So, the threads last night and this morning have been interesting. There's people defending the status quo, and there's some people claiming Heupel's offense has never worked, that he's been garbage from day one, etc. That's simply revisionist non-sense. So let's take a more sober look:
Heupel
Heupel
- All of the losses except LSU have been the same game: the offense plays poorly, for whatever reason, and Heupel is unable to make in-game adjustments. This was a complaint from his previous stops. He's very stubborn about continuing with the same game plan even if it's not working. I think he believes in the mismatches he saw on tape and believes we'll win it out by tiring the defense down - you have to like the confidence - but at the same time, if it's not working, it's not working. At some point confidence becomes arrogance, and I think we're across that line.
- We have not dealt with the penalty issues. There's no excuse for this many penalties. We were heavily penalized last year, but it is even worse this year. That is on Hype and his staff.
- He largely does not have a good sense of when to be aggressive and when to play it safe. He did well against Memphis in both games in 2018, but I think the approach has become more conservative.
- Frost failed us miserably in recruiting for the OL and the DL. We are feeling that now. We do not have depth, which is made worse with the opt-outs. The idea that Sam Jackson plays 4 positions every game so that we can rotate illustrates that point.
- We are miserably thin at OL, DL, and LB. We are deep at WR, and we already have two WR commits. We should not add Zay Franks back to the class nor replace Mallinger. Those spots should be used on linemen.
- The DL recruiting has been miserable. Turnier should be playing DE, not be our best DT. Cam Goode had some nice plays last night, so maybe he's coming along. We don't have any DTs that would have started in 2017 or 2013. Randy needs to go find a Torrell Troup 2* player. GOL was great at finding 2* and low 3* DLs that turned into effective players: Bruce Miller, David Williams, Jason Pierre-Paul (traitor), Troup, Thomas Niles, Tony Guerad, Jamiyus Pittman, etc. We're not getting it done at DT. The Tulsa guy that wrecked us was a 2* recruit with only 1 P5 offer (Texas Tech) and mostly just FCS offers other than Tulsa, ULL, and ULM. We used to mine those guys too...at the very least, get some guys with size even if they aren't as athletically talented so that we can try to plug those gaps better.
- The recruiting results from Randy, Willie Martinez, and Corey Bell have been underwhelming. GOL was better at bringing in Miami talent than they have been, though I do think some of the guys from this past class were good gets. We need them to get us better help on offense from down there too. I think it'd be worthwhile to replace an offensive coach with a Florida guy...I really thought we should have hired Shaun King, who was one of USF's best recruiters, to replace Lebby as QB coach, but we promoted Halzle (who probably deserved it) instead. Regardless, we need a better Florida recruiter on the offensive side.
- The offense works best when we are up-tempo. We have failed to move the ball well when we slow down. Some call that a gimmick, but that was how Oregon and others worked too. We should not slow down for any reason unless we are simply killing the clock late.
- This offense is predicated on a power run game that sets up the deep ball. We don't have the OL to do that against good DLs, and we can't consistently recruit that sort of OL. That's why GOL's offenses were often bad (other than QB play) - he needed a P5 caliber OL for his offense to work, and we only had that when we had all upperclassmen on the line. It's hard to sustain with the recruits we can get.
- The OL has regressed each year including veteran players including Jordan Johnson, Jake Brown, and Cole Schneider. I believe this points to a Strength & Conditioning issue that is visible on both sides of the line where we get outmuscled consistently. Even ECU was giving our OL problems in run blocking and opening lanes. Hype's S&C guys are not up to War Daddy Duval's standard.
- Heupel's offense needs a power back like those guys Tulsa had last night that are going to get 3-4 yards no matter what and wear down a defense with their strength. We don't have any of those, which astounds me at this point.
- Frost's offense recognized that we could not get the big powerful OLs, and so it was built on using smaller, quicker OLs. We should go back to this offense and focus on using our speed backs to get to the outside with blockers. We're recruiting RBs for that when you look at Richardson plus the guys committed this year. So we need to get an OL that is able to get out and block for them.
- Hype continues to run pass plays where half the WRs don't actually run a route. Maybe this is part of the up-tempo design so those guys can get back to the line quickly, but it needs to stop. Dillon needs to read the whole field and have his athletes working for him instead of having to force a pass into coverage for one of the two guys running a route.
- Technically special teams: I don't understand not letting the kickoff returners return the ball when they catch it at the 10. Especially on the last kickoff last night, let those guys see if they can make a big play instead of just taking the ball at the 25. Use your athletes!
- All that said, we score a lot of points. We have a near-elite QB who is still growing as a sophomore. There's a lot to be very pleased about with the athletes at WR and RB. We boatrace a lot of reasonably good teams. It's a lot more fun to watch this offense than GOL's offense most all those years, that's for sure. Let's appreciate that we are going to score 30+ almost every game.
- Randy's defense is similar to GOL's: bend, don't break. The problem with that is that it leaves our defense out on the field for long periods of the game, which is partly why I think Heupel slowed the offense down last night. It's worse this year with the injuries and opt-outs, so we don't have the depth needed to play full pace and lose the Time of Possession battle.
- Randy's defense is spectacular at forcing turnovers, which is a credit to the coaching.
- Randy often gets blitzes called at the right time, but he moves away from it and gets too conservative often. The philosophy behind Frost's defense was that an attacking and aggressive defense forces mistakes and turnovers and gets off the field quicker than the bend, don't break approach. Arguably, other than the turnovers, Randy's defense is a mismatch for our offensive philosophy.
- The defensive scheme of a 4-3 Nickel isn't great for us when we have some slower LBs, because it asks the LBs to cover a lot of space.
- Not sure what happened to the team speed we had at LB previously, but it's not there right now. Gilyard had a solid game, but both he and especially Mitchell have gotten beat to the edges consistently by guys this year.
- The 3-4 or the 3-3-5 like Tulsa and Boise play are better for a team like ours that can be more aggressive on defense...the problem being that we simply don't have a nose tackle capable of being the anchor of that defense right now.
- Randy is a pretty good DC. There's way too much complaining about him...the haters seem to think we should pitch a shutout every game. He's an effective DC overall...the problem is more talent on the DL than it is his play calling (other than moving away from blitzing), though I still believe the scheme is a mismatch with our offense. I think he's done a great job, recognizing that we're playing our 2nd and 3rd string in the secondary now.
- This season, like 2020 as a whole, is a cluster. Stuff is going to happen. Mississippi State embarrassed LSU last week then lost to Arkansas at home last night. Texas, OU, etc. lost to unranked teams. Opt-outs, lack of spring and summer practice, etc. It's all going to lead to all sorts of weird results and outcomes. No one needs to draw any conclusions based on this year.
- We have a bunch of opt-outs. It's showing in the depth on the OL and DL. And it's even worse at CB, where we're playing a depth guy and freshmen because our two likely starters opted out and BAM is still injured.
- The injuries have really piled up, possibly because of the lack of good summer S&C and practice. We are down impact players at almost every position. Last night we were missing or lost Nixon, Boudreaux, Grant, Collier, McCrae, and Thompson just to name guys who get a lot of time. We're running backups in the entire secondary now. And Twitter reported Marlon was injured on the last play...let's hope that's not serious.
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