Am I the only one not a fan of Shawn Watson?

[Enhance]

Even if he does have a good offense this year is having a horribly inept to bad offense every two or three years acceptable? Obviously most posters think that's just fine.

It's funny that it most surely isn't on the other side of the ball. Just ask Bohl or COZ. They combined didn't get 1% of the excuses SW does.

I don't know why....but it is what it is.

I have shared the same worries about your first question, as well.

I will say this though. This is really Watson's only third year of calling plays and running the offense to his liking, which means he has had three years to develop these players. He needs to do significantly better this year if he wants to keep his job. Settling for an offense that produces yardage and points in the lower half of FBS school will result in a firing imho.

 

[Nexus]

Something to think about. If NU ends up having a BCS bowl year this season and Illinois has another losing season, I wouldn't be surprised if Watson makes the short list for the HC job there. He was an assistant at Illinois for 4 years back in the 80's, plus he's an Illinois native.

Illinois HC is on the hot seat, so if he continues to underperform this season, then he'll likely get the boot.

 

[zoogs]

I also lay it at Barney's feet. As unqualified as Bill Callahan was as our program's HC, he was simply a masterful OL technician and our OL play benefited from his presence here. In comes Barney and he directly criticize's the master's approach, telling his OL to not focus on techniques and details and just play hard. I'll bet the players loved that, but everyone paid for it on Saturdays. Good thing too we have seen (I think) a change of approach and some consulting from Milt Tenopir with the OLs. So in both cases the future looks bright, although from my uneducated perspective I would say the OL's future looks brighter - given the recent and current recruiting and the consulting from Milt Tenopir. Our resident insider BigWillie has been thoroughly critical of Gilmore's abilities both as a recruiter and as a coach for his whole tenure here, so I'll take his word on that, a little sadly

While I am not sold on Cotton, I believe that our OL problems started with Callahan. His O-Lines never were very good, and the mistakes that we see now with false starts or missing assignments are fallout from his tenure. He may be a great NFL technician, but his techniques did not work well at the college level.

This year is judgement day for both Cotton and Watson, imo.

Er, I really don't know about that. Our OL problems started with Callahan? If I recall, our OL was in shambles when Callahan arrived. He had turned it around and by 2007 made it into a decent and competitive line. The mistakes we see now with false starts or missing assignments seem to be mistakes we've started to see with Cotton's de-emphasis on detail and technique rather than fallout from an era in which getting the little things right was very important. You can argue how spread offenses work in college but not the NFL, but I'm not sure how NFL O-lines and college OLs work in fundamentally different ways.

 

[Danimal]

Due to injury-problems some benefit of the doubt has to be given for last season, it's put-up-or-shut-up this season. Rumor has it the O-line has done WAY better than they were in practice last year. Gilmore's guys better step-up, they were a model of inconsistency last season. I think Kinnnie should be ready to make a jump now that he's had time in the system. Hopefully Paul has the big year some predict, think it could be a real boon to wr-recruiting. I'll be interesting to see if Watson can establish a consistent offensive identity this season, hopefully the bowl was a sign of things to come.

 

[EZ-E]

Due to injury-problems some benefit of the doubt has to be given for last season

Exactly.

I would also agree that it is put up or shut up time now. Last season you have to give the benefit of the doubt the Watson. I was one that had not because I had no idea Zac was hurt as bad as he was. Kid showed guts to play with his injuries.