Offensive Coordinator Search

[Luckylucci]

The Rees experience COULD be like your mother in law visiting; once she is in, it is a heck of a time getting her out.

So if he succeeds, BK looks brilliant

If he fails, we have another BVG that may take years of "giving a chance" before the experiment ends while ND wallows.
Anything less is BK the scrooge.

I completely disagree and think it's crazy to insinuate those are even remotely close. It's much easier to move on from a guy when you are giving him his first shot than it is a guy who had the history that BVG did. Not even comparable.

 

[Pops Freshenmeyer]

I completely disagree and think it's crazy to insinuate those are even remotely close. It's much easier to move on from a guy when you are giving him his first shot than it is a guy who had the history that BVG did. Not even comparable.

And we know BK will grab the controls if the offense fails. Defensive hires have a lot more downside that way.

 

[ND88]

I completely disagree and think it's crazy to insinuate those are even remotely close. It's much easier to move on from a guy when you are giving him his first shot than it is a guy who had the history that BVG did. Not even comparable.

^This.

 

[Luckylucci]

And we know BK will grab the controls if the offense fails. Defensive hires have a lot more downside that way.

BVG had a very particular way that he ran things. In retrospect that should've been a red flag much earlier (maybe from the beginning) than it was but Rees would not be taking that same approach. The offense will be very similar in terms of terminology, playbook, etc.

The change from Diaco to BVG was dramatic. The change from BVG to most available DC's was also going to be dramatic. BK to Long to Rees is not remotely close. BVG's scheme, personality, philosophy, etc. were all vastly different than what the program had before. The more dramatic the change the harder it is to make the change. Very much different scenarios.

 

[mgriff]

I do not think we should be promoting someone with Tommy's resume to OC.

I do think Tommy Rees has a higher percentage chance to succeed with such a slim resume. Guy has lived football his whole life. He is a coach's son, a college QB, now a coach himself.

My hope is he's spending his free time designing an offense so we'll finally have that hot young coach and blaze to CFP regularity.

There, a progression of possibilities.

 

[Polish Leppy 22]

I said it in another thread, but hard pass on bringing Harry back.

I'm more in favor of retaining Quinn, but I wouldn't be against hiring Trautwein from BC. My guess though is that Quinn is kept, Trautwein is retained at BC and we go after another TE coach.

Can't say I disagree with that. Can we really blame Quinn for the offensive struggles knowing now how bad things were with Long, on top of the lack of talent at RB and the mass amounts of injuries we had up front?

Doesn't matter if Kliff Kingsbury or Kyle Shanahan is the OC next year. If there isn't a change on the O Line, it won't matter. Quinn doesn't get the blame for the entire offense. He does get the blame for struggling to run the ball consistently against inferior opponents.

Play calling becomes a helluva lot easier, almost fun, when you know your O line can physically dominate their opponent.

 

[Irish in Ohio]

Doesn't matter if Kliff Kingsbury or Kyle Shanahan is the OC next year. If there isn't a change on the O Line, it won't matter. Quinn doesn't get the blame for the entire offense. He does get the blame for struggling to run the ball consistently against inferior opponents.

Play calling becomes a helluva lot easier, almost fun, when you know your O line can physically dominate their opponent.

Doesn't the blocking scheme come from the OC and how he runs the entire offensive scheme ?

 

[Crazy Balki]

Doesn't matter if Kliff Kingsbury or Kyle Shanahan is the OC next year. If there isn't a change on the O Line, it won't matter. Quinn doesn't get the blame for the entire offense. He does get the blame for struggling to run the ball consistently against inferior opponents.

Play calling becomes a helluva lot easier, almost fun, when you know your O line can physically dominate their opponent.

Completely disagree.

The OC matters A LOT.

Also, ND didn't have problems running the ball when they started adjusting their blocking scheme up until Kraemer and Hainsey got hurt. When three of your starters are injured, that makes dominating up front, even against inferior opponents, much more difficult.

What's even more difficult is making ND's running backs look good. Simply put, they just weren't good. Tony looked solid at times, but he was too slow and after the injury vs. Michigan he became way too easy to defend.

It's incredibly frustrating watching the OL win their fair share of battles up front, only for a DL to catch Tony for a modest gain, where a back like Williams or Adams would've likely broke off a huge gain or even made a house call.

It's also all about what you practice. I don't remember anything in the offseason being mentioned about ND focusing on run blocking or emphasizing the run game. I remember a lot about Book and the passing game and the receivers, not so much the run game. When you don't emphasize run blocking, you're not going to be good at run blocking. That falls on the OC.

 

[Crazy Balki]

The Rees experience COULD be like your mother in law visiting; once she is in, it is a heck of a time getting her out.

So if he succeeds, BK looks brilliant

If he fails, we have another BVG that may take years of "giving a chance" before the experiment ends while ND wallows.

Anything less is BK the scrooge.

IF Kelly promotes Rees and IF it doesn't pan out, I don't think ND will have a hard time getting him out. Simply put, if Rees doesn't work out and ND stagnates, I don't think Kelly is around after '21.

It's why this move is so important because it could net Kelly an extension past '21.

 

[GoldenToTheGrave]

If Quinn wasn't recruiting as well as he has he'd have been gone this offseason IMO. If the Oline doesn't get it together next year I can't imagine he won't be gone next year. Even when healthy we weren't able to get any push against New Mexico. Maybe the situation improves with a new OC but Quinn has not shown anything to inspire hope even when he had a largely veteran squad early in the year.

 

[koonja]

I wish people had the time to go back and watch the film. The OL's pass pro was good enough for me all year.

And the running lanes they created were THERE. But you can't have a back that runs a 4.9 and no agility at this level. If we had Dobbins or Taylor, they would have ran for 1,800 yards.

Every single game, multiple times, I'd say for a split second "there it is, they have it blocked" only to see our RB take WAY too long to exploit the hole (or miss completely in Jafar's case).

There's no way to prove this and no one's going to rewatch boring games and focus on the OL, but they absolutely created plenty of running lanes each week for a successful running attack.

When Jamir Smith was in there (decisive, quick) you'd see it come to fruition. Tony Jones is too slow and Jafar can't see.

 

[Irish#1]

Can someone add a poll to this thread or create a new one with a simple yes or no vote. "Should Tommy be promoted to OC?" I'd like to see the split.

 

[IrishLion]

I wish people had the time to go back and watch the film. The OL's pass pro was good enough for me all year.

And the running lanes they created were THERE. But you can't have a back that runs a 4.9 and no agility at this level. If we had Dobbins or Taylor, they would have ran for 1,800 yards.

Every single game, multiple times, I'd say for a split second "there it is, they have it blocked" only to see our RB take WAY too long to exploit the hole (or miss completely in Jafar's case).

There's no way to prove this and no one's going to rewatch boring games and focus on the OL, but they absolutely created plenty of running lanes each week for a successful running attack.

When Jamir Smith was in there (decisive, quick) you'd see it come to fruition. Tony Jones is too slow and Jafar can't see.

My only nitpick with Smith is that when he got extended run against Duke, he seemed to lose vision and wiggle as soon as he went off-tackle.

He's great running between the tackles, making the first tackler miss and getting through the hole as soon as it opens... but when he got outside, it was like he didn't trust his field vision, so he was running with the ball covered and his head down instead of looking to make the corners and safeties miss at at the second level.

Hopefully it's just an experience-related thing, because if he stays healthy through camp and into the season, he could be the chain-mover the offense needs if TJ Jr. isn't around.

 

[StPaul_Irish]

I wish people had the time to go back and watch the film. The OL's pass pro was good enough for me all year.

And the running lanes they created were THERE. But you can't have a back that runs a 4.9 and no agility at this level. If we had Dobbins or Taylor, they would have ran for 1,800 yards.

Every single game, multiple times, I'd say for a split second "there it is, they have it blocked" only to see our RB take WAY too long to exploit the hole (or miss completely in Jafar's case).

There's no way to prove this and no one's going to rewatch boring games and focus on the OL, but they absolutely created plenty of running lanes each week for a successful running attack.

When Jamir Smith was in there (decisive, quick) you'd see it come to fruition. Tony Jones is too slow and Jafar can't see.

On occasion there where holes, but by and large the OL plays was very suspect. ABanks was constantly getting pushed off the ball, and the others were very average most of the year. The false starts were unreal, and don't blame the clap count, Alabama, OSU and pick you school didn't have the same issues we did. The talent is there, but we did not explode off the ball, we were constantly catching and getting knocked back. That is evident in film study. We were unprepared for stunts and blitzes and looked very 3 star against bad opponents. I defer a lot to the experts here, but following their lead it became clear.
I love Quinn on the trail, he is a stud, but he appears to be over matched and consistently outcoached come game day.

 

[koonja]

My only nitpick with Smith is that when he got extended run against Duke, he seemed to lose vision and wiggle as soon as he went off-tackle.

He's great running between the tackles, making the first tackler miss and getting through the hole as soon as it opens... but when he got outside, it was like he didn't trust his field vision, so he was running with the ball covered and his head down instead of looking to make the corners and safeties miss at at the second level.

Hopefully it's just an experience-related thing, because if he stays healthy through camp and into the season, he could be the chain-mover the offense needs if TJ Jr. isn't around.

I'm not a huge Jamir Smith fan (I do think he's the most pure runner). He has his limitations but I mention him because he did exploit the holes.

 

[koonja]

On occasion there where holes, but by and large the OL plays was very suspect. ABanks was constantly getting pushed off the ball, and the others were very average most of the year. The false starts were unreal, and don't blame the clap count, Alabama, OSU and pick you school didn't have the same issues we did. The talent is there, but we did not explode off the ball, we were constantly catching and getting knocked back. That is evident in film study. We were unprepared for stunts and blitzes and looked very 3 star against bad opponents. I defer a lot to the experts here, but following their lead it became clear.
I love Quinn on the trail, he is a stud, but he appears to be over matched and consistently outcoached come game day.

The false starts are an absolute joke and very possibly cost us a season defining win at Georgia. And I think we show up at Michigan if we beat Georgia.

But as far as run blocking execution, it wasn't perfect but I did feel they opened up lanes each game that weren't exploited. And to me it was far more on the RBs than the OL that there were not more big plays and simply more positive runs.

 

[snoopdog]

I have one observation/question

Why did ND only take one RB this year, especially one with durability issues?

Denson is no longer with ND because of recruiting, so why continue to handicap the position by limiting the number of quality RB's on the roster. Especially considering the staffs need to add 5 DB's all of whom are questionable from an ability standpoint.

 

[Luckylucci]

I have one observation/question

Why did ND only take one RB this year, especially one with durability issues?

Denson is no longer with ND because of recruiting, so why continue to handicap the position by limiting the number of quality RB's on the roster. Especially considering the staffs need to add 5 DB's all of whom are questionable from an ability standpoint.

What durability issues does Tyree have?

Regardless, there just isn't much space for more RB's unless we are kicking kids out of school which isn't something they're going to do much of. Every RB on the roster has eligibility into next year so there are no automatic losses. We very well could say no to Tony Jones but even if we did that, we'd still have Armstrong, Davis, Smith, Flemister, Williams, and Tyree. That's 6 RB's without bringing Jones back. It becomes very difficult to allocate more scholarships to that position group without it taking away from others. And as you said, we need those scholarships other places in this class, like DB's.

 

[snoopdog]

What durability issues does Tyree have?

Regardless, there just isn't much space for more RB's unless we are kicking kids out of school which isn't something they're going to do much of. Every RB on the roster has eligibility into next year so there are no automatic losses. We very well could say no to Tony Jones but even if we did that, we'd still have Armstrong, Davis, Smith, Flemister, Williams, and Tyree. That's 6 RB's without bringing Jones back. It becomes very difficult to allocate more scholarships to that position group without it taking away from others. And as you said, we need those scholarships other places in this class, like DB's.

I don't know...9 games played 71 carries 655 yards....sounds like a workhorse to me

 

[StPaul_Irish]

I have one observation/question

Why did ND only take one RB this year, especially one with durability issues?

Denson is no longer with ND because of recruiting, so why continue to handicap the position by limiting the number of quality RB's on the roster. Especially considering the staffs need to add 5 DB's all of whom are questionable from an ability standpoint.

WHAT???? Are you basing this off his stats? Solid research there

 

[Luckylucci]

I don't know...9 games played 71 carries 655 yards....sounds like a workhorse to me

I think there is a some middle ground between workhorse and durability issues. He was injured and then the team was very cautious with his PT the rest of the way. Something that I’m sure the ND staff was super appreciative of. Last year for example he had 200 total touches. That’s a solid number with no issues.

 

[Polish Leppy 22]

Doesn't the blocking scheme come from the OC and how he runs the entire offensive scheme ?

Scheme is one thing. Preparation and execution (O line coach responsibility) are another.

 

[Polish Leppy 22]

Completely disagree.

The OC matters A LOT.

Also, ND didn't have problems running the ball when they started adjusting their blocking scheme up until Kraemer and Hainsey got hurt. When three of your starters are injured, that makes dominating up front, even against inferior opponents, much more difficult.

What's even more difficult is making ND's running backs look good. Simply put, they just weren't good. Tony looked solid at times, but he was too slow and after the injury vs. Michigan he became way too easy to defend.

It's incredibly frustrating watching the OL win their fair share of battles up front, only for a DL to catch Tony for a modest gain, where a back like Williams or Adams would've likely broke off a huge gain or even made a house call.

It's also all about what you practice. I don't remember anything in the offseason being mentioned about ND focusing on run blocking or emphasizing the run game. I remember a lot about Book and the passing game and the receivers, not so much the run game. When you don't emphasize run blocking, you're not going to be good at run blocking. That falls on the OC.

Off the top of your head, you can't name Wisconsin's OC. But we all know that no matter who they play (excluding Ohio St), their O line is going to dominate and pave the way.

If you're telling me Wiscy can recruit better O line than ND can, I call bullshit. If you're telling me Wiscy ran for 359 against Michigan and ND ran for 47 because ND doesn't have Jonathan Taylor, I call bullshit again.

If you're telling me Jeff Quinn only worked on pass pro in practice, I call more bullshit. If you're telling me ND is going to beat Wiscy and Clemson next year with Jeff Quinn as O line coach, you're going to be disappointed.

We should all keep in mind that Jeff Quinn hasn't been a full time offensive line coach since 2009. Does BK need to fire him? No, but he needs to move him to a different role and hire a top notch O line coach.

 

[spoonidentity]

An interesting name out there for Tight Ends Coach, Jordan Paopao formerly of University of Washington. He was the only Sarkisian holdover when Chris Petersen took the head job but was recently let go by new coach (and Crus's favorite) Jimmy Lake. I think the backstory is he actually was on a 1 year contract and it wasn't renewed so they "parted ways" instead of being fired.

Has 4 former players over the last 5 years on NFL rosters with unheralded/former 5th string defensive end Will Dissly of the Seahawks being the most successful. Develops good, steady, reliable tight ends but recruiting may be an issue. He had a reputation as a good worker on the trail and thus why he was kept from one staff to the next but seems to have stagnated recently. Has former 4 star Hunter Bryant to his resume who will be drafted this year to add to totals. They focus heavily on run blocking, Bryant was periodically heavily involved in passing game but would disappear for long stretches. See the 2019 Rose Bowl game as an example, no targets in the first half and unstoppable in the second half.

No information, just throwing a name out there. It's a possibility if they do keep the current offensive coaching staff intact and need to add a TE coach. Petersen's offer strategy was to only send out actionable offers based on fit and his Built For Life philosophy would blend well into 4-for-40.

 

[Sea Turtle]

Jason Garrett may be available.

 

[Irishize]

O’Malley had the best comments regarding fans reaction to new OC, saying whomever it is will be hated after at least 2 games next season.

Quinn would be hated b/c most fans already hate him

Rees would be hated b/c fans hated when he threw interceptions

An outside hire would be hated after the first game the O didn’t dominate & fans would be calling for Rees to be OC

Taylor would be liked since fans don’t know much about him until the offense had a couple of forgettable performances & then he’d be hated.

 

[BGIF]

O’Malley had the best comments regarding fans reaction to new OC, saying whomever it is will be hated after at least 2 games next season.

Quinn would be hated b/c most fans already hate him

Rees would be hated b/c fans hated when he threw interceptions

An outside hire would be hated after the first game the O didn’t dominate & fans would be calling for Rees to be OC

Taylor would be liked since fans don’t know much about him until the offense had a couple of forgettable performances & then he’d be hated.

The more things change the more they stay the same.

 

[Riddickulous]

I thought Rees called a solid game today. I'd try to find a homerun hire first but I wouldn't be upset if he got the promotion.

 

[Irish8248]

Great opportunity for Tommy but I was not a fan of the play calling. Maybe it was the nature of the game, the lackluster opponent, or something else but it just felt boring... How many jet sweeps to the boundary are acceptable? I counted at least 3 in the first half. If BK wants to be this run and pound team then I guess it was a success but that's not how college football is played today. It just felt very uninspiring and consciously conservative... I don't see this kind of offense putting up 30 plus points consistently so that means a lot of pressure will fall on the shoulders of the defense. I say go after the best and get them on campus tomorrow.

 

[Jimmy3Putt]

I hope coach is still looking...