This looks like what I was asking for…. ‘The next new offense….’ And just in time for Christmas, I hope!!!Looks way better then what we have
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CU Buffs hire former Minnesota OC Mike Sanford as their new OC
- Thread starter Creebuzz
- Start date
So…. In the best case…. We win big… and then fire our head coach?
I remember a couple years back some of my local friends who are pretty serious about football telling me that I needed to go watch Howard play, and that the offense they were running was sick. I unfortunately didn't go - now I'm obviously wishing I had.
The base formation: shotgun with two backs to the strong side allows, in Marion's words, nearly "any play in the history of football to be run." Anything from old, old school Power V, to the ancient Notre Dame "Box Offense," to Bill Walsh west coast offense, to RPO plays that were first drawn up last year.
That versatility allows it to be tailored to the skills of the players you have. You have a great pocket QB and possession receivers? Do WCO stuff. A great power RB and a shifty, stretch the field back too? They can both be on the field at the same time and either one could get the ball on any play.
But the big thing, and this is what most catches my eye, is that the basic plays aren't really all that complicated - they are all well within the scope of what a college player can quickly learn. It's telling that the teams he's coached see dramatic improvement in year one - how often are we told to expect a "transition year" while the players learn a new system?
How he adds complexity is through a lot of pre-snap motion, and the fact that so many wildly different plays can be run out of the same base formation. The defense doesn't know what to key on - and by the time they figure it out, they're playing catch up.
Going back to the comparison to Stitt: he really developed his offense at Harvard and Mines, which I think hurt him when he tried to shift to coaching players who weren't nearly as smart. I'm not going to rip on an HBCU (especially one as good as Howard), but it's not Harvard, and William and Mary sure as hell ain't Mines.
Marion talks about learning how an offense should communicate while he was at ASU - a school where being able to communicate with simple sentences and one syllable words is paramount. I think my point is that his offense does well because the concepts and plays are easy to learn (also a hallmark of the air raid FWIW), but also hard to defend because they force the defense to think instead of react.
Nah, the head coach realizes that the assistant is now the master and gracefully steps aside into retirement, a la Bellotti at UO.
We are setting ourselves up for a huge disappointment. We are talking ourselves into this guy and it’s highly unlikely KD would ever turn the keys over to him- or anybody for that matter. Plus, with the 100 or so HC openings in D-1 football, Marion will have a lot of options that don’t involve going to work for a lame duck coach.
Please no. Bobo likes to get drunk at coaching clinics, play really bad pool and hit on waitresses incessantly. FTR - he has ZERO game.
Agreed. We've been a place where OCs survive at best for two decades. Yes a few have gone on to bigger things, but none have had great success here. Marion coming here would be a bigger gamble for him than for us. Even if we are interested, he will probably pass.
Tell me how many times we've played in snow in Boulder the last 10 seasons. Not advocating for the Air raid necessarily (Am I a fan of it, however), but this idea that we play our seasons in a cold weather region is bollocks. Weather should not have any sway in what offense you run.
Is there any other way to be a CU fan?
yes!!!! some of us follow the hoops team as well.
You think Oregon regrets moving Bellotti on for Chip Kelly to be the main man? Big time programs understand that you’ve gotta ride the comet while you can.
We have to take flyers on coaches at this point. No one legit wants to be around this trainwreck.
Yeah, because hiring all these older OCs and QB coaches with "experience" has really paid off.
Hey I've had BB season tickets for 8 years now (and was a student before that). They still find a way to disappoint me, just in different ways.
Kenny Pickett passed for over 4,000 yards at Pitt this season. 5 of their receivers had more yards than our top receiver did. Pretty sure Marion is familiar with passing.
Oregon didn’t can Bellotti (pretty sure that’s the confusion). If we win big, KD might retire or become the AD but he won’t be fired.
I guarantee Mark Fvcking Whipple isn't the mastermind behind that Pitt offense.
Big Jim
WTF?
That logic dictates that CU hires Vlachos as the OL coach.
Maybe so. If I were KD and RG, I'd do a formal interview with him. Ask him to bring in his coaching plan and pitch it to me. See what kind of mind and vision he has.
BuffTuff
Well-Known Member
Marion argument for me comes down to who else are we interviewing (read, realistically can hire) vs him.
if it’s 50 year old failed retreads or NFL position coaches without play calling experience give me Marion.
If it’s younger play calling experienced G5 or P5 guy I would rather have that.
I will wait to see reports of actual interviews or a verified list from Adam or someone actually in the know.
if it’s 50 year old failed retreads or NFL position coaches without play calling experience give me Marion.
If it’s younger play calling experienced G5 or P5 guy I would rather have that.
I will wait to see reports of actual interviews or a verified list from Adam or someone actually in the know.
Big Jim
WTF?
This the first thoughtful response I've seen and can get on board with. I'd modify the idea that the coach would preferably have been a G5 and/or P5 play caller already. Maybe Marion is some savant, but that hasn't been proved out beyond low division high school or the D3 college level. I get that it's exciting that a couple NFL teams have run a handful plays inspired by his offense, but that doesn't make him a great OC at higher level competition....see Bob Stitt.
Apart from your ideas, I'm laughing hard at the dim argument that a first year WR coach is responsible for the offensive production at Pitt and not the OC. I guess the only thing that would keep this years Pitt team from being the greatest offense in the history of college football is the lack of a Colorado prep QB playing for them.
I do suggest that if you are relying on the local media that you won't find out until after the fact when they say "oh yeah, we knew about that but didn't tell you". Not much information is ever broken by beat writers from the team.
Pittsburgh's offense improved significantly in 2021, but it was still perfectly average offense according to the advanced stat guys. It was 99th LY and 40th TY.
A huge part of the Coordinator roles is play calling ability. That is where Chev really failed. He just had no feel for the game. No plays set up other plays. Nothing attacked a defense that was over playing. I contrast this with when Jim Leavitt was here. He had his flaws, but his timing on when to bring pressure and from where was great, shown by the D success that year. Our next OC having that feel is equally important, if not more so, than the offensive scheme itself.
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Where did I say they canned him? They gently nudged him into a coaching retirement because they had a star as an assistant who they wanted to be the main man.
Which advanced stat guys?
You misunderstand. I’m not advocating we hire some retread who has sucked elsewhere but has held the position of OC. I’m hoping to find a guy who has experience in coordinating a successful offense at multiple college locations. Not necessarily P5 (that’s utterly unrealistic), but at least at the college level. Marion comes close to that level. My biggest concern is hiring a guy who is an NFL WR coach or a P5 position coach with little to no actual experience in coordinating an offense. We can’t have a guy who is learning on the job.
You specifically said “can KD” in your previous post.
I edited the post. Pushing him into retirement is what I meant. Sorry for the confusion.
FEI. One of the two advanced stat system used to make F+ rating. SP+ is the other. https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/ncaa/fei/overalloff/2021
Pitt had put up some massive stats against some really, really terrible defenses.
I kinda disagree. Every coach, but every black coach especially, knows that serious opportunities to move up don't actually come around that often. I mean, how many times was Mel Tucker passed over before we gave him a go? Now, tell me about how EB's efforts to move up have been going.
And this is also a place where CU can spin a pretty good narrative about "3 of our last 4 head coaches are black, and we're one of the only P5 schools to ever give a 2nd chance to a black coach that was fired from another school." I'm not sure how much I "buy" that narrative - but it's 100% factually true.
What I'm more worried about is the first half of your sentence. I'm still expecting us to ultimately hire someone like Bobo, or someone KD worked with 17 years ago who is currently coaching some random position on an NFL team.