Hiring a new OC is great but KW has to let him coach

[Eagle]

It’s fine and dandy to hire a new OC and/or QB coach but KW has to let that coach have the reins, maybe bring in an entirely new offensive scheme. Also, KW needs to stop taking offensive talent and moving that talent to the defensive side of the ball.  I think besides the offensive coaching and schemes needing an overhaul, the idea of emphasizing offense in recruiting needs an overhaul in approach as well.

[Tony (admin)]

Totally agree.  In business one of the toughest things an entrepreneur can do is let his team do their jobs.  It’s so easy for them to want to micro-manage everything and do it themself.  KW needs an OC he can do just that, be the OC. 

[UteThunder]

What I hope Kyle will do is finally hire an OC who is allowed to bring in their own offensive playbook/philosophy, is allowed to hire his own staff, and is allowed to run his own offense as he sees fit with Whit only chiming in on critical decisions such as whether we will be going for it on 4th down or not.

[Anonymous]

I don’t think it’s in Kyle’s DNA to allow an OC to actually be an OC.  At the start of the season when riverboat Kyle was taking some chances and having to play from behind to win I hoped his mindset had turned the corner.  I don’t think so anymore.  Second half of he season he tried to sit on leads and it cost us. 

[RisingSun]

Kyle doesn’t move talent. The position coaches, when they see someone with talent but isn’t being utilized and isn’t in the plans for the future, ask the other position coach and the player about moves. KW only approves it.

[pedro]

There is a misnomer out there that Kyle is hands one with the offense.  This is completely false.  Kyle reviews and tweaks the game, as any head coach would do, but then leaves the rest up to Arod and H.  

Anybody who says differently is full of s**t or repeating something that isn’t true.  

[Stone]

Do you have personal knowledge of this or are you just repeating what you have heard? If repeated, how confident are you on the truth of it?

I ask because I have no personal knowledge, but, I have spoken with people that have spoken with people that would have personal knowledge of what happens, and they claim that Kyle has tight control on the playcalling. I don’t have full confidence in what those people told me (it is also twice removed), but I don’t have anything else to go on. Plus, the offensive identity seems to be pretty similar regardless of who is the OC, so that would support the theory that Kyle is very involved.

[Eagle]

My point Pedro is that I know KW doesn’t work with the offense that much.  But he sets the stage. Would he hired an offensive coordinator that said we’re going to ruh the triple option?  Or strictly the pistol?  Or West Coast?  Or up tempo like Leach does at Wazzu?  And would he take the reins off for this coach to do his thing?  

I was a special teams coach for a guy once and he let me do my thing to a certain extent.  I had some fun kickoff return packages and so forth, one including a reverse but I had to get his “permission” to run the reverse play because it required two players handling the ball which he was nervous about. He would generally veto anytime I wanted to do it.  That becomes frustrating as a coordinator.  Yeah, he didn’t dive into too much what I did in practice or whatever but I felt a bit constrained.  Does the OC feel that way, my guess is yes.

Then how about personnel.  It seems like a lot of guys recruited at teh U to play offense end up playing defense.  And they usually do well there.  But it can effect the offense because the guy you recruited or counted on has been moved.  So one side of the ball might get more talent.  By the way, when I was special teams coordinator, certain players were off limits.  So though special teams is an important phase of the game, I had limited personnel in which to choose from.  So I guess I had autonomy except when I wanted to run certain plays during the game or have certain players on my units.  I wonder if the OC feels the same way.

Finally, LaVell let his coaches coach.  He worried more about motivating individuals.  He brought in people that might know more football than him but his ego was okay with that.  It wasn’t that he didn’t go over to the OC and say, let’s run the ball and run the clock and any decision on going for it on fourth down was his but his coaches felt comfortable for the most part they could run the show without being second guessed all the time.  It’s about style of leadership I guess but KW needs to let go and let his offensive coaches really coach.

 

 

[pedro]

Two young men that I know very well have played up at the U. One graduated last year and one several years back. Whit does review game plans and will even state his opinion on how we should approach the game. However, once the game starts, Whit does not get involved at all with the play calling unless it’s a special situation, like going for it on 4th or whether to run a ‘trick’ play or not at a certain time.

I’ve read a lot of bull s**t out there about how he consults on every play and wants us to be ultra conservative. While he doesn’t like slinging the ball around and he does want to take care of the football, he knows you have to make plays as well. He had not issue with BJ throwing the ball back in 07 and 08 for example.

One last note, the play calling was not as bad as one would think this year. Don’t get me wrong, I was one who felt Arod had to go. But there were times players just flat out didn’t do what they were supposed to do…. Key times (read Moss at the goal line v cal, or Troy most the game against colo. But I still think that goes back to the OC. If your QB isn’t making the proper reads by the 11th game in the season, something is wrong. to make matters worse, he didn’t do any better against Indiana.

[bopahull]

I have not seen any indication that Kyle is hiring an OC. He hasn’t said he is demoting the existing OC. The only thing for certain is ARod is gone.

[Big Kahuna]

Eagle – on St Lavell, at least late in his career he barely interacted with his players. I have a business acquiatance who played LB at TDS. Said Lavell coached him one time his Senior year and many of his teammates ribbed him saying Lavell talked to you.