You're now the head coach of MSU

[starkvegasdawg]

What is the first thing you do this afternoon when getting to your first practice? Firing Koening can't be used as an answer because short of being caught with a dead girl or live boy a coach is not fired one game into the season.

What changes do you make to the depth chart, scheme wise, etc? Do you tweak the current system in place or completely scrap it and install something else?

What's your message to the team and to the committed and uncommitted recruits?

 

[missouridawg]

I asked Dan when he was in Houston

at the Road Dawgs tour about utilizing a QBs strengths and how he planned to do that with Tyler. I asked about two tight end sets and under-center players.

His response was coach-speak about 70% of the playbook, blah blah blah.

I asked that question, because Tyler (even though he's played most of his career in the shotgun) needs to be under center more. And if he's not capable of doing that... then he needs to be benched.

The first thing I would do today at practice is get Dak about 100 reps on read-option plays. I'd also give Coach Collins a hand-job in front of the team, since his unit performed so well.

The key to whole thing is finding a QB that is a threat to run. We're never, ever in our wildest dreams going to out-athlete people on offense, so we have to have a system in which the QB is a threat to run.

 

[57stratdawg]

1) Insert D. Wilson into the starting lineup
2) Tell Les to work on getting the ball to our TEs up the seems.
3) Redesign/rethink our substation, especially at RB so that they can alternate situationaly and not just drive for drive.

That would be a good start.

 

[Heawww]

We're never, ever in our wildest dreams going to out-athlete people on offense, so we have to have a system in which the QB is a threat to run.

Oh yes we can. We did it in 8 games last year. See, that's the decision that has to be made. Use Russell and win EXACTLY the games we SHOULD win, or use Prescott and, well, who knows. Could be better, the same, or worse.

I don't know about this under center crap yada yada. I think that's a bunch of internet arm chair QBs talking.

 

[Heawww]

Agree on Wilson, he needs to play all the time. Time for the Morrow experiment to end I'm afraid. I was wrong on him.

 

[msstate7]

Agree on Wilson, he needs to play all the time. Time for the Morrow experiment to end I'm afraid. I was wrong on him.

Since we lost a safety, give morrow a look at safety. He's not a wr so at least see if he has value somewhere

 

[horshack.sixpack]

Tell Les that since it is taboo to fire an OC one game into the season, he is welcome to hang around, but I'm taking over on offense. Hire KJ as special teams coach and get to coaching me some offense.

Also, w.r.t. firing after game 1, I know this. If I hire a project manager and the first deliverable comes due and he can't deliver, and isn't even close, I would relieve him of his duties and get another rather than muddle through milestone after milestone and slowly watch the project derail until it couldn't be salvaged. I don't buy that the only alternative to this situation, which looks just like last year's problems, is to write off an entire season and go into "wait until next year" mode. Last year we were at game 8 before we knew that we sucked on offense. Up until that point we just had a bunch of speculation about how much of the playbook we were purposely not using because we didn't need to.

 

[fishwater99]

1. Find a FB to give our RB's some blocking and work on more Pro-set formations for when TR is healthy.
2. Play J-Rob on 1st and 2nd down more.
3. Play Wilson and bench Morrow
4. Throw early and often to our WR, RB's and TE's.
5. Either red-shirt or play Shumpert now.

 

[UpTheMiddlex3Punt]

First thing I do is count the insane amount of cash they're paying me to coach a game.

In all seriousness, I install an option offense. We don't have the WR talent for a pro-style option that TR wants to run. Give TR a chance to be QB in this offense, but I won't be afraid to play Dak half time or more.

 

[Lawdawg.sixpack]

Morrow is absolutely worthless...

He can't catch a cold. Plus, I distinctly remember him having a holding penalty that killed a drive, and he had another procedure penalty that (I think) turned a third and short into a third and long.

Wilson, on the other hand, looked good. WE HAVE GOT TO THROW HIM THE BALL. DOWN THE FIELD. GIVE WILSON A CHANCE!!!

 

[aTotal360]

Morrow has had more holding calls against him than catches.

 

[horshack.sixpack]

Independent of WR's, nobody has a style of offense that allows the QB to stand still holding the ball for extended periods. I guess none of our pass plays involve a hot route? If there is a way to fix the internal clock of a QB, I'd get that fixed ASAP.

 

[coach66]

If I'm Mullen I think I start listening to what Les has to say. Granted Les may

not the the best OC in the conference but the guy knows a lot about football and offenses. I heard for the second game in a row Mullen ignored Les's pleas to change things up. This is a very disturbing pattern, if Mullen has actually gotten to the point where he doesn't trust anyone or he is just that damn hard headed we have got big, big problems. Listen, listen, listen and you might learn. The guy that used the square peg round hole analogy on Mullen may be dead on.

 

[57stratdawg]

 

[missouridawg]

Oh yes we can. We did it in 8 games last year. See, that's the decision that has to be made. Use Russell and win EXACTLY the games we SHOULD win, or use Prescott and, well, who knows. Could be better, the same, or worse.

I don't know about this under center crap yada yada. I think that's a bunch of internet arm chair QBs talking.

We out-athleted 8 teams last year on offense is a correct statement. But that's because those 8 teams were either TERRIBLE SEC teams (ARK, AUB, TN, UK) or mid-majors.

With this years' schedule, we only going to out-talent other teams 5 times (3 OOC, UK, and maybe Ark). You happy with 5-7? I sure as 17 ain't.

 

[boatsandhoes]

Long. sorry I got excited

Man oh man oh Manny Lee. Where do I begin, great question. I'll go with right now, and Dak playing. I'll call it the 17 u package on offense.

1. I guess you keep the blocking schemes the same. Not enough time to change that. I start Nick or J-Rob at TB, rotate them and give Milton some pops and dabble in some LDP or maybe use LDP on 3rd down. Under center with Dak most of the time, I run leads between the tackles with a lead blocker either motioning Malcolm or someone else. If your afraid to get Malcolm hurt then I use somebody nasty that loves contact. I might even use Griffin at FB and let him tote the rock lots in the 1st couple quarters on reverse options but give the dive.
2. I'm starting Derunnya, Chappelle, Jameon, and Malcolm (TE) at the receiving spots. I rotate Rojo, Junebug, Brandon Holloway (and I give him some slip screens, and jet sweeps). I don't use morrow that much unless we are in 5 wide or something. I wear malcolms hands out on drags, hitches, and skinny posts down the middle.
3. I'd run some of that option game we used with relf. I use my TEs down the middle, and I throw some deep balls to chappelle or Derunnya early on 1st/2nd and short or just on a whim. Hitch and go, out and up, double moves. I put in some screens for LDP, lots of them. I abandon all slow developing running plays. It's straight 17 u package running the ball. Sometimes I would probably send the FB the other way from where we are attacking to confuse the LB's. I would run a lot of quick pitches, and short tosses off tackle like LSU does bu more lead plays off our best OL boys.
4. Agree with Missouri, Dak would spend the week running read options. I'd force all of our ends to defend him all week in prep for AU.
5. Did not have a problem with our 2ndary. Still need more pass rush, but over all it wasn't bad. I would make our DE's defend the read option 1,586 times this week until they throw up. The end stays put until he knows the qb doesn't have the ball. Everything has to be kept inside him. I'd start Chris Jones, and rotate everyone else. Hopefully you give me Quay back this week. I just tell him to play in the middle, and blow up as much **** as he can. the only assignment I give him is kill the qb and rbs, and let the paramedics sort them out.

we have team night, thursday and Friday. They are forced to watch "the program", "any given sunday", and possibly "the longest yard".

I post this in every locker saturday morning:
I don't know what to say, really. Three minutes till the biggest battle of our college lives this year all comes down to today. Now either we heal as a team or we're gonna crumble, inch by inch, play by play, 'til we're finished.

We're in hell right now, gentlemen, believe me. And, we can stay here -- get the **** kicked out of us -- or we can fight our way back into the light. We can climb outta hell one inch at a time.

Now, I can't do it for you. I'm too old. I look around. I see these young faces, and I think -- I mean -- I made every wrong choice a middle-aged man can make. I, uh, I pissed away all my money, believe it or not. I chased off anyone who's ever loved me. And lately, I can't even stand the face I see in the mirror.

You know, when you get old in life things get taken from you. I mean that's...part of life. But, you only learn that when you start losing stuff. You find out life's this game of inches. So is football. Because in either game, life or football, the margin for error is so small -- I mean one-half a step too late, or too early, and you don't quite make it. One-half second too slow, too fast, you don't quite catch it.

The inches we need are everywhere around us.

They're in every break of the game, every minute, every second.

On this team, we fight for that inch. On this team, we tear ourselves and everyone else around us to pieces for that inch. We claw with our fingernails for that inch, because we know when we add up all those inches that's gonna make the 17ing difference between winning and losing! Between livin' and dyin'!

I'll tell you this: In any fight, it's the guy who's willing to die who's gonna win that inch. And I know if I'm gonna have any life anymore, it's because I'm still willin' to fight and die for that inch. Because that's what livin' is! The six inches in front of your face!!

Now I can't make you do it. You got to look at the guy next to you. Look into his eyes! Now I think you're gonna see a guy who will go that inch with you. You're gonna see a guy who will sacrifice himself for this team because he knows, when it comes down to it, you're gonna do the same for him!

That's a team, gentleman!

And, either we heal, now, as a team, or we will die as individuals.

Now what are you gonna do?

 

[Heawww]

Add Auburn and/or Ole Miss to that, and yes, I'm happy at 6-6. I could live with 5-7 but no, I wouldn't be particularly happy. A 3 or 4 win disaster? I'm probably turning in my fan card, because history would have repeated itself for like the 12th time in my lifetime and I'll be convinced it'll never change.

Now, your concerns about whether or not that will happen is valid. I picked us to win 8 games with the ones you and I listed above, and LSU. Looks like I may have been off. Oh well, not the first time. We'll see in two weeks.

 

[bonedaddy401]

3 things....

1. Find a fullback and start practicing some I
2. Find the misdirection plays buried under the filing cabinet, dust them of and start practicing them again.
3. Throw fade routes for an hour a day

 

[Shamoan]

i tell malcolm johnson that we are going to run 50% of the offensive passes through him, so be ready, i tell dak to start working on the zone read vs autry all day 'ery day for the end of time, i tell perk to get his *** ready to catch some screens and dump-off passes on 3rd down passing situations, i tell j rob that he is now our first down back, i start getting the o-line used to zone-blocking again, i dont talk to the secondary at all, i tell collins to bring the pressure he promised, get a little more aggressive, and figure out some way to get off the field on 3rd down.

i tell koenning that he is now the highest paid water-boy in the nation and i tell him to turn in his playbook (not really, but if im coach, i take over playcalling duties)

very next thing, i tell scott that bracky is a joke and that im not making any other recruiting moves until we fire BB in favor of lawyering up and getting somebody that knows about the ncaa....i tell scott to handle it. if he says that decision is not up to him, i ask him what he does other than schedule games where we will be massive underdogs and tweet pictures of our newest concept uni. i tell him to handle it and GTFO.

to recruits, i say step into my office, then i give them some vague promise that our boosters will be contacting them shortly, a wink, then a nod, then i find one willing to wear some type of wire for his next trip to oxford.

i then hand the team S&C over to rick ray and ask him to do what he can.

 

[patdog]

It should have been pretty obvious to everyone when Morrow redshirted that he wasn't as good as he was hyped to be. Same with Michael Carr. Everyone who was looking forward to seeing our backup receivers start this year should have realized that these guys were backups for a reason. And yes, I agree on Wilson. He needs to play all the time.

 

[Heawww]

Carr was good. He has other issues I guess but he did just fine on the field from what I saw.

Morrow should even be compared to him. I think Morrow has a bit of an attitude problem too, it showed even a little back during his recruitment, saying nobody was showin' him da love or some ****.

 

[Lettucexxxx]

I wish I could find the thread from the beginning of last season where I stated something to the extant...If we just ran the football, played the clock, play action, two tight.......basically Lsu or Alabama's EXACT offense, we would be better off. TR is incompetent. Plane and simple. He thinks too much. We need a REACTOR at QB. I watched po dunk after po dunk on Saturday who rolled out a better QB than us. I am over it. Alex Smith, Tebow, Chris Leak........QB coach? 17 me running. We have 3 backs capable of running with any RB we face. Why cant we just run the 17ing football? Every near upset Croom or Murlens have sniffed, came with RUNNING THE FOOTBALL. RUN THE !ING FOOTBALL MURLEN. We arnt beating anyone with Frankenstein and the seven dwarfs. Go watch South Panola MURLENS.....bring a 17ing note pad.

 

[johnson86-1]

i tell koenning that he is now the highest paid water-boy in the nation and i tell him to turn in his playbook (not really, but if im coach, i take over playcalling duties)

Didn't Mullen admit that he calls the plays, not Les?

If I'm Mullen, the first thing I do, other than starting J-Rob, is turn over the play calling duties.

 

[crushing]

I would call the same plays we did in the OSU game, because it wasn't the play calling it was the execution. At least, that is what Mullen thinks. He is probably not going to change a thing, in fact, as soon as TR gets over his injury, no matter if Dak beats Auburn like a drum, TR will be getting the starting role back. We will most likely do well against Alcorn, with the same plays we used against OSU, and Dan will think we are world beaters, and that we just happened to execute a lot better against Alcorn, and if we had played against OSU like that we would've won.

Was so excited about this year, but that first game has really brought me back to reality.

 

[Shamoan]

whoever is calling plays, the need to be relieved of duties. i just have a hard time believing a jump pass hasnt been called in 2 or 3 seasons if it is in-fact mullen. who knows though. how can les keep a title like offensive coordinator? mullen cant be offensive and sp coordinator or maybe he is and thats why both suck...

 

[archdog]

I would call the same plays we did in the OSU game, because it wasn't the play calling it was the execution. At least, that is what Mullen thinks. He is probably not going to change a thing, in fact, as soon as TR gets over his injury, no matter if Dak beats Auburn like a drum, TR will be getting the starting role back. We will most likely do well against Alcorn, with the same plays we used against OSU, and Dan will think we are world beaters, and that we just happened to execute a lot better against Alcorn, and if we had played against OSU like that we would've won.

Was so excited about this year, but that first game has really brought me back to reality.

It was the play calling. You have it wrong. It was the play calling not the plays. The plays could win the game, but when you use them in a manner that is completely predictable in every way. I could tell what we were running on about 75% of the plays. Called them out before the snap. Easy to defend when our play caller will not call a WR screen, RB Screen, hitch and go or a seam route. Also easy to defend when we run the same play on 2nd and 2 and 3rd and 4 after we lost a couple yards on 2nd down. I have been a Tyler fan since 2008, but its time to let someone else skin this cat.

 

[CadaverDawg]

I would practice running plays against OSU's defensive sets.....because that's what we will see from this point forward, especially after Mullen said "there were several plays we wanted to run that we run well, but the defense never got into the set we were looking for, so we never ran them". Just typing that makes me want to smash my head through a windshield

 

[IBleedMaroonDawg]

Run Twin TE sets with both JRob and Perkins in the backfield in a split/diamond tandem.
Option read run with counters mixed in.
Make TE's primary, RB secondary and WR third in progression reads. Never, ever, never throw the WR screen.
Actually throw a couple of deep sideline routes to keep the DBs somewhat honest. We never make DBs and Safeties play anything but run support first, pass second.
Tell Autry if he dives inside again on the option read his *** in on the bench for a quarter. That's DE 101 dude.
Tell our kicker he gets a full scholly to kick the ball between two posts and no more chip misses.

 

[crushing]

I agree with you Archdog. I was talking from Mullins point of view. It has been play calling for the last 2 years.

 

[121Josey]

Good question. I start scripting plays. Check last week's script for good and bad. State's offense sputtered when it ran out of script.

During the game, I'd have 4-5 scripts for the first half. Queue up the plays. Have Könning sit there and take notes on situations. Put together a game plan at the half.

I match QB/RB: LDP&Dak and JRob/TR. LDP needs to be moving toward open space and JRob can get his yards anywhere.
I play the Dak package between the 40s. That way if fails, we still win the field position.

 

[DirtyDog]

This has been an entertaining read - laughed out loud several times. Thought I would take a shot at adding to the nonsense. If I took over as head coach right now, I would:

1. Read the SixPack to glean the infinite wisdom of the football gods.
2. I would delete anything that Lettuce typed.
3. I would talk to Les about the play calling and review the scripts. Any slow *** hand offs to the short side of the field on 3rd and long get his *** fired. Any play action passes on 4th down get him fired.
4. We would script a pro set and I formation set of plays to complement our spread and call it the Enema Package. i would put Nick James' big *** at FB and tell him to hurt a LB on every play.
5. I would script some rub routes to free up the receivers and more slants for hot routes and double move routes to keep them honest when they start jumping the short routes.
4. Blocking - Everyone on the team sits through two days of nothing but fundamentals of blocking. I tell LDP that if he can't at least touch the blitzing personnel then he is on the bench. I bring in at least one tight end to help our tackles block any decent DE. I tell Hevesy that his *** is fired if I see us pulling people on third and short with 9 men in the box. I also tell him he is fired if any of my OL is facing backwards at the end of any play, and that if they are standing there looking confused (i.e. not even touching anyone) then the male cheerleaders can pluck his nose hairs.
5. I bench any WR that doesn't block downfield. Joe Morrow is replaced by D. Wilson instantly. I would also probably replace RoJo with either Ross or Chappelle. I would strongly consider playing LDP in the slot and J. Rob at RB.
6. I tell Jameon that if he doesn't field a punt on the 20 yard line again, then he's out.
7. I keep TR over Dak for now because he did NOT look better than TR in this game. I am not sure why everyone thinks he's great unless you abandon the pass for the run totally. If so, maybe we should go to the strict option. Dak missed alot of reads and made alot of poor throws or decisions on where to throw the ball. He will be the man soon, but not today.
8. Defensively, I blitz at least one player at least 75% of the time. We have no push and teams will eat us up front. We will not have a push up front without mixing things up.
9. I actually teach the DL how to play the option because, both DE's crashed inside on RBs that didn't prove they could run up the middle effectively. Denico was simply awful, but Preston did the same thing just fewer times. I give Ryan Brown and A.J. Jefferson tackling reps.
10. I move our two OLBs about 3-4 steps wider on anything that looks like a freakin diamond. What the hell were they doing bunched up inside like that for so long.
11. I pat all of our DBs on the head and remind them to take better angles.
12. I give a clinic on my LBs and safeties who will be blitzing on how to avoid contact from blockers rather than initiate it. They almost seem to run straight for the blocker and initiate the contact.
13. I also fire Bracky Brett and forget self imposed sanctions. Make the dumbass NCAA figure **** out on their own. They have proven that they have no credibility.
14. I monitor twitter during the game to see what the SixPack suggests for adjustments. Then I do WTF I want to anyway.
15. I don't pay the players, I pay NFL recruiters and television analysts under the table to talk about how 17'n awesome we are, even if we win 5 games.
16. I tell adidas that they hire ChillBilly or they are freakin fired too.
17. I hire the Phi Mu's and Chi O's to host every recruiting party on campus.
18. Then I sit back and drink beer, win 5-6 games with style and enjoy my millions before my *** gets terminated.

 

[Shamoan]

im confused....its either the playcalling or its not. you cant say its not the playcalling its the execution, then turn around and agree that playcalling is the problem.....well, i guess you COULD say that, but it wouldnt make any sense whatsoever.

 

[sldrboy2002]

"whoever is calling plays, the need to be relieved of duties. i just have a hard time believing a jump pass hasnt been called in 2 or 3 seasons if it is in-fact mullen. who knows though."

I don't believe it was a jump pass exactly with Dak last year, but he made about 2 or 3 TD pass's where he started to run and pulled up and threw the ball. Relf made I know of 2 jump passes while he was here in his career, so it has been used to some extent.

Me, I would tell Les he has the Auburn game to score at least 35 points or he is fired. I tell Collins he did an ok job, but I expect better defense on the option read from the defensive ends.