An interesting piece on Grantland about TCU's Gary Patterson:
http://grantland.com/the-triangle/tcu-horned-frogs-offensive-revolution-...
All I could think about while reading it is: is there a world out there where you can replace Patterson's name every time it's mentioned in this story with Frank Beamer's? What would that look like?
I think it says a lot that a defensive-minded guy like Patterson (with much the same resume as Beamer, former defensive player, coaching lifer, etc.) could take a cold-eyed evaluation of his old system of ball control and running offenses and realize it's not enough.
Granted, life in the Big 12 is a far cry from the ACC, but is it crazy to wonder if change is possible?
I've seen plenty of people out there wondering if it's Beamer's insistence on pounding the rock that's holding Loeffler back from getting fully creative. I kind of doubt that's entirely accurate (why hire Loeffler, if that's true?) but it's clear he knows what he likes.
What's to stop an old dog from learning new tricks? I'd kind of like to find out.
Comments
It's not my cup of tea, but if it's what works, it's what works. I think the most important thing to do is to make a commitment to a system. Say "This is who we are, and this is what we do." I'm not sure Virginia Tech has that right now.
Hi Steve! Thanks for the ass kicking this weekend. Seeing that you ran all over us, could you please provide some insight on how to fix our running game?
I've provided a gif of our running game to give some perspective.....
Thanks again!
Do you ever see Frank: 1) scoring 80; and/or 2) being disappoint he had to settle for field goals on 4 of 14 red zone drives?
I don't.
Even if he had the offenses to score 80, he would call off the dogs around 40-50 points to show respect to the opposing coach.
This is why that whole "as long as we have a good kicker...." nonsense infuriates me. It's obvious he's *happy* to eat up clock, drive down the field only to stall out in the red zone and have to kick a field goal. THAT'S NOT HOW YOU WIN FOOTBALL GAMES! Not anymore. Maybe in 80s or 90s it was.
Well he's the special teams coach so I think that's how that statement is related
Drives me nuts as well. Same thing with the good Qb remark as well. Well you aren't going to have a good QB or even RB without a good offensive line, which we lack right now.
I saw him score 77 one day. We had 49 right before half and he decided to not kick an easy FG.
Some of this sounds strikingly familiar:
At times in 2013, the offense seemed to slip into hibernation for entire quarters. At other times, it seemed intent on shooting itself in the foot. In the season finale, a 41-38 loss to Baylor, the offense undermined an otherwise encouraging effort against the eventual Big 12 champ by committing four turnovers, two of which were returned directly for Baylor touchdowns; another giveaway set up the Bears offense for an easy score at the TCU 1-yard line. After that game, Patterson angrily lectured his Baylor counterpart, Art Briles, on class, ostensibly because a Baylor player who had been ejected on a targeting penalty had been allowed to remain on the sideline briefly before leaving.3 But in the heat of the moment, there was no way to separate Pattersons anger at Baylor from his frustration with his own team.
I also wonder if an air-raid offense would actually help a light-weight, fast and athletic defense such as we have now.
If our players continue to be poor at executing the basics on game day, particularly our OL, it doesn't matter what offensive philosophy we use.
You've won, sir. Congratulations.
Stay on the line while we get your info.
that's on the coaches, though. put the players in a position to succeed. Understand your personnel and if something's not working in games, find something in practice that they do well and repeat over and over again until they get it right. Coaches blaming poor execution on players is a cop out...especially when the same thing happens with different players year after year.
I think it's important to point out that the "the basics" can change based on what your offensive philosophy is. Last year under Grimes our OL had success using almost exclusively zone blocking. This year under Searels, we've gone back to the blend of man and zone blocking schemes that can change from play-to-play. IIRC, that's similar to the scheme our OLs struggled to execute under Newsome.
It seems to me that the change in scheme (or coaching) could easily be the cause of our struggles with execution, especially considering we returned 4 of 5 o-lineman from last season and they seemingly had far less issues executing the previous blocking scheme.
The Beauty of the Air Raid Offense is that it's really only a handful of plays. You run the same plays over and over and over again from multiple formations. In practice you drill the same plays over and over again. It is very quick to implement and its simplicity cuts down on mental errors. Thats how a team can go from 108 to 1 in offense in half a year using it.
excellent point and excellent name/avatar!
If we were to score 50 points a game (like TCU is this year) somehow I think our defense would make do
If we scored 80 in a game I would probably have a heart attack. Then I would come back, pee my pants and giggle like a school girl.
And people wonder why Bud Foster says if and when he gets a chance to coach he'll run a spread up tempo offense...
BECAUSE IT $%#$ING WORKS! We've seen it work for us. But nope, can't have that! Slow it down, eat up clock, kick field goals.
aka B1G football.
Except when you actually should kick the field you go for it on 4th and goal with an obvious running play.
Is it possible to punt on fourth and goal?
It really is all about field position.
Of course. When it's 4th and goal and you're out of field goal range due to penalties.
You mean like Nebraska against us in 2009?
Sure. It's hilarious when it is someone else.
Unfortunately it hasn't been someone else for a long time now...it ALWAYS seems to be us nowadays...
Yeah, I was referring to us.
Read this piece yesterday and thought the exact same thing. It would be something to see. Boykin, their QB, also looks vastly improved, which is likely a result of the new system. Imagine running a system that brought out the best in the players you have. I never thought Beamer came close to getting Tyrod to his full potential, especially with all that talent around him. It would certainly surprise me if our offense was overhauled this late in Beamer's career, but crazier things have happened.
The thing that impressed me most about this article was that , success with these changes in offensive scheme & philosophy came so rapidly . Not that Patterson was willing to implement them. Going from 108 ranked offense to 1st in one year is very impressive. TCU we envy you. Shows,turnaround can be accomplished quickly, with good coaching & recruiting.
No, that's impossible! You have to have at least 4 recruiting cycles before you have the players to fit a different system. Until then, your offense is supposed to be a complete dumpster fire.
My mistake. Agree with your statement.
I would have sworn this response was copied from some posters in another thread.
Love the optimism, but realistically, the answer is "No." My evidence, Bryan Stinespring's longevity as our OC for years and years before being demoted.
I want to see us do it mainly because it plays to our strengths and downplays our weaknesses.
You go up tempo, you're trying to get plays off quick. You're relying on defenses to beat you by reacting almost immediately at the snap every play. One step drop, immediate pass on a slant route, or a WR screen. Once you get them guessing, then you hit em up the middle with a run. And you keep going, quick as a whistle without a huddle. You don't let the defense catch a break, you don't let them catch their breath, and suddenly, you're working from a position of strength. And this works even with a struggling or sub-par OL. Look at the Eagles, who are sitting at 5-2 with their last loss to Arizona in a game Foles did his best to throw away, and they've been down 2 of their OLmen for a majority of the season.
Our strengths are at the skill positions. We go to a hurry up offense and we are playing right into our strengths. You're now getting the ball to our best players as quickly as you can, eliminating the mismatches in the trenches and asking the defense to stop our best players in quick reaction 1 on 1 plays where we know whats coming and they don't. You give me Ford, Phillips, Shai, Marshawn, Malleck, Cline, Bucky, etc in those situations and I'll take that any day of the week. Why we insist on slowing down the games with the skill threats we have... its so backwards from the modern day football its frustrating.
I agree with you here, assuming we have a healthy quarterback able to execute it effectively.
You guys realize that Gary Patterson is 54?
Frank Beamer was 54 the season VT played for the National Championship.
Frank was still somewhat innovative back then
if by innovative you mean blowing 4th down calls and specials teams gaffs, then yes. i kid but seriously, it's a VT [read: Beamer] mainstay. Ugh.
That's a nice reminder why Frank was innovative in special teams back then, but not any more since teaching the other coaches his secrets for ST success at the time, and not evolving with the times.
What Frank was doing with ST 20 years ago is basically what these air raid/tempo guys are doing now - exploiting an inefficiency in the marketplace.
Let's just hope it doesn't take us 20 years to figure out the Up-Tempo offense is the way to go in College Football!
Another thing I just thought of- all the athletes that we have on our roster than can't find a spot in the team ie Caleb, Newsome, Knowles ect ect. imagine how they could fit in an up-tempo offense.
Imagine an offensive coordinator who can go from 108 to 1st with players that weren't recruited for his system.
Imagine having a head coach that actually allows an offensive philosophy to change
Do we know for a fact that CB will not allow the philosophy to change, or that he did not think it was working so changed it back, or even that SL changed it because he thought it was not working with the personal available?
This, by the way, is not meant to be argumentative, just a question after reading many posts that said he (CB) was unwilling to change, but never seeing anything that substantiated that reasoning.
There's a decent amount of evidence to come to that conclusion. For some this is sufficient, for others it's not.
I constantly have to remind myself that every time I blame Frank for the offensive struggles, I never give him credit for the year-in/year-out success of the D.
It has to go both ways, right?
It's my understanding that Foster has always been given complete control & autonomy over the defense . This may explain why it has been so successful. This defense has been a crutch & has propped up the offensive coaches & head coach for years.
Loeffler doesn't even know his own personal philosophy. Besides subbing out his receiving corps. He believes in that. Line change!
when your O-line is the quality of a HS team you have to try different packages and hope to confuse the defense because we all know we can't block 2 consecutive plays properly.
http://grantland.com/features/mike-leach-connor-halliday-washington-stat...
Will never happen, but would be cool to see Mike Leach or an offensive mind like him in maroon and orange with a Bud Foster run defense. Bud Foster likes the spread up tempo...
With Leach, though, QBs have a lot of freedom..gotta make good choices
When Leach got canned at Texas Tech, I so wanted him to come here to be the OC.
If anyone is curious, here's the rankings this year for time of possession: top
TCU is labeled as "TX Christian". Most of the obvious examples are right where you'd expect: LSU, Alabama, Michigan St. and Wisconsin are all top-15, Oregon and UNC are bottom 15. TCU is almost right at 30:00. From an eye test, it seems like the better defensive teams tend to have the ball longer (shocker) but correlation and causation are funny things
TCU is ranked 11th in Defensive FEI and 20th in Defensive S&P+, FWIW.
mhm this is a very very interesting tweet.
Smart move. He doesn't want any controversy. Come out at the end of the season with a unified message with the coaches. It's the ADs who make generic statements about mid-season or constant evaluations that do more to harm a program than anything, I think.
yup.. extremely smart move. If he backs Beamer 100% and we go win-less (gasp the horror) then he will have to do a ton of backtracking if he wants to look for a new coach.
Let the Season play out and meet with coaching staff as a whole/individual and go from there. I do think somethings could be changing and as early as this off season. Don't get the feeling from Whit/HokieNation that he/we want to have another mediocre year especially with the talent we have coming in/already have.
I would not be surprised if there was a strict delegation of duties going forward, mandated by Whit.
Yes, I know he's said he doesn't want to do anything with VT football and that Frank Beamer is an icon. But at the same time, as an Athletic Director, he can't sit back and allow his cash cow to wither and die without trying to do anything to pump some life back into it. Right now we're in danger of missing a bowl for the first time in 22 years during a 3 year downturn that has seen the program get worse every year despite changes being made on the surface. The stadium isn't selling out, the fans are leaving early, and our play is relegating us to a series of noon games on regional sports networks, which is putting a strain on the economy of downtown Blacksburg. All this while we just gave out a high paying contract to bring in a top coach to turn our basketball program around.
Financially, we're tanking at the worst possible time.
Before folks jump to any conclusions from that, that stance is consistent with what he stated when he was first hired. At that point, the questions concerned the basketball season.
Whit stated that it has always been his policy to wait until a season is completed, then shortly afterwards get together with the coaches and do a year end review. Only after that review is completed and he has time to absorb it, does he make public comments on the season.
Of course, he is supportive publicly in good times, but in the tough times he refuses to make public comments. I can't think of a more prudent way to handle the situation. Very classy, very deliberate, and completely appropriate.
Step 1: Hire Chad Morris
As OC and Head Coach in Waiting. If Leoffler is willing to stay on as QB Coach, good.
Step 2: Retain Bud Foster. Dangle a chance to win a National Championship to top his stellar career as a top DC.
I agree 100%. I'm a huge Chad Morris fan. I think he would be a great HC at VT.
This is what is so frustrating when people say it takes a long time to turn around an offense. No it doesn't. Case in point right here. It just takes good players and highly skilled coaching.
Case in point: Auburn 2010
You know what would be interesting would be to see what this offense looked like with an above average quarterback. If Andrew Ford or Chris Durkin come in next year and prove to be strong accurate quarterbacks I think we may be surprised what the offense actually looks like.
When you throw as many interceptions as this year and last and you have difficulty with your run game I don't think it really even counts as an offensive scheme. We've seen innovation and impressive design from Beamer & Loeffler, we are just a complete mess right now.
So Loeffler may need a better QB coach for his offense to work.
Gary Patterson has a good decade and a half left in his career. Frank has, realistically, a few years. This simply isn't the kind of move a man like Frank Beamer makes with a few years left in his career, it's not his way.
If he was going to make that radical of a philosophy shift, he would have done it a decade ago. Instead, he promoted Bryan Stinespring.
If he's only got a few years left, doesn't this make it the perfect time to try such a radical change? If, realistically, he'll only coach through the end of his current contract, isn't this the best time pull out all the stops and do something special before he hands the program off?
It's easy to point to Stinespring keeping his job for so long as proof of Frank's stubbornness, but hiring Loeffler was a bit of an out of the box move for him. Loeffler was a risk, and a guy that's run some offenses that may be run-heavy, but look nothing like what he's accustomed to.
I don't think a change like this requires a new OC necessarily, because there's plenty Loeffler's done that I like. We've seen that the up tempo concepts are there. The guy learned plenty from Urban Meyer (I'd hope) in his days at UF. This wouldn't be a super radical change, just as Patterson retained much of his old staff and just tweaked the philosophy.
Do I think it will happen? No. But I really would love to see some sort of initiative to try something, anything new for the sake of him going out with a bang instead of a whimper.
Your last paragraph says it all. We both know it's not going to happen. It's not his way. It's just not who he is.
Except that every single iota of Frank's life has proven that he is the exact opposite of what you hope for. Frank's entire football career has been one that ignored any facet of offensive football innovation. There is zero evidence he would embrace that and every evidence he would oppose that. Just look at this season, for example. How many times has he trotted out his boy to talk junk about contemporary offensive strategy, while pushing for the Jerry Claiborne 1960's mantra - run, run, run philosophy?
More like, "Can Gary Patterson become Frank Beamer."...most active wins in the country and seven conference championships somehow gets pushed to the wayside, makes no sense to me
did you read past the post title?
I read the article like Floyd Mayweather read a page in Harry Potter
I kind of agree. Although for the sake of this post, I will ask, "Can Frank Beamer become Bill Snyder?"
Remain relevant and competitive well beyond the average college football head coach's typical expiration date.
Because its more about what have you done for me now? <-- That's the attitude in College Football.. No one cares about 7 conference championships and most active wins in the country when the performance the last 2 years have been piss poor.
If we're 6-2 then everything is well and dandy, however we're 4-4 and have yet to show up to a game other than OSU.
Look at what happened to Bobby Bowden.. 5-3 in conference and 4-4 in conference doesn't sit well with anyone. Looks eerily similar to our ACC record the past 2-3 years..
Bowden
2008 Florida State OVR 9-4 CONF 5-3 T1st BC went to ACCCG (Atlantic)
2009 Florida State OVR 7-6 CONF 4-4 3rd (Atlantic)W Gator
Beamer
2012 Virginia Tech OVR 7-6 CONF 4-4 4th (Coastal)W Russell Athletic
2013 Virginia Tech OVR 8-5 CONF 5-3 T2nd (Coastal)L Sun
2014 Virginia Tech OVR 4-4 CONF 1-3(Coastal)
Not saying Beamer should be gone 100% just going off of past Legendary coaches and their last few years.
I was actually thinking about this one last night and a couple things stood out.
First, time of possession may be the most overrated stat in all of football. Yes, it's big if you're using all the time possessing the ball to actually score points, but just holding onto the ball means little to nothing. Virginia Tech has been in the top 20 in TOP both last year and all of this season. The Hokies record over that span is 12-9.
On the notion that it takes years to turn around an offense, TCU is the perfect example that shatters the notion. Admittedly, every situation is different - and I don't know as much about TCU's situation as a do Virginia Tech's, but the Horned Frogs have made tremendous strides this season after switching coordinators.
Not completely throwing Loeffler, Beamer or anyone else under the buss here - and again, every situation is different - but TCU proves the idea that you can't turn an offense around in one year is false.
Time of Possession used to be a good enough statistic, it correlates decently to certain things. But we have much, much better statistics now by which to evaluate offenses.
It's like batting average in baseball, it used to be useful, now it' just...fine.
Or +/- in hockey which used to be fine and now is an indicator of someone who doesn't know a lot about hockey if they use it to make almost any point beyond what a horrible and meaningless stat +/- is... :)
There is a point when +/- becomes a sign of something. See Alex Ovechkin.
Sign of a bad team, man ;)
Oh you think you have a bad team?
This Carolina Hurricanes fan chuckles at the thought...
Time of Posession is meaningless when offenses are evolving to an up tempo attack where the goal is to score every time you have the ball, regardless of how long you have the ball. Teams that play to score points are winning more times than they lose. Teams that play to hold onto the ball and dictate the pace of play are quickly getting left in the dust by the teams who have turned up the tempo.
Give this man all the legs.
THIS!!! Thank you Alex! I wanted to post something about this earlier but didn't have enough Turkey legs and forgot to tack it on to another thread.
http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2014/4/29/5644012/tcu-football-...
I was going to reference the above article, but noticed they posted this one today. Note the discussion about "the fall" of the offense and how the inverted veer was what they were leaning on. Now note "the fix." The article notes that TCU's new offense philosophy needed a distributor at quarterback who gets the ball out quick in uptempo situations (Michael Brewer definitely fits this mold), playmakers at the skill positions (our freshmen have broken out), and offensive linemen that punish outnumbered fronts (this would be a question mark, but having numbers could change how we play).
Like everyone else on this thread, I'm wondering...why not us? I'm not going to make any specific recommendations (would love for people with wishlists on specific changes, whether staff or strategy) to respond, but I think if there was ever a time to do it, it would be now with Whit as our AD.
Dear Mr. Frank Beamer,
For this thread...Instead of legs, I think we should start passing these out:
It seems to me the main thread between all the National Champions the last 10 years seems to be having a great O-line and D-line.
Auburn won the trenches against Oregon and embarrassed an up tempo offense
FSU had some hogs up front last year, and when they played us.
Alabama had an incredible O-line, that led to being incredibly dominant.
We have to get better upfront if we expect to win. That TCU squad has Juniors upfront.
The Hokies? 1 Freshman, 2 Sophmores, 2 Seniors. So when we get impatient about it not happening overnight... It's because the cupboards are BARE at the O-line position.
Yeah, I love posts that insult the majority of posters within a thread because you don't like the topic being discussed!
Really? I see nothing insulting about his comment. He just gave his opinion and provided some examples to try and back up his reasoning. I saw nothing insulting to others.
edit: ok, it must be the trophy? I give that one out in my FF league. I think that 99% of us on this site are arm chair QB's, and there's nothing wrong with that.
Can CFB become Patterson? I don't know. Can CFB become Bobby Bowden (I mean minus the championship)? Yes he can, and it seems like he is on his way.
No, he cannot become Gary Patterson. This question is really a strawman, because it presents two alternatives - be like Beamer, or install the air-raid offense. There are all kinds of alternatives - my personal preference is that Beamer become more like Chip Kelly (i.e. run based spread attack).
But the real question is, can Beamer change his overall philosophy on the role of offense in the big scheme of things. And the answer is, can is one thing, will is another, and we clearly know that he WILL not change. He believes defense wins games and offense's role is to take advantage of what the defense gives you and score enough to win. Defense has an objective role, offense a subjective role.
Before we hired SL I felt the Oregon spread would be a tremendous match for the talent we have available to us in the mid-Atlantic. VA produces speedy skill players and dual threat QBs. But Chip Kelly - as it's been stated elsewhere - runs a spread PROGRAM, where offensive prep dictates everything from practice to development. You don't just choose his offfense, you make a commitment to becoming an offensive-first program.
I don't feel our personnel lend themselves to success with a pro-style attack. We don't have pro style players, especially up front. But that's the way it's gonna be under Beamer. If we don't have SL, we have one of Beamer's pals like Friedgen who will come out of retirement and hang with Frank his last couple of seasons.
Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently. -Henry Ford
CFB has done great things for Virginia Tech and college football....Right now, at this point in time, it is just not working. Its really the fear of the unknown...he is so set in his ways. Take a leap of faith Frank...you really have nothing to lose at this point.
I can say this....going up tempo certainly won't hurt recruiting.
Can Frank Beamer Become Gary Patterson? .... looks like the answer to this is: No, Frank Beamer cannot become Gary Patterson, but Whit Babcock can find his next Gary Patterson.
The more I read about Chris Del Conte, TCU AD, the more I see the similarities and shared visions between two AD's.