Excellect BHGP article with (some) defense of Greg Davis

hawkfan340

hawkfan340

Well-Known Member
Patrick Vint offers some thoughts on Greg Davis and Kirk Ferentz's unholy marriage of offensive woe. Very good read. The comparison of Tony Franklin's Air Raid offense being half-assed by Tuberville at Auburn was very interesting. It's pretty clear the Air Raid can work. Not sure if the same can be said for the Horizontal offense. But the half-assed approach we're trying definitely didn't.

The Epilogue 2012: Troubleshooting - Black Heart Gold Pants

Franklin was kept on to coordinate the 2008 Auburn offense, though Tuberville kept the rest of the 2007 offensive assistants who had coached under Borges. Presumably, Auburn was to become an Air Raid team and run "The System" that Franklin had taught all over the country. But, whether because of confusion or cold feet or sheer stubbornness, Tuberville changed his mind, He required that Franklin work Auburn's traditional power running game into the Air Raid. He slowed down the no-huddle up-tempo components of the offense to protect the defense. He demanded Franklin use the run to set up play action passing, rather than passing to open up the interior running game....

Auburn's offense, this hodgepodge of ineffective "pseudo-spread garbage", ground to a halt. Tuberville fired Franklin seven weeks into the season in an attempt to save his own job. He was unsuccessful. Tuberville and his staff were fired. Everyone was bitter. Things did not end well.
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One more good quote.

But if Ferentz and Davis are going to figure out what works, Ferentz needs to get the hell out of Davis' way and let him run the offense he wants to run. If it works, then we know it was either the running game or the unholy marriage between the two that was causing the problem, and Kirk can be a genius again, and everyone gets happy. If it doesn't work, we know Davis is a contributing problem, that he didn't sell the system sufficiently or adequately marshal his assistants and players toward his vision, and we can pursue a new plan.
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That was incredibly informative, well written and developed. I didn't see that concusion coming. A breath of fresh air compared to all of us Internet Football Coaches.
 
NCHawker said:
That was incredibly informative, well written and developed. I didn't see that concusion coming. A breath of fresh air compared to all of us Internet Football Coaches.
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Definitely a great analysis and read from Vint but we are left with the following possibilities... My optimism is lacking.

1. If Davis is given the reigns on offense we still may be lacking specific talents (speed, etc.) to effectively run it.
2. If it continues to be Kirk's way then Davis, at no fault of his own, will continue to be bad for the program.

If it was not the intent to let him do this from the get-go, then it was a catastrophic failure of Ferentz to find the correct person to fit what he needed/wanted in an OC. If he found KOK Jr. to come in we'd be much better off. Fit is fit.

The tides of hate are turning from GD to KF at this point.
 
That one may actually have a chance of landing on Kirk's desk.

It is a simple but profound point. You either go all-in for a system, or don't use it at all. Half-measures never, ever yield excellence.
 
Yeah, it could be that the Horizontal is just a terrible marriage with KF's power run/play action game and that's the problem. Or it could be that the Horizontal will simply never work with Iowa's talent. Or it could be that it would work if we fully went with the philosophy of the system and ran up tempo. Or it could be that the Horizontal Offense just plain sucks and will never work unless you have an athletic freak like Vince Young running it.

That's why I like entertainment system analogy. There are a lot of components and right now it is clear that they aren't working together. It's like we have one speaker plugged into the TV, one plugged DVR, and the DVD is plugged in to 30 ft coaxial that ultimately loops back into itself. It's a mishmash of crap.

Hopefully we either get it the components aligned properly or figure out which ones are the actual defective.
 
I just read it again. This may be the article of the year. It digs into some long-held beliefs and absolutely destroys them with hard facts.

Since 2003, Iowa has not finished in the top half of the Big Ten in rushing offense without the help of a Doak Walker Award-winning halfback. Think about that for a second: Iowa's offensive lines full of NFL talent have resulted in top-half-of-the-conference production once in a decade, and that was with four NFL linemen and the nation's best back. AND THEY FINISHED FOURTH. If it's not talent -- and the running game is the place where it isn't a talent issue at Iowa -- it's execution or scheme, and scheme is the only constant over that time.

Just a reminder: This is the part of the offense Kirk Ferentz wanted to keep. This is the Ferentz component of the malfunctioning system, and it hasn't functioned properly for ten years. It is the main culprit.
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And regarding the article's "get out of GD's way" theme, recall the persistent talk during KOK's tenure that he too had been handcuffed. His coaching style before and after Iowa strongly suggest it was true.
 
I agree with the author that trying to marry GD's offense to KF's zone stretch is folly. And here's why: If you are a defense and you know that the majority of plays are going to take place within a 10 yard range from the line of scrimmage, whether it's a run or a pass, then you can simply commit everyone to that 10 yard space and there's no way an offense can operate in that environment. This is why the hire of GD was horrible. We all know KF is not going to abandon the run game. So the only answer to his insistence on keeping the running game is to have an offensive coordinator that operates in a vertical passing environment. GD is the antithesis of that. Take a look at what his running backs did at Texas his last several years. All of them less than 1,000 yds/season.

This "marriage" is going to end badly.
 
My favorite part of this item was Patrick citing my running game chart and data ;) And I certainly appreciate the attribution.

I really enjoy his writing on the whole. Good stuff
 
Something has to give. This amalgamation of Davis and Kirk's offense we saw the last few months was horrible. If Kirk wants to run the offense, dump Davis and just take OC responsibility. If Kirk wants to see results, then just let Davis run everything on the O with no strings attached and if it doesn't work he gets canned next year.
 
Gotta have the talent at WR and QB to run Davis' system. The QB is the key. JVB never "got" it, or if he did, he never had true confidence in it.

There were open receivers. There were some pretty decent play calls. There were dropped balls, and pass routes run wrong. There were missed reads. There was bad blocking on the OL and injuries. But these are things that happen to EVERY team in EVERY game and yet they still find ways to move the ball and score points.

The jury is still out on Davis' offense her at Iowa. Until we have a QB that is physically and mentally capable of running it well it will struggle. JVB could not run it for whatever reason.
 
Ferentz's plan to keep KOK backfires so in desperation hires a new O Coordinator who has a history of running a complex, high scoring offense. To avoid devanillazation of the existing offense, Ferentz rigs a bomb to Davis. The stipulation for Davis is...the offensive plan must continue to be predictable & passing plays must be under 5 yds to keep the bomb from exploding. If Davis tries to throw downfield or change quarterbacks, Ferentz will detonate the bomb.
 
Waukeye said:
Ferentz's plan to keep KOK backfires so in desperation hires a new O Coordinator who has a history of running a complex, high scoring offense. To avoid devanillazation of the existing offense, Ferentz rigs a bomb to Davis. The stipulation for Davis is...the offensive plan must continue to be predictable & passing plays must be under 5 yds to keep the bomb from exploding. If Davis tries to throw downfield or change quarterbacks, Ferentz will detonate the bomb.
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Sort of the Iowa Football version of the movie Speed. Ferentz is Dennis Hopper. Davis is Keanu Reeves. Who is Sandra Bullock?
 
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