Dunbar left while "Walk" was still alive. The season ended, Dunbar left for Cal and six months later tragedy stuck. Had he stayed he indeed probably would have been named HC (of course, we will never know for sure).
Athlon - Anonymous coaches on NU
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Dunbar left while "Walk" was still alive. The season ended, Dunbar left for Cal and six months later tragedy stuck. Had he stayed he indeed probably would have been named HC (of course, we will never know for sure).
Thanks Hard to remember all the details. He was a solid OC for us
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Oh I give him plenty of credit for the bottom tier offenses of suck that he consistently fielded.
While the 2012 O was one of McC's highlights (helped that it was probably the best O-line he had to work with), didn't always agree with his QB rotation, whether it was for a drive/drives or within a drive.
The biggest example of this was the dOSU game (the next season).
Siemian had led the Cats to retaking the lead in the 4th Q.
dOSU would proceed to score with their next possession and instead of keeping with the hot hand/what was working (the dOSU D was having more problems defending the pass)., went back to Colter, the drive stalled (the dOSU D knew that they just had to defend the run), effectively ending the game.
Not saying that McC didn't deserve any credir, but don't you find it curious that there haven't been articles where Kafka and Persia are praising McC?
There have been numerous articles of the 2 effusively praising Baz, including one many years down the line.
Also, Thorson never attained the mastery of the position that Kafka and Persa did and he not only have 5 years in McC's system, but 4 as a starter (should have been the most developed passer the program has seen).
Yeah, tell that to the Iowa fan base...
What?
There are many examples of true and especially RS frosh coming in and making an impact in CFB.
For the Cats (aside from a few O-linemen and JJtBC), they were (not surprisingly) on D.
We were talking about the QB position and college Os are not set up for a true frosh to walk into that position.
And pretty hard for any O to be effective is the OL is suspect. Reality is that for most of his career here OL was questionable.
Schools don’t teach cursive anymore. How would they learn to sign their name?
A great OL makes it much easier to have a productive offense. I think the challenge Lujan will have as OC is using scheme and game plan to minimize the weakness of the line. The Cats’ greatest asset on offense this year appears to be speed at skill positions (Wright, Henning, Himon particularly). I’ll assume the Cats use a lot of motion and RPO to neutralize the advantage defenses will have at the line of scrimmage. I don’t think the offense will be great this year, but I’m hopeful it won’t be a complete disaster.
D is more about athleticism and it is easier to make an earlier impact there based on that alone. That makes it easier and ore likely for a Frosh or RS Frosh to come in and make an impact. Certain positions such as MLB require more learning of the system because they are calling the D. Other positions require more physical development such as DL (similar to the physical development of OL) But still they have more opportunitis to make an impact as they also tend to have more guys getting an opportunity to play regularly becuase there tend to be multiple rotations. Example DL they tend to have rotations of 3 A, B, C where A gets 50-60%, B gets 30% and C gets 10% of plays.
Not the same in many areas on O. OL mostly only one team generally plays and subs are for people getting hurt,. QB same. Maybe at RB or reciever positons. there are multiple guys that get a chance to play but generally when they come in they have certain roles to play. What is true is that for the WR and TE (and even RB) to get on the field, they had to know blocking assignments and maybe that was more important for McCalls system
^ Putting aside that McC's playcalling became very predictable (where I and a number of others here could predict plays), McC was lacking in some of the most elemental aspects of being an OC.
One of the prime responsibilities of an OC is to come up with a game plan in how to attack the opposing team's D.
Common sense, alone, states that you attack their weak point.
But somehow, McC, in coming up with his game plan against Army (an Army program that was really struggling at the time) decided not to attack the secondary (a well known weakness), but instead, cane up with a game plan to run the ball against the Army D (using a big dose of Colter) and when the Cats did pass, it was dink and dunk.
After little success, thought the Cats would change things up in the 2nd Q, but nothing.
But was completely flabbergasted when they continued to do the same after halftime (though they would make the adjustment then).
So, during the course of 3 quarters, the Cats would go on to punt the ball 7 times; this isn't Michigan's D or even Iowa, but a bad Army D.
By the time they switched things up for the 4th Q, it was too little too late.
Now, it would be one thing if this was a one off mistake, but we kept seeing similar mind-numbing decisions time and time again.
Case in point the M00N game.
Siemian was getting lit up by the UM pass rush, so McC's "genius" adjustment was to have Trevor take the snap further back (to little avail).
For 3 quarters, thought Siemian must have a bum leg, as that had to be the rationale in not moving the pocket.
But much to my surprise, that's what they ended up doing in the 4th Q - which resulted in the furious comeback.
Or what about taking half a season of seeing the Cats hand off the ball deep in the backfield on 3rd/4th and short with predictable results before finally seeing the light and switching to the QB sneak.
But of course, once that switch led to much better results, McC couldn't resist a going to the well one too many times like in the Purdue game which led to Siemian's injury which effectively ended any chance of getting 6 wins and going to a bowl game.
Saw that the PU D was bringing the kitchen sink in stopping the QB sneak, so was yelling at the TV for McC to switch the call.
Can go on and on about other things like not realizing that his O-line was tipping off plays.
This is all pretty basic and rudimentary stuff - where someone like myself who "never had never strapped it on" knew what should have been done/what changes to make.
McC would eventually make those changes, but way too late.
Now, wouldn't place all the blame on McC, since Fitz probably had a hand in it.
One of the prime responsibilities of an OC is to come up with a game plan in how to attack the opposing team's D.
Common sense, alone, states that you attack their weak point.
But somehow, McC, in coming up with his game plan against Army (an Army program that was really struggling at the time) decided not to attack the secondary (a well known weakness), but instead, cane up with a game plan to run the ball against the Army D (using a big dose of Colter) and when the Cats did pass, it was dink and dunk.
After little success, thought the Cats would change things up in the 2nd Q, but nothing.
But was completely flabbergasted when they continued to do the same after halftime (though they would make the adjustment then).
So, during the course of 3 quarters, the Cats would go on to punt the ball 7 times; this isn't Michigan's D or even Iowa, but a bad Army D.
By the time they switched things up for the 4th Q, it was too little too late.
Now, it would be one thing if this was a one off mistake, but we kept seeing similar mind-numbing decisions time and time again.
Case in point the M00N game.
Siemian was getting lit up by the UM pass rush, so McC's "genius" adjustment was to have Trevor take the snap further back (to little avail).
For 3 quarters, thought Siemian must have a bum leg, as that had to be the rationale in not moving the pocket.
But much to my surprise, that's what they ended up doing in the 4th Q - which resulted in the furious comeback.
Or what about taking half a season of seeing the Cats hand off the ball deep in the backfield on 3rd/4th and short with predictable results before finally seeing the light and switching to the QB sneak.
But of course, once that switch led to much better results, McC couldn't resist a going to the well one too many times like in the Purdue game which led to Siemian's injury which effectively ended any chance of getting 6 wins and going to a bowl game.
Saw that the PU D was bringing the kitchen sink in stopping the QB sneak, so was yelling at the TV for McC to switch the call.
Can go on and on about other things like not realizing that his O-line was tipping off plays.
This is all pretty basic and rudimentary stuff - where someone like myself who "never had never strapped it on" knew what should have been done/what changes to make.
McC would eventually make those changes, but way too late.
Now, wouldn't place all the blame on McC, since Fitz probably had a hand in it.
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I still have PTSD from that Army game. Such a glorious day marred by such a dreadful offensive performance. Putrid gameplan for McCall. 🤮
"Mr. Referee, move those chains for another first down...ARMY!"
I'm reminded of it every time our PA announcer does our lame version
We had a return game scheduled at home vs. Army, and we were such chickens that we canceled it. We were apparently so traumatized that we didn't even want to play at home vs. Army after already having played the away game.
Home games against both Army and Navy have been canceled and it seems NU and Air Force mutually agreed never to play each other again.
I’m totally fine with not playing the academies. It’s a no win situation and preparing for them doesn’t carry over to other opponents (no one plays the option). Would much rather cats play a team like ga tech or Tulane.
That game in Colorado Springs in Basanez’s freshman year was not only a sad blowout but the heat was utterly brutal. I don’t recall if we have played them since but I could understand if we haven’t yet recovered.
Dirty play by aforce blew out pat durr knee. Probably one of our best players linebackers. I hope we never play them again unless it's a bowl game
I was at that game. I don't remember it being abnormally hot, but playing at altitude always makes it a bit tougher for the visiting team.
We played them at home the following year (a much closer game), and Air Force accused NU of playing dirty, and I think there was so much bad blood that the two teams mutually agreed never to play each other again.
Anyway, back to the blowout at Air Force, one thing I remember was that they brought out a falconer with a falcon to perform tricks as the halftime show, but when they released the falcon, it just flew out of the stadium. Does anybody else remember this?
I was there, too. Yes, now that you mention it, I do remember the falcon flyaway. But it WAS really hot. I remember a guy in our group making a paper hat out of a newspaper to get some shade.
I guess it's all relative. I was living in the scorching desert of El Paso at the time, so maybe I was just inured to whatever temperatures we experienced at the game and it didn't stand out for me.
One of my faves. We weren't ever know for defense under Walk but we had our stalwarts
So is WR play and when was the last time the Cats had a WR that had an impact as a RS or even a true frosh?
Ant came in as a RS frosh and had an immediate impact at MLB (the "QB of the Defense").
Not only that, Ant's buddies on D - Godwin Igwebuike, Keith Watkins and Kyle Queiro all saw action as RS frosh, with Matt Harris playing as a true frosh.
But that hadn't always been like the case.
Under Colby's R&R scheme, the D made pedestrian passing QBs look like Peyton Manning, including Michigan's Denard Robinson, who would go on to have a record passing game against the Cats despite there being 2 good, upperclassmen in the secondary.
As it turned out, things were too complicated/confusing, so after more than half a season of seeing the secondary get lit up, they finally changed things and simplified things.
One would have thought Fitz would have learned from this, but we ended up seeing a redux when he hired his buddy where even experienced players looked confused/played hesitantly.
There were times when we saw Siemen throw to an area where there wasn't a receiver.
That meant that the QB and receiver had read things differently and chances are, it was the WR who had gotten the read wrong.
Like I've stated beforw, McC's scheme is not ideal for college ball as it required not only experienced players across the board, but players making the same read.
That's tough to do for a college roster that is constantly churning.
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