The answer is right in front of your eyes.
We have good kids playing today (and I feel for them). The system worked - Norries Wilson then to Mike Foley. We developed solid FBS OLine. DeLeone sucks - this OLine is swirling down the toilet with him.
I think you may be a bit mistaken there Pudge. What we developed was a solid FBS running game. THat's since been completely dismantled, to the detriment of our ability to win games.
We did not develop a solid FBS OLine, because our players could not pass protect very well, mostly because they weren't required to when we moved up to the Big East under Edsall. We recruited players for a few years, that had very good feet, and good speed and size, and became excellent run blockers. Will Beatty was drafted by the Giants, after Tom Coughlin talked at length with Randy Edsall - about how Randy thought Beatty would be able to develop into a pass blocker. Beatty had the required talent - good feet.
Donald Thomas, was a mauler of run blocker, and he still his, and he had the feet and speed to play in teh NFL. Danny Lansanah found him on an intramural basketball court at UConn. It's taken him several years of bouncingin and out of and around the NFL and being coached, to become better at pass blocking.
Mike Hicks, went through training camp in Detroit, undrafted rookie status, and didn't make final cuts - because of pass blocking. Keith Gray, hung around for a while with the Panthers, because he could run block, but wasn't very good at pass blocking. Ryan Krug was able to pass block, from the Orlovsky days, but just not fast enough for the NFL, he was recruited in 1999. Tavarr Closs - recruited by Holtz right here out of hartford - another basketball player, monster physical specimen, probably the most physically gifted 6'5" 300lb man I've seen,before Kendall Reyes bulked up, just wasn't mentally right for the NFL, and probably would have been a disaster if he chose to go to a division 1 program at the time, now he's helping out troubled kids in Hartford - great guy, made it through the fire.
The blocking schemes we use now, with the offense we are trying to run, there's nothing wrong with it on the blackboard, and it will help develop a complete offense - I didn't know that before, but I know that now. There's nothign wrong with the system, but you got to stock up the players, all 11 on offense, with the tools, and you got to put them in position to succeed on the field with your play calling and game management.
It seems almost inevitable, that at least one, if not multiple offensive drives are going to end badly, because we either don't call a timeout, completely botch a basic thing, like a hand off, or center QB exchange, or because of some complete change in momentum in a bad way, based solely on us, for personnel grouping chagnes and new / different play calls than anythign we've run before, and it's that last part, that drives me completely bananas about Deleone.
At this point, nine games into this season I can run off about a dozen play calls, new formations and plays, thrown into games at the oddest of times, spanning each games, that were completely, entirely, nothing more than George Deleone, and some worked, and the majority completely destroyed our offensive momentum, and a couple you can make a very good argument, made it very difficult for us to have a good chance to win a game......
but what they all did - was set up the defense for another play call to come in the future.
I'm done ranting for today.