So seeing the recent recruiting pickup of the 3-star twins got me to thinking. This was JHam's first season as DC. We got Tapp on staff and Teerlinck who came from the NFL. The hypothetical is we replace the HC and offensive staff. I remember when JHam was announced, how many previous players came out of the woodwork in support of him and that decision. I like having previous players on staff, and I thought I remember reading that JHam was well regarded by the defensive players as a coach. I know we didn't do great on D this year, but had what seemed like the overwhelming amount of challenges on the defensive side. Also, probably didn't have the guys they wanted or needed for a new scheme. All that being said, would you guys want to keep the defensive staff intact if it was possible? If so, what changes would you like to see, either in staffing, recruiting (our highest rated recruit was on defense, and I know in general, more stars), or whatever? Just curious as to what everyone's thoughts are. I know French has had his reviews of game performance, but, like I said, some of those our defense was hit hard by COVID, didn't get a lot of chance to practice together, etc. so not sure we've really seen what the coaching staff and players are really capable of (especially if the staff wants different characteristics in players to accomplish their vision for how they want the D to operate.
Thoughts on the D
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You know, it's been a long couple of months. And I just giggled way too much at this title.
I totally missed that when I made the title, but cracked up when you pointed it out - thanks for the laugh!
We did DiSC assessments done last year, and one of our admins said in a meeting a few weeks later, "I'm not trying to be pushy, but clearly we need to do better. Maybe it's the little D in me, but we can't help... Why is everyone laughing?"
When you're done laughing, bless this poor woman's heart. Last year she broke her femur, and during a post op, they found a cancerous tumor in her leg. She's been a trooper.
Hopefully breaking her leg helped catch the cancer before it got too bad!
I took part of it a couple of construction projects ago. As a project super I was overwhelming D, much more so than anyone else. Hence the nickname from my Coast Guard rep, "Hey Big D!".
We need linebackers and linemen. I'm not worried about our secondary. If we change coaches, I'd like to see JHam stay. But we gotta recruit and coach better up front.
From a lot of the stuff French has said, it sounds like Teerlinck needs different linemen than what was on the roster to really accomplish what he does, so knowing we didn't do well on the line (well, we did at times, I think especially early in the season) makes me think we could do a lot better with different guys without a coaching change. I don't know much about Claeys, but definitely we need to get more out of the LB position.
My thought on this is that a good coach will adapt to the personnel he actually has to get the most out of the unit. To me, a coach that stubbornly sticks to some sort of preferred template without adapting it to what he has is a limited, one-dimensional coach. Not saying they haven't made any adjustments and I am not anti- any of our D coaches, just making a counterpoint.
A few things really worry me about Hamilton.
First of all, basically everything good we heard about him before this year was more intangible about him being a young and energetic recruiter/people person who was extremely valuable to a staff that was weak in recruiting - not really a whole lot about his actual coaching ability. Maybe those qualities are all there but they certainly didn't translate to better recruiting nor to good performance on the field from the players already here. Ironically ive seen a few people suggest he'd make a better HC than DC and considering how the Fuente era turned out and what we've subsequently learned about the differences in what qualities are important between a HC and a coordinator, I can't say I totally disagree with that.
I don't pretend to review film or anything but I also find it pretty troubling that Hamilton apparently tried to make any kind of drastic changes to the defensive scheme this year - I'm not saying he needed to just be a puppet of Bud his entire career but I think it was obvious that with this much returning "talent" continuity would be key - the bigger, sweeping changes to shape the defense more into his image should have been made in a subsequent year. If he was an outsider coming in and implementing his scheme that would be one thing but he was literally on Bud's staff, it shouldn't have been hard to keep things mostly the same from where they were last year and just make a few tweaks where improvement could be made. Instead we've just seen guys floundering and out of position all year. On top of that, you have glaring coaching mistakes like the alignment at the end of the Liberty game, you have former LPD players on twitter openly shitting on his scheme during the Pitt game, you have the NC State game where he didn't coach and we had probably by far our beat defensive performance of the season with a million players out - really as I type this whole post out I'm struggling to come up with anything positive to say about Hamilton and co. since he got the job.
It was easy to just trust "Bud's seal of approval" on this, and I definitely don't think only one covid-wrecked year is a fair showing of their capabilities, but at this point I think the idea of this "home-grown" defensive staff is a lot better than the actual implementation of it. I don't think they're THE problem with the football program, and if a new coach came in and wanted to keep some of them around I wouldn't totally question it, but I really haven't seen anything yet to convince me they're some hidden gem that needs to be preserved either - if a new coach came in and cut them all loose immediately I wouldn't bat an eye.
This would have been impossible to do with a new staff. Bud's scheme was extremely unique. And even though J'Ham and Tapp played in that scheme, it has been a long time since they've been around it. Had we taken this route, I suspect the defense would be at least as bad as it is, maybe worse. Add to that we'd be a full year behind where we already are now. There are no guarantees of Spring practice this year, so I think it's helpful to view this season as our "Spring Ball" for the 2020 and the 2021 seasons.
I think Hamilton will become a very good DC if given the chance, but he had a couple things go against him this year, mainly loss of practice time. The other big issues are lack of athletic LBs and beefcake DTs.
He has shown adjustments through the year to help hide our deficiencies, but lack of personal, and practice time has really hurt.
Even if Bud was still DC i think we'd be hurting with losing 3/4 of our starting DBs before the season (Waller did played one game). Teams with good QBs would throw over the top of Buds defense this year. It would look like the ECU game in 2014.
It's the Jimmie's and the Joe's, not the x's and o's...just saying.
A stout D is very important
Its just so damn cold in the D
This is gonna be back in my head all day today.
Folks are saying Fuente is out of his league- Jham has much less experience- The product is abysmal- you can come up with all the reasons (excuses) you want, but the end product is what matters. New coach brings in an entirely new staff. Redo all over.
Just my humble opinion, but JHam and the defense had no spring, no fall, and JHam was even out for a while with the virus. Then, during the season, they've had game weeks whole positions were not available. It's pretty obvious why the D has underwhelmed. JHam and the defense get a mulligan for this season from me.
As for CoachFu, I'm forming the opinion that he's a good coach, good heart, but seems to have trouble relating and connecting to people. Maybe that's also the case with others on the staff like Corny, birds of a feather and all. The lockdown around the program, the recruiting drop - it all indicates a guy that doesn't like to deal with people in a fun, extraverted, engaging fashion. Even the pressers getting worse, it shows a guy that's mentally exhausted, and that exhaustion is impacting performance of him and his staff, like it would everyone else. I relate to it, I'm like that too.
But it also probably ain't good for headcoach trying to engage and connect with guy's to come play for his program to be someone that doesn't relate and connect well to others easily. I've thought all along this season would be an exhibition and a mulligan. I didn't think there was gonna be a season in August, actually. There just isn't a way for all teams to consistently practice and be ready to perform with the COVID impacts. We were always going to see inconsistency and guys pulling their hair out and frazzled coaches basically saying "i'm out of my element here, I'm a coach, I don't know how to do this when I keep having scores of staff and players not available."
If they get rid of Coach Fu, okay, I won't be heart broken. The guy rides away with a suitcase full of cash. The assistants make more than I'll ever come to close to as well, and they'll all land somewhere and be fine. However, if we give Coach Fu and JHam another year, I'd be on board with that because I don't think we've really seen what this team could have done in a regular year. Not at all.
I will say, I'd like to see VT raise the bar in terms of interaction with the public, be more open to the press and fans, be more engaging overall. If CoachFu isn't involved much, that's fine, but to improve recruiting, image has to be improved and you can't do that by ignoring and pushing away the press and the fans.
I think your last thought/para is the most important thing, and I unfortunately don't believe that can occur with Fuente. People cannot change who they are, and he is not a charismatic individual. My company touts "inspiring leadership" as something that is critical to excelling in our industry, and I think that translates well to CFB. Fuente is not an inspiring leader imo, and he's at the top of the totem pole, I don't believe you can overcome that by surrounding him with successful individuals. Its not like ANYONE from his staff is allowed to interact with the media or fans, only he is. To date he has not provided much inspiration.
I posted this in the Liberty vent thread. After the FG timeout fiasco, JHam called an alignment that gave Liberty a 15 yard cushion on 4th & 6. That is not the result of missing spring camp, fall camp, or time out due to covid.
I'm down with the sentiment in this - I'm ok if they give him another year given the circumstances. That said, it will take some incredible coaching to turn this thing around given the recent recruiting. Maybe he can pull it off.
I'm not.
We knew the defense was going to be bad this year even before all the COVID stuff. So with the COVID stuff the defense absolutely gets a pass IMO.
But that doesn't absolve Fu for earlier transgressions. The offense has taken too long to get here and even now that it's a little bit good it's still pretty one dimensional. It looked great early in the year but it relies way too heavily on the running game and now that teams are selling out to stop the run we haven't shown that we can beat them through the air. That is not a good sign for a coach who is supposed to be an offensive minded coach in his 5th year. Our 3rd down conversion rate is absolute garbage (probably not helped by running QB draw 90%* of the time we get to 3rd down) And that's without looking at the recruiting trends, which are not good. Player development outside of the OLine is questionable at best, and the attrition rate is far too high to be successful. The two best players this team has had on offense under this staff are transfers (Evans, Herbert) who were great when they arrived. Hooker, who has been in the system for three or four years, (I've lost track) hasn't shown any sort of development. He's not going to beat teams with his arm and I don't see any area where he's significantly better than his first start. This offense was a paper tiger at the beginning of the year and now that teams know that we can't throw the ball they're able to stop us by making us one-dimensional. If that is where we are in year 5 how can anyone expect this offense to get any better moving forward?
Fuente needs to be fired yesterday. I am NOT okay with keeping him around "because COVID"....this year was going to be rough no matter what. COVID probably exacerbated issues (particularly on defense) but the way this offense has (not) showed up is pretty disappointing and telling of what we're going to get with this coaching staff. And it's simply not good enough. Cut our losses and move in a new direction.
*this stat is TIC, not actual
I've said it before but I'll say it again.
I think it is incredibly important that Whit give the next HC free reign to build out his complete coaching staff, no strings attached. If the new coach wants to interview JHam for the job and deems him to be the best candidate then that is fine by me but I absolutely do not want the next HC to be forced into keeping certain coaches just because we like them.
I really think we need to move on from Fuente in a couple of weeks (we'll see if that happens) and I really believe that one of Fuente's big failures was not recognizing that Cornelson was holding the offense back. Had Fuente decided to fire Corny and hire a competent coach after the 2018 season he may have saved his job here. In any case, as bad as the defense has been this year it's really tough to blame that unit considering all they've been through. I think JHam got dealt a pretty bad hand and, unfortunately for him, the lack of our offense's ability to carry the team despite the defense being a real liability might cost him his job.
If Fuente goes, I think the whole staff will (and probably should) go. I want the next HC to have the flexibility to build out the staff in his vision because I think that is critically important for the foundation he'll be setting. In retrospect, it may have been a mistake to hire Fuente on the condition that he retain Foster because Fuente put all his eggs in the offensive basket (clearly to the detriment of the defense) and we see where that has landed us. Let's not do that again.
This
Agreed, I would love for the new HC to look at the defense and their coaches and talk to them about the shortcomings. Find out their plans for improvement and let them interview to keep their jobs and try to get a year two.
I wasn't by any means suggesting forcing a new HC to keep them. I basically meant if a new HC thought they could build a good D and WANTED to keep the defensive staff on board, would everyone on here agree with that or would you guys rather see changes.
I don't have an issue with it. If the new coach wants to hire them I would support that
There was no condition that he had to keep Foster. That was Fuente's choice.
Ostensibly
Also it would be nice if Whit doesn't eliminate roughly half of the candidate pool by declaring "we are hiring an offensive minded coach" like he did last time. Why limit yourself? Nick Saban is a defensive minded coach. So is Kirby Smart. So are many others. Whit needs a more open minded search now, IMO.
JHAM or No JHAM, our defensive players bounce off Liberty and Pitt players like ping pong balls. It's pathetic. Can't tackle, can't get off blocks, etc. So as long as the crony goon strength coach is here and the head coach that can't close on defensive talent is here, JHAM is just window dressing.
Harsh but true. Verdict is still out on JHam. But this defensive roster is clearly limited. When I can visibly notice that Ashby and Dax are making the right reads, but get outrun to the hole because they are too slow, there is a personnel problem. When defensive linemen get tossed by bad offensive lines, there is a personnel problem. The secondary has actually not been as tragic considering we are rolling two and three deep. Get players. We are a few years out for whoever is coaching the defense.
Exactly. The jury may still be out on JHam, but the verdict is in on recruiting and Hilgart's program. Both are severely lacking. We have been severely lacking in strength and size for years now even before COVID ruined the last offseason.
Any D big or small that stops pitt from putting more than 40 on us works for me...
Thoughts:
No head coach will want to come here without bringing his own staff.
If Hamilton, Tapp, and Teerlick have to go.....then they gotta go. Yes, its shitty for them.
I'll leave it that....won't post anything further on CJF because its beating a dead horse.
My answer came in the liberty game after the blocked FG that wasn't...4th and 6 and they play 20 yards off the ball for the end zone when a FG was still on the table. He may be good eventually, but this year he was over his head. The 2020 defense is as tough as tissue paper also and that should reflect on the person running the defense.