What a Difference a Coach Makes

It seems to me that we are going to continue to have a lot of those by design. I think that was Muschamp's downfall, but, he could never put a good offense together. And, Napier's whole risk analysis thought process seems to be much different, so I'm hoping for a higher percentage of wins in those close games now.

 

Glad we got him. For me, Napier was the one I wanted, and it wasn't even close.

 

Hope Napier returns our defense to the suffocating group it once was.

 

I really hope its not by design. I much prefer stepping on the opponents neck when they are down, demoralize them, and make them subconsciously quit. Spurs used this method and typically inferior teams were mentally spent and run out of the gym by halftime.

I really hope that when our talent improves we aren't keeping the score close just because we go into a conservative shell....that method just makes the other team think "hey...maybe there's a chance."

 

Sounds like that writer got Napier confused with Mullen. Napier is ALL about player development inside and outside football.

 

I do think it's by design, but, when I say that I don't mean he is intentionally sitting on a one-score lead and going conservative like Muschamp did. I don't see that at all. I mean that he likes to run and short-pass and doesn't go up-tempo much. That often burns a lot of clock on longer drives and doesn't give either team much chance to score much more than 30 points, or so. I don't see us running a lot of plays in a game or generating all that many explosive plays with this style either. All that leads to very few blowout games, but, I do think we'll eventually start getting slightly larger win margins.

 

When you mention 'short passes' FYI we are 6th in the nation in Passing Yards per Completion. CBN also mentioned not going up tempo - alluding to Defensive issues in todays press conference.

 

That does surprise me on the short passes. Some of the longer stuff was probably in catch-up mode on the two games we lost, I would think.

 

Good news going on in Awesome Recruiting to address this

 

I think the EW game propped up the yds/comp stat

 

Which is bad college football strategy for elite programs. Our ultimate goal is to lose 1 game a year. More close games = more variance = more random losses.

Lower tier programs want closer games, not bigger programs.

That being said I think CBN will adjust

 

I’m glad the Gators had some fun scoring in the EW game. They felt what it was like to win and win big. It’s good for the soul, and we all needed that. Now they need to keep improving.

We are certainly loading up with good recruits/players for next year and beyond.

Go Gators!

 

Most quality teams have played an 'EW' to date. Georgia has played 2 and Alabama has played 2. So in many respects, they had more of an opportunity to pad their stats. You have to consider the whole body of work and if you want to drill down to only quality teams you have to do that for all teams. The point is we are not throwing only 'short completions'

 

Huge blunder on their part. He's a bad fit culturally. We got lucky and I would say at this point our AD deserves a lot of credit. That said, the only thing imho that will prevent CBN from having us in the NC hunt most seasons will be his key assistants. We shall see what happens there. Need a better D and at this point it's not all about lack of talent.

 

We played Utah (#6 ranked at the time) in the place of our normal cupcake first game. Stats would be much better had the reverse been true during BN's very first game. I can't think of another first year coach at a major program that had a test such as that in the first game.

 

if this continues he needs to hire an OC to help him put up points, even run happy Alabama with all the five stars stacked 3 deep, know how to run it up, this is what I want and there are more wanting this then being conservative all the time.

 

they have beat us three years in a row. This is where he earns his money, if PT can’t get the defense stopping third down passes, then we will have to demand a new DC, this is where we went into a shell on 3rd down with Grantham and Mullen. We can do better, this passive scheme gives up first downs/points and keeps average teams in the game. With any momentum, the opposing team wins. Just getting recruits help but doesn’t solve the passive scheme. I like coach Napier, but if he wants to stay and build a championship team, there are going to have to have some coaching changes. This is where Mullen failed big time along with his recruiting!

 

As did our peers, similarly speaking. You are what your record says you are.

 

Tend to agree. We have decent DBs, I'm sure. Absolutely no reason to be out of position or slow to react. If PT said he likes pressuring the QB and playing man, then let our players do it. The ten plus yard cushion does not wins games nor inspires players.

 

Yep, I agree with all that. I don't think he's going to ever go wholesale air-mail explosive bomb approach, but, I do think he will adjust to 2020s SEC-style offensive play some. I also think his defenses will improve over time as he loads the D-line. That will open up the scoring gap some. I couldn't stand watching Muschamp always play for a three-point win, and losing half of them when a turnover or missed kick surfaced.