08-30-2020, 12:48 PM
I'm not sure why that matters.
I would rather a top-25 offense that somewhat underperformed its recruiting rankings than a median offense that overperformed its recruiting rankings; ditto with the defense. Of course last year we underperformed middling recruiting on both sides of the ball, but focusing on the playcalling misses the forest for the trees. Scouting and signing players and coaching them up is as much a job of the coaching staff (if not more so) than is play-calling on gameday. If you have vastly superior talent and have gotten that talent to execute, you could pick plays out of a hat and still see them be successful most of the time. On the other hand, it doesn't matter if your brilliant play call caught the secondary napping and sprung a wide receiver all alone if the offensive line can't block and the QB is on his back. Likewise, it doesn't matter if you called the perfect defensive scheme and have the runner bottled up behind the line of scrimmage if you miss the tackle. Last year we had way too much of the latter.
That doesn't excuse the coach. He was responsible for recruiting the players, and for too many years we were late with offers, didn't even fill our classes, talented players didn't develop adequately, and as a result the talent level on the field was dramatically reduced compared to the period from 2010 to 2015. We are headed for another poor recruiting year, and at least some of that is slow and inadequate recruiting. At least 2022 is starting out on much better footing, to get back to consistent excellence we will need sustained effort each and every year (not one good class and then take a few years off). To the extent that there is criticism of the class of 2022 it is that disproportionate effort has been expended on the offense, when, given our struggles, we actually need to expend more effort recruiting defensive players. But at least we have offers out!
BC
I would rather a top-25 offense that somewhat underperformed its recruiting rankings than a median offense that overperformed its recruiting rankings; ditto with the defense. Of course last year we underperformed middling recruiting on both sides of the ball, but focusing on the playcalling misses the forest for the trees. Scouting and signing players and coaching them up is as much a job of the coaching staff (if not more so) than is play-calling on gameday. If you have vastly superior talent and have gotten that talent to execute, you could pick plays out of a hat and still see them be successful most of the time. On the other hand, it doesn't matter if your brilliant play call caught the secondary napping and sprung a wide receiver all alone if the offensive line can't block and the QB is on his back. Likewise, it doesn't matter if you called the perfect defensive scheme and have the runner bottled up behind the line of scrimmage if you miss the tackle. Last year we had way too much of the latter.
That doesn't excuse the coach. He was responsible for recruiting the players, and for too many years we were late with offers, didn't even fill our classes, talented players didn't develop adequately, and as a result the talent level on the field was dramatically reduced compared to the period from 2010 to 2015. We are headed for another poor recruiting year, and at least some of that is slow and inadequate recruiting. At least 2022 is starting out on much better footing, to get back to consistent excellence we will need sustained effort each and every year (not one good class and then take a few years off). To the extent that there is criticism of the class of 2022 it is that disproportionate effort has been expended on the offense, when, given our struggles, we actually need to expend more effort recruiting defensive players. But at least we have offers out!
BC