Athlon - Anonymous coaches on NU

[PurpleWhiteBoy]

I wasn't much of a Fleck fan for reasons listed above.

But then a handful of malcontents tried to pull a "Carl Richardson" on him, claiming he was excessive with his conditioning demands or whatever...

and his response was essentially "Oh really? Go F*** Yourselves"
and the issue went away.

How can you not respect that?

 

[hdhntr1]

It was announced that the Lynch report was going to be made public. She must still be working on it. Coming up on a year now.

Job security

 

[gocatsgo2003]

How is that? Jake took us from first to last basically overnight and was awful from start to finish. Jake gave us at least had a couple acceptable seasons. His big problem was nothing in QB pipeline when he got here. Granted he did not really improve that as much as most would like and he was likely to be sent packing after last year regardless, but he was not the immediate and continuous horror show that JON was

Jake’s offenses were statistically worse than JON’s defenses and for longer. That’s the “arguably” part.

 

[phatcat]

Jake’s offenses were statistically worse than JON’s defenses and for longer. That’s the “arguably” part.

Yes, this was hidden by the magnitude of the Hank => JON drop, but Jake's offenses were putrid

 

[Just Gary]

I don’t know who was worse, but the drop off from Hank to JON was massive while the change from McCall to Jake was negligible (the offense stunk under both).

The difference was Hank retired and was the best defensive coordinator we ever had. So it was much easier to see how bad JON was. While McCall was fired and really coached poorly his last few years, so Jake was actually a slight improvement. Also, no one in the B1G West had a good offense.

I think Fitz did not want to change both the offense and defense in the same year, so he went for getting the defense fixed first. Remember Fitz changed his hiring philosophy when he brought in Braun. He had previously said he wanted coaches with NFL or Power 5 experience (JON from the NFL and Jake from Boston College). But he decided to go for coaches who came from highly rated FCS teams. I think Fitz was waiting to see if Braun was the right choice and with the defense fixed, Fitz would have fired Jake after last season.

 

[IGNORE2]

The difference was Hank retired and was the best defensive coordinator we ever had. So it was much easier to see how bad JON was. While McCall was fired and really coached poorly his last few years, so Jake was actually a slight improvement. Also, no one in the B1G West had a good offense.

I think Fitz did not want to change both the offense and defense in the same year, so he went for getting the defense fixed first. Remember Fitz changed his hiring philosophy when he brought in Braun. He had previously said he wanted coaches with NFL or Power 5 experience (JON from the NFL and Jake from Boston College). But he decided to go for coaches who came from highly rated FCS teams. I think Fitz was waiting to see if Braun was the right choice and with the defense fixed, Fitz would have fired Jake after last season.

I bet Fitz will come back a far far better HC, if given a chance. Head shrunk from the humility, opportunity to look back at all his choices along the way - I bet he would figure out his over the top loyalty and stubbornness led to his downfall more than trusting his athletes. He probably won’t become a fun guy at the presser and not any better or worse at actual coaching - but the HC qualities I can see improving dramatically.

 

[Jaguar 88]

Fitz lived and died based on his coordinators. He hired a beauty in Hank who carried us to glory. As we know, the other side of the ball was very inconsistent. Hank retired and he finally hired a suitable replacement only to be forced out by…hey, what’s up with that Lynch report?

Living and dying based on coordinators is still on the HC. Fitz hired them, and lets face it,the buck always ends with the HC. Can Fitz's excellent record from 2015-18 be because of McCall and Hank? I mean someone could say that McCall had a hand in the success of 2015-18. Why didn't Fitz hire someone that had the imaginative offense similar to what coach Walker had? Why did Fitz hire the bums that he did post Hank and McCall? I mean were they the best that wanted the job? If so, that is not only a Fitz problem, but a NU problem. Fitz won the Holiday Bowl, talked smack about winning B1G titles and competing for national titles, got his huge raise, and decided to put his career on cruise control. His big head got the best of him and he let the program's wheels fall off as a result.

 

[CMcCat]

Living and dying based on coordinators is still on the HC. Fitz hired them, and lets face it,the buck always ends with the HC. Can Fitz's excellent record from 2015-18 be because of McCall and Hank? I mean someone could say that McCall had a hand in the success of 2015-18. Why didn't Fitz hire someone that had the imaginative offense similar to what coach Walker had? Why did Fitz hire the bums that he did post Hank and McCall? I mean were they the best that wanted the job? If so, that is not only a Fitz problem, but a NU problem. Fitz won the Holiday Bowl, talked smack about winning B1G titles and competing for national titles, got his huge raise, and decided to put his career on cruise control. His big head got the best of him and he let the program's wheels fall off as a result.

Well, Walker was a running back and Fitz was a linebacker. Fitz was never very high on offense unless it was 4th down and short to medium yardage with a mediocre kicker lurking.

I don’t think he put anything on cruise control. I think he made one really good hire that, inexplicably, Wisconsin made available followed by several other mediocre ones. Then he hired Braun who looks like a good one. [REDACTED]

But c’mon. He had multiple 10-win seasons at NU. That’s not ever happening again.

 

[EvanstonCat]

How is that? Jake took us from first to last basically overnight and was awful from start to finish. Jake gave us at least had a couple acceptable seasons. His big problem was nothing in QB pipeline when he got here. Granted he did not really improve that as much as most would like and he was likely to be sent packing after last year regardless, but he was not the immediate and continuous horror show that JON was

You mean JON. We had a couple acceptable seasons with Jake DESPITE his putrid offense, not because of it. Again, any success we had really goes to Hank and the D. Never did our offense under Bajakian scare anyone or was it ever the reason we won anything.

 

[EvanstonCat]

Well, Walker was a running back and Fitz was a linebacker. Fitz was never very high on offense unless it was 4th down and short to medium yardage with a mediocre kicker lurking.

I don’t think he put anything on cruise control. I think he made one really good hire that, inexplicably, Wisconsin made available followed by several other mediocre ones. Then he hired Braun who looks like a good one. [REDACTED]

But c’mon. He had multiple 10-win seasons at NU. That’s not ever happening again.

Why on earth not? Barnett had one and almost 2 in an era of fewer games, which was a far greater feat given the state of the program that he inherited.

We were arguably a Ben Bryant injury away from 10 wins last season. Sheesh you really have a way of zero expectations.

 

[PurpleWhiteBoy]

Why on earth not? Barnett had one and almost 2 in an era of fewer games, which was a far greater feat given the state of the program that he inherited.

We were arguably a Ben Bryant injury away from 10 wins last season. Sheesh you really have a way of zero expectations.

You're right about last year.
The Bryant injury was very impactful.
Along with the impact of losing a bunch of players after Schill fired Fitzgerald.

Had those two things not happened, we'd have won more games.
I don't think anybody can really debate that, without some major (unsupported) assumptions.

Also, Bajakian was hamstrung by Fitzgerald's philosophy. I don't think thats really debatable either.

Bajakian doesn't look so terrible if you compare him to other Big Ten teams, instead of the universe of college programs, where offense is generally stressed, not defense.

 

[hdhntr1]

The difference was Hank retired and was the best defensive coordinator we ever had. So it was much easier to see how bad JON was. While McCall was fired and really coached poorly his last few years, so Jake was actually a slight improvement. Also, no one in the B1G West had a good offense.

I think Fitz did not want to change both the offense and defense in the same year, so he went for getting the defense fixed first. Remember Fitz changed his hiring philosophy when he brought in Braun. He had previously said he wanted coaches with NFL or Power 5 experience (JON from the NFL and Jake from Boston College). But he decided to go for coaches who came from highly rated FCS teams. I think Fitz was waiting to see if Braun was the right choice and with the defense fixed, Fitz would have fired Jake after last season.

Vanderlinen was pretty good and that D took us to the Rose Bowl. So was the D coordinator during the 1970 era. That D in 1970 would compete with any I have seen at NU.

And yes changing both at the same time would have been a disaster and Jake's offense was at least serviceable. The huge difference is we had the personnel on D and we went from great to terrible

 

[hdhntr1]

Jake’s offenses were statistically worse than JON’s defenses and for longer. That’s the “arguably” part.

Offensive stats are basically all about the QB. Do you remember what the QB room was like when Jake arrived? Jake's first year was Covid year and with a serviceable QB transfer in Ramsey the O was good enough to get us to BTC. The problem for him was the the QB cupboard was bare when he got here. While we all hoped HJ would be the man, he just did not have it(was that HJ or do you think it was Jake) and there was basically nothing to back him up. While QBs he brought in were a step up they were more developmental projects. Last year with another servicable transfer, he again put up a reasonable O and again it complimented a good D.

His problem was that while his QB recruits were a step up from what he had been left with, they were not guys off of his A list and were all more developmental projects. He had two reasonable years (with seasoned transfers)and two bad years with no workable QB in the system and those two bad years coincided with the disasterous JON Ds

While he might have been let go after year three, Fitz was right to keep him for year 4 as it would have been pretty hard to overhaul and replace both O and D coordinators at the same time.

 

[phatcat]

He had two reasonable years (with seasoned transfers)

His "reasonable" years were 96th and 103rd in ppg. So no.

Also the "development " of Sullivan, who I liked btw, was so delayed that, in his 3rd year under Jake with a ton of playing time, he wasn't ready. Big game against MD, but embarrassing v PSU, mediocre v Howard, and I feel Bryant would have won NEB and IA. His other recent recruits were a baseball player and a TBD redshirt Freshman. We are playing transfer QBs because his development didn't work

 

[TheC]

We could live with Jake for a while but JON was a disaster from day 1

From play 1

 

[phatcat]

From play 1

I read this post and reacted negativity

 

[CappyNU]

Bajakian doesn't look so terrible if you compare him to other Big Ten teams, instead of the universe of college programs, where offense is generally stressed, not defense.

That would be false, though, as Jake's 4 years gave us offenses ranked 10th, 14th, 14th and 11th in scoring within the conference, along with 12th, 12th, 12th, and 13th in yards per play. Even if you want to be generous and just look at the B1G West, it was still 5th, 7th, 7th, and 4th in scoring, with 7th, 7th, 6th, and 6th in yards/play.

 

[hdhntr1]

His "reasonable" years were 96th and 103rd in ppg. So no.

Also the "development " of Sullivan, who I liked btw, was so delayed that, in his 3rd year under Jake with a ton of playing time, he wasn't ready. Big game against MD, but embarrassing v PSU, mediocre v Howard, and I feel Bryant would have won NEB and IA. His other recent recruits were a baseball player and a TBD redshirt Freshman. We are playing transfer QBs because his development didn't work

And we were able to win with them. Can you imagine any scenario that we could win with JON's D? I cannot.

As far as Sullivan. He could never stay healthy. Pretty hard to develop any consistency under those circumstances. And how would you rate our OL during Jake's tenure?

 

[hdhntr1]

Living and dying based on coordinators is still on the HC. Fitz hired them, and lets face it,the buck always ends with the HC. Can Fitz's excellent record from 2015-18 be because of McCall and Hank? I mean someone could say that McCall had a hand in the success of 2015-18. Why didn't Fitz hire someone that had the imaginative offense similar to what coach Walker had? Why did Fitz hire the bums that he did post Hank and McCall? I mean were they the best that wanted the job? If so, that is not only a Fitz problem, but a NU problem. Fitz won the Holiday Bowl, talked smack about winning B1G titles and competing for national titles, got his huge raise, and decided to put his career on cruise control. His big head got the best of him and he let the program's wheels fall off as a result.

All HCs live and die with the coordinators that they have. McCall was pretty good till he wasn't. I can remember the thought of the danger of losing him. And remember his job was to have a complementary O for a D minded team. But he had some misteps in recruiting QBs at the end and it finally caught up with him. Thought he had the guy (next 4 year starter) out of Colorado and then that fell apart and that was the beginning of the end for him.

JON apparently talks a very good game but reality is that he has failed everywhere he has been. Not sure how he hoodwinked Fitz other than Fitz thought he would bring in higher upside players. JAKE had been reasonably successful and created Os that were along the lines of what Fitz liked. Gotta remember FItz is a D first coach and believed a lot in complimentary football

 

[PurpleWhiteBoy]

That would be false, though, as Jake's 4 years gave us offenses ranked 10th, 14th, 14th and 11th in scoring within the conference, along with 12th, 12th, 12th, and 13th in yards per play. Even if you want to be generous and just look at the B1G West, it was still 5th, 7th, 7th, and 4th in scoring, with 7th, 7th, 6th, and 6th in yards/play.

Here's what I wrote
"Bajakian's offenses don't look so terrible when you compare him only to Big Ten teams."

I looked at NU yards per game.
To keep everything as fair as possible, I used conference games only for one set of numbers and "all games" for the comparison to everybody in FBS.

Season	Yds/Gm Rank B10	Yds/Gm Overall
2023-24	9/14 (64th pct)	121/130 (93rd pct)
2022-23	11/14 (79th pct)	128/131 (98th pct)
2021-22	13/14 (93rd pct)	116/130 (89th pct)
2020-21	9/14 (64th pct)	95/128 (74th pct)

Obviously, the offense doesn't look as terrible when you view it thru the Big Ten lens.
It still looks pretty bad, but that wasn't my point.

 

[phatcat]

And we were able to win with them. Can you imagine any scenario that we could win with JON's D? I cannot.

As far as Sullivan. He could never stay healthy. Pretty hard to develop any consistency under those circumstances. And how would you rate our OL during Jake's tenure?

Best thing to do is to take this up again after the season. We have a new coordinator and a new system. The line will be arguably worse. In fact, the quarterback is probably not at bryant's level. Can we agree that if this new system is measurably better than jake, That he sucks.?

 

[CMcCat]

Why on earth not? Barnett had one and almost 2 in an era of fewer games, which was a far greater feat given the state of the program that he inherited.

We were arguably a Ben Bryant injury away from 10 wins last season. Sheesh you really have a way of zero expectations.

Fitz was fortunate to be a head coach during the most “equitable” era in college football history. He entered the scene after the era of unlimited scholarships that enabled the dominant programs to stockpile talent and use it to win games, keeping lesser programs weak. He left before NIL essentially creates the old system with cash rather than scholarships.

NU didn’t win much in the unlimited scholarship era and won’t win much in the NIL era. That is why it has torn down its football stadium and is constructing a concert venue.

 

[Catreporter]

That is why it has torn down its football stadium and is constructing a concert venue.

Oh, just stop!

 

[Jaguar 88]

I was with you till you went to took the money and ran. He had last years team set up for success. He had righted the disaster of JON. (Jake was never the problem JON was)

He got the huge raise as a reward for 2015-2018, and it was well deserved, but he seemed to phone it in after 2018. His coordinator hires post McCall and then post Hankwitz were substandard, plus more importantly his overall offensive philosophy was rather archaic for the 21st century. Nobody wins with just running the ball and relying on a stout D anymore. as ball control went out when Fitz was a player. Bottom line is he didn't seem to want to evolve at all to really compete in the B1G. He said he wanted to win the B1G and even national titles, but he had no clue on how to do that. He sure wasn't going to do that with recruiting 3 star players all the time, especially if he wanted to maintain the ball control philosophy. Fitz was a good HC, but needed to evolve at some point and he didn't and the program took a dive for it.

 

[Just Gary]

Nobody wins with just running the ball and relying on a stout D anymore. as ball control went out when Fitz was a player.

Ever heard of Iowa?

 

[Jaguar 88]

Ever heard of Iowa?

Iowa is in the same predicament as NU. Maybe make a middle to lower tier bowl at best. Fitz was promising winning the B1G and contending for nattys in his post game Holiday Bowl press conference. You can forget either of those things if you run a ball control offense. You will have to score lots of points against Oregon, Washington, OSU and Michigan. Ball control isn't a good philosophy if you are playing from behind.

 

[Just Gary]

All coaches in the B1G promise to win the Big Ten. As for Iowa, I think you are wrong in your assertion that they cannot do better than a middle tier bowl. They just needed to be competent on offense with their defense, just like us. With a slightly better offense, they would have been in the top 12 and that is all you need to make the playoffs.

There are plenty of teams with good offenses that cannot beat Oregon, Washington, OSU, or Michigan.

I don’t disagree with you that we are better off with a more aggressive downfield offense but I do disagree when you say no school can win with a stout defense and a run control offense.

 

[hdhntr1]

He got the huge raise as a reward for 2015-2018, and it was well deserved, but he seemed to phone it in after 2018. His coordinator hires post McCall and then post Hankwitz were substandard, plus more importantly his overall offensive philosophy was rather archaic for the 21st century. Nobody wins with just running the ball and relying on a stout D anymore. as ball control went out when Fitz was a player. Bottom line is he didn't seem to want to evolve at all to really compete in the B1G. He said he wanted to win the B1G and even national titles, but he had no clue on how to do that. He sure wasn't going to do that with recruiting 3 star players all the time, especially if he wanted to maintain the ball control philosophy. Fitz was a good HC, but needed to evolve at some point and he didn't and the program took a dive for it.

Fitz was always a guy that believed you won with D and a complimentary O. And it worked here for a long time. (after he was done as a player) The Jake hire made total sense as he was a more updated McCall and with a D it again proved that it could win. The main problem he had was how bad we had done in recruiting QBs prior to his arrival that limited what he could do and an OL that had issues protecting the QB (over his tenure we saw a lot of QB injuries). And unfortunately he could not get his A list guy while he was here and what he was able to get were more projects.

The JON hire was questionable from the beginning. Hard for a read and react D to be successful at NU because first we do not have the athleticism it took nor do the players in college have the time to learn it well enough to be successful.. Only reason that it made any sense is that he looked to be a much better recruiter and had the potential to bring in the level of athlete required to successfully run the system. And after two years, recognizing his mistake, he made a great hire to get back on track.

I don't see Fitz as having mailed it in. I see him as having made a big mistake in hiring JON. He was never an O focused coach so expecting him to radically change that in a way that would potentially put the D in bad positions was not going to happen.

 

[hdhntr1]

Iowa is in the same predicament as NU. Maybe make a middle to lower tier bowl at best. Fitz was promising winning the B1G and contending for nattys in his post game Holiday Bowl press conference. You can forget either of those things if you run a ball control offense. You will have to score lots of points against Oregon, Washington, OSU and Michigan. Ball control isn't a good philosophy if you are playing from behind.

All successful HCs tend to try to promise along those same lines. Holding that against him is ridiculous. And don't look now but isn't that pretty much what MICH just did to win the National Title? Great D and ball control O with a heavy emphasis in the run game?. In the BIG we have seen teams that tried stellar O and they still did not beat dOSU, Mich, etc

 

[hdhntr1]

Ever heard of Iowa?

Or Michigan?

 

[hdhntr1]

Here's what I wrote
"Bajakian's offenses don't look so terrible when you compare him only to Big Ten teams."

I looked at NU yards per game.
To keep everything as fair as possible, I used conference games only for one set of numbers and "all games" for the comparison to everybody in FBS.

Season	Yds/Gm Rank B10	Yds/Gm Overall
2023-24	9/14 (64th pct)	121/130 (93rd pct)
2022-23	11/14 (79th pct)	128/131 (98th pct)
2021-22	13/14 (93rd pct)	116/130 (89th pct)
2020-21	9/14 (64th pct)	95/128 (74th pct)

Obviously, the offense doesn't look as terrible when you view it thru the Big Ten lens.
It still looks pretty bad, but that wasn't my point.

So in his two reasonable years when he had a somewhat seasoned QB, we were in the middle 1/3 of the BIG in ypg. And we won. Not unexpected when the program focus is D with a more ball control O (focused on not putting D in bad position). And we won a lot of games over the years with that approach.

We we never have the talent that programs like dOSU, MICH, PSU and now Oregon, Wash, USC etc are able to bring in. Our admissions, etc will ensure that, And now, so will NIL. So we have to come up with way to still be successful. Fitz and and Barnett did it with Ball Control O and solid D, Walker tried with an innovative O making a big spash in 2000 in a weak BIG. Overall it was marginally successful.

Braun is also a D first coach, And the new O coordinator would appear to be another run first guy

 

[PurpleWhiteBoy]

So in his two reasonable years when he had a somewhat seasoned QB, we were in the middle 1/3 of the BIG in ypg. And we won. Not unexpected when the program focus is D with a more ball control O (focused on not putting D in bad position). And we won a lot of games over the years with that approach.

We we never have the talent that programs like dOSU, MICH, PSU and now Oregon, Wash, USC etc are able to bring in. Our admissions, etc will ensure that, And now, so will NIL. So we have to come up with way to still be successful. Fitz and and Barnett did it with Ball Control O and solid D, Walker tried with an innovative O making a big spash in 2000 in a weak BIG. Overall it was marginally successful.

Braun is also a D first coach, And the new O coordinator would appear to be another run first guy

This is a very fair analysis, although I don't know anything about the new O coordinator.

When your offense is so conservative and/or your QB is unable to see downfield or throw while scrambling, you can't even take advantage of blown coverages, guys falling down in the secondary and improvisation by the receivers.
.
As long as our new offense has an element of deception and our QB has the ability to see/make opportunities, we should be in decent shape.

 

[hdhntr1]

You're right about last year.
The Bryant injury was very impactful.
Along with the impact of losing a bunch of players after Schill fired Fitzgerald.

Had those two things not happened, we'd have won more games.
I don't think anybody can really debate that, without some major (unsupported) assumptions.

Also, Bajakian was hamstrung by Fitzgerald's philosophy. I don't think thats really debatable either.

Bajakian doesn't look so terrible if you compare him to other Big Ten teams, instead of the universe of college programs, where offense is generally stressed, not defense.

Under Fitz Braun was hired. Very good hire. Jake fit his philosophy and got us to the BTCG in his first year and gave us enough to win a number of games with Bryant. People here seem to think that the O and D operate totally independently and one sides philosophy has no impact on the other side of the ball and that just is not true, D first teams are generally not set up to shoot it out with teams and go to more ball control type Os. O focused teams don't tend to have that kind of D Just look at Michigan last year. It was a very strong D and the O was more ball control. They had a tremendous amount of talent that we will never have but still they used a ball control O with a strong D. Remember the game against I think it was PSU where they rand something like 31 straight times?

Last year's NU team was set up to win and as you say likely would have won another game or two with Fitz at the helm. Particularly the game against Rutgers where still adjusting to the new situation, Plus numerous players we lost that would not have had exited might have given us a shot in another game or two,

 

[phatcat]

Fitz was always a guy that believed you won with D and a complimentary O. And it worked here for a long time. (after he was done as a player)

He may have "believed " this, but his first several years, including several successful years, had decent offenses, relatively speaking, and some bad defense. 2007-11 led by Walker recruits at QB, btw. (Which contributed, in part, to the poopoo defenses

 

[mickbula]

He may have "believed " this, but his first several years, including several successful years, had decent offenses, relatively speaking, and some bad defense. 2007-11 led by Walker recruits at QB, btw. (Which contributed, in part, to the poopoo defenses

I hope we can find that passing game that bacher brought us and Sutton at rb! We kicked some tush! Remember passing for almost 600 yds and tyrell running for 200 yds! Our o was 👌 awesome

 

[hdhntr1]

He may have "believed " this, but his first several years, including several successful years, had decent offenses, relatively speaking, and some bad defense. 2007-11 led by Walker recruits at QB, btw. (Which contributed, in part, to the poopoo defenses

I believe he also inherited the Colby and his Swiss Cheese D. The program was based on O when he took over and D was more of an after thought. He started the process of making it in his image with the hiring of Hank

 

[Gatabowl]

Jake was arguably worse than JON.

Not arguably. He was worse. The offense was worse.

We are debating which absolute dumpster fire coordinator was worse. Let that sink in.

 

[EvanstonCat]

And we were able to win with them. Can you imagine any scenario that we could win with JON's D? I cannot.

As far as Sullivan. He could never stay healthy. Pretty hard to develop any consistency under those circumstances. And how would you rate our OL during Jake's tenure?

Yeah if we had a top 5 offense we probably could have won games with a JON defense. Kind of reminiscent of the Walker years.

Bajakian’s offense “won” games like Iowa’s offense last year. We won DESPITE our putrid offense, thanks to Hank.

 

[hdhntr1]

Yeah if we had a top 5 offense we probably could have won games with a JON defense. Kind of reminiscent of the Walker years.

Bajakian’s offense “won” games like Iowa’s offense last year. We won DESPITE our putrid offense, thanks to Hank.

Reality is never going to get a top 5 in country. Just can't get that amount of talent in the door at NU. One of the big problems FItz had was Anderson never delivered on the promise of putting a top OL on the field. That hampered everything and with a good D you were never going to be able to take a lot of risks with the O because that could put the D in bad position

 

[Gatabowl]

Reality is never going to get a top 5 in country. Just can't get that amount of talent in the door at NU. One of the big problems FItz had was Anderson never delivered on the promise of putting a top OL on the field. That hampered everything and with a good D you were never going to be able to take a lot of risks with the O because that could put the D in bad position

The entire offensive philosophy was stuck in 1995 for years, making margin for error razor thin and making us rely on unreliable and unsustainable turnovers to win games. It’s one reason why we lost to lesser teams or won games so much closer than they should have been. A couple bad turnovers from our bad offense put us in a terrible spot.

We aren’t getting loaded up with 5 star skill players but who wants to be a WR who never gets the ball? What QB wants to hand the ball off 30 times a game and throw slants on third down?

Even Saban — with all of Alabama’s athletes and resources — realized that you couldn’t do the “ground and pound with a good defense” thing and win. And that was with a good offense! They decided to try to throw the ball a lot and lo and behold started winning a lot. You don’t have to throw to score but it’s a philosophy thing.

The ball control offense just doesn’t work anymore and I’m excited to see a modern offense come in.