It was an interesting read. I don't agree with most of the things, but do on a few.
As far as trick plays, I wrote 2 threads on that last weekend. I don't understand why we have gotten away from that. Just because you have more talent doesn't mean that trick plays cannot be used. It keeps the other teams' defenses always guessing. He has gotten too conservative. There has also been more wtf kind of call was that this year than any other year in his 4 years, and don't tell me that it is always the players not executing the called plays. Why are we using Horvath on a 3rd down and 19 with a screen pass. We were not going to make that. The only person that could do that is Moore, and that is Moore having blockers. We had that key 4th down play last week, and we called a run or something with Plummer that had no chance of succeeding. We throw to our receivers 5 yards out when we need 10 on a 3rd down with no blockers to help him out to possibly get the first down. If we get some success with the run game, we abandon it. If we get some success with the passing game, we run the ball the next 5 to 6 plays. We are not trying to mix it up. We just don't have any idea if something is going to be successful anymore. Brohm did a lot more with less talent his first 2 years, because he was forced to, and he got more out of them. Now, we have all these weapons, and we cannot get them the ball.
I do think we need a change of the guard with some of the assistant coaches. They are very important. Tiller credited a lot of his success to his assistant coaches. Diaco does not have the players to do a 3-4 right now. He will not have the players to do that next year. You have to coach to what you got. If he wants to continue to use the 3-4 defense, get rid of him. Every time we do the 3 man rush the other team's QB pens a novel, because he has so much time. I thought Brohm said that we were going to be aggressive on defense. When did we blitz today? I must have missed it, if we did. We had a few times where we might have sent 5, but I don't call that a blitz, unless we have 5 Georges out there, which we don't. We have to be dead last in the BT in sacks and creating turnovers. Our third down defense has to be the worst in the country. I believe we are around 50% of letting other teams convert on 3rd downs, and I am not talking 3rd down and 1. We let teams convert consistently on 3rd down and 8. 9, 10, etc.
Our special teams is the worst I have seen in a long time. Even Hazell's special teams were better than that. We have had 4 Special Teams coaches in 4 years?! How many kickoffs have went for penalties and start at the 35. We have punts blocks, and we have punters averaging about 30 yards a kick when they don't get blocked (and that is on a good day). It is so bad that we used a 3rd string punter today. We let other teams break big plays on our kickoff returns, but I don't remember the last time I saw us score a TD on a kickoff or punt return. If we do have a good kickoff return, it usually comes back due to a penalty.
Players being undisciplined is not new. That has been going on for all 4 years. How come our players let other teams' players get in their heads. What are we talking trash about anyway. We are 2-4. You want to talk trash do something to earn the right to talk trash. The locker room must be really unbearable right now, because it looked like our team did not give a s%^# and did not want to be out there today. Hey, we had 8 players opt out with at least 3 games to go before today's game. I would say we will probably have more this week, because the guys don't look like they are having fun and were just going through the motions.
I would say right now that next Saturday is probably not going to be the result we want. I am hoping if you cannot get up for Minnesota, Rutgers, or Nebraska (a combined 3-11 before playing us) that you at least have some pride to try against your in state rival. I am not too sure about that. Wow, we looked to be on an upward trajectory not more than a little over a year ago. We are now heading down an abyss, unless we start making major changes.