not learning quickly enough.

Cowardliness doesn't go away. A conservative, play-not-to-lose mindset is innate. It killed the New York Giants under Tom Coughlin the last 4 years, and it will kill this program for as long as Diaco is here.

FBS football, P5 football in 2016 is about excitement; Diaco is a sleeping pill.

I really do like this post. Absolutely correct. Diaco is like a coach out od the 50s or 60s.

 

[psilotic]

Am pissed as everyone else about the last 30 seconds. But somebody deserves credit for A) coming back from 21-0, which was very nearly 28-0 and B) a really, really good last minute drive up until the disaster at half-yard line. If you want to say the players overcame the coaches in both instances, fine. But I saw a team that looked as if it was about to quit and didn't. Incompetent clock management? Yep. Poor play calling that led to 21-0 deficit? Yep. Avoiding returning punts like they were the zika virus? Yep. BD deserves the burial he's getting here today but the 'fire the whole staff' and 'cowardly' stuff is pushing it a little bit.

 

[noeynox]

Am pissed as everyone else about the last 30 seconds. But somebody deserves credit for A) coming back from 21-0, which was very nearly 28-0 and B) a really, really good last minute drive up until the disaster at half-yard line. If you want to say the players overcame the coaches in both instances, fine. But I saw a team that looked as if it was about to quit and didn't. Incompetent clock management? Yep. Poor play calling that led to 21-0 deficit? Yep. Avoiding returning punts like they were the zika virus? Yep. BD deserves the burial he's getting here today but the 'fire the whole staff' and 'cowardly' stuff is pushing it a little bit.

Here is the thing. He is so afraid of what could go wrong he paralysis himself into conservativeness to the point of absurdity.

Hr literally told reporters after the game what if we throw it amd its intercepted or tipped? He Bob, what of you run it, it gets stuffed and the clock runs out? He is so concerned about taking a risk that he convinced himself the run play was safer with no timeouts left. If he was coaching any other team we would all be lol at him calling him an idiot for how he handled the end of the game yesterday.

I think he was still feeling the effects of the Whitmer int agaisnt Army.

 

[amory]

Am pissed as everyone else about the last 30 seconds. But somebody deserves credit for A) coming back from 21-0, which was very nearly 28-0 and B) a really, really good last minute drive up until the disaster at half-yard line. If you want to say the players overcame the coaches in both instances, fine. But I saw a team that looked as if it was about to quit and didn't. Incompetent clock management? Yep. Poor play calling that led to 21-0 deficit? Yep. Avoiding returning punts like they were the zika virus? Yep. BD deserves the burial he's getting here today but the 'fire the whole staff' and 'cowardly' stuff is pushing it a little bit.

I don't think Diaco deserves to be fired, but he does have to be held accountable for the clock management aspect of the failure.

It is so frustrating week after week to see him fundamentally misunderstanding how to use the clock to the teams' advantage. I never played football. I don't know much about the finer workings of the game. But anyone who's watched a few football games on TV or hell, played a few games of Madden understands how to manage the clock. It's not hard. They should just take that duty away from him and give it to someone on the sideline, I don't care if it's the equipment manager, who gets it.

And it's not just that, like the OP says, the guy is just way too conservative for absolutely no reason. Shirreffs had a great game throwing the ball yesterday, but it took us getting down 21-0 for BD to even let him be a quarterback. He played great, which made it even more confusing why he chose to run the ball on the last play.

It's like last week, against Maine of all teams, when he wouldn't try the FG heading into half time with a few seconds left on the clock because...I guess he was afraid Maine would go 60 yards in 10 seconds?

 

[ninety-nine]

I literally walked out of a game last year at halftime because, following another half of lousy play (vs USF), I was so frustrated at the clock management when they finally managed a drive (only to get tackled inbounds with five seconds left on an idiotic play, instead of throwing a pass or kicking a field goal right there) that I couldn't bear to sit there any longer. All I could think was "this incompetence is going to cost us all of our sports programs." I had to get away from it and think about something else.

The team is playing better now, but the clock management issues haven't changed. And this isn't a tiny issue. Screwing up clock management really detracts from the overall game, because it invalidates the strategy underlying entire drives in key situations. Ultimately, UConn never got a meaningful shot at the end zone on that last drive, because they got in their own way. This HAS to be dealt with.

 

[JSM1970]

Wait, everyone said how great of a hire he was and how great Warde was. What changed?

Other than he has Harbaugh and 10 Zingerman sandwiches a day.

 

[amory]

Wait, everyone said how great of a hire he was and how great Warde was. What changed?

Other than he has Harbaugh and 10 Zingerman sandwiches a day.

When were people saying that? When he first was announced as the hire?

BD has gotten criticized literally from his first game here when he essentially said the first couple games were "preseason" or whatever.

The huge win over Houston last season and getting us to our first bowl game in a long time buys him some time. He gets this season and probably at least part of next season unless the wheels completely fall off this year. But very few people are all sunshine and rainbows when it comes to BD.

 

[Bomber36]

Talk about time management, why did he call timeout with 16 seconds left against Maine? He could have run the clock down to 4-5 seconds and the game ends on the winning field goal. Did the kickoff team need more work? Did he want to see how the defense played against a rugby style desperation play? This is just a simple example of not having a clue how to manage the clock. Anyone see what happened at Oklahoma State yesterday? This guy and his staff are a disaster. I suppose they may have finally learned their lesson, but I'm not gonna hold my breath.

 

[Marty Jackson]

Diaco is both.

The incompetence comes in game management: wasted timeouts, failure to get play calls into the huddle.

The cowardliness is in strategy: run, run, pass, punt; refusing to open up the playbook; coaching to avoid mistakes rather than to make the big play.

Competence you can improve on, though 3 years in, you expect more than this. It's obvious he's not learning quickly enough.

Cowardliness doesn't go away. A conservative, play-not-to-lose mindset is innate. It killed the New York Giants under Tom Coughlin the last 4 years, and it will kill this program for as long as Diaco is here.

FBS football, P5 football in 2016 is about excitement; Diaco is a sleeping pill.

In general I agree, but not yesterday. The second half, scoring 24 unanswered points and taking over was what I've wanted to see for many years.
But why did they come out flat and go down 21 points?

The offense in the second half was progress. It was anything but run run pass punt. Did you not see the fake punt converted perfectly? They were moving the ball at will. The issue yesterday was clock management in the final 4 minutes. It's chaos in slow motion.

It was mentioned earlier and I agree. Diaco needs an assistant dedicated to clock management for in games.

Would also help the staff to do situational training to help with the clock management... If you don't practice the putter and three putt everything, driving 275 with a slight draw won't help.

 

[Redding Husky]

Anyone who thought of the Patriots-Seahawks game finish at the end of our game yesterday doesn't need to be in coaching. Letting that one-in-a-million Super Bowl play affect what we needed to do is insane.

 

[Husky pride]

What I find hard to understand is why no one on the bench is alert to the situation at a critical time in the game. During the last timeout, no one goes thru a " what if " scenario? No one reminds the team that we're out of timeouts and that the clock is now a critical factor? How does the head coach not know that its second down and not third down? Does the Offensive Coordinator have any voice in what's happening..." second down", "incomplete stops the clock", "more than one chance at scoring"? It almost seems as though most of the coaching staff are spectators...a feeling we've had last year and now this year!! The sad part is that this team has definite talent....it's too bad the coaching doesn't match-up!

 

[CL82]

In general I agree, but not yesterday. The second half, scoring 24 unanswered points and taking over was what I've wanted to see for many years.
But why did they come out flat and go down 21 points?

The offense in the second half was progress. It was anything but run run pass punt. Did you not see the fake punt converted perfectly? They were moving the ball at will. The issue yesterday was clock management in the final 4 minutes. It's chaos in slow motion.

It was mentioned earlier and I agree. Diaco needs an assistant dedicated to clock management for in games.

Would also help the staff to do situational training to help with the clock management... If you don't practice the putter and three putt everything, driving 275 with a slight draw won't help.

I think that the defensive scheme was based upon Tago Smith and last year's Navy team. We were looking to contain their potent ground game. Navy took advantage of that. We adjusted and held them until two mind numblingly stupid mistakes were made at the close of the game.

 

[FfldCntyFan]

My guess is we don't spend enough practice time on situations such as yesterday (the reasons why could be legitimate or merely poor prioritization).

The pass play to the one yard line had few possible outcomes (basically TD, int, completion & out of bounds or incomplete). With the first two there is nothing the offense needs to do. With the last two, the offense needs to know exactly what to do the second the play is completed (either set up for second any goal from the ten or the one, either needs the entire offense immediately getting into position so the next play could be efficiently run.

Maybe we've gotten to the point where we need a lot of two minute work quicker than the staff expected. Maybe there are other reasons we don't seem to be anywhere near as prepared as we should be. I don't care what the reasons are but this needs to be fixed.

 

[tzznandrew]

Incompetent and Cowardly