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Why John Donovan is misrepresented
betadawg
Member Posts: 30
The consensus by most fans this year has been that John Donovan is a bad hire mainly because of his two years at Penn State. Penn State was BAD offensively 2 years under Donovan. I thought it was a terrible hire because of this. But upon further examination I have concluded that no offensive coordinator in the world could have been successful with Christian Hackenberg at QB.
Hackenberg was not bad because of John Donovan. He was one of the most inaccurate QBs in college football. PFF did not have a draftable grade on him because of his astonishing inaccuracy. Also, his decision making was terrible, he often threw the ball into double coverage. The media hyped him into a 2nd round pick because of his arm strength and recruiting hype. But PFF was right, Hackenberg went on to have maybe the worst NFL career of any QB ever. It didn’t matter who coached him, he consistently sucked. Hackenberg did not make a single appearance in the NFL as a 2nd rounder, he was out of the league in just two years.
To make matters worse Hackenberg was playing behind a horrific oline. An oline that would give up sacks with 2 man rushes. They had converted dlinemen playing there because of the sanctions and scholarship restrictions. Bottomline is I don’t think any OC in the world can take a horrible QB who is playing behind a horrible oline and make it good.
I still don’t think it was a great hire, but I don’t hold his experience in Penn State against him anymore. He was a solid OC at Vanderbilt, doing well when you take into account the talent gap Vanderbilt was facing every week in the SEC.
Here is an article going over how horrible Hackenberg’s overall career was.
https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/9/5/17823486/christian-hackenberg-new-york-jets-cincinnati-bengals-sad
Here is an article going over why PFF thinks that Hackenberg should not be drafted.
https://www.pff.com/news/draft-why-pff-doesnt-have-a-draftable-grade-on-christian-hackenberg
Am I a doog?
Hackenberg was not bad because of John Donovan. He was one of the most inaccurate QBs in college football. PFF did not have a draftable grade on him because of his astonishing inaccuracy. Also, his decision making was terrible, he often threw the ball into double coverage. The media hyped him into a 2nd round pick because of his arm strength and recruiting hype. But PFF was right, Hackenberg went on to have maybe the worst NFL career of any QB ever. It didn’t matter who coached him, he consistently sucked. Hackenberg did not make a single appearance in the NFL as a 2nd rounder, he was out of the league in just two years.
To make matters worse Hackenberg was playing behind a horrific oline. An oline that would give up sacks with 2 man rushes. They had converted dlinemen playing there because of the sanctions and scholarship restrictions. Bottomline is I don’t think any OC in the world can take a horrible QB who is playing behind a horrible oline and make it good.
I still don’t think it was a great hire, but I don’t hold his experience in Penn State against him anymore. He was a solid OC at Vanderbilt, doing well when you take into account the talent gap Vanderbilt was facing every week in the SEC.
Here is an article going over how horrible Hackenberg’s overall career was.
https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/9/5/17823486/christian-hackenberg-new-york-jets-cincinnati-bengals-sad
Here is an article going over why PFF thinks that Hackenberg should not be drafted.
https://www.pff.com/news/draft-why-pff-doesnt-have-a-draftable-grade-on-christian-hackenberg
Am I a doog?
Comments
He could still turn out to be good.
There isn't a preponderance of evidence to conclude hell be bad or good.
If he turns out good he wont be a bad hire but a brilliant one
I'm expecting something in between bad and good, leaning toward the good side. I think he'll surprise.
Not all bad hires are created equal!
Although to be fair it's possible Herm would hire him too
As a rb coach
Hackenberg was massively hyped and looked the part, but then in games sucked. He was there during the rape sanctions so the team was below what it should have been, but they lost to Temple by 17 points while he was there, which should have gotten him and Franklin fired on the 50.
Daesean Hamilton played with Hackenberg. Donovan took over the offense in Hackenberg's 2nd year. Hackenberg went from 59%/20/10 as a Frosh to 56%/12/15 as a soph. Great job Donovan!
I guess you can argue that Donovan was somehow the catalyst to all this but I just don't see any evidence. In his Tweet declaring for the draft he thanked everyone on the staff besides James Franklin. Pretty sure if he were to blame anyone it would be Franklin not Donovan.
Once again my argument is lets judge him by his Vanderbilt and NFL career and not Penn State. Still a bad hire to hire a marginally successful OC at Vanderbilt with some Assistant experience to become the OC at UW. But imo it's several magnitudes better than what a lot of people are saying, that the reason Penn State sucked those two years was Donovan.
That 2015 Penn State team had Saquon Barkley, Chris Godwin, Daesean Hamilton, Mike Gesicki, and Donovan Smith at OT.
Donovan should have been able to QB that team himself to better than 5.2 yards per play.
They had a top 10 defense by ypp and went 7-6. Think about that Husky fans that have been frustrated with our offense the last four years.
It's the equivalent of finding a janitor at General Motors and asking him to be Vice President of R&D at Ford.
Total joke.
He was a bad hire. I wont argue that until i see a good offense in 2021.
Donovans resume is fucking garbage, he isn’t a recruiter, tactician, or innovator. He will likely suck, there is very little upside.
Better hope the janitor turns out to be a good VP, it’s possible, stranger things have happened .