one safe place said:

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beerad12man said:

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He was also part of the 2023 Duke defense that over achieved to their talent, too.

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We sure have a lot of coaches that were connected at one time with Duke.

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I wonder why

vander54 said:

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one safe place said:

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beerad12man said:

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He was also part of the 2023 Duke defense that over achieved to their talent, too.

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We sure have a lot of coaches that were connected at one time with Duke.

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I wonder why

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Because we couldn't get them from football schools like Georgia, Alabama, etc.?

TxAg76 said:

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Tergdor said:

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vander54 said:

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Seccondary was our worst. I mean Elko even said they don't understand zone coverage.

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Call me crazy but it's hard for me to entirely blame the secondary when the front 7 wasn't filling run lanes, let the QB get outside constantly, and the secondary had to make so many tackles (329 out of 798 total team tackles, that isn't counting LBs).

Whenever teams found out they can just run at the line it completely fell apart. Bateman didn't fix it then, so why would him focusing on it now fix it?

It was Bateman calling constant stunts at the line and inefficiently using blitzes that let the defense get exposed.

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he's stunting and blitzing out of necessity.
if you wanna see exposed, imagine rushing 4 conventionally and trying to let our secondary execute in coverage.

better off trying to force the QB to get rid of it quick.
because with decent time, most any decent QB is gonna carve our secondary apart.

everything about stunts and blitzes is gonna be feast or famine.
but if we'd played more straight up, that's a near guarantee of famine.

we lost Chappell early. now imagine the clusterF we'd have if we'd also lost Will Lee early.
oh wait, that was the bowl game, nevermind....you saw it first hand already

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Imagine having the best DLine in the conference and repeatedly telling them to take a longer route to get to the QB.
Bateman should be unemployed completely but he's still gonna collect a check next year because Elmo is a nice guy.

That's usually what happens with new coaches. I don't think this is some major notation. Most new coaches bring over about half their current staff from their previous stop.

Not sure why you think realistically we'd be raiding Kirby Smarts coaching staff. I suppose we could hire LB or DB coaches for DC. Or a WR coach for OC. But that's about it and not necessarily a good thing anyways.

I swear if elko won three titles in a row, half this board would complain about how it was a bad precedent for the future.

Everyone knows the defense needs to be better, elko is making moves to try and make that happen. Will it work? Who knows, but you don't just rip and replace staff wholesale if you are trying to build for long term success.

beerad12man said:

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That's usually what happens with new coaches. I don't think this is some major notation. Most new coaches bring over about half their current staff from their previous stop.

Not sure why you think realistically we'd be raiding Kirby Smarts coaching staff. I suppose we could hire LB or DB coaches for DC. Or a WR coach for OC. But that's about it and not necessarily a good thing anyways.

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Exactly. Look at almost every new HC they always try to bring familiar faces. Rarely, maybe never do you see a coach get hired and not include some of his old coaches.

vander54 said:

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beerad12man said:

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That's usually what happens with new coaches. I don't think this is some major notation. Most new coaches bring over about half their current staff from their previous stop.

Not sure why you think realistically we'd be raiding Kirby Smarts coaching staff. I suppose we could hire LB or DB coaches for DC. Or a WR coach for OC. But that's about it and not necessarily a good thing anyways.

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Exactly. Look at almost every new HC they always try to bring familiar faces. Rarely, maybe never do you see a coach get hired and not include some of his old coaches.

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The rub is this- if a coach goes from a job where he's probably not gonna win a NC to a job where he could/is expected to and he takes his old staff with him, he's saying he had a NC-winning caliber staff.

Elko brought like 40% of his coaches from Duke. Did he really have 40% of a NC-winning staff at Duke? Maybe, maybe not. I think people are right to be skeptical of that and wish Elko made more moves like getting Holmon Wiggins

Hate to say it, but Texas made a great move hiring Sark off of the NC-winning Bama staff. He turned around and took a bunch of other assistants with him. Those guys quite obviously know how to win NCs. Georgia with Kirby Smart did the same thing I think when hired from Bama. Seems to be working out well for them

So you'll have to excuse people for wanting to be a bit more like the successful programs out there

Paul Pierce Ag said:

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vander54 said:

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beerad12man said:

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That's usually what happens with new coaches. I don't think this is some major notation. Most new coaches bring over about half their current staff from their previous stop.

Not sure why you think realistically we'd be raiding Kirby Smarts coaching staff. I suppose we could hire LB or DB coaches for DC. Or a WR coach for OC. But that's about it and not necessarily a good thing anyways.

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Exactly. Look at almost every new HC they always try to bring familiar faces. Rarely, maybe never do you see a coach get hired and not include some of his old coaches.

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The rub is this- if a coach goes from a job where he's probably not gonna win a NC to a job where he could/is expected to and he takes his old staff with him, he's saying he had a NC-winning caliber staff.

Elko brought like 40% of his coaches from Duke. Did he really have 40% of a NC-winning staff at Duke? Maybe, maybe not. I think people are right to be skeptical of that and wish Elko made more moves like getting Holmon Wiggins

Hate to say it, but Texas made a great move hiring Sark off of the NC-winning Bama staff. He turned around and took a bunch of other assistants with him. Those guys quite obviously know how to win NCs. Georgia with Kirby Smart did the same thing I think when hired from Bama. Seems to be working out well for them

So you'll have to excuse people for wanting to be a bit more like the successful programs out there

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So you're comparing an established HC to Cordinator to HC hires?

Do we know who he is going to replace?

vander54 said:

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Paul Pierce Ag said:

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vander54 said:

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beerad12man said:

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That's usually what happens with new coaches. I don't think this is some major notation. Most new coaches bring over about half their current staff from their previous stop.

Not sure why you think realistically we'd be raiding Kirby Smarts coaching staff. I suppose we could hire LB or DB coaches for DC. Or a WR coach for OC. But that's about it and not necessarily a good thing anyways.

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Exactly. Look at almost every new HC they always try to bring familiar faces. Rarely, maybe never do you see a coach get hired and not include some of his old coaches.

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The rub is this- if a coach goes from a job where he's probably not gonna win a NC to a job where he could/is expected to and he takes his old staff with him, he's saying he had a NC-winning caliber staff.

Elko brought like 40% of his coaches from Duke. Did he really have 40% of a NC-winning staff at Duke? Maybe, maybe not. I think people are right to be skeptical of that and wish Elko made more moves like getting Holmon Wiggins

Hate to say it, but Texas made a great move hiring Sark off of the NC-winning Bama staff. He turned around and took a bunch of other assistants with him. Those guys quite obviously know how to win NCs. Georgia with Kirby Smart did the same thing I think when hired from Bama. Seems to be working out well for them

So you'll have to excuse people for wanting to be a bit more like the successful programs out there

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So you're comparing an established HC to Cordinator to HC hires?

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Uh… yeah. I want the new head coach to hire the best assistants regardless of his previous station.

At our school, we expect our coach to be trying to win a NC. Therefore I assume all Elko's decisions are ordered to that end. I'm skeptical of his decision to bring ~40% of his staff from Duke. That's a big statement to say he had a good chunk of a NC-caliber staff at Duke. I hope he was right.

FWIW, the coaches he got from Duke don't appear to be the biggest problems with our staff. That dubious distinction goes to Bateman and probably Coach Chaos

It's still very common.

I think you'd be surprised how many "national championship caliber" coaches there are with the right personnel. So yeah, if he assembled a good staff at Duke, I would hope even there that many can coach at the same level as guys in the sec. It isn't some magical formula. The best ones are normally the guys who surround themselves with the right talent/personnel. So far, recruiting is better than many expected. So we shall see there.

What I do see is that Elko built up a national championship caliber defense here by 2021 his first time around (go look at efficiency rankings, we were above the "NC Caliber defense" line). I see that every defense he's coached at, he has improved dramatically from before he got there to the time he left. This past season was probably the first that got worse.

So do I trust him defensively? Yes, he has more good on his resume than bad. Until that starts to tip to the bad, it's reasonable to trust him. Even though last year left a bad taste in everyone's mouth and has hurt that trust a bit, overall, I still think he will get there defensively.

The only offensive guys he brought in were Cushing who likely did the best job of any coach last year and is the least of my concerns from a coaching standpoint, and Taylor who has experience in this conference. He also brought over a special teams coach and our ST got much better from Fisher's 2023 team. So pretty much all the guys he has brought from Duke did well. Artiside being the only one who hasn't proven it so far as he was part of a pass defense that struggled.

I'm actually far more concerned with TJE and Peterson's lack of experience than any of the guys he brought from Duke.

As the DC at James Madison he personally coached the "Nickel/Star" Position. I think that shows what position he is going to be tasked with coaching and I am all for it. Very good coach, very good on technique especially with zone coverage skills that we were severally lacking this past year. Great hire.

There is a short video of him mic'd up on YouTube from his days at StonyBrook. It's old but will give you a peak behind the curtain into the type of coach he is.

beerad12man said:

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It's still very common.

I think you'd be surprised how many "national championship caliber" coaches there are with the right personnel. So yeah, if he assembled a good staff at Duke, I would hope even there that many can coach at the same level as guys in the sec. It isn't some magical formula. The best ones are normally the guys who surround themselves with the right talent/personnel. So far, recruiting is better than many expected. So we shall see there.

What I do see is that Elko built up a national championship caliber defense here by 2021 his first time around (go look at efficiency rankings, we were above the "NC Caliber defense" line). I see that every defense he's coached at, he has improved dramatically from before he got there to the time he left. This past season was probably the first that got worse.

So do I trust him defensively? Yes, he has more good on his resume than bad. Until that starts to tip to the bad, it's reasonable to trust him. Even though last year left a bad taste in everyone's mouth and has hurt that trust a bit, overall, I still think he will get there defensively.

The only offensive guys he brought in were Cushing who likely did the best job of any coach last year and is the least of my concerns from a coaching standpoint, and Taylor who has experience in this conference. He also brought over a special teams coach and our ST got much better from Fisher's 2023 team. So pretty much all the guys he has brought from Duke did well. Artiside being the only one who hasn't proven it so far as he was part of a pass defense that struggled.

I'm actually far more concerned with TJE and Peterson's lack of experience than any of the guys he brought from Duke.

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I doubt coaching staffs are as interchangeable as you let on. First of all, the coaches directly affect what sort of players come to the program. I'd love it if every kid committed to his school, not the coach, but it doesn't work like that.

Second of all, there is a clear set of coaches from certain coaching trees that have routinely had an actual shot at the NC:

-Saban, some of his coaching tree (Kirby, Sark, maybe Lanning, maybe even Kiffin), and their assistants

-Urban Meyer, his coaching tree (just Ryan Day it looks so far), and their assistants

So a small subset of all college coaches. And not even everybody contained in the full coaching trees of Saban and Meyer. And we apparently pursued very few if any of the assistants within this subset. That I think is disappointing.



You're right, Elko's former Duke assistants don't appear to be the problem at the moment. So at least there's that. But just because they're not the main guys holding us back right now doesn't mean they won't be next year.

I think the bar was very low for Cushing. Glad he cleared it easily, but let's hold off on crowning him right now. For our TE/ST coach, I think we'll know his value next season. He better be developing our TEs into guys who can both catch and block well. I wasn't particularly impressed by TE play this season. ST is definitely improved, let's see if he can keep that up as well. Trooper Taylor inherited Moss, Daniels, and Owens. Is he out there recruiting more dudes to replace these guys once they're gone? Not really sure. Can he develop the guys he recruited? Also unsure. Like I said, we'll know more next season.