It made me recall this post from almost a year ago.
"Angry, you are so crazy!"
Is it crazy now?
This is the transcript from another board:
Guy 1: Mike Leach. Isn't he out there somewhere? He has a very progressive offensive mind. Might still be looking for a job.
Guy 2: Nah…that's too much out of the box thinking for Riley/Decarolis.
Guy 3: Leach would be a heck of an offensive coordinator.
Looks like there are a bunch of us crazies out there. Beware of the crazies!
I still think this would be a great hire and contradict yet keep up with what the Ducks are doing in a fascinating way. It would be the innovative, aerial version of that offense.
My wish list:
1. Mike Leach, offensive coordinator.
2. Matt Wallerstedt, defensive coordinator.
The coaching and recruiting upgrade from those hires would have the Beavs fighting the Ducks for the Rose Bowl every year. Does Bob D have the 'nads to make a change? Probably, were it not for the kidney thing.
I will probably receive a lot of backlash for saying that, but I have to stick to my guns. The bottom line is that I question whether Langsdorf donated his kidney for job security. Seriously, how can anyone fire a guy who did that? He's another lifer, so we have to hope someone "poaches" him, and in the meantime ponder what could have been.
I wouldn’t mind Leach, but I’d prefer Mendenhall. I’m probably alone on that one though.
Mendenhall is still in a position of power, so he wouldn’t stoop to being an assistant. Someone will hire Leach as a head coach soon…he could have been had for cheap last year when I wrote that–it would have been brilliant.
Angry, you are crazy like a fox.
I blame it on the Ambien and being dropped on my head at an early age. Lethal combo.
Ambien is the anti-christ…look what it did to Urban Meyer and Tiger Woods? Stay away from that stuff!!!!
Love the idea of Mike Leach would definitely improve the offense immediately imo.
Another guy I would love is Jason Phillips O-coordinator of Houston. He is rising quickly and will be snatched up soon I believe. He has lost his top 2 QB’s and has a true freshman playing QB and putting up some really good numbers. Not sure how he would do with recruiting but I think he would do a great job.
I am for the Mike Leach for Offensive Coordinator idea. Langsdorf can’t balance family and football and when you are representing a million fans your first job is the program. Sorry, but that is what the big bucks demand. Decarolis is too slow to make a bold move and so is Oregon State as an institution. But fortune has always favored the bold. To be relevant next to the ambitious and most innovative program in the nation to our south we have to also be brave and willing to take some calculated chances and changes. The program owes the fans to always act in their best interest and Leach would bring good attention and real national interest into CorVegas.
Riley seems ticked off with Danny L.
From Oregonlive:
Riley said OSU faces a big challenge this week shrugging off what happened at UCLA, when star tailback Jacquizz Rodgers got just four carries in the second half and the Beavers’ offense – after scoring on its first possession of the third quarter – went three-and-out four straight times during the remainder of the second half.
“What is that about?’’ said Riley, thinking out loud.
“What in the world?’’
Yeah, I don’t think Bronco Mendenhall is on the hot seat yet at his dream job. It did not take long for him to fire their D coordinator mid-season though when things were looking ugly for the “Y”. Would Riley ever have the cajones to do the same? It might be better for the program to go 5-7 than 6-6 for the long term. 6-6 will get them a bowl game for sure this year. I have been reading about how the NCAA is getting concerned about finding 70 legitmate bowl eligible teams at this point and may even give ASU a waiver if they finish 6-6 (two FCS wins).
Mike Leach is a non-starter for me. I’d rather hire and let loose upon the world the likes of Ed Orgeron. In a world of perception, Leach just can’t sit in any living rooms with parents right now.
On top of that, he’s suing his former employer. He might be right. He might be wrong. But the one thing we that we surely know he is?
Litigious.
I’m moving on to Basketball.
The staff is there until they get a better offer, which isn’t going to happen. If they make a Bowl game, the Beavdrones will be happy.
Anyone who can should catch the episode of ESPNU’s “All Access” which featured the Beavers because it is illuminating in more ways than one that the so-called “family atmosphere” is a double edged sword.
In particular, the show captures footage of a practice session. I have never seen a lower energy practice in a team sport. Now I understand that a mid-season practice in shells is little better than a walk through, but still there was no intensity. No demands for the effort required to perfect the reps.
Some would call that a “teaching practice.” Specifically, Riley is telling players about where they have to be lined up and where the routes are supposed to be going. He also apparently tells Katz or Vaz that if his deeper stuff isn’t open that something underneath should be.
In the vacuum of practice, that might be true, but that was very non-specific “teaching” for live fire. Also, the glacial pace of that session is neither attempting to simulate game speed as much as feasible in practice, nor is it conditioning anyone. Too much walking around.
And this gets back to the philosophical about the “family atmosphere.” Coach Cav may swear up and down to his charges like a crazy uncle, but apparently everyone else is too low key. If one subscribes to the notion that teams reflect their head coach, then maybe, just maybe, the Beavers’ slow starts over the years are directly attributable to a mentality of the players that since Coach does not demand perfection or intensity from practice from minute one, and instead treats the season as a progressive learning experience, it’s okay to screw up and it’s just fine to take one’s time to get it right.
I read a quote in the press where a Beavers player in essence called the OOC slate “the preseason.” That is not a championship caliber mentality being instilled there. As things stand, that “preseason” 1-3 record could cost the Beavers a bowl appearance this season.
There are inherent limits to the “familial” approach as opposed say to the “semi-professional” approach. The accountability is higher in the latter approach and the forgiveness for poor play is much harder to come by.
It may not matter if you shuffle your coordinators at some point, because the “softness” comes from the top. The Dennis Erickson teams were much more savage (in both the good and bad senses of the word) than the Riley teams are. DE still faced the same recruiting hurdles that Riley does, but he put out teams that seemed to play “faster” on both sides of the ball than they probably were by their objective 40 times and such.
Of course DE has his flaws, but his teams being soft has never been one of them.
Errata: The “preseason” quote was something I recall reading following the TCU loss. Of course the OOC slate went 1-2, not 1-3 as I typoed it.
IMO-Having a gimmick offense isn’t as important as having athletes suited to play it AND execute it in games. I don’t know if this speaks to poor recruiting or mid-season practices.
Several teams are running variations of the spread (option, pistol, etc.). Stanford is something different. They have a big, physical o-line and they run and protect the QB. These guys are in a position to make a BCS bowl with 1 loss.
A change should be made. I don’t know if you start on offense or defense. Realisticly, OSU will have a difficult time with firing coaches as the Ath. dept. is financially strapped.
I’m still not sold on Stanford–way too slow. They’ll get creamed in their bowl game. I think even OSU could beat them.
I hope your assessment is correct. An OSU win over Stanford would kind of redeem the season (unless they have lost to WSU before than!). I was surprised at how easily the Beavs dominated the Trees last year, but I do not see where this years defense can stop Stanford enough to outscore them. I see a 38-28 type of loss.
Stanford is a legit Top 8 team. Harbaugh has is team focused and energized and playing with a tough attitude and determination. I would bet Accuscore would predict we only win on the Farm 22% of the time right now.
mike leach doesn’t do it for me.
Is it possible that WSU could beat the Beavs?
Hey Angry,
You talked about Coach Langsdorf being bullet proof with the kidney donation. There is precedent (if that is the right work)…Did you know that comedian George Lopez is now divorcing his wife and she donated a kidney that saved his life?
I find it kind of odd that we have always recruited lighter more athletic O-lineman and then we run the same straight ahead zone blocking scheme. If we are going to run such a vanilla run blocking scheme why not go after some bigger and stronger guys and give up a little bit of athleticism. If we continue to recruit undersized athletic linemen then why don’t we start pulling the Guards and Center… actually start to use some of that athleticism?
Well, basically every year but this, we’ve run a ton of crazy screen and bubble passes. Remember all those RB and TE screens over the middle? You need athletic, mobile linemen to do that. But for some reason, we don’t run those anymore, even though they were amazing.
As for Stanford, we both have slow teams, so it balances out. Luck is a beast, though, so I don’t think any lead is safe, and he might run like 7 times for 80 yards, 4 first downs, and just save the game for them. I think the game will be close, but we can’t close (as seems the case every game this season).
My point? My point is this: How could OSU use up 3 minutes for one drive, then 11 minutes for another one? Both halves used up over 10 minutes of time for 2 TD’s in both halves. That’s over a 1/3 of the quarter. OSU couldn’t get in a rhythm in the second half due to not being in one the first half. Then UCLA was struggling until we let them get into field goal range and allow them to kick the winning field goal. I think we’ll win big this weekend against WSU, unless they too have changed their game plan. Then we’ll win another close game against USC and be bowl eligible, but then we’ll lose the next two games. The CW will be our first and last loss in Reser this year. That’s what I’m thinking and feeling at this point in time.
Read this first to make the first comment make sense…sorry was copying and pasting and didn’t quite get it right.
There are two things that I would like to point out with the UCLA game:
1) The offense that UCLA ran was not at all what OSU’s defense had prepared for in the week they prepared for UCLA, so UCLA went from hand offs and play actions to option reads as well. Look back on the UCLA footage with Prince in the game vs. the QB OSU faced…two different types of offense. So not really Bankers fault for UCLA changing their game plan, but at the same time it is because if Banker had taught his players a game plan for stopping read options, then he could have said, Read option defense vs. what we had practiced this week for UCLA.
2) The time of possession was this for the game:
UCLA: 35:36(5 and 1/2 minutes over half of the game)
OSU: 24:24
UCLA scoring drive #1 TOP: 11:23
scoring drive #2 TOP: 1:45
total TOP: 13:08
OSU scoring drive #1 TOP: 3:11
scoring drive #2 TOP: 11:20
total TOP: 14:31
Total TOP between both teams: 17:39