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Tequilla's Thoughts - Coaching and PlayCalling
Tequilla
Member Posts: 19,970
Let's divide this into what we're seeing from the offensive and defensive side of the ball ...
Defensively, if there's one area where you wish you'd see a little bit of improvement would be making in-half adjustments in the first half of games. Hard to complain about what we're seeing in the way of halftime adjustments. Hard to not see the development of players particularly in the DL and DB groups. As a whole, this is a solid defensive staff that I think any school in the conference would be happy to employ. Enough said on that.
Offensively ... it's a fucking dumpster fire. My gut says that Strausser is a good coach and we're seeing the effects of not only having young OL in the picture combined with the shitty OL recruiting from Seven for all those years. But at this point, he's the only offensive coach that I have a ton of confidence in. Bonerpopper is really an incomplete right now as a RB coach given that Washington has to be one of the most difficult RBs to coach in the country since there isn't anything normal to his game. Gaskin is young and is probably the one to keep an eye on going forward when it comes to his performance as a position coach. I really wonder about Pease. WRs in my mind aren't really improving. I see a lot of fundamentally poor attributes in their play that were widely visible on Saturday. Notable were the lack of fight for the ball on 50/50 throws to at worst break up plays that could be INTs, lack of general awareness about surroundings, and really poor fundamentals when it comes to the QB breaking to the outside in scramble play opportunities. One area where the WR play this year has been particularly poor has been in blocking ... it's beyond shitty. If there's one piece of credit that I will give Seven's staff is that his WRs would at least fucking block. Speaking of blocking, what is Paopao teaching in that regards? The TE blocking this year has been very poor.
But let's be honest, the only person anybody really wants to talk about is Babushka. The issues surrounding him right now is that he's got a poor sense of setting up a game plan (more on this in a second) and when he does call a good play, the execution isn't necessarily matching. A couple of great examples of this in the Cal game was that after the goal line stand, Babushka calls a play action bomb to Marvin Hall. IMO, this is almost always a great play call in that situation as you're going to have a defense heavily in tune to playing the run game and whether you hit a bomb or some kind of deep comeback route, it's the best way to get out of your endzone. Hall was open on the play ... Browning just made a poor throw too far to the inside instead of getting it more to the middle of the field and letting Hall go get it. Moreover, Hall made a shitty effort on the ball in trying to break it up. Second play being late in the game where Washington was set up on a wheel route to the outside and Browning hit him dead in the hands on that Washington dropped. Of course, he follows that up the next play with a fumble and there you have DWash in a nutshell ... he's the definition of a high volatility player. Some of these plays work and you tip the cap to Babushka a bit ... but of course, when they don't, these play calls become forgettable.
Where Babushka really struggles in my mind though is being well reasoned and deep enough in his thinking to take himself out of his own mind but to think about the game plan and what he's seeing on film from a defensive point of view. There's two ways to put a game plan together in my mind. The first is when you have an identity of who you are and you execute it well enough that you don't give a shit whether or not the opposition knows it is coming or not. The other way to put a plan together is to combine knowing defensive tendencies of the opposition coupled with knowing your own tendencies in a way to use against the opposition. This is where Babushka really struggles. Take an early play in the Cal game where Babushka calls a playaction naked action to get Browning an easy early throw in the game. However, if you go back and watch the film to the Utah State game, the most popular pass play that we used that day was naked boot action. Cal I'm sure picked this up on film and told their DEs that when the run action is to the other side to send the DE up the field to take away the boot. The play turned into a huge loss and I think the action was tried maybe one other time and was also blown up in some form. Running boot plays work when a) you've established that you're a run first team and/or b) you have a QB that is mobile enough to get into space, make a defender miss, and get to the outside. Browning is not the latter. So if you're going to run these kinds of plays, you need to establish the run in a manner that requires the DE to crash down and honor the run. These are plays you run in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th quarter of games. Not one of your first plays of the game when through 3 games you've not shown an ability to run the football consistently.
More examples of BabushkaFS are as follows:
1) Failure to stick with plays that are working until the defense does something to stop it. This includes running the football downhill and 7-10 stick/comeback routes from the TEs.
2) Forcing plays to get in the hands of your "playmakers" ... notably Jaydon Mickens. Mickens is a nice WR ... but he's at best a slightly above average PAC WR. He doesn't necessarily run a wide variety of routes and he's not somebody at the WR position where you're trying to get him the ball 10-12 times a game no matter what. That's what you do when you have WRs the likes of Julio Jones, Calvin Johnson, Amari Cooper, etc. These guys are difference makers. Mickens isn't. You get him the ball when he's open and it comes within the flow of the offense. You don't try to get him the ball because he's a senior.
3) Calling long developing routes with a green OL that leads into taking predictable sacks. The preponderance of your passing tree right now should consist of quick slants, quick passes to the TEs, drags, and swings into the flat. When you take shots down the field, they should be coming off of playaction and with maybe not mass protections, but at least having an extra 1-2 blockers in the play that can turn into outlet receivers if the original play design isn't there.
4) Lacking an identity consistent with what kind of football team that you have and the strengths of the team. It's clear at this point that the strength of the team starts with the defense, extends to special teams, and then moves to the offense. You play to these strengths. You don't allow your defense to be on the field for 90+ plays. You don't let the opposition get 40 minutes of time of possession ... instead you do everything you can to shorten the game by controlling the clock. You make it easier on the young OL by allowing them to drive block. You protect your QB by running smart plays on 1st down to keep your team out of 2nd and 3rd and long opportunities ... in particular you avoid jet sweeps to idiots that run east/west instead of north/south that make you lose 6 yards on 1st down.
And really when you look at it, the problem with Babushka is this last point about lacking an identity as an OC. It's his job to set it. Failure to do so is piss poor.
As it pertains to Petersen, I get that he's got his program and he wants consistent messaging from his coaches that have 100% buy in to what he sets for the program. I get being loyal. But the reality is that anybody that coaches with him started from somewhere and have other theories and what not. Good/Great coaches can step away, identify the big picture, see where there are items that are broken in the process, and make the required changes to remedy. Yes, there's young offensive talent ... and yes, that talent will struggle at times this year. No problem with that. But the reality is that there's no identity to the offense. Nothing that you can point to that says this is what we're going to do. And without that, you can't have a good offense. It's impossible.
Defensively, if there's one area where you wish you'd see a little bit of improvement would be making in-half adjustments in the first half of games. Hard to complain about what we're seeing in the way of halftime adjustments. Hard to not see the development of players particularly in the DL and DB groups. As a whole, this is a solid defensive staff that I think any school in the conference would be happy to employ. Enough said on that.
Offensively ... it's a fucking dumpster fire. My gut says that Strausser is a good coach and we're seeing the effects of not only having young OL in the picture combined with the shitty OL recruiting from Seven for all those years. But at this point, he's the only offensive coach that I have a ton of confidence in. Bonerpopper is really an incomplete right now as a RB coach given that Washington has to be one of the most difficult RBs to coach in the country since there isn't anything normal to his game. Gaskin is young and is probably the one to keep an eye on going forward when it comes to his performance as a position coach. I really wonder about Pease. WRs in my mind aren't really improving. I see a lot of fundamentally poor attributes in their play that were widely visible on Saturday. Notable were the lack of fight for the ball on 50/50 throws to at worst break up plays that could be INTs, lack of general awareness about surroundings, and really poor fundamentals when it comes to the QB breaking to the outside in scramble play opportunities. One area where the WR play this year has been particularly poor has been in blocking ... it's beyond shitty. If there's one piece of credit that I will give Seven's staff is that his WRs would at least fucking block. Speaking of blocking, what is Paopao teaching in that regards? The TE blocking this year has been very poor.
But let's be honest, the only person anybody really wants to talk about is Babushka. The issues surrounding him right now is that he's got a poor sense of setting up a game plan (more on this in a second) and when he does call a good play, the execution isn't necessarily matching. A couple of great examples of this in the Cal game was that after the goal line stand, Babushka calls a play action bomb to Marvin Hall. IMO, this is almost always a great play call in that situation as you're going to have a defense heavily in tune to playing the run game and whether you hit a bomb or some kind of deep comeback route, it's the best way to get out of your endzone. Hall was open on the play ... Browning just made a poor throw too far to the inside instead of getting it more to the middle of the field and letting Hall go get it. Moreover, Hall made a shitty effort on the ball in trying to break it up. Second play being late in the game where Washington was set up on a wheel route to the outside and Browning hit him dead in the hands on that Washington dropped. Of course, he follows that up the next play with a fumble and there you have DWash in a nutshell ... he's the definition of a high volatility player. Some of these plays work and you tip the cap to Babushka a bit ... but of course, when they don't, these play calls become forgettable.
Where Babushka really struggles in my mind though is being well reasoned and deep enough in his thinking to take himself out of his own mind but to think about the game plan and what he's seeing on film from a defensive point of view. There's two ways to put a game plan together in my mind. The first is when you have an identity of who you are and you execute it well enough that you don't give a shit whether or not the opposition knows it is coming or not. The other way to put a plan together is to combine knowing defensive tendencies of the opposition coupled with knowing your own tendencies in a way to use against the opposition. This is where Babushka really struggles. Take an early play in the Cal game where Babushka calls a playaction naked action to get Browning an easy early throw in the game. However, if you go back and watch the film to the Utah State game, the most popular pass play that we used that day was naked boot action. Cal I'm sure picked this up on film and told their DEs that when the run action is to the other side to send the DE up the field to take away the boot. The play turned into a huge loss and I think the action was tried maybe one other time and was also blown up in some form. Running boot plays work when a) you've established that you're a run first team and/or b) you have a QB that is mobile enough to get into space, make a defender miss, and get to the outside. Browning is not the latter. So if you're going to run these kinds of plays, you need to establish the run in a manner that requires the DE to crash down and honor the run. These are plays you run in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th quarter of games. Not one of your first plays of the game when through 3 games you've not shown an ability to run the football consistently.
More examples of BabushkaFS are as follows:
1) Failure to stick with plays that are working until the defense does something to stop it. This includes running the football downhill and 7-10 stick/comeback routes from the TEs.
2) Forcing plays to get in the hands of your "playmakers" ... notably Jaydon Mickens. Mickens is a nice WR ... but he's at best a slightly above average PAC WR. He doesn't necessarily run a wide variety of routes and he's not somebody at the WR position where you're trying to get him the ball 10-12 times a game no matter what. That's what you do when you have WRs the likes of Julio Jones, Calvin Johnson, Amari Cooper, etc. These guys are difference makers. Mickens isn't. You get him the ball when he's open and it comes within the flow of the offense. You don't try to get him the ball because he's a senior.
3) Calling long developing routes with a green OL that leads into taking predictable sacks. The preponderance of your passing tree right now should consist of quick slants, quick passes to the TEs, drags, and swings into the flat. When you take shots down the field, they should be coming off of playaction and with maybe not mass protections, but at least having an extra 1-2 blockers in the play that can turn into outlet receivers if the original play design isn't there.
4) Lacking an identity consistent with what kind of football team that you have and the strengths of the team. It's clear at this point that the strength of the team starts with the defense, extends to special teams, and then moves to the offense. You play to these strengths. You don't allow your defense to be on the field for 90+ plays. You don't let the opposition get 40 minutes of time of possession ... instead you do everything you can to shorten the game by controlling the clock. You make it easier on the young OL by allowing them to drive block. You protect your QB by running smart plays on 1st down to keep your team out of 2nd and 3rd and long opportunities ... in particular you avoid jet sweeps to idiots that run east/west instead of north/south that make you lose 6 yards on 1st down.
And really when you look at it, the problem with Babushka is this last point about lacking an identity as an OC. It's his job to set it. Failure to do so is piss poor.
As it pertains to Petersen, I get that he's got his program and he wants consistent messaging from his coaches that have 100% buy in to what he sets for the program. I get being loyal. But the reality is that anybody that coaches with him started from somewhere and have other theories and what not. Good/Great coaches can step away, identify the big picture, see where there are items that are broken in the process, and make the required changes to remedy. Yes, there's young offensive talent ... and yes, that talent will struggle at times this year. No problem with that. But the reality is that there's no identity to the offense. Nothing that you can point to that says this is what we're going to do. And without that, you can't have a good offense. It's impossible.
Comments
And on point #4 about lack of identity
Can we fucking get someone fuckhead with media credentials (maybe that retard that interned for Race Bannon a year or two ago?) to ask Petersen and/or Babushka what they would call UW's offensive scheme? Is UW an air raid, run and gun, spread passing, west coast, option read, pistol, dink and dunk, "pro" style, power run.... Seriously WTF kind of offense is UW running with these fucktards
He failed on both. LEAVE!
Poor throw by Brownig too. I don't care how young he is. Just drop back and throw the ball.
And on point #4 about lack of identity
Can we fucking get someone fuckhead with media credentials (maybe that retard that interned for Race Bannon a year or two ago?) to ask Petersen and/or Babushka what they would call UW's offensive scheme? Is UW an air raid, run and gun, spread passing, west coast, option read, pistol, dink and dunk, "pro" style, power run.... Seriously WTF kind of offense is UW running with these fucktards
Petersen has answered this and seems to take pride in not having a true offensive scheme. The whole plan on offense seems to be mass personnel groups and lots of motions/shifts. Petersen has the same problem as Sark where he wants to be seen as the smartest motherfucker in football rather than finding an identity.
Of course UW won't be able to go towards a physical running game or generally a great OL like the Hogs until the UW OL improves (I saw a picture of the Seattle Times where it looked like Brostek gave up a sack in the 1st half).
Anyway, I wasn't able to watch much of the game while being out of town but my biggest question is why Babushka went away from the run so much in the 2nd half when the D had played a massive amount of snaps in the first half.
From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Gibbs
"Gibbs' system and offensive scheme were robust enough to be successful without a Hall-of-Fame-caliber quarterback at the helm. The Redskins' Super Bowl victories were won featuring Joe Theismann, Doug Williams, and Mark Rypien—capable players who were very successful along with their strong supporting cast.
Gibbs is credited with inventing the single back, double or triple tight end set. He used it to neutralize Hall of Fame linebacker Lawrence Taylor, realizing that to successfully block him with a running back was impossible; an extra tight end and a tackle were required as well. The extra tight end provided additional protection for the quarterback. Gibbs was also credited for creating the Trips formation; stacking three wide receivers to one side. Gibbs incorporated the shifting and motions for which his offenses were known. The formations created mismatches and confusion for the opposing defenses that would then be exploited. He is also one of few coaches that utilized the H-back position prominently in his offense."
AND:
"Joe Gibbs – Motion Scheme
In the past 25 years, motion offenses have become much more standard in the National Football League. Joe Gibbs, an offensive coordinator with the San Diego Chargers and (more famously) the three-time Super Bowl winning head coach with the Washington Redskins, is generally given credit for introducing a greater degree of motion into the NFL.
The Washington Redskins of the 1980′s had trouble blocking Lawrence Taylor of the New York Giants, who was a new kind of pass rushing outside linebacker. Taylor often required double teams in the blocking scheme, but this could become too predictable if it was from the same alignment every play.
Gibbs devised a motion offense where multiple players would go in motion prior to the snap, disguising the Redskins intentions and setting up multiple opportunities to block LT from different angles.
H-Back – Man-in-Motion
Joe Gibbs also invented the H-back position, which is a hybrid of a tight end and a fullback. The H-Back catches more passes than the standard fullback and is closer in size to the traditional tight end, but still often performs the blocking functions of a fullback. This meant that Gibbs got an extra player on the field large enough to block Lawrence Taylor, but trained to go in motion enough that he could attack the defense from several positions along the line of scrimmage.
The H-back would act as a man-in-motion more often than either a tight end or a fullback, and would often be used to either "chip" or double-team LT. Because the H-Back was designed to be a pass catcher, he might be sent into a pattern to either draw Lawrence Taylor from his pass-rushing duties or, once again, block LT and then run a short route — called chipping because it’s not a full stay-in-the-pocket block."
footballbabble.com/football/terms/man-in-motion/ Petersen has answered this and seems to take pride in not having a true offensive scheme. The whole plan on offense seems to be mass personnel groups and lots of motions/shifts. Petersen has the same problem as Sark where he wants to be seen as the smartest motherfucker in football rather than finding an identity.
Im not disagreeing with you because I really have no fucking clue what offense petersen is actually trying to run but the Gibbs offense typically uses 2 or 3 TE sets, QB under center, and one workhorse runningback... Something we havent done yet...
Maybe the offense is inspired by it? but fuck UW sure executes it poorly.
It amazes me that these fucking "smart" coaches think that they can make a team be amazing at everything...
Even the absolute best football coaches of all time coached to a defined scheme and perfected the execution of it. Its just not possible to have the players who can perfectly execute the spread read option, power I run, Air raid, and "pro style" offense all on one team at any given movement.
If an offense can do one thing perfectly the offense will do enough to win the game.
I'd bet that 5 turnovers in one game won't happen again this year so as the OL goes, so will the season. In the limited amount of plays I saw on TV, Browning was scrambling often and the pass-blocking on the last drive was horrid (including on his last INT).
I like an offense that is multiple / uses different personnel groups and then before the snap uses motion to probe for mismatches but it won't add up to much if the OL isn't good. It amazes me that these fucking "smart" coaches think that they can make a team be amazing at everything...
Even the absolute best football coaches of all time coached to a defined scheme and perfected the execution of it. Its just not possible to have the players who can perfectly execute the spread read option, power I run, Air raid, and "pro style" offense all on one team at any given movement.
If an offense can do one thing perfectly the offense will do enough to win the game.
During winter of their senior year of high school, Hall and Mickens, teammates at Dorsey High School (DHS) in Los Angeles, were hanging out one night talking about their college decisions. Hall had long been committed to the UW, and Mickens was deciding between three schools: Washington, Oklahoma State, and Oregon.
Hall offered Mickens a deal. The two would play one game of NCAA Football 12. If Hall won, Mickens would have to call Sarkisian and commit to the UW, but a Hall loss would lead to Mickens scratching the UW off his list.
“He beat me like 62-24,” Mickens said. “He was Washington and I was Oregon, and he beat me bad. I actually called coach Sark that night and committed on the low, and then I picked my hat. So I was committed for about one week before signing day.”
Disagree
Let's divide this into what we're seeing from the offensive and defensive side of the ball ...
Defensively, if there's one area where you wish you'd see a little bit of improvement would be making in-half adjustments in the first half of games. Hard to complain about what we're seeing in the way of halftime adjustments. Hard to not see the development of players particularly in the DL and DB groups. As a whole, this is a solid defensive staff that I think any school in the conference would be happy to employ. Enough said on that.
Offensively ... it's a fucking dumpster fire. My gut says that Strausser is a good coach and we're seeing the effects of not only having young OL in the picture combined with the shitty OL recruiting from Seven for all those years. But at this point, he's the only offensive coach that I have a ton of confidence in. Bonerpopper is really an incomplete right now as a RB coach given that Washington has to be one of the most difficult RBs to coach in the country since there isn't anything normal to his game. Gaskin is young and is probably the one to keep an eye on going forward when it comes to his performance as a position coach. I really wonder about Pease. WRs in my mind aren't really improving. I see a lot of fundamentally poor attributes in their play that were widely visible on Saturday. Notable were the lack of fight for the ball on 50/50 throws to at worst break up plays that could be INTs, lack of general awareness about surroundings, and really poor fundamentals when it comes to the QB breaking to the outside in scramble play opportunities. One area where the WR play this year has been particularly poor has been in blocking ... it's beyond shitty. If there's one piece of credit that I will give Seven's staff is that his WRs would at least fucking block. Speaking of blocking, what is Paopao teaching in that regards? The TE blocking this year has been very poor.
But let's be honest, the only person anybody really wants to talk about is Babushka. The issues surrounding him right now is that he's got a poor sense of setting up a game plan (more on this in a second) and when he does call a good play, the execution isn't necessarily matching. A couple of great examples of this in the Cal game was that after the goal line stand, Babushka calls a play action bomb to Marvin Hall. IMO, this is almost always a great play call in that situation as you're going to have a defense heavily in tune to playing the run game and whether you hit a bomb or some kind of deep comeback route, it's the best way to get out of your endzone. Hall was open on the play ... Browning just made a poor throw too far to the inside instead of getting it more to the middle of the field and letting Hall go get it. Moreover, Hall made a shitty effort on the ball in trying to break it up. Second play being late in the game where Washington was set up on a wheel route to the outside and Browning hit him dead in the hands on that Washington dropped. Of course, he follows that up the next play with a fumble and there you have DWash in a nutshell ... he's the definition of a high volatility player. Some of these plays work and you tip the cap to Babushka a bit ... but of course, when they don't, these play calls become forgettable.
Where Babushka really struggles in my mind though is being well reasoned and deep enough in his thinking to take himself out of his own mind but to think about the game plan and what he's seeing on film from a defensive point of view. There's two ways to put a game plan together in my mind. The first is when you have an identity of who you are and you execute it well enough that you don't give a shit whether or not the opposition knows it is coming or not. The other way to put a plan together is to combine knowing defensive tendencies of the opposition coupled with knowing your own tendencies in a way to use against the opposition. This is where Babushka really struggles. Take an early play in the Cal game where Babushka calls a playaction naked action to get Browning an easy early throw in the game. However, if you go back and watch the film to the Utah State game, the most popular pass play that we used that day was naked boot action. Cal I'm sure picked this up on film and told their DEs that when the run action is to the other side to send the DE up the field to take away the boot. The play turned into a huge loss and I think the action was tried maybe one other time and was also blown up in some form. Running boot plays work when a) you've established that you're a run first team and/or b) you have a QB that is mobile enough to get into space, make a defender miss, and get to the outside. Browning is not the latter. So if you're going to run these kinds of plays, you need to establish the run in a manner that requires the DE to crash down and honor the run. These are plays you run in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th quarter of games. Not one of your first plays of the game when through 3 games you've not shown an ability to run the football consistently.
More examples of BabushkaFS are as follows:
1) Failure to stick with plays that are working until the defense does something to stop it. This includes running the football downhill and 7-10 stick/comeback routes from the TEs.
2) Forcing plays to get in the hands of your "playmakers" ... notably Jaydon Mickens. Mickens is a nice WR ... but he's at best a slightly above average PAC WR. He doesn't necessarily run a wide variety of routes and he's not somebody at the WR position where you're trying to get him the ball 10-12 times a game no matter what. That's what you do when you have WRs the likes of Julio Jones, Calvin Johnson, Amari Cooper, etc. These guys are difference makers. Mickens isn't. You get him the ball when he's open and it comes within the flow of the offense. You don't try to get him the ball because he's a senior.
3) Calling long developing routes with a green OL that leads into taking predictable sacks. The preponderance of your passing tree right now should consist of quick slants, quick passes to the TEs, drags, and swings into the flat. When you take shots down the field, they should be coming off of playaction and with maybe not mass protections, but at least having an extra 1-2 blockers in the play that can turn into outlet receivers if the original play design isn't there.
4) Lacking an identity consistent with what kind of football team that you have and the strengths of the team. It's clear at this point that the strength of the team starts with the defense, extends to special teams, and then moves to the offense. You play to these strengths. You don't allow your defense to be on the field for 90+ plays. You don't let the opposition get 40 minutes of time of possession ... instead you do everything you can to shorten the game by controlling the clock. You make it easier on the young OL by allowing them to drive block. You protect your QB by running smart plays on 1st down to keep your team out of 2nd and 3rd and long opportunities ... in particular you avoid jet sweeps to idiots that run east/west instead of north/south that make you lose 6 yards on 1st down.
And really when you look at it, the problem with Babushka is this last point about lacking an identity as an OC. It's his job to set it. Failure to do so is piss poor.
As it pertains to Petersen, I get that he's got his program and he wants consistent messaging from his coaches that have 100% buy in to what he sets for the program. I get being loyal. But the reality is that anybody that coaches with him started from somewhere and have other theories and what not. Good/Great coaches can step away, identify the big picture, see where there are items that are broken in the process, and make the required changes to remedy. Yes, there's young offensive talent ... and yes, that talent will struggle at times this year. No problem with that. But the reality is that there's no identity to the offense. Nothing that you can point to that says this is what we're going to do. And without that, you can't have a good offense. It's impossible.