Grade the rest of the coaches now

[tmfr15]

Ron Brown....you didn't know what to expect from Ron Brown. What, do you live in a cave? THIS GUY ROCKS. I can't think of one even slightly bad thing to say about him. Football players know....Ron Brown is coaching for them. He cares about them FIRST and results second. HE WOULD NEVER BS A PLAYER. As a result, he gets players that maximize their ability, trust what they are taught and, in turn, win a lot of games.

 

[Danimal]

I've been meaning to do this and the Grading Pelini thread reminded me.

So, what do you think of the assistant coaches after 18 months together?

Shawn Watson

Offensive Coordinator/Quarterbacks

My grade: B. I think it took him too long at the beginning of the season to figure out how to use personnel, but did eventually.

Carl Pelini

Defensive Coordinator/Defensive Line

My grade: A- Suh is in a class by himself, and his continued development should be exciting this year if he remains healthy. I expect great things from the line this year, and not just against lesser competition. Pierre Allen stepped right in for Turner and I don't think we noticed a big dropoff.

Tim Beck

Running Backs

My grade: A-. Would have liked to see what Helu could do with more responsibility.

Ron Brown

Tight Ends

My grade: A+ -- I had my doubts about this guy, but I just love him now. He loves physical play and appears to be developing some serious talent at the TE position.

Barney Cotton

Associate Head Coach/Offensive Line

My grade: C-. He has flat out admitted that the players knew more than him, and has been quoted by Slauson on a number of occasions that he doesn't care about technique. This is an eventual recipe for not nice things to happen to our inexperienced QB's. I'd give him a lower grade, but the offense did ok despite my perceived lack of teaching.

Mike Ekeler

Linebackers

My grade: B. He wasn't exactly working with a stacked deck last year and I hope now that he can develop and utilitze the guys who had redshirts. He did turn Glenn into a very solid LB, so that gives me hope.

Ted Gilmore

Assistant Head Coach/Wide Receivers/Recruiting Coordinator

My grade: B-. I'm disappointed in WR development. We have serious WR talent on the roster (IMO), but no one seems to step up to cement their position. Nate/Todd were awesome but not even close as the potential of some of our other scholarship WR's. I can't quite figure out why that is, and I have to say it goes back to coaching. Let Ron Brown coach these guys and see if there's a big difference or not.

John Papuchis

Defensive Ends

My grade: B+ -- needs to have the ends become a presence.

Marvin Sanders

Secondary

My grade: C+. Our secondary and pass defense did not improve. How few int's did the secondary have?! This is a guy I expected great things from -- Sanders, please don't keep me waiting.

Note: I reserve the right to change my mind on my grades if someone points out something I didn't notice/think of, and after the season of course.

Your grade for Cotton is based on a couple of pretty questionable interpretations of quotes? Think about it. Would Bo really have hired and be keeping the guy you described? I don't think so.

 

[HuskerTrucker]

Trucker - great comments. When you mention that my grade of Watson wasn't fair because "I think everyone was pretty much trying to figure out what real talent we had and what the offensive philosophy was that Bo wanted to frame at the beginning of the season."

Who was in the best position to know that ahead of time? Watson. I also thought Bo pretty much turned over all of the offensive decisions to Watson, so it was all on him. I agree about the O-line not doing them any favors, but I was very disappointed in the offensive game plan the first part of the season. Especially if I go back and watch any of it now and know what it looked like at the end of the season.

But, whatever, I am definitely looking forward to what 2009 brings now that the staff has been in place for a season +.

You also have to take into consideration that Watson really didn't know what the offensive outlook would be like with Bo coming in, and probably spent more time trying to get him up to speed with where the team was at and getting terminology down. I don't care if Bo said he was leaving the offense to Watson, Bo ultimately was in charge and had to answer, so had to have some idea of what the offense was.

Also, I think everyone was looking at Lucky to carry the team for a large part, which sure didn't happen...but some of that is due to the O-line being totally out of sorts from the start. Since they were relying on Lucky so heavily and didn't want to look like they were giving up on him, they had to instead pass the ball to the point that defenses were sitting back waiting for us to pass, making that hard to do also, when it really counted, and the protection just wasn't there for the pass game either at the start of the year - anything we got was totally due to Ganz's ability to move.

So Watson had to make adjustments, too. Even in a normal year, you don't always have what you think you have, or you find something that you can use as you go along. But last year Watson not only had to worry about getting the players up to speed, he basically had to teach the coaches the scheme, too - once he knew how much latitude he was REALLY going to have. You have to remember that BC also told him that he was going to run the offense at one point, then was always jumping in to meddle, finally deciding that he could just do better (and we know where that went).

I think Watson is HC material...and Nebraska needs to do what ever it takes to keep him. At this point in time, he is the glue of the offense, especially when we basically have all inexperienced QB's. I think we were lucky he wasn't at another school this year as a HC. Personally I would feel a lot better if he would come out and state that he plans on being at Nebraska for a long time...but then that would be my needs being spoken to, not his and his families.

 

[HuskerTrucker]

DP...wish they would get that fixed!