[lex24]

Question for the community.

Last year, Ohio State had the top scoring offense among power 5 teams (45.7 pts/game), while Vandy was dead at 15.8 ppg (among P5 teams).

Here’s a thought experiment.  Take Kevin Wilson, tOSU’s offensive coordinator, and have him call plays for the Commodores.  How many ppg do you think Vandy scores?  Now, replace the entire Vandy offense with the Ohio State’s athletes, but keep Joey Lynch as play-caller (Vandy was weird in that Lynch, who was the passing game coordinator, took over playcalling duties from the now fired offensive coordinator a week into practice).  Same question.

Here’s my guess: out of the 30 point gap in offensive output between Vandy and tOSU, probably 25 of those points are due to the gap between OSU’s superior offensive players and Vandy’s, and the rest are due to the guy with the headset.

What do you guys think? Am I way off base?

BC

I agree, directionally. I think that what is missing is the culture of the program, team, offense, and position groups. This plays into each of the things you highlighted. How much effort are the players putting into training, film study, etc.? Do the guys who are calling the plays know how to leverage their advantages in advance of the games to prepare the players to have favorable matchups? We've seen teams with inferior talent outperform teams with superior talent, sometimes consistently (e.g., Utah vs Stanford). I think the problems with Stanford indeed have to do with slipping recruiting and unimpressive play calling, but it seems to me that it also has to do with a culture of complacency.

If by culture you mean an identity and style that one recruits to and sticks with, I agree. 

Talent overrides all.  But there are different types of talent.  When Stanford was at its best it had a lot of talent on both LOS.  And a clear identity/culture to go with it.  That’s a good combo.  Unfortunately they lost it.

But the best answer is Nick Saban and Urban Meyer. College coaching legends. NFL busts. Yeah, different games. But when you line up every week with vastly superior talent it’s a tad different than when you line up with even or lesser talent. I don’t care how good a coach you are.

Don’t get me wrong, coaches make a difference. But players make a much bigger difference.

[lex24]

Question for the community.

Last year, Ohio State had the top scoring offense among power 5 teams (45.7 pts/game), while Vandy was dead at 15.8 ppg (among P5 teams).

Here’s a thought experiment.  Take Kevin Wilson, tOSU’s offensive coordinator, and have him call plays for the Commodores.  How many ppg do you think Vandy scores?  Now, replace the entire Vandy offense with the Ohio State’s athletes, but keep Joey Lynch as play-caller (Vandy was weird in that Lynch, who was the passing game coordinator, took over playcalling duties from the now fired offensive coordinator a week into practice).  Same question.

Here’s my guess: out of the 30 point gap in offensive output between Vandy and tOSU, probably 25 of those points are due to the gap between OSU’s superior offensive players and Vandy’s, and the rest are due to the guy with the headset.

What do you guys think? Am I way off base?

BC

I agree, directionally. I think that what is missing is the culture of the program, team, offense, and position groups. This plays into each of the things you highlighted. How much effort are the players putting into training, film study, etc.? Do the guys who are calling the plays know how to leverage their advantages in advance of the games to prepare the players to have favorable matchups? We've seen teams with inferior talent outperform teams with superior talent, sometimes consistently (e.g., Utah vs Stanford). I think the problems with Stanford indeed have to do with slipping recruiting and unimpressive play calling, but it seems to me that it also has to do with a culture of complacency.

If by culture you mean an identity and style that one recruits to and sticks with, I agree. 

Talent overrides all.  But there are different types of talent.  When Stanford was at its best it had a lot of talent on both LOS.  And a clear identity/culture to go with it.  That’s a good combo.  Unfortunately they lost it.

But the best answer is Nick Saban and Urban Meyer. College coaching legends. NFL busts. Yeah, different games. But when you line up every week with vastly superior talent it’s a tad different than when you line up with even or lesser talent. I don’t care how good a coach you are.

Don’t get me wrong, coaches make a difference. But players make a much bigger difference.