Malzahn's Weekly Presser - Louisiana-Monroe Game

[Tiger 8,818]

1 hour ago, cole256 said:

I'm the same way as far as pressure go, but I'm not going to avoid it I'm going to attack it. But I understand people address and handle pressure differently, but pretty much last year the excuse was I wasn't hands on enough, then there were the coaching staff not seeing eye to eye stuff, then it was the bringing in people that he was comfortable and everybody is on the same page and he is now doing what he's comfortable with, more hands on with the offense and we are definitely going to get it turned around.  And now it's back to I need to take a step back again....

All of that stuff is PR spin from my vantage point. Maybe there's some truth in there but all the contradictions lead me to believe it was just a way to get pressure off his back. JMO

[Tiger 8,818]

1 hour ago, alexava said:

still not happy with this. i like gus because of how he runs the offense. if he aint runnin it then i don't care who the coach is. 

I'm with you on this, as you know. But my hope with this recent development is that he's learning to avoid what made Chizik fail. He's putting his ego aside and is going to focus on getting the right people on staff to run the entire operation. With the rumblings of this being essentially a sink or swim elsewhere situation for Lashlee it opens the door for Gus to bring in a legitimate coordinator on the O side of the ball. Now I agree that Gus is famous because of how he runs the offense and that is what makes him special and why he was even considered for this job. It seems illogical that someone of his playcalling caliber is on the sidelines but not calling the plays -- other responsibilities or not.

It's just odd we have a guy who hasn't proven himself to be a good playcaller calling those shots now, while we have a guy who hasn't proven to be good on the managerial side of things is overseeing everything. I guess it's all a part of the transition of him learning to be a HC and I hope this is a big step towards better things for us. 

 

Anyone find it funny that being an OC actually requires more actual in-game football savvy than a Head Coach? HC's are best when their strengths seem to be motivation, team-building, discipline, talent evaluation, and good judgement with hiring assistants. Feel free to convince me otherwise as I'm certainly no expert

[CR 2,427]

Doesn't this turn of events at least make you wonder if Scarbinsky wasn't right about someone forcing Gus's hand on play-calling? Just seems impossible a coach who made his reputation calling plays would decide after 3 games following an off-season of stressing being more hands-on to willingly give up those duties.  And maybe it works out best for everyone in the end, it just seems very odd.

[CleCoTiger 1,957]

1 hour ago, IronMan70 said:

I think it's as simple as, you can do both for awhile but at some point, time management becomes the issue. Wearing 2 hats at lower levels may be possible. But at higher levels, especially over the long term, it is not. The time necessary to, watch film, develop an effective game plan and call the best plays possible is in direct competition with the hours required to run the whole organization. Eventually one or the other will suffer. As any person climbs the ladder they are forced to let go of certain things along the way. This process becomes more critical the higher the position (AsstC, OC, HC) and the bigger the stage (HS, FCS, FBS, P5, NFL). 

I think what you just said is exactly right. A HC has a lot on his plate to take care of as you said. There just aren't enough hours in the day to do it all. Regardless of why this has come about I have to say I appreciate the humility Gus showed in this press conference. I think this may be the next big step in his evolution as a coach and I hope it portends better days (very shortly) ahead.

[CleCoTiger 1,957]

19 minutes ago, CR said:

Doesn't this turn of events at least make you wonder if Scarbinsky wasn't right about someone forcing Gus's hand on play-calling? Just seems impossible a coach who made his reputation calling plays would decide after 3 games following an off-season of stressing being more hands-on to willingly give up those duties.  And maybe it works out best for everyone in the end, it just seems very odd.

I didn't put much stock in that Scarbo piece until Monday. On Monday I listened to CPD on SportsRadio740 out of Montgomery** (with Barry McKnight and John "I am a bammer" Longshore.)  They asked about all of that and Dye danced around it, refusing to give a straight answer. What CPD said was that if it was true, then whoever told Scarbo shouldn't have told him, and if they did tell Scarbo then Scarbo should not have disclosed it like he did. I translated that to "Yeah, that's basically correct."

**Listen to the end of segment 3 and the beginning of segment 4 from yesterday (9/26/2016) for CPD's interview. Dye begins at around 10:40 into segment 3.

[lionheartkc 6,150]

55 minutes ago, Tiger said:

All of that stuff is PR spin from my vantage point. Maybe there's some truth in there but all the contradictions lead me to believe it was just a way to get pressure off his back. JMO

I think it goes deeper than that.  I think wheels are in motion for a change and this is just the beginning of the story.

[Never2Yield 1,005]

It was refreshing!!!

[Barnacle 9,064]

Head coach is trying to himself, cool. 

[Barnacle 9,064]

To me it sounds like he had a lack of perspective when he was calling the plays. You get tunnel vision and you stop being able to see the bigger picture of what's going on. When that happens you lack the ability to guide your assistant coaches and manage what you want to be doing in a game. I wondered after the first game whether or not the offense looked as disorganized from his point of view as it did from television, or others points of views. When you are so focused "on the next play" as he said, you sacrifice awareness. Maybe by letting those duties go 100% and getting that different perspective, he'll be more effective counsel on the field. At this point, go for it.

[AidiAU 1,270]

17 minutes ago, Barnacle said:

To me it sounds like he had a lack of perspective when he was calling the plays. You get tunnel vision and you stop being able to see the bigger picture of what's going on. When that happens you lack the ability to guide your assistant coaches and manage what you want to be doing in a game. I wondered after the first game whether or not the offense looked as disorganized from his point of view as it did from television, or others points of views. When you are so focused "on the next play" as he said, you sacrifice awareness. Maybe by letting those duties go 100% and getting that different perspective, he'll be more effective counsel on the field. At this point, go for it.

100% agree that awareness could have been sacrificed and truly respect his (hopefully his) decision to be the HC and calm down on the play calling. I fully believe he will still discuss some things with Rhett, but to have the ability to focus on the big picture during games will be an improvement IMO. 

That being said, I would like to think that Rhett is still young enough to think out of the box and has the courage to do so. Time will tell, but it's totally possible. 

[CleCoTiger 1,957]

25 minutes ago, Barnacle said:

To me it sounds like he had a lack of perspective when he was calling the plays. You get tunnel vision and you stop being able to see the bigger picture of what's going on. When that happens you lack the ability to guide your assistant coaches and manage what you want to be doing in a game. I wondered after the first game whether or not the offense looked as disorganized from his point of view as it did from television, or others points of views. When you are so focused "on the next play" as he said, you sacrifice awareness. Maybe by letting those duties go 100% and getting that different perspective, he'll be more effective counsel on the field. At this point, go for it.

Sounds like you're on the right track to me. Ya know, I wonder if after that first game loss to Clemson, a game that we had a chance to win at the end even with the three-headed monster at QB, Malzahn didn't set down to watch the game film and just put his head into his hands knowing that the discontinuity and too clever for his own good by at last half approach to that offensive game plan he used had cost our Tigers a win. I really believe if we had just settled on one QB and run the offense to suit that QB in that game to go along with how the AU defense showed up to play, AU wins that game 

[CleCoTiger 1,957]

19 minutes ago, AidiAU said:

...I would like to think that Rhett is still young enough to think out of the box and has the courage to do so. Time will tell, but it's totally possible. 

Prior to going zone read/inverted veer/inside power at AU so much of the time, the so-called "Malzahn offense" was much more diverse. Lashlee ran this playbook as a QB for Malzahn and in a lot of games they came out slinging it. (In fact, Chris Brown of SmartFootball was more than a little skeptical of the idea of Gus as a smash mouth/run first kind of coach when Gus came to AU with Chiz in 2009.) 

Take a look at StatTiger's "Notes on Red Zone Offense" from earlier today and look at the success rates for TD's in the red zone in 2009 (with Chris Todd at QB) vs. Cam Newton in 2010 and Marshall in 2013/14.  Straight up, I will tell you that I did not expect to see what Stat's numbers show to be so. I would have figured that the highest red zone TD percentage would have been Cam first, Marshall second and the AU offense with Todd somewhere on down the list. I would have been incorrect.

I don't know that CRL needs to "think outside the box" so much as just take out all the toys that are already in the box and play with 'em. And I think Herb Hand, Malzahn's co-OC at Tulsa, is gonna be a big help. I hope they're like two giddy boys with a load of good presents on Christmas morning. We'll see,..

[AidiAU 1,270]

15 minutes ago, CleCoTiger said:

Prior to going zone read/inverted veer/inside power at AU so much of the time, the so-called "Malzahn offense" was much more diverse. Lashlee ran this playbook as a QB for Malzahn and in a lot of games they came out slinging it. (In fact, Chris Brown of SmartFootball was more than a little skeptical of the idea of Gus as a smash mouth/run first kind of coach when Gus came to AU with Chiz in 2009.) 

Take a look at StatTiger's "Notes on Red Zone Offense" from earlier today and look at the success rates for TD's in the red zone in 2009 (with Chris Todd at QB) vs. Cam Newton in 2010 and Marshall in 2013/14.  Straight up, I will tell you that I did not expect to see what Stat's numbers show to be so. I would have figured that the highest red zone TD percentage would have been Cam first, Marshall second and the AU offense with Todd somewhere on down the list. I would have been incorrect.

I don't know that CRL needs to "think outside the box" so much as just take out all the toys that are already in the box and play with 'em. And I think Herb Hand, Malzahn's co-OC at Tulsa, is gonna be a big help. I hope they're like two giddy boys with a load of good presents on Christmas morning. We'll see,..

"Think out of the box" may have been the wrong phrase, but I like the presents on Christmas morning picture MUCH better. 

Let's hope Christmas comes early! 

[AcUmen 242]

2 hours ago, Tiger said:

Anyone find it funny that being an OC actually requires more actual in-game football savvy than a Head Coach? HC's are best when their strengths seem to be motivation, team-building, discipline, talent evaluation, and good judgement with hiring assistants. Feel free to convince me otherwise as I'm certainly no expert

The short guy across the state is a good example of how successful one can be by being a CEO.  Do you think he sits there calling defensive plays?  No.  What he does well is building his organization off-the-field and ensuring that bammer has all the advantages when it comes game time.  He hires the best assistants who do the day-to-day coaching stuff.  Essentially he is an evaluator of people.

[TigerOne 1,140]

Odd that it took Gus this long to figure something out. In the LSU game he was far away from the action on the sideline. Several times when the defense was on the field he was in the back talking to the offense, 

I believe he had a blistering evaluation before after A&m and was offered several scenarios

[AUMASTERS 555]

5 hours ago, AUEngineer2016 said:

Personally, when I am put in a pressure situation where I feel like people are starting to attack my credibility as a worker (or student) and question whether or not I should be in the position that I am, I feel very pressured to not make any mistakes. This could explain what happened to Gus. Take for instance this quote:

That to me indicates that he was letting all of the hot-seat and "just a HS coach" talk affect him and how he works. He was already working double time as a HC and an OC, and couple that with the pressure of losing your job, I can 100% see how Gus would start thinking that every single play he called had to be perfect, when in reality, making 1 or 2 bad calls in a game is okay as long as you adjust your gameplan and learn from it.

Taking away the OC responsibilities (aka having him stop micromanaging) should relieve some of that stress, if for no other reason than he has less to stress about. It also indicates to me that Gus is starting to allow himself to change. Like he said, he's been doing this for 25 years, and to change the way he's doing things is a big step in the right direction, whether it was initiated by Gus himself or an outside source.

And in order to get one of the Brile's here next season, he needed to show that he is willing to let them call their own plays.

[autigeremt 6,569]

Either way I hope we win games and find out what's next.

[CleCoTiger 1,957]

1 hour ago, AidiAU said:

"Think out of the box" may have been the wrong phrase, but I like the presents on Christmas morning picture MUCH better. 

Let's hope Christmas comes early! 

"Think outside the box" was perfectly fine. We're just different folks with different ways of saying things is all.

War Eagle!

[Randman5000 4,224]

7 hours ago, IronMan70 said:

I think it's as simple as, you can do both for awhile but at some point, time management becomes the issue. Wearing 2 hats at lower levels may be possible. But at higher levels, especially over the long term, it is not. The time necessary to, watch film, develop an effective game plan and call the best plays possible is in direct competition with the hours required to run the whole organization. Eventually one or the other will suffer. As any person climbs the ladder they are forced to let go of certain things along the way. This process becomes more critical the higher the position (AsstC, OC, HC) and the bigger the stage (HS, FCS, FBS, P5, NFL). 

To play devils advocate: 

Doesn't Nick Saban help coach his secondary?  It's just position but he's the biggest control freak in the world.

[Randman5000 4,224]

5 hours ago, Barnacle said:

To me it sounds like he had a lack of perspective when he was calling the plays. You get tunnel vision and you stop being able to see the bigger picture of what's going on. When that happens you lack the ability to guide your assistant coaches and manage what you want to be doing in a game. I wondered after the first game whether or not the offense looked as disorganized from his point of view as it did from television, or others points of views. When you are so focused "on the next play" as he said, you sacrifice awareness. Maybe by letting those duties go 100% and getting that different perspective, he'll be more effective counsel on the field. At this point, go for it.

That's probably what it was but maybe it took some outside influence for him to do it?

[Randman5000 4,224]

3 hours ago, autigeremt said:

Either way I hope we win games and find out what's next.

This! 

[3rdgeneration 6,469]

Looks to me like someone gave Gus a really good prescription for Xanax or something.  I haven't seen him that relaxed in a long time! It was good to see him smile, see him with a sense of humor and see him with some humility and honesty. Not that he hasn't been those things, it's just that he's been bottled up and so tense. I think that him being a little more loose will rub off on the players, too. I am not sure who talked to him, or if it was a revelation, but I think whoever did him a big favor. This Gus is much more pleasant to watch and I have a feeling he will be much more successful. I wish him the very best! I still like the guy and believe in him.

[Ber798297 241]

Gus seemed different today... More relaxed.  I liked it. 

I think Gus micromanaged that offense.  I used to work for someone who micromanaged me and it's frustrating.  I always felt like my boss didn't trust my abilities even though I knew I was good at my job. (I ended up quitting that job and I found out later they hired two people to replace me.)  you always hear that the HC sets the tone.  If he was micromanaging, then that lack of trust in abilities could've been the tone that trickled down to the players.  

It's just a thought...

[3rdgeneration 6,469]

I think you are right @Ber798297 and someone had the courage to tell him and he listened. That's progress. I'll root for him 100% if he is trying to get better and isn't being stubborn.

[alexava 6,973]

Winning will do a lot for one's mood or tranquility.