Thoughts? Disappointed? A pass based on the circumstances? Waiting for next year?
Itâs a hard year for me to judge the team. With everything going on, it was impossible for the team to get in any sort of rhythm or groove.
With that said, Iâm excited about the overall direction. Really hope we can retain Healy.
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Goes down as an incomplete in my book. Like the grade you get when you werenât doing great and then didnt turn in a major part of your grade.
I think it is going to be hard to judge any coaches too harshly on this season. We though seem to have been more impacted that many schools for whatever reason. We had next to no cases all summer when other programs were having cases, so I think whatever we were doing as a program was fine until we started interacting with other programs and then it all went down hill. With that said here are my take aways:
Defense has to be figured out. The scheme isnât getting it done. You canât play soft pass coverage but get no pressure on the QB. Just isnât going to work. In the games we got to play we gave up way too long 3rd down plays.
Offense - this one is hard to judge. Chris absolutely got his shoulder blown up early in the App game and it wasnât right all season. I am going to assume that was why he wasnât running RPO this year as the staff was protecting him. With this said totally falls on the staff that they didnât have a #2 QB that they could trust to throw the ball.
At the start of the season I felt like we could be a better team than last year but have a worse record. At the end of the season I am still not sure what kind of team we had.
Overall coaching - we werenât ready to play Duke. That was the most disappointing thing of the season IMO. The WKU game after a 5 week lay off is what it is. The Duke game though is an indictment on the staff. Just totally unacceptable. We looked out prepared - by a terrible team.
Recruiting has gotten way better. To win we needed better coaching and better players. We are getting better player and it takes time to get that talent experience and confident so that half is coming. The coaching part though as I mention above has to get better. Just no other way to put it. Still on board with Will but as I said with basketball year 3 is a big year. Your culture should be taking hold. Your players should be stepping into roles. Huge year for Will next year.
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How do you judge recruiting this year? Currently sitting at 6 CUSA/109 National versus 3/72 last year. Do we need to be better/relatively the same as last year for this to be a successful recruiting year?
I donât even know how to judge recruiting. Take NC having not played high school football. Absolutely impacting rankings. Not a cop out answer there - just donât know.
In a normal year though Iâd think somewhere between 70 and 90 is where we need to be. App built a powerhouse coming in that range.
What we know is classes over 100 arenât good enough.
Also how does it go with recruiting vs bringing guys back for their âcovid yearâ we can technically bring everyone back correct? So not sure how many border line guys we would bring in this offseason if a senior is just going to come back for a full season in 21.
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I would think we only bring or ask 4 or 5 guys back
I also wonder if they are laying back a bit with this yearâs class anticipating an active transfer market due to the roster situation across the sport.
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I agree on recruiting. I think we will know how well we recruited once on the field next year.
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Offensive play calling was a huge disappointment. The 4-2-5 also doesnât seem to work well. I question our coaching more than players performance this season.
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It seemed our coaching staff was slow to adjust when things on both side s of the ball werenât working. Yeah, the Duke game was by far the most disappointing.
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Iâve always associated the 4-2-5 with the Big 12 and giving up 45 points a game.
I donât think I philosophically understand the use of the 4-2-5 at the G5 level unless itâs just that itâs easier to recruit DBs than the other positions. That may be true, but to me it seems like it places even more reliance on your front 4 to be dominant, and we donât quite have the horses for that. I can see how it would work if you could find 6 high quality players to play at DL and LB⌠We have struggled to find difference makers at DL, though we do have guys that play hard.
I agree with alumnus in general about the pressure to remain flexible with this class because itâs going to be one of the more chaotic recruiting seasons with teams suddenly learning that they do or do not need to fill certain roster slots. I think we need to be prepared for lots of movement and a lot less clarity until much later in the process this off-season. I think itâll be a near universal issue in CFB.
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clt says we missed highsmith in a bigly way
I agree on the 4-2-5. It just screams our plan is to just outscore you.
For me, this season was defined by the Duke game. It was so bad that I canât get past it. You hype it to all your friends and relatives and thenâŚwell we all know what happened.
Not to derail the topic, to me the Buffalo and Duke losses speak volumes about Will Healy as a football coach.
As far as recruiting goes, it will definitely be a unique year. The coaching staff needs to identify quickly any holdovers they would like to keep and then get an answer on their plans. Fill the gaps from there.
I think a top 100 class is the minimum standard and top 3 CUSA. Its the worst FBS conference. I do think that the fact that Healyâs name pops up in every vacancy outside of middle school doesnât help. That is agent driven and though he may not have a foot out the door he definitely has an eye on the door. The success of Liberty, CCU and App makes this doubly hard.
Next year is the year. Put up or shut up time.
Year 3 of any coaching change is the year I expect the big jump. Need it in basketball this year and football next year.
After year 3 you start collecting enough data to see where things are headed.
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Iâm definitely disappointed with the season, however itâs tough to judge how much of that was due to Covid. We need a change at OC , not certain if thatâs the case at DC. The ass kicking we got from Duke was the low point of the season but the WKU loss was almost as bad. It appeared we could salvage the season and the team wasnât ready to compete. Recruiting is still giving me hope for next season, however I think Healy is going need to make some tough decisions in the off season.
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I know I sound like a broken record, but Iâm coming to bat for Carney. He was handed a near impossible set of circumstances. Iâm not saying heâs going to be Sean McVay, but I donât think you can condemn him for this year.
With the circumstances I donât know how you can really grade this year overall. For me, the App game was probably the most disappointing, particularly the offense in that game was awful. It opened my eyes to the talent gap we face more then I wanted to believe. I thought the Duke game could get out of hand late in the game, it ended up happening much earlier.
Assuming life is back to ânormalâ next fall I expect better results. I still really like Healy and believe he is the right fit for us. We have a bad year next season and that will start to change. To be honest I donât know that you will see the big changes to coordinators next season that some want.
My biggest thought for us to be successful in the future is to recruit better talent and develop players. That comes down to coaching ultimately.
Hell yeah!!!
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