Watson a candidate for the Miami(OH) head coach position

[kchusker_chris]

McBride became coordinator in 81'. The rankings of the teams he lost to during the 80's stretch everyone refers to w/ the points given up...

NR(10),#3(30),#1(22),#8(27),#5(31),NR(17),#4(17),#17(17),#5(27),#5(27),NR(20),#3(20),#2(17),#3(31),#5(41),#2(23),#2(27),#5(41)

We were 95-18 during that stretch. 5-4 against Oklahoma, and in those losses TO put up 7,7,17, & 7 points. Can't really pin those on McBride, just like I wouldn't pin a loss on Watson if our defense gave up 35 points. Only 2 of those games, against #5 UCLA and #5 Florida State did he give up a huge number of points.

Out of those 18 losses, 13 were to teams ranked in the top 5. Maybe people were calling for his head...but comparing the McBride situation in the 80's to the Watson situation today is like apples to oranges IMO. McBride beat his fair share of top teams, and he lost to a few top teams as would be expected...but he almost ALWAYS won the games he was suposed to win. There wasn't an 8 fumble Iowa State, or an 8 drop Texas, or a 6 point A&M game. He held a number of these top teams to under 20 points. He gave us a chance to win nearly every game. You didn't close your eyes and pray for a miracle every time his defense took the field.

 

[Hercules]

Bo wanted to put us in the shotgun a lot, anyway. I think you hit the nail on the head with the OL strengths not being in tune with the offense we are stubbornly sticking with running. Although, actually, having two pulling guards on a run play has been a staple lately that I've noticed, and it's often worked pretty well for us.

These reasons alone should tell you that it is time for Watson to go. This is Bo's team, Bo knows what needs to be done, and he left it up to Watson to build the offense that is needed. He hasn't, and if his philosophies clash with what the head coach wants, it's time to look for someone who does what the HC wants.

I don't care about not scoring points against good defenses, youth, injuries, excuses, etc., this should be the telltale sign.

Bo gave a direction and Watson has gotten on board with it. He will always be underappreciated for the work and effort - compared to the rest of the staff - he has put into transforming this offense under Bo's direction.

Without more autonomy than that, we are likely only to get average OCs in the future. Which is fine if either the HC is going to direct the offense very well (look at a defense minded HC like Belichick, and the success he has had with as much input as he has in New England's offense and that entire team) - or if you expect average offense ranked in the 30s or 40s.

Let's not kid ourselves and pretend that the offense is where Bo wants it to be. I'm sure Watson has taken directions from Bo, but the system they tried to run this year was more of a compromise between a west coast offense and a spread option offense. My guess is that Watson is going to find a way out of the program this year whether it's for a head coaching job that he really wants or not, because I don't think he wants to run the type of offense that Bo wants.

If Wats isn't completely on board with where Bo wants the offense headed, then we need to find someone else and fast. Martinez is too much of a talent in that spread option scheme to waste him away while we keep banging our head against the wall with some hybrid scheme that is the result of different philosophies clashing against each other.

 

[kchusker_chris]

:yeah

 

[zoogs]

The thing is we changed the offense - dramatically, it seems - midway through fall camp. We built it completely reliant on one guy by design, and we were going to take our lumps two ways: first year of this new offense, which the whole offensive staff still had to adjust to, and first year playing for Taylor. So of course we are not arrived at the final product of where we want it to be. It's really different from the defense where there was a plan from the beginning with everyone on the staff in sync. There are no shortcuts to achieving the end goal. But it is as if we were expecting to take one, successfully. Did not quite work out, but I'll admit it came closer than I figured.

I think Wats has been completely on board, but this is year one. The read option w/ WCO passing principles is something we can debate about, but we haven't seen anything more than a completely stripped down version of it, I think. It is not an issue of Watson being unwilling to get on board or adapt...but of other coaches on the staff. That is what I mean when I refer to clashing philosophies. Taylor is a talent, but is really a one trick pony. The stubbornness, banging-head-against-wall, is something I would associate with sticking to Taylor when injured. Otherwise we weren't banging our head against the wall so much as through opponents' chests.

I agree with you that Watson is going to successfully find his way out of this program, and both he and Bo could be happier for it.

 

[74Hunter]

Bo gave a direction and Watson has gotten on board with it. He will always be underappreciated for the work and effort - compared to the rest of the staff - he has put into transforming this offense under Bo's direction.

Without more autonomy than that, we are likely only to get average OCs in the future. Which is fine if either the HC is going to direct the offense very well (look at a defense minded HC like Belichick, and the success he has had with as much input as he has in New England's offense and that entire team) - or if you expect average offense ranked in the 30s or 40s.

Which is an upgrade over what we have now. If you think that a defensive minded head coach should have NO say in the offensive direction/philosophy, no offense but you probably don't have much of an idea what happens in major football programs.

Either way, this argument is lost on you. You will never admit that Watson and his lethargic offense has faults, is part of the problem, or just flat out doesn't fit in well. Good day to you, sir.

 

[HuskerNMO]

McBride became coordinator in 81'. The rankings of the teams he lost to during the 80's stretch everyone refers to w/ the points given up...

NR(10),#3(30),#1(22),#8(27),#5(31),NR(17),#4(17),#17(17),#5(27),#5(27),NR(20),#3(20),#2(17),#3(31),#5(41),#2(23),#2(27),#5(41)

We were 95-18 during that stretch. 5-4 against Oklahoma, and in those losses TO put up 7,7,17, & 7 points. Can't really pin those on McBride, just like I wouldn't pin a loss on Watson if our defense gave up 35 points. Only 2 of those games, against #5 UCLA and #5 Florida State did he give up a huge number of points.

Out of those 18 losses, 13 were to teams ranked in the top 5. Maybe people were calling for his head...but comparing the McBride situation in the 80's to the Watson situation today is like apples to oranges IMO. McBride beat his fair share of top teams, and he lost to a few top teams as would be expected...but he almost ALWAYS won the games he was suposed to win. There wasn't an 8 fumble Iowa State, or an 8 drop Texas, or a 6 point A&M game. He held a number of these top teams to under 20 points. He gave us a chance to win nearly every game. You didn't close your eyes and pray for a miracle every time his defense took the field.

Our losses in the last two years

#13 (15) We had the lead with 1:44 and their offense sitting on the12 yard line, the D needed to close out the game

NR (10) L on Offense 100%

NR (7) L on Offense 100%

#3 (12) Offense was bad, but again, the defense and special teams had the lead with 1:44 and couldn't close the door

NR (13) Offense

#18 (6) Offense

#10 (20) Defense was given a 3 possession lead and couldn't hold it, yes the offense could have done more, but both sides had their struggles.

So while yes, the offense has had it's struggles, the defense has also sputtered often when it was in a situation to win a game, in fact, if our ST and D wouldn't have given up a game winning drive and a 3 possession lead in the past two CCG, we'd have two straight Big 12 titles and BCS appearances.

 

[zoogs]

You didn't read past the bolded part, which begin with "...which is fine, if...."

I'm not sure the extent to which Bo has directed this year's offense is being made known here. I /want/ Bo to take charge as a head coach. But I think some calls he has made this year, have hurt us. I am not asking for his firing. I am simply saying we had to overhaul the offense midway through fall camp, and we wouldn't get off the Taylor bandwagon even when hurt. One of the biggest reasons Ganz outplayed Keller? He had nearly undivided buy-in from the locker room. When you even have former players calling out Taylor Martinez (Phil Dillard, on FB), you have to wonder, too, about the locker room ramifications of this decision. If I'm wrong and Watson was behind all of these decisions, then of course it goes back on him.

--

jliehr, to add to that, there have been very few occasions when the defense has suffered a lapse these past two years, but at times the offense has been there to pick up the slack. Oklahoma State and Iowa State this year come to mind.

 

[kchusker_chris]

The thing is we changed the offense - dramatically, it seems - midway through fall camp. We built it completely reliant on one guy by design, and we were going to take our lumps two ways: first year of this new offense, which the whole offensive staff still had to adjust to, and first year playing for Taylor. So of course we are not arrived at the final product of where we want it to be. It's really different from the defense where there was a plan from the beginning with everyone on the staff in sync. There are no shortcuts to achieving the end goal. But it is as if we were expecting to take one, successfully. Did not quite work out, but I'll admit it came closer than I figured.

I think Wats has been completely on board, but this is year one. The read option w/ WCO passing principles is something we can debate about, but we haven't seen anything more than a completely stripped down version of it, I think. It is not an issue of Watson being unwilling to get on board or adapt...but of other coaches on the staff. That is what I mean when I refer to clashing philosophies. Taylor is a talent, but is really a one trick pony. The stubbornness, banging-head-against-wall, is something I would associate with sticking to Taylor when injured. Otherwise we weren't banging our head against the wall so much as through opponents' chests.

I agree with you that Watson is going to successfully find his way out of this program, and both he and Bo could be happier for it.

We've changed the offense (dramatically) each year it seems. We hit a mid-point in the year, something happens and all of a sudden whatever identity we had formed or were forming disapears. I think most can agree that this is a convoluted offensive scheme that has been pieced together from varying ideas. Wat's puts something forth and Bo tears it appart w/ a genius defensive mind, so Wat's adjusts and Bo tears it appart again. In the end you have something so messed up it can only be named one thing; "multiple". I wouldn't doubt Wat's could tear Bo's defensive schemes down too...the difference is while Bo says "go ahead and try it fella" - Wat's seems to say "fine, i'll outsmart you another way" and in the end just outsmarts himself leaving our jaws dropped as to why a passer w/ 5 sacks is dropping back to pass yet again when we're nearly in field goal range.

That why frankly I don't care if Watson or is the problem or not. What I am sure of is that him being here won't be the solution.

We didn't have to win the CCG, but to lose it the way we did in those last couple of possessions...to not even really have a chance towards the end; that was just :facepalm:

 

[Hercules]

I don't get where people are saying that we overhauled the offense midway through fall camp. It seemed that the offense was headed in the spread option direction since the Holiday Bowl, and coaches have said it was headed in that direction even before that, but injuries prevented us from progressing. So, what's all this "we had to overhaul the offense midway through fall camp?" I understand if we limited the playbook somewhat for Taylor, but the zone read game was in place already, I don't think the basic philosophy of our offense really changed. We knew before this season that Bo wanted our QBs to run the ball, to make the defense account for all 11 players. I don't know, let me know if I missed some article where they stated they had to overhaul the offense midway through fall camp, but I've never heard anything of that nature except randomly on this board.

 

[zoogs]

It is one thing to have to adjust to injury/ineffectiveness, and another to make a deliberated, but huge gamble at the beginning of the year.

I think there is nothing convoluted about the offense. (I mean, is it convoluted and multiple or is it predictable and high school level? One or the other!) Every offense is "multiple", including a triple option attack. For reasons I don't quite get, multiple is a bad word. But really, offenses have to do multiple things well to keep a defense on their heels, just the same way any defense has to defend both the pass and the run well. It is when we lose the ability to be multiple that our offense shuts down, because we can run all the time and average a good 4 yards a carry, but 4 yards a play is just a low number. Thankfully, we have a good enough defense to allow for this, and that's what we did last year. I guess we did not have the same approach in this year's CCG, but I think Bo said himself they were going for the TD on that drive and thought they had the distance on that FG as a fallback. The sack is just on Taylor, or whoever let Taylor throw it instead of somebody else.

As for the back and forth between Wats and Bo you outlined...imaginative

 

[kchusker_chris]

For me this offense can be summed up with a single word: Frustrating.

Unfortunately for us it's NOT frustrating the defenses we face, it's frustrating each of us watching the game.

I've only been following this board for a couple of years...but this is certainly the most debated (zoogies against the world) topic I've come across. I think zoogies had about 4300 posts before the CCG. You're using the Watson threads to break out of the Bobfather tag. (tell us 62 more times why you think we should keep Watson and you'll be there)

 

[HuskerNMO]

I don't get where people are saying that we overhauled the offense midway through fall camp. It seemed that the offense was headed in the spread option direction since the Holiday Bowl, and coaches have said it was headed in that direction even before that, but injuries prevented us from progressing. So, what's all this "we had to overhaul the offense midway through fall camp?" I understand if we limited the playbook somewhat for Taylor, but the zone read game was in place already, I don't think the basic philosophy of our offense really changed. We knew before this season that Bo wanted our QBs to run the ball, to make the defense account for all 11 players. I don't know, let me know if I missed some article where they stated they had to overhaul the offense midway through fall camp, but I've never heard anything of that nature except randomly on this board.

There is a difference between running the zone read, and handing off the ball out of the shotgun. The past couple of years most of our plays that looked like a zone read, were actually a designed QB or RB run. The same thing is true with Cody or Zac in the game, and the same thing was true for the most part after Taylor got injured.

So a lot of times when fans are saying things like he should have kept or given the ball, it actually was called that way, it wasn't the wrong read.

 

[kchusker_chris]

I don't get where people are saying that we overhauled the offense midway through fall camp. It seemed that the offense was headed in the spread option direction since the Holiday Bowl, and coaches have said it was headed in that direction even before that, but injuries prevented us from progressing. So, what's all this "we had to overhaul the offense midway through fall camp?" I understand if we limited the playbook somewhat for Taylor, but the zone read game was in place already, I don't think the basic philosophy of our offense really changed. We knew before this season that Bo wanted our QBs to run the ball, to make the defense account for all 11 players. I don't know, let me know if I missed some article where they stated they had to overhaul the offense midway through fall camp, but I've never heard anything of that nature except randomly on this board.

There is a difference between running the zone read, and handing off the ball out of the shotgun. The past couple of years most of our plays that looked like a zone read, were actually a designed QB or RB run. The same thing is true with Cody or Zac in the game, and the same thing was true for the most part after Taylor got injured.

So a lot of times when fans are saying things like he should have kept or given the ball, it actually was called that way, it wasn't the wrong read.

...just the wrong call then?

 

[HuskerNMO]

I don't get where people are saying that we overhauled the offense midway through fall camp. It seemed that the offense was headed in the spread option direction since the Holiday Bowl, and coaches have said it was headed in that direction even before that, but injuries prevented us from progressing. So, what's all this "we had to overhaul the offense midway through fall camp?" I understand if we limited the playbook somewhat for Taylor, but the zone read game was in place already, I don't think the basic philosophy of our offense really changed. We knew before this season that Bo wanted our QBs to run the ball, to make the defense account for all 11 players. I don't know, let me know if I missed some article where they stated they had to overhaul the offense midway through fall camp, but I've never heard anything of that nature except randomly on this board.

There is a difference between running the zone read, and handing off the ball out of the shotgun. The past couple of years most of our plays that looked like a zone read, were actually a designed QB or RB run. The same thing is true with Cody or Zac in the game, and the same thing was true for the most part after Taylor got injured.

So a lot of times when fans are saying things like he should have kept or given the ball, it actually was called that way, it wasn't the wrong read.

...just the wrong call then?

Sometimes, or a blocking assignment was missed, or the quarterback didn't make the correct pre-snap read and check into a different play or the D just made a great play.

 

[Hercules]

I don't get where people are saying that we overhauled the offense midway through fall camp. It seemed that the offense was headed in the spread option direction since the Holiday Bowl, and coaches have said it was headed in that direction even before that, but injuries prevented us from progressing. So, what's all this "we had to overhaul the offense midway through fall camp?" I understand if we limited the playbook somewhat for Taylor, but the zone read game was in place already, I don't think the basic philosophy of our offense really changed. We knew before this season that Bo wanted our QBs to run the ball, to make the defense account for all 11 players. I don't know, let me know if I missed some article where they stated they had to overhaul the offense midway through fall camp, but I've never heard anything of that nature except randomly on this board.

There is a difference between running the zone read, and handing off the ball out of the shotgun. The past couple of years most of our plays that looked like a zone read, were actually a designed QB or RB run. The same thing is true with Cody or Zac in the game, and the same thing was true for the most part after Taylor got injured.

So a lot of times when fans are saying things like he should have kept or given the ball, it actually was called that way, it wasn't the wrong read.

I understand the difference between the zone read and a designed handoff. I just don't follow where people (mainly zoogies, I think) are saying that our offense was overhauled in the middle of fall camp.