Kelly doesn't just yell mindlessly. He yells when he thinks that there's something to be gained by it---that's why he's a good sidelines coach. In the game's first half, the offense was actually doing pretty well, and yelling was not going to be productive [we saw only a couple of early cases of it]. In that half, however, it was becoming clear that Navy had substantially tweaked its offensive scheme, and the weeks of practice against what "they always run" was not putting the defensive guys in best positions [especially at the dive option power point]. This wasn't the players fault particularly, so no yelling at them. [Some defensive coach should be down on the field doing that sort of thing anyway, not Kelly]. My guess is that sideline/bench "conversations" were intense about this. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------At halftime, Kelly wasn't happy, but vowed that the defensive staff would adjust to take away some of the veer principles that USN had installed, and if they did, the fact that we were two plays from being ahead [failure at the goal line, and bonehead last "drive" pass interception] , he had some optimism that the staff and players could right the ship [no pun intended]. My guess is that at that point, all of us were nervous, but if the D could be "fixed" we thought so too, and we could win close. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Well, the D didn't get fixed [it looked like "maybe" it would slow Navy a little, but the fullback rolled again and that released the QB]. Here is where our lack of edge speed really showed up. Plus Ian Williams went down [after a heroic and lonesome effort in the meathouse], and our usual conditioning advantage was no advantage against service academy people who have conditioning as part of their career goals. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I believe that Kelly at that moment, when it was obvious that the defense wasn't going to give us a chance [like it had for several weeks], felt pretty powerless to do anything. He has certainly coached teams who were getting an as*-kicking on given saturdays, and he saw the signs that this was one. It WAS disturbing that Diaco and staff couldn't effectively adjust, but that may have been the famous thing that we all have experienced: one team's personnel just doesn't match up with what the other guys do. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Things to watch for in my mind: a). how do we respond psychologically, of course; b). how do we do against a lesser or at least different team than Navy [who are the world experts at this offense that we can't handle]; c). most importantly, how disappointed is Coach in Crist? Was the benching simply to get Rees ready for the possibility of an injury to Dayne? Was it rather meant as a wake-up call? [THAT would count as a great deal of "unspoken yelling"]. Or was it a distant Church Bell ringing? [Don't ask for whom the Bell tolls...] This next game will be interesting to say the least-----and to the ship-jumpers: have a good life.
