Virginia Tech wide receivers coach Holmon Wiggins is a strong candidate for Alabama's wide receivers coach job, per sources.Has worked at Virginia Tech under Justin Fuente since 2016. Previously worked for Fuente at Memphis from 2012 to 2015.— Matt Zenitz (@mzenitz) January 21, 2019
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Fuente hires bad assistants and support staff /s
His G5 staff has no business coaching P5 teams /s
I also saw this tweet, very interesting move if he decides to go there.
Somewhat unrelated question, how do you know this is Bama's best reporter? Perhaps it autocorrected BEAT to best? I'm assuming Denitz instead of Zenitz* and the former were typos/autocorrects.
Apple apparently doesn't like beat reporters.
apparently they haven't met the right reporters.
Oh, not beat the verb...
If he makes this move, and I'm always going to support a guy who is advancing his career, I wonder what kind of hire Fuente makes to replace him. His more recent hires have been a bit... underwhelming?
I think you take the best recruiter available who can coach either WR's or RB's. You can move Zohn back to WR, which should give you a little more wiggle room when it comes to hiring. Given our $1.5M surplus, we should be able spend $300k, which (as discussed here) is the unofficial 'starting price' for a coach who both recruit and develop the position.
Seems like Wiggins has options all of a sudden. Apparently being considered for OC at Temple as well.
I think that is more official at this point than Bama. We'll see
Wiggins had other offers this winter #sauces. This one, I'd take it over the others. I mean, I'd go if Bama came calling.
Burden goes back to WRs I hope, and maybe, we get an actual RB coach. *cough* Shane Beamer *cough* *ducks*
We wants it. We needs it.
wow. good vibes about our football team. cool.
Bama sucking up all the college football oxygen.
Leave our coaches alone!
For whom was he the lead recruiter?
Most prominent to date are Tre Turner and Christian Darrisaw.
/S
Yeah, those guys. Who knows, they might see the field one day.
/also capital S
Positives: WRs played hard. Benched Hazelton for not blocking even when he was putting up the best numbers.
Negatives: Very limited passing tree (maybe because of Willis, maybe because of receivers running poor routes.) Hazelton still didn't block when he got chances to come back in.''
For VT's offense to take the next step, the drop back passing game has to feature more than:
1) Verticals (target solo coverage)
2) Slant-Flat combo vs zone (which almost disappeared after Willis threw the INT vs Miami except on play action)
3) Verticals (vs zone sometimes widest guy hooks up as a safety outlet)
4) Rub route (everyone runs defenders off, one guy breaks underneath.)
Hokies are very limited against zones and completely inept if they call a rub route and the first read isn't open. The passing offense is less sophisticated than it was with Evans mid year. Fuente and his staff have to figure out how to beat zone coverage and work some check downs into the structure.
How much of these scheme issues are on Fuente/Cornelson as HC/OC vs on Wiggins as position coach? Is it that poor technique tied the hands of the playcallers? Or did scheme just not seek to exploit/adapt/evolve the coverages that gave us fits? Are position coaches more involved in game-planning than I thought?
Without being in the room, it is hard to tell. But, VT is VERY easy to defend in passing situations if you can cover the fade and take away the quarterback draw. What I am sure of is that it is an easy coaching point to have a receiver look back for the ball even if he is just a clear out route. The best passing offenses make the defense defend the entire field. At the end of this season, VT is only making the defense defend half of it at the most. After a couple of recruit reviews coming up, I have a very detailed film review breaking down passing down play calling and corresponding route structure. It is a problem, especially when Fuente doesn't have a QB who can throw to the back shoulder if the defender stays over the top on the fade route, like Paxton Lynch excelled at.
^^^^^^THIS^^^^^^^
and it is my hope one of our QP, I mean QBs can excel at this next year.
But how much of those negatives have to do with the WR coaching? Isn't it the OC's responsibility to design the plays, and the WR coaches to teach the receivers how to execute? How is it Wiggins' fault that WR aren't running a large enough variety of routes?
great minds think alike and so do we, evidently!
See my reply- the WR coach may not have influence on the play calling. However, he can teach the players how to get better separation on routes, block properly, and look back for the ball so the quarterback has a second option, especially if the play breaks down. The bowl game had several third downs where nobody was looking for the ball, so Willis had to try and run out of the pocket even though he had decent protection. And, once the Bearcats were in position where the run wasn't a threat, they could roll their safeties over the top and Willis threw right into them (twice) instead of looking at another option.
Is the limited passing game more a function of the QBs we have and their comfort zones, or just an overall simplistic passing attack in this offense? Willis is a r-Jr QB who has been in this system two full years now. It seems strange that the passing attack is more watered down with him than Evans who had only been on campus since January before starting his first game. If it's geared to what the QBs can handle, it makes me think we aren't identifying players with experience/ability in a more diverse passing scheme. And if it takes 3-4 years to fully develop a QB in this offense, that's pretty concerning.
Would you call our passing attack "Lethal Simplicity"
They did the same thing with Evans until the last game of the season. Jackson didn't throw the vertical routes well enough so the passing game was a little more diverse. It wasn't diverse at Memphis either. However, Lynch had a gun and could throw to the back shoulder if the defense zoned over the top of verticals. Willis has a similar arm. However, I have not seen him really attempt that throw.
French--do you believe Hazelton's failure to block is a function of attitude or ability?
It doesn't take that much ability. Hazelton, McClease, and Holston are three guys who better improve their blocking. All 3 stunk with their blocking in the bowl (reason in part why the jet sweep series basically disappeared after Peoples got hurt.)
bUt I tHoUgHt RuNnInG bAcKs DoN't NeEd To BlOcK
No only hokiemacgruber thinks that
So why did I have 2 different topics deleted?
I'm with you I was looking for it for like an hour wondering what happened?
yeah I came here to post a link and a drinking gif but then couldn't find it...
Posting info behind paywall?
Embedding this tweet isn't posting info from behind a paywall, though. Unless there was more to the post that I missed
I don't have any access to paywall stuff
I'd like to know this as well, I made a very funny comment about Wiggins's last name typo, came back to check if it got any legs, and found the whole thread had vanished.
it was funny, I swear
I have also heard Wiggins is a very strong candidate for the Temple OC position
I'd expect Wiggins to take the Temple job. His goal has always been to become an OC and it would be hard to land that type of job at a school better than Temple with his resume. I also don't think he's the top candidate for Bama right now
Do we move Burden back to WR coach and hire a new RB coach then? Think we pony up for a coach that can recruit? TIA
I doubt we move Burden back to WR. I think Fuentes wants specie things from his WR Coach. Also, I think all positions coach would have to get a pay raise, unless we make the next WR Coach a Co-OC or something
Doubt it. I've heard that Zohn wants to stick at RB to make his resume more attractive for an OC job down the line.
As I recall this is what Fuente told him to keep him at VT and move him to RBs. It was never stated by Zohn that he ultimately wanted this. BOLD prediction time, if Zohn is not moved back to WRs he's a goner by the next season.
hmm... which one of these statements is more credible... A) someone with connections relaying opinion of coach in question or B) pure speculation from a fan with no link to the coach in question...
oh... wow. you really got me.... hmm.... except
a) he's not relaying the opinion of the coach in question. He is relaying the speculation of his connection in the program. b) I respect his sauces but Zohn has never stated that he wants to remain at RB and when he was retained Fuente told him this to keep him on staff. He accepted it but I also have a good memory:
and here is an interview with Zohn where is "excitement" for the position change is just leaping from the screen. You can tell he is absolutely thrilled. He's so excited he comments several times on the fact that he is a WR and Wiggins is a RB. The take away from this interview is that Zohn wants to remain at RB, for sure.
look. I fully admit I don't have sauce on this. But I have never read or heard of Zohn actually saying this. He has said on many occasions that he loves being a WR coach, that it was his dream job. He could very well want to be an OC now. Never heard him actually say that but he moved to RB because Fuente told him that to keep him on staff not because he "wanted" that.
just because it's not something he said publicly doesn't mean it's not what he thinks...
that being said, Wiggins moving on creates an opportunity for him to switch back to WR coach depending on we bring in
yeah dude, that's why I said:
My original point that you questioned credibility on was that Zohn moving to RB was what Fuente told him, not what he has stated he wanted. I appreciate LA has closer connection but the Zohn wanting to be RB coach has never been verified by the man himself so until he does I am working on his previously professed love for being a WR coach.
Cornelsen landed a VT coordinator position with a similar resume :/
It's all who ya know 🤷♂️
I hope he finds success with whatever he chooses but I'm not sure why Wiggins is being sought after for WRs. I agree with French, as I previously stated, WRs under Wiggins seem to lack a lot of fundamental skillsets. He seems to coach them to fit in an offense but lacks the ability to coach them on the nuances of the position. With the talent we have we should have players over 1000 yards every season but wvery time we have a breakout performance there seems to be regression and in some cases like Savoy they never see the field again. That shouldn't happen.
Zohn needs to be back at WRs. If he isn't moved back I don't see him sticking around. I wouldn't.
I know you feel strongly about this. Why would Bama be interested in Wiggins if he is no good at coaching receivers? I definitely see the advantage in not being narrowly tied to a specialty if both coaches have interest in loftier positions. Lastly, I dont think any fan could possibly know enough about how good a position coach is or isn't without seeing behind the curtain.
Next your going to tell us Stacy Searals is a good OL coach
In the end I am just an anonymous voice on the internet. my comments really don't matter and no matter I think Zohn is much better WR coach Wiggins is light years better than myself and deserves credit. I'm not trying to disparage the man. He deserves the opportunities he gets. Just don't see the performance that I expect from our receivers. IMO I saw better performance from Moorehead and Burden coached WRs.
Saban just snatches coaches from all different offenses and takes the pieces of their offensive system and incorporates them into his own. Collaboration at a very high level.
So, maybe some smoke, maybe not, but Rod Carey is bringing Mike Uremovich with him to Temple as CO-Offensive Coordinator. Was previously Asst HC and Offensive Coordinator at NIU with Carey.