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The four pillars of college football success
Mad_Son
Member Posts: 10,091
Over the past year I've thought a fair amount about the different things that go into winning football games and the loss today I think highlights some of these topics. I've decided there is a foundation and four pillars that are needed to sustain a successful college football program. It is on the coaches to successfully implement each of these areas. In the case of Washington we have a strong foundation, two pillars that are top notch, a third pillar that is strong, and a crumbling fourth pillar that leads to regular collapses, like today.
Culture is the foundation of any college football program. One of Petersen's strengths is the culture he brings to the program. On a 10 point scale we score a 9 for culture. The adults are in charge and the players have bought in. Every program tries to sell themselves as a family but the bond of the teams under Petersen actually seem to reflect that. This is something this program can and does sell to recruits, this is the players working hard in practice, this is the players trusting the coaches. This would be a 10 if we had better leaders and energy emerging during games.
Pillar 1 is recruiting. Without bringing in talent you will have a lower ceiling than your opponents. You can coach up your players to the maximum of their abilities and maybe that will take you further than a talented team with shit coaching, but to be a champion you have to bring in top talent to compete against the top talent. For Washington we are maybe a 7.5 in this area. We have been recruiting well in many positions and are approaching critical numbers of high caliber talent (e.g. 40 4*s metric) that can make us competitive with the best teams and the coaches definitely are good at evaluating who is high caliber. We still struggle in a number of ways in recruiting though. TSIO will tell you all you need to know but we have room for improvement here. Talent gaps at specific positions are clearly hitting us hard today though).
Pillar 2 is strength and conditioning. Owen's death marches were good until Nebraska invented S&C in 1969. Modern football programs try to maximize the physical capabilities of their players but we know that not all S&C programs are created equally. Whether it is Olympic lifts or hotdog eating competitions, we know that some of our previous S&C coaches were crap that left us undersized and prone to injuries. Under Socha our players have started to look the part and I am not sure why I wouldn't give him a 10/10.
Pillar 3 is coaching in practice. This is where players develop their skills and learn the mental parts of the game. Do our players not know how to tackle? Do they not know how to line up in position? That is why we practice and again, looking at past teams we know that not all coaches get this right. This is another one of our strengths. This is how Petersen really made his mark is by maximizing the talent from his low-grade recruits. Our past few years under Petersen haven't made a lot of mistakes, haven't whiffed on a lot of tackles, and have generally played sound football. This year our special teams have been pretty abysmal and kicking has been a historic problem area for Petersen so I'm going 8.5 here.
Pillar 4 is gameday coaching. This is why we suck. We have near-perfect scores to this point but we still lose games. Why? Because we fail to put our players in positions to succeed. When Kwiatkowski was DC I'd have maybe given us a 6 here but now I'm giving us a 2. We just plain suck at offense and always have. All offensive success has come because of our success in the other pillars/inheriting John Ross. We have regressed drastically with Lake calling the defense and while we obviously have taken a big step back on DL (past recruiting struggles) and LB (past and current recruiting struggles) we still have a great set of DBs that we underutilize. The rate at which we give up 3rd down conversions is a function of how we are playing our DBs and that can be changed. Our offense sucks and that is because Pete is arrogant and stubborn and refuses to adopt to a reasonable run-first offense that utilizes elements of confusion rather than being confusion-based. We need to move to a philosophy of trying to win instead of playing to not-lose. We need to ask our players to operate within their limitations. There are just a lot of fundamental flaws in how we approach games.
Of the 50 points available we get 37. I think 45 is a reasonable target (no idea how other teams like Bama or tOSU would grade out but I expect around here) and the low hanging fruit here is obviously in gameday coaching. This offseason Pete needs to a long-hard look at everything they are doing schematically and make personnel changes as needed to shore up this area. We do not put our players in a position to win games which is a real shame because we do almost every thing else really well. There is only one major area of weakness that we need to improve upon before we'll be a contender as long as we keep recruiting well and bring in talent at all positions. If Pete can get his act together here then he will be the coach we want him to be and I think he will be the coach he wants to be.
Culture is the foundation of any college football program. One of Petersen's strengths is the culture he brings to the program. On a 10 point scale we score a 9 for culture. The adults are in charge and the players have bought in. Every program tries to sell themselves as a family but the bond of the teams under Petersen actually seem to reflect that. This is something this program can and does sell to recruits, this is the players working hard in practice, this is the players trusting the coaches. This would be a 10 if we had better leaders and energy emerging during games.
Pillar 1 is recruiting. Without bringing in talent you will have a lower ceiling than your opponents. You can coach up your players to the maximum of their abilities and maybe that will take you further than a talented team with shit coaching, but to be a champion you have to bring in top talent to compete against the top talent. For Washington we are maybe a 7.5 in this area. We have been recruiting well in many positions and are approaching critical numbers of high caliber talent (e.g. 40 4*s metric) that can make us competitive with the best teams and the coaches definitely are good at evaluating who is high caliber. We still struggle in a number of ways in recruiting though. TSIO will tell you all you need to know but we have room for improvement here. Talent gaps at specific positions are clearly hitting us hard today though).
Pillar 2 is strength and conditioning. Owen's death marches were good until Nebraska invented S&C in 1969. Modern football programs try to maximize the physical capabilities of their players but we know that not all S&C programs are created equally. Whether it is Olympic lifts or hotdog eating competitions, we know that some of our previous S&C coaches were crap that left us undersized and prone to injuries. Under Socha our players have started to look the part and I am not sure why I wouldn't give him a 10/10.
Pillar 3 is coaching in practice. This is where players develop their skills and learn the mental parts of the game. Do our players not know how to tackle? Do they not know how to line up in position? That is why we practice and again, looking at past teams we know that not all coaches get this right. This is another one of our strengths. This is how Petersen really made his mark is by maximizing the talent from his low-grade recruits. Our past few years under Petersen haven't made a lot of mistakes, haven't whiffed on a lot of tackles, and have generally played sound football. This year our special teams have been pretty abysmal and kicking has been a historic problem area for Petersen so I'm going 8.5 here.
Pillar 4 is gameday coaching. This is why we suck. We have near-perfect scores to this point but we still lose games. Why? Because we fail to put our players in positions to succeed. When Kwiatkowski was DC I'd have maybe given us a 6 here but now I'm giving us a 2. We just plain suck at offense and always have. All offensive success has come because of our success in the other pillars/inheriting John Ross. We have regressed drastically with Lake calling the defense and while we obviously have taken a big step back on DL (past recruiting struggles) and LB (past and current recruiting struggles) we still have a great set of DBs that we underutilize. The rate at which we give up 3rd down conversions is a function of how we are playing our DBs and that can be changed. Our offense sucks and that is because Pete is arrogant and stubborn and refuses to adopt to a reasonable run-first offense that utilizes elements of confusion rather than being confusion-based. We need to move to a philosophy of trying to win instead of playing to not-lose. We need to ask our players to operate within their limitations. There are just a lot of fundamental flaws in how we approach games.
Of the 50 points available we get 37. I think 45 is a reasonable target (no idea how other teams like Bama or tOSU would grade out but I expect around here) and the low hanging fruit here is obviously in gameday coaching. This offseason Pete needs to a long-hard look at everything they are doing schematically and make personnel changes as needed to shore up this area. We do not put our players in a position to win games which is a real shame because we do almost every thing else really well. There is only one major area of weakness that we need to improve upon before we'll be a contender as long as we keep recruiting well and bring in talent at all positions. If Pete can get his act together here then he will be the coach we want him to be and I think he will be the coach he wants to be.
Comments
No chins...lose to Oregon....
No coincidence there
Otherwise, there's a lot of solid though in the post that shows why the foundation in our program is really fucking good
Leveling up is hard though … if it was easy everybody would do it … getting to the last few rungs are the most difficult.
That being said, I always find it amusing when people say things to the extent of "playing to our players strengths" and "making stupid decisions" … it's easy to say things like that but then when pressed for examples the crickets start chirping.
So let's talk about Bush, the Offense, and playing to strengths … here's what I see if I was the OC of this team:
- I have a 4-year starter at QB that can at times try to do too much which is a problem because while he tends to have an accurate arm, it's not a strong enough arm to get him out of trouble
- I have competent WRs but not necessarily WRs that create the kind of separation needed for the skill set of my QB ... with the exception of Ty Jones I don't have a single WR at my disposal that I can create 1 v 1 plays with where I have a physical advantage. That puts a lot of pressure on me as a play caller to get guys open through scheme, play action, etc.
- I have TEs that are better blockers than receivers ... as receivers my TEs are largely going to be open through scheme with Cade Otten being someone that I would hope grows by the end of the year into being more of a 1 v 1 matcup nightmare. Losing Hunter Bryant hurts significantly as he is a matchup nightmare that could also help my WRs get more favorable matchups.
- I have a solid, but unspectacular OL hurt by the fact that my all-conference LT was hurt prior to the season
- I have one of the best RBs in the history of the program, an explosive backup, and my 3rd and 4th RBs on the roster are also capable players
So in that context, I'm going to lean towards running the football with my passing game largely built off of the run with play action. To help my QB avoid trying to do too much, I'm going to be smart with my play calling, in particular identifying plays where he tries to do too much, and play call accordingly. I'm going to realize I have a strong defense and be smart enough to play field position when I need to. I'm also going to realize some of the depth issues that I have on defense and do my best to make sure that I control the clock as best as I can to minimize the snaps that are required.In context of yesterday's game at Oregon, we ran 70 total plays with 45 of those plays coming on the ground. The 1st TD from Ahmed was a scheme call that stemmed from the first drive in the red zone where we ran the same action but gave it to Gaskin. Oregon didn't pay attention to the reverse action and I'm sure Bush put that in the memory bank because it was something that was obvious to me watching that play. That play got pulled out again and sprung big for us with a TD. That's solid play calling. In general, Oregon's defense is one of over-pursuit and trying to take advantage of them through play action would in theory make sense. We got confused a lot with what they were doing by keeping their S back to defend 1st against play action and 2nd against the run and trying to figure out how to burn them with that was difficult. We made a very significant adjustment in the 2nd half that spring for some big plays by changing our attention in the passing game away from their secondary and instead turning towards isolating their LBs. First, we ran a reverse flea flicker that turned into a big gain for Drew Sample as the handoff action drew the safeties up as they saw the handoff action that was a key for them to start attacking. Second, we started running and utilizing our TEs in some deep crosses and sit downs over the middle of the field. All told, Sample led the team in both catches and yards yesterday and Otten added another 2 catches ... combined they accounted for 6 of the 15 completions for Browning. Finally, on the final drive of regulation where we had a key 4th and 3 play call, we motioned McGrew out of the backfield to get him isolated 1 v 1 versus a LB in space. That resulted in an easy pitch and catch for a conversion.
One of the easiest ways to judge coordinators to me is what adjustments do they make at halftime. Yesterday, we very clearly made some positive changes in the passing game that took us from being largely ineffective in moving the ball to being far more dangerous. The play calling on the final drive of regulation was largely strong and really the only mistake that I'd look at there was the 2nd down play on 2nd and 3 or whatever with the 40 seconds to go and the lack of execution on the play putting us in a bit of a difficult position as to what to do next.
To me, a lot of this comes back to what we're trying to do defensively. We are massively risk adverse to giving up explosive plays and force teams to consistently execute against us. From a people standpoint, part of what you need to make that strategy work is the ability to create negative plays whether it is sacks, penalties, or turnovers (which usually come from poor offensive decisions due to pressure and being rushed). Without beating a dead horse, we just simply don't have the pieces in our front to create the pressure needed to get the negative plays at the rates that we did in 2016 and 2017. As a result, it's slightly easier for teams to sustain drives against the defense. That being said, we haven't given up more than 24 points in a game this year defensively in regulation. So while it's easy to be critical in areas, the end result is still really good.
I personally think it's difficult to just scrap a defensive identity and do something completely different because it's really the concept of culture and identity. It's one thing to do so because something isn't working but the reality is that our strategy has proven to be largely sound. Any issues that we have defensively are more the ills of some poor recruiting in the past than anything to do with scheme, etc.
Essentially what we have with this team is a fundamentally sound team that doesn't beat themselves. However, it's also a team that has significant areas that lack the kind of playmakers that can make game altering plays to either create an extra scoring opportunity on offense or create the much needed turnover or stop defensively. As a result, the 2018 UW team is going to be a team that plays a lot of tight games and will rely on executing better than their opponents to win a game. Yesterday, in critical spots we didn't execute as well as Oregon … and that happens when your margin of error is reduced.
Think about these plays:
1) Browning's QB sneak attempt was blown up by Oregon's DT timing the snap count PERFECTLY and pushing Harris right back into Browning and making a very challenging exchange. If the timing is a split second different you either get a clean snap or an offsides penalty.
2) A very makeable FG to end regulation if properly executed is a walk off the field win
3) Oregon having 3rd and 11 on the 1st possession of OT turns into a completion and drive extender … Oregon's FG kicking situation was significantly worse than UW's … I don't think they make a 43 yard FG attempt there …
But that's the margin that this team has this year and ultimately it comes down to execution in a number of key plays and yesterday we just didn't make them in what turned out to be a relatively even played game.
For the defense I understand we're massively risk averse. That is why we can't get a third down stop. We give too much cushion. We're half way through the season and we haven't adjusted. I understand in the risk-reward calculation the coaches have decided that struggling to get off the field outweighs giving up a td or two this season. I'd rather do a better job on third and long and let our dbs make plays one on one now and again when they try to go over us.