Will be... not is. He must learn a few things before he takes the next step as a head coach. One thing is he needs to quit trying to beat the defense to the punch. He outsmarted himself tonight. When you are running the option like we were and having great success, you don't put in a QB who can't run and start throwing. If they were stuffing our option stuff, then yes, we need to change it up. If they are not, we are only helping them. We were on a drive to possibly take the lead in the second quarter when Mullen stuck in Russell and in just a few minutes we were down 10. You can blame whatever you want, but the first half totally changed on that decision. We could have taken control and then run clock in the second half, instead we had to claw back into the game.
Then we get back within 3 by running the option, and we promptly go totally away from it. Blame QBs or WRs all you want, but the game shouldn't have rested on the passing game when you ran the ball the way we did tonight. It was beyond stupid to throw the ball every down and send Russell back out there when he clearly didn't have it, and when we had something else that was working well. Mullen coached his team into a tough spot having to throw the ball to drive down the field.
He needs to learn that you don't go away from what works. You make the other team stop you.