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Player Development...

4DemBuffs

4DemBuffs

Most admired poster
Club Member
i was not sure where to post this thread. i will put it here. if it needs to be moved, fine.

so, we have had a lot of discussions about the recruiting and if its any better than DH's classes. some feel its no different in terms of talent level. some feel its better. the stars seem to me to be about the same. and no, i dont want to get into a star debate.

what the point of this thread is.... player development.

with DH, i cant say that i saw any great player development. what i saw was just guys gaining experience. that is where and how they got better. it was not from coaching, imo.

in the one year embree had, did anyone see much player development? we saw tony clemons get much better and development over the season and dang near become a monster late in the season. i think a lot of his improvement had to do with coaching.

who else would you say made great strides over this last season that would be due to coaching? i am not sure i can think of any.

i ask this because if this class is similar to DH's classes but can be coached up, we have something. if CU does not have the coaching talent to coach up the kids, are we in for DH part 2?

seems to me that we are pulling in some better talent than what DH was pulling in. i base that only on the type of teams the committed players were also considereing. i personally put more value in that than stars. that is just me though.

however, if the players cant be developed.... none of it really matters. does it?

what do you guys think?
 
I would hope that with some of the NFL coaching experience on this staff, they will be better able to coach kids up than D-II and co. One area that can be considered "player development" is instilling mental toughness. I think we started to see a little of that by the end of the year, especially the win at Utah. I also agree with you that this recruiting class seems to have more talent than what we had been getting.

As for specific players who progressed, I thought Harrington showed good progress at FB, given he only played the position for a year.
 
I'm just numb to it all. I don't see facilities being built, I don't see coaching staffs dead weight getting fired and I don't see blue chip talent coming to CU. Not sure I can put up with another 5 years of a Hawk 2 like ERA.

Can Embree's staff develop talent better than Hawk? Who knows. I hope so but he is no sure thing.

I'd say the one positive is that we are recruiting players for the line of scrimmage on the defensive side of the ball. Hopefully a couple of these players can turn out to be All Pac 12 players for us cause I believe we have been severly undermanned for over 10 years at the point of attack against the big power programs.
 
We had some guys picked high in the NFL draft, including Solder who could have remained an unknown TE. Just sayin'.
 
I have to say it did seem like an improvement as far as mental toughness and some players improved. We will never know if the "light bulb" went off in their heads because they realized this is their last year?
or if they actually had better coaching - but, TH looked much better, RS looked better and the TClem looked much better... The O line?? the Dline?? The Backers?? hard to say fellas
 
I would say the area where i saw the most development was in the weight room. Our guys seemed a lot more physical, stronger and in better overall condition than they were last year. We are still not pushing people around on the field very much but we are heading in that direction.

Othere than that I didn't seem a whole lot of development other than guys surviving their trial by fire in the secondary.
 
the problems is the solders and jimmy smiths are too few and far between, we need more guys to be at least all pac caliber. i agree we've been outmanned on the d-line for years. we need more speed too obviously. hopefully we are recruiting to that and can coach them up. hopefully they get the mental errors (false starts etc.) cleaned up and the special teams return teams shored-up. anyone know of any special teams tradition at cu like vtech with the lunchpail? would love to see cu start something as special recognition for this and put even more emphasis on it.
 
89BUFF89 said:
the problems is the solders and jimmy smiths are too few and far between, we need more guys to be at least all pac caliber. i agree we've been outmanned on the d-line for years. we need more speed too obviously. hopefully we are recruiting to that and can coach them up. hopefully they get the mental errors (false starts etc.) cleaned up and the special teams return teams shored-up. anyone know of any special teams tradition at cu like vtech with the lunchpail? would love to see cu start something as special recognition for this and put even more emphasis on it.
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I would prefer we don't use that term/item for recognition.
 
Tyler Hansen
Rodney Stewart
Ryan Miller
Josh Hartigan
Doug Rippy
Greg Henderson

Just off the top of my head but I'm sure there is more.
 
I can agree with Hansen, Rippy, and Henderson.

Giving the new coaching staff much credit for Stewart, Hartigan, and Miller is a stretch.
 
Boulder Buff said:
I can agree with Hansen, Rippy, and Henderson.

Giving the new coaching staff much credit for Stewart, Hartigan, and Miller is a stretch.
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Speedy seemed to dance less this year and hit the hole harder, so I'd credit that to EB. I didn't hear Hartigan's name much last year (could be because of the ****** sound system) but it looks like he was solid as a Junior but he did put up better numbers this year.
 
It's premature to discuss player development with this staff. If we're winning, they're doing a good job. If we're not, they aren't.

They all have solid resumes when it comes to coaching guys up, though. Lots of successes to cite at both the college and NFL levels.
 
Espinoza, Lockridge and Sandersfeld developed into corners. But that's not the kind of development that helped win games. Alas somebody (anybody) with a healthy pair of legs needed to step up.


The offensive line as a unit developed some discipline. This group was incredibly penalty prone at the beginning of the season, but were able to clean it up by November. The Hawaii, Wazzou and Cal games might have turned out differently had the o-line generated fewer false starts and substitution problems that staled out drives.

There wasn't much development of all conference or all American talent on either side of the ball.
 
Buffnik said:
It's premature to discuss player development with this staff. If we're winning, they're doing a good job. If we're not, they aren't.

They all have solid resumes when it comes to coaching guys up, though. Lots of successes to cite at both the college and NFL levels.
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Some of the staff's solid parts of their resume was years ago. Its a weak staff compared to the others schools in the Pac 12. Clock is ticking
 
JimmyBuff said:
Some of the staff's solid parts of their resume was years ago. Its a weak staff compared to the others schools in the Pac 12. Clock is ticking
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I don't remember what your feeling was when this staff was hired. Were you very negative on the JE/EB combo from day one or have you lost any hope this quickly?

I agree that the coaching staff is not as high-profile as many other pac 12 schools but I think it has potential. Clock is always ticking but it's not very loud yet.
 
I would not call it weak. There are question marks for sure, notably the inexperience at the most important positions is still there. However, I also feel the QB coaching/recruiting and DL coaching/recruiting is better than anything we have had in a long time. Certainly not the worst areas to see dramatic improvement.

I also think Jimmy's comment about solid parts of resumes being in the past is a fair criticism. Brookhart and Marshall are the two that most readily fit that description.
 
Creatini said:
Surprise...how is it a weak staff?
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I'm interested in what Jimmy has to say.

My take is that we're inexperienced at the top. 1st time HC, 1st time OC, and 1st time DC. That's a lot of unknowns and a learning curve. I think it helps that the staff also has some former OCs and HCs on it, but there's no substitute for experience.

With the position coaches, I think it's hard to argue with the mix of coaching and recruiting acumen we were able to bring in. I'm surprised we were able to afford all those guys and very impressed that we were able to get Kennedy, Tui and Scherer to come here without offering any of them coordinator positions.
 
I think EB clearly developed as an OC. The games he called early lacked continuity but towards the end I felt like he was doing a descent job. I think his play calling skills will continue to develop next year and hopefully he will turn into an offensive genius mad scientist.
 
NW Buff said:
I don't remember what your feeling was when this staff was hired. Were you very negative on the JE/EB combo from day one or have you lost any hope this quickly?

I agree that the coaching staff is not as high-profile as many other pac 12 schools but I think it has potential. Clock is always ticking but it's not very loud yet.
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My issue isn't with the JE/EB dynamic. Its on the other side of the ball where the major problem is. Really had no opinion of Brookhart and Marshall at the time (although I did prefer W. Harris over Brookhart if that was a choice) . But with the failed OL recruiting and in state recruiting that's not looking good.


Don't care to see any coaches that were here under Hawk to be part of this program. Dont' really care if they are black and gold either.
 
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JimmyBuff said:
My issue isn't with the JE/EB dynamic. Its on the other side of the ball where the major problem is. Really had no opinion of Brookhart and Marshall at the time (although I did prefer W. Harris over Brookhart if that was a choice) . But with the failed OL recruiting and in state recruiting that's not looking good.


Don't care to see any coaches that were here under Hawk to be part of this program. Dont' really care if they are black and gold either.
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you would be interested to see JE's thoughts on OL recruiting this year.
 
Darth Snow said:
you would be interested to see JE's thoughts on OL recruiting this year.
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Part 3 of AZ's interview with Embree is definitely worth a read. http://www.buffscoop.com/forum/showthread.php?t=14744

One of the things that stood out to me is how Embree counts the numbers at positions within each class. We fans and the media looks at the number of scholarship players. Based on his comments, it looks like Embree counts the numbers based on how many guys he is losing who were making a difference in the 2-deep (scholarship or not).

By that measure, we're only replacing Miller and Adkins. Behrens was hurt all year, Daniels was hurt early and hardly played, Tau only saw emergency PT early with injuries, and Clark didn't play on offense. We've got 3 coming in with Kelley, Kough and Irwin. I don't think he'd take more than 1 more OL unless one of the "regardless of position" talents wanted to come in. Maybe it's 1 more guy at most? Especially since next year we only lose 1 guy with Danniewitz.

From a numbers perspective, is OL really the priority in this class that we fans made it out to be? We had 3 sophomore starters (Bakhtiari, Handler and Harris), 4 freshmen who saw real game action (Asiata, Crabb, Lewis and Munyer) and 3 promising freshmen who redshirted (Mustoe, Cotner and Nembot).
 
Buffnik said:
Part 3 of AZ's interview with Embree is definitely worth a read. http://www.buffscoop.com/forum/showthread.php?t=14744

One of the things that stood out to me is how Embree counts the numbers at positions within each class. We fans and the media looks at the number of scholarship players. Based on his comments, it looks like Embree counts the numbers based on how many guys he is losing who were making a difference in the 2-deep (scholarship or not).

By that measure, we're only replacing Miller and Adkins. Behrens was hurt all year, Daniels was hurt early and hardly played, Tau only saw emergency PT early with injuries, and Clark didn't play on offense. We've got 3 coming in with Kelley, Kough and Irwin. I don't think he'd take more than 1 more OL unless one of the "regardless of position" talents wanted to come in. Maybe it's 1 more guy at most? Especially since next year we only lose 1 guy with Danniewitz.

From a numbers perspective, is OL really the priority in this class that we fans made it out to be? We had 3 sophomore starters (Bakhtiari, Handler and Harris), 4 freshmen who saw real game action (Asiata, Crabb, Lewis and Munyer) and 3 promising freshmen who redshirted (Mustoe, Cotner and Nembot).
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Does make some sort of sense, but that sort of thinking gets you in trouble if you do it for more than 1 year. I think a safe rule of thumb is to say about 1/2 of the scholly guys will be solid contributors. So you lose 2, you want 4. However, obviously he feels ok with taking developmental guys at the OL like we did this year because of the fact we have a good young core. Also, he did specifically state he has no problem taking a DL and moving him to OL.
 
There has been a lot of hype and talk about the OL during the Hawkins years especially with Ryan Miller that pretty much went unfullfilled and I don't think I'm nuts if I say that losing Miller might be an addition by subtraction. It's good to see that three OLs with starting exprience are coming back along with four freshmen with playing exprience returning. Maybe with one less highly touted kid on the unit, the unit could perform better this season.

I wish Miller well in the NFL despite my words.
 
Player development is going to take a few years to judge fairly I think. The biggest developments I saw this year were in the coaching staff. As someone mentioned EB started to put together some impressive looking schemes towards the end of the year. The D also seemed to start figuring it out and I think our DC is starting to learn how to make it all work. JE as a HC also improved as the year went on, he seemed to start making better desicions with clock management and game decisions. Also he is starting to learn what he should and shouldnt say to the media. If these guys all progress the same amount next year as the did this year, I think we will have a very solid staff to work with. A 6-6 or better season next year will do a lot to prove that to me.
 
Shldr2Shldr said:
Player development is going to take a few years to judge fairly I think. The biggest developments I saw this year were in the coaching staff. As someone mentioned EB started to put together some impressive looking schemes towards the end of the year. The D also seemed to start figuring it out and I think our DC is starting to learn how to make it all work. JE as a HC also improved as the year went on, he seemed to start making better desicions with clock management and game decisions. Also he is starting to learn what he should and shouldnt say to the media. If these guys all progress the same amount next year as the did this year, I think we will have a very solid staff to work with. A 6-6 or better season next year will do a lot to prove that to me.
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Are you suggesting we can't rush to judgement? I want answers now, dammit!
 
The first game next year will tell us whether or not Mr Blacken is earning his keep. I wanna see bigger, stronger, meaner players.
 
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