Review of the Coordinators

[SFbayCane]

For me, this bowl game was a chance to evaluate our staff's ability to prepare for a bowl game. I fell like I got what I needed to see.


Donofrio:
I wanted to see if he was going to have something fresh prepared; Some creative blitzes; Something. To my pleasant surprise I was rather impressed with the schemes dorito ran against Louisville. He had a few different blitz schemes and the team executed them well. That was the good.

As the game progressed it seemed that dorito was calling his blitzes in obvious blitz situations. Louisville's OC was constantly a step ahead. I can think of 3 times when we brought a blitz where UL had a screen called. (A couple other times Bridgewater made great plays) It just seemed that while dorito was calling a more agressive game, he doesnt seem comfortable with it. Its not who he is, so to speak.

Interestingly, after screaming my lungs out at my poor TV all season long wanting to see some different defensive schemes, it was the UVA game where dorito started running some more creative stuff. I cannot stop asking myself, "WHY UVA?" You break tendencies in big games (FSU, VA Tech, duke), why did he start changing his D at home against a 2-9 team in week 12? Again, its not who he is. He's a bend but dont break, joe pa protege. I do not believe he will never fit in with the type of kid we have at our disposal in south Florida.


Coach Coley:
We all knew that he was a project hire. He was brought in for recruiting purposes and he's paid some immediate dividends there. Throughout the season I could not get a feel for offense because you couldnt tell if the issue was morris or coach Coley. Truth be told Im still not sure, but...

In the bowl game I saw NOTHING from coach Coley that leads me to believe he can creatively develop an offense to attack a defense and consistently move the chains. Coley lieks to run the offense from the sideline. You'll notice he'll often run motion then have the team look to the sideline for an audible. Charlie Strong and his DC made one change, they didnt line up along the D line. You saw the UL front 7 walking along the line all evening. Coley was lost. He had no answer. He also had nothing different, no trick play, no gimmick, nothing. It was a bowl game!! 4 weeks and nothing new. Very concerning. If Al's gonna run with James Coley he would do well to have Coley get on the road this off-season and see if he can clinic with some NFL play callers.

All in all this bowl game was varsity versus JV matchup among the 4 coordinators in this game. UL's staff looked solid and well prepared. UM's looked completely outmatched by their job description.​

 

[Bennubird]

Fair assessment SFBayCane. As I said in another thread, we have Temple's HC, Temple's DC, and FIU's OC. When you think of it that way, the results are what you would expect them to be. It seems our only hope is that we can amass so much talent - credit to the staff for getting some really good kids to commit - that we can out talent teams and overcome our coaching deficiencies. Finally, and I've said this for a long time, Kehoe is a great Cane but a poor offensive line coach. We NEVER maximize what we have at that position. At best we shoot par with our offensive line play, and in the running game unless we have a once in a generation back behind them they look pretty average.

 

[jhtheking]

Fair assessment SFBayCane. As I said in another thread, we have Temple's HC, Temple's DC, and FIU's OC. When you think of it that way, the results are what you would expect them to be. It seems our only hope is that we can amass so much talent - credit to the staff for getting some really good kids to commit - that we can out talent teams and overcome our coaching deficiencies. Finally, and I've said this for a long time, Kehoe is a great Cane but a poor offensive line coach. We NEVER maximize what we have at that position. At best we shoot par with our offensive line play, and in the running game unless we have a once in a generation back behind them they look pretty average.

.. Terrible point. All coaches have to start somewhere.

/ the 49ers have the University of San Diego's HC

 

[Coach Macho]

Gotta be honest...

I just watched the whole 1st half. I rewatched every play at least twice and didn't really see any schematic issues on defense. Offense is another story.

I actually thought D'Onofrio called a decent game in the 1st half. Louisville just made plays. (i.e. the TD against Burns)

 

[JefeGringo]

Two things made the score look reasonably close. 1) Absurd penalties on Louisville 2) The defense actually playing half decent. Dont get me wrong, we are still awful in many, many respects but Teddy was on his game and they were on offense that made plays and took advantage of our, uh, "scheme", but we did play reasonably well.

However, how many 3 and outs does the defense have to watch before just saying, eff it, and throw in the towel? This pathetic showing is on Coley and Morris more than anyone. And I wanna meet the dumb**** willing to draft Morris before the 7th round. I really want to meet him/her. Ask them exactly how they got their job and stuff.

 

[weownfsu]

Not much to review with the coordinators when the team quit.

 

[fivecent]

I am glad someone finally wrote this. I wanted to write something similar, but I couldn't stomach having to re-watch the game to make sure my facts were straight. Coach D gave us what we wanted, more blitzes, the Dline showed up early on, and the kids were making tackles early on. But then the offense got on the field and eventually the wheels came off. Although Coley and Morris deserve some blame, the biggest problem all game long was the Oline. It was a close game for a while with the Oline playing horrible. If the the Oline had simply been average we might have been in the game. I doubt we would have won. Their coaches are better, their Qb is much better, and their team was better prepared.

"Charlie Strong and his DC made one change, they didnt line up along the D line. You saw the UL front 7 walking along the line all evening. Coley was lost. He had no answer."

What should have been the counter-move for that?

 

[stormsurge]

I believe A counter move is to line up and run the ball down their throats on a quick snap while they're doing the cha-cha-cha. If you we can't do that then we got way bigger problems than the Louisville Lambada.

 

[terdferguson]

I believe A counter move is to line up and run the ball down their throats on a quick snap while they're doing the cha-cha-cha. If you we can't do that then we got way bigger problems than the Louisville Lambada.

I thought the same thing. OL vs DL is all about leverage. There's a reason why the guys in the trenches get down in a 3 point stance. These lville dudes were standing up walking around! Fire off the ball and knock them on their asses.

 

[skyman]

I think u guys are giving Dorito too much credit just for blitzing, mind you I haven't watched the game again and without flash forward probably won't have the chance but I felt Dorito blitzed on a lot of early downs to stop the run by bringing a safety at snap, mind you Louisville isn't a great running team and Louisville adjusted by rolling out teddy and hitting someone in the flats for some big gains, also they pulled out their screen game. Dorito never adjusted or had a counter. He had one move and when it was recognized he justseem to stick with it and get burned.

Also on first couple drives teddy missed some td throws where they settled for fg. Once teddy settled in, it was a wrap. I guess with the low standards I should give credit to him for doing something the last 3 weeks, and the early down blitz did create to/points for team...

 

[2Focusd804]

I believe A counter move is to line up and run the ball down their throats on a quick snap while they're doing the cha-cha-cha. If you we can't do that then we got way bigger problems than the Louisville Lambada.

I thought the same thing. OL vs DL is all about leverage. There's a reason why the guys in the trenches get down in a 3 point stance. These lville dudes were standing up walking around! Fire off the ball and knock them on their asses.

yall do realize they were only lining up like that in obvious passing situations i.e. 3rd n long. plus thats not on Coley, thats on Kehoe. offensive line have to read their keys and block inside out. louisville was only sending 4 mayb 5 most of the time and was still getting there untouched. there was one 3rd down the we had clements lined up to the right of morris. Linder ended up double teaming with the center on 1 player(a mistake), sentreal blocked down, and the LB came off the edge free. the o line messed up but we still had the numbers (its no way clements would have blocked P. Brown 1 on 1 but thats a personnel problem not scheme problem, yet at the snap, Clements goes to help inside and eventually releases up the middle when no inside pressure came. Morris is then sacked by the LB who came free on the right side of the offense (where clements originally lined up) idk who's job it is to call the protection (Morris, Mcdermott, or Coley from the sideline) but the line (or blocking RB's) consistently slid away from the pressure. It was almost funny til u realized this is your team doing it.

 

[Jassid82]

The problem with donofrio is that when he does switch things up a little and does something out of the norm (like that DBush blitz) and the opposing OC counters it, he's like a **** deer in headlights! It's like he didn't expect the OC to adjust and then our D is screwed. Among other things, he is the worst in game adjuster I have ever seen in the O&G.

It's hard to fault Coley too much when ur 3rd WR is Malcolm Lewis and ur backup RB is a guy who should have redshirted. Think about this..he had no Duke, no Dorsett, no Waters, and no Scott at his disposal. Could u imagine if Dnofrio had to gameplan without having perryman, porter, Howard, and chick? We are NO WHERE NEAR that good on offense yet to be missing 4 playmakers.

I'm willing to give Coley a pass until he gets to start working with a QB he hand picked. Morris isn't his guy.

 

[terdferguson]

I believe A counter move is to line up and run the ball down their throats on a quick snap while they're doing the cha-cha-cha. If you we can't do that then we got way bigger problems than the Louisville Lambada.

I thought the same thing. OL vs DL is all about leverage. There's a reason why the guys in the trenches get down in a 3 point stance. These lville dudes were standing up walking around! Fire off the ball and knock them on their asses.

yall do realize they were only lining up like that in obvious passing situations i.e. 3rd n long. plus thats not on Coley, thats on Kehoe. offensive line have to read their keys and block inside out. louisville was only sending 4 mayb 5 most of the time and was still getting there untouched. there was one 3rd down the we had clements lined up to the right of morris. Linder ended up double teaming with the center on 1 player(a mistake), sentreal blocked down, and the LB came off the edge free. the o line messed up but we still had the numbers (its no way clements would have blocked P. Brown 1 on 1 but thats a personnel problem not scheme problem, yet at the snap, Clements goes to help inside and eventually releases up the middle when no inside pressure came. Morris is then sacked by the LB who came free on the right side of the offense (where clements originally lined up) idk who's job it is to call the protection (Morris, Mcdermott, or Coley from the sideline) but the line (or blocking RB's) consistently slid away from the pressure. It was almost funny til u realized this is your team doing it.

you're right, I couldn't remember if they were only doing it on obvious passing downs.

 

[skyman]

The problem with donofrio is that when he does switch things up a little and does something out of the norm (like that DBush blitz) and the opposing OC counters it, he's like a **** deer in headlights! It's like he didn't expect the OC to adjust and then our D is screwed. Among other things, he is the worst in game adjuster I have ever seen in the O&G.

It's hard to fault Coley too much when ur 3rd WR is Malcolm Lewis and ur backup RB is a guy who should have redshirted. Think about this..he had no Duke, no Dorsett, no Waters, and no Scott at his disposal. Could u imagine if Dnofrio had to gameplan without having perryman, porter, Howard, and chick? We are NO WHERE NEAR that good on offense yet to be missing 4 playmakers.

I'm willing to give Coley a pass until he gets to start working with a QB he hand picked. Morris isn't his guy.

One thing that gets overlooked is that UL is a great defensive team, I mentioned in the prediction thread that all the 30+ point predictions seemed off because UL had a good defense and it was dismissed as they played nobody. I think many underestimated Strong and his group. They were prepared and our offense while also missing weapons has struggled WITH those same guys in the last 2 years against a legit D.

If I remember correctly, UL is one of two teams to have its defense in top 10 of all major defensive categories. Thats impressive and I know you can still move the ball on any defense but again, strong had those guys ready

 

[MIA42178]

The words "decent" and/or "good" should NEVER be used to describe a defense that gives up over 560 yards

 

[Jassid82]

Skyman, hard for me to rebuttal that. I cant say with a straight face that if we were at full strength on offense that the outcome would have been any different. (shrugs)

I think most of us forgot how good of a DC Charlie Strong was and is. (I know I did.) Buddy was one of the top 5 DCs in the country when he was at FLA. He gave me a harsh reminder on Sat night thats for **** sure.

 

[NVA CANE]

Lulz at giving kudos to Dorito. He couldn't force a single punt the first half. Doing things differently means nothing if it doesn't have positive results. The safety was the only positive that came out of his whole scheme.

He had 3 weeks to prepare and you're going to pat him on the back for blitzing a little more? Did the defense ever give the offense good field position? How many punts did we force (one ******* punt all game)?

You guys are letting Golden and Dorito lower your expectations.

 

[canesman]

Coley gets a pass.

He had one play maker on offense to work with.

Stephen Morris is the exact opposite of what you want in a QB. No leadership ability....no toughness.....no brains.

Dallas Crawford is about as average as it gets for a UM RB. Gus Edwards was not ready for prim time. Clements career was all but over due to the neck injury. Worst group of RB's we have had in 15 years without Duke.

You have Coley at WR who is a superstar but still a true freshman. We win 7 games without him.

Hurns was not healthy. Dorsett a non factor....Rayshawn Scott is a complete goon.....Malcom Lewis is not recovered........Damauri Jones who?

Walford is ok. Cleveland is a soft JAG....who knows with Sandland.

Offense had no shot.

 

[DaU83]

Donof is still handicapped by the talent up front.. but running the ball in to 8 man fronts, consistently, throughout the year, is on coley

 

[Pennmed Canefan]

There are only two positive scenarios with the DC position. One is that Golden will fire Dono. I think that's most likely moreso due to circumstance than whatever Golden actually believes. If he was certain on Dono coming back, I think he would've told us by now. The second is that Dono has set his entire defense up based on the premise that he didn't *yet* have the talent to be more aggressive. Thus he came into the season planning bend but not break and aiming toward turnovers, red zone, and third down. When it worked, fine. When it didn't, problems. This is not implausible.

Coley I ended up ok with. Even with Fisch we know that Morris is a QB who is not good throwing into coverage, and he's not going to shine against athletic defenses if they control our front (eg UL). He's really played well against exactly one team that controlled our run game--NCSU last year, and they committed a lot of guys. Once we lost Duke, we were really dead. We lost an adequate back, and that really hurt Morris because guys didn't need to commit against our run anymore. You could see that both he and Coley struggled after that, and we became reliant on occasional big plays often borne out of little quick screens. I still have significant concerns about Coley's ability to develop the QB position. But, given the hand he was dealt, he gets more of an incomplete than a failing grade. I don't put the bowl game on him--bad matchup and a team that packed it in quickly.