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Questions about the coaching process : How does the thinking/preparation work?


JGrayDBU

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As a nearly retired educator who loves college football, I have all of these off-season questions that make me think..hmmm.  

Analogy- I worked for what used to be a very well known cafeteria for 8.5 years, in the 1990s..  It was a total beating, but I learned to cook and run a business in 3-4 years.   I stayed too long, ate too much delicious food.  During that time asst. mgrs and assoc. mgrs worked 70+ hours per week, totally oblivious to the outside world.  GM's for the most part worked 35-40 hours per week and made big $.  When our CEO checked into a Motel 6 in San Antonio one year and cut his own throat to kill himself in the early morning hours, mgrs. did not flee the company like crazy.  We kept on working.  Why?  We were too tired to leave or were totally brainwashed to ignore the outside world? I finally left years later after family events made it happen. 

Do the assistant coaches have much of a say in what the gameplan will be?  Iow, assume they are working 80+ hour weeks, similar to my mgt. job.  Example, flashback to November 1983, and Coach Fred Akers has been tinkering with the QB lineup all season.  It comes down to the Aggy game and Akers decides on the golden-armed Rick McIvor.  Rick throws 4 TD passes, totally surprising aggy, and we win 45-13 to finish 11-0. 

We're on the verge of a NC, after we win against Georgia in the CB.  Pretend there is a meeting after the game and If an asst. coach said something like, "You know Georgia's probably working on nothing but McIvor for the next five weeks,"  would that have gained any traction with any of the top coaches? 

 I don't think anybody would have given it a second thought, but we will never know.  

For younger people, McIvor was still accurate passing on a very blustery, windy, day at the CB, which is known for tough winds, Ward missed two FGs, and we dropped probably 7+ passes.  Had Akers come out with the running QB, Rob Moerschell, in the 2nd half, Georgia would have been totally surprised, we would have scored at least a TD to go ahead by a comfortable margin, and we would never have to endure the nightmare of the dropped punt.   One national championship missed. 

There are plenty of other examples of what ifs that would lead us to many more national championships.  Go to the recent one, of course.  Ohio St. knew the play that was coming at the 2 yard line.  How?  Why were we at a coaching disadvantage at the 2 yard line, but we were at a coaching advantage the entire game against their wide receivers?  Are defensive coaches just smarter than offensive coaches?  Do we not scout ourselves?  Or is that even a thing? 

Same scenario of questions - our OL vs. OhioSt. DL.  Are we always going to be at a coaching disadvantage, or is this just one game when Ohio St. had better coaches?  Does anybody think Ohio St. just had better players?  

I think we are exactly where we need to be wrt NIL and players.  We just need to improve our coaching.  I'm not keeping track exactly but I bet the tush-push has about a 99% accuracy rating for getting one yard.  We just need someone to run it.  

 

 

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1 hour ago, MAUFRAIS said:

Tell us more about the cafeteria/motel part.

On March 12, 1997, John E. Curtis Jr., CEO of Luby's, checked into a Motel 6. After hacking at his left wrist and upper abdomen, he plunged a kitchen knife three times deep into his neck, severing the right jugular. Police found him the next morning, face down in a puddle of blood.

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11 minutes ago, Born Burnt said:

On March 12, 1997, John E. Curtis Jr., CEO of Luby's, checked into a Motel 6. After hacking at his left wrist and upper abdomen, he plunged a kitchen knife three times deep into his neck, severing the right jugular. Police found him the next morning, face down in a puddle of blood.

Back in the day, finishing last in your fantasy football league was serious business

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2 hours ago, Born Burnt said:

On March 12, 1997, John E. Curtis Jr., CEO of Luby's, checked into a Motel 6. After hacking at his left wrist and upper abdomen, he plunged a kitchen knife three times deep into his neck, severing the right jugular. Police found him the next morning, face down in a puddle of blood.

yep, and he left behind three young children and a beautiful wife.  He was due to attend his first board meeting at Luby's as CEO in Arizona I think.  His predecessor, Mr. Erben, I think, allegedly told him to "blame me" if there are any uncomfortable questions.  

Since he missed the trip, all of us in management assumed the stress was work-related, but like I said, we didn't jump and down getting upset.  We just kept on coming to work. 

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21 hours ago, JGrayDBU said:

As a nearly retired educator who loves college football, I have all of these off-season questions that make me think..hmmm.  

Analogy- I worked for what used to be a very well known cafeteria for 8.5 years, in the 1990s..  It was a total beating, but I learned to cook and run a business in 3-4 years.   I stayed too long, ate too much delicious food.  During that time asst. mgrs and assoc. mgrs worked 70+ hours per week, totally oblivious to the outside world.  GM's for the most part worked 35-40 hours per week and made big $.  When our CEO checked into a Motel 6 in San Antonio one year and cut his own throat to kill himself in the early morning hours, mgrs. did not flee the company like crazy.  We kept on working.  Why?  We were too tired to leave or were totally brainwashed to ignore the outside world? I finally left years later after family events made it happen. 

Do the assistant coaches have much of a say in what the gameplan will be?  Iow, assume they are working 80+ hour weeks, similar to my mgt. job.  Example, flashback to November 1983, and Coach Fred Akers has been tinkering with the QB lineup all season.  It comes down to the Aggy game and Akers decides on the golden-armed Rick McIvor.  Rick throws 4 TD passes, totally surprising aggy, and we win 45-13 to finish 11-0. 

We're on the verge of a NC, after we win against Georgia in the CB.  Pretend there is a meeting after the game and If an asst. coach said something like, "You know Georgia's probably working on nothing but McIvor for the next five weeks,"  would that have gained any traction with any of the top coaches? 

 I don't think anybody would have given it a second thought, but we will never know.  

For younger people, McIvor was still accurate passing on a very blustery, windy, day at the CB, which is known for tough winds, Ward missed two FGs, and we dropped probably 7+ passes.  Had Akers come out with the running QB, Rob Moerschell, in the 2nd half, Georgia would have been totally surprised, we would have scored at least a TD to go ahead by a comfortable margin, and we would never have to endure the nightmare of the dropped punt.   One national championship missed. 

There are plenty of other examples of what ifs that would lead us to many more national championships.  Go to the recent one, of course.  Ohio St. knew the play that was coming at the 2 yard line.  How?  Why were we at a coaching disadvantage at the 2 yard line, but we were at a coaching advantage the entire game against their wide receivers?  Are defensive coaches just smarter than offensive coaches?  Do we not scout ourselves?  Or is that even a thing? 

Same scenario of questions - our OL vs. OhioSt. DL.  Are we always going to be at a coaching disadvantage, or is this just one game when Ohio St. had better coaches?  Does anybody think Ohio St. just had better players?  

I think we are exactly where we need to be wrt NIL and players.  We just need to improve our coaching.  I'm not keeping track exactly but I bet the tush-push has about a 99% accuracy rating for getting one yard.  We just need someone to run it.  

 

 

Man this is a lot to answer.

Football is no different than any other job. There are micromanagers, delagators, and figureheads who stick their nose into everything just enough to fuck it up. Sark strikes me as a micromanager who has learned to at least give some autonomy to the defensive side of the ball. I say that last part because PK seems pretty comfy in his role, and most coordinators would've taken the first gig out if they were being micromanaged too much. I wouldn't imagine the assistants on offense have much say in the gameplan. I think defensively they do though, as PK's defense has been better when he has had better assistant coaches in his life. Both of those guys are good overall architects who seem to struggle with adjustments at time.

Ohio State has better players than we do. Full stop. On offense they were better at every position except QB and LT. Their best receiver was better than our best receiver. Their line, overall, was better than our line. Their backs were better than our backs. Their D-line was better than ours except for Simmons. As good as Hill is their number 0 was better. Makuba and Downs wash each other out but their second safety was better than Taafe. We are better at Nickel and corner. Ohio State has and has had an embarrassment of riches. They are the one team that you could say is equal to Bama/Georgia talent wise but has largely squandered it way worse than we have over decades. Look at their recruiting rankings the last 15 years 3, 5, 4, 4, 2, 5, 14, 2, 4, 2, 7, 3, 2, 5, and 6.

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5 hours ago, Thatguy said:

Man this is a lot to answer.

Football is no different than any other job. There are micromanagers, delagators, and figureheads who stick their nose into everything just enough to fuck it up. Sark strikes me as a micromanager who has learned to at least give some autonomy to the defensive side of the ball. I say that last part because PK seems pretty comfy in his role, and most coordinators would've taken the first gig out if they were being micromanaged too much. I wouldn't imagine the assistants on offense have much say in the gameplan. I think defensively they do though, as PK's defense has been better when he has had better assistant coaches in his life. Both of those guys are good overall architects who seem to struggle with adjustments at time.

Ohio State has better players than we do. Full stop. On offense they were better at every position except QB and LT. Their best receiver was better than our best receiver. Their line, overall, was better than our line. Their backs were better than our backs. Their D-line was better than ours except for Simmons. As good as Hill is their number 0 was better. Makuba and Downs wash each other out but their second safety was better than Taafe. We are better at Nickel and corner. Ohio State has and has had an embarrassment of riches. They are the one team that you could say is equal to Bama/Georgia talent wise but has largely squandered it way worse than we have over decades. Look at their recruiting rankings the last 15 years 3, 5, 4, 4, 2, 5, 14, 2, 4, 2, 7, 3, 2, 5, and 6.

 

The nail head... you have hit it, squarely.

 

The major problem with our HC is that he is still buried face-down in the glory of his tactics, almost exclusively on the offense side. He needs to acquire an OC to take care of offensive tactics while he (and his analysts) can focus on the strategic issues.

Talent is not a huge problem. We may not be on the top step, but we're not far behind the tOSUs and UGas, and we've gained a lot of ground on them the last couple of years.  The most important thing, I think, is depth. We're closer to them on starters, and closing in on the second men up. 

We were - for the second season in a row - one or two fuckeed up plays from all the marbles. We should all be happy about where we are, but demanding continued improvement.

Hook'em

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On 1/25/2025 at 4:07 AM, Thatguy said:

Man this is a lot to answer.

Football is no different than any other job. There are micromanagers, delagators, and figureheads who stick their nose into everything just enough to fuck it up. Sark strikes me as a micromanager who has learned to at least give some autonomy to the defensive side of the ball. I say that last part because PK seems pretty comfy in his role, and most coordinators would've taken the first gig out if they were being micromanaged too much. I wouldn't imagine the assistants on offense have much say in the gameplan. I think defensively they do though, as PK's defense has been better when he has had better assistant coaches in his life. Both of those guys are good overall architects who seem to struggle with adjustments at time.

Ohio State has better players than we do. Full stop. On offense they were better at every position except QB and LT. Their best receiver was better than our best receiver. Their line, overall, was better than our line. Their backs were better than our backs. Their D-line was better than ours except for Simmons. As good as Hill is their number 0 was better. Makuba and Downs wash each other out but their second safety was better than Taafe. We are better at Nickel and corner. Ohio State has and has had an embarrassment of riches. They are the one team that you could say is equal to Bama/Georgia talent wise but has largely squandered it way worse than we have over decades. Look at their recruiting rankings the last 15 years 3, 5, 4, 4, 2, 5, 14, 2, 4, 2, 7, 3, 2, 5, and 6.

Thanks for this answer.  you are the first person I've read who says Ohio St. definitely had better players.  Earlier today I watched the last two minutes or so of our loss to Washington, and noticed one position group that had problems, similar to this year and that was offensive line.  

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22 minutes ago, Beer Drinker said:

I don’t know if delicious is the exact word but I will absoluteley fuck up some Luby’s rectangle fish w/ mac n cheese.

Yep.  Fried fish was nothing compared to the really good stuff.  Seafood tempura, stuffed shrimp, shrimp etoufee, grilled catfish with dill sauce, Grilled Haddock with provencale sauce.  Provencale sauce included wine.  Speaking of cooking with wine, Burgundy Beef Ragout, and sautéed mushrooms.  Other favorites included chicken livers topped with French dressing and onions, and the occasional USDA choice ribeye steak. I didn't care much for our filet.  Luby's Special Chopped steak was served only by the Walzem Road location in SA.  Mr. Copeland at Walzem Road was the strangest of all managers I worked for. 

We bought two kinds of wine, both by the gallon.  Sherry and Burgundy.  

Two of my favorites to cook and eat were stuffed baked potatoes and soft beef tacos.  I developed and made other varieties of stuffed baked potatoes, using leftover spinach and leftover mushrooms.  I liked the spinach in the stuffed baked potatoes, but there wasn't a whole lot I didn't like to eat.  

My all-time favorite dessert to eat that I never cooked was the eclair, stuffed with cream filling and topped with chocolate sauce. Was only served at store openings.  "The crew" consisted of the ladies who traveled to all new stores and showed new employees how to cook.  I got to work at a new store opening in SA one year and that is when I tasted that eclair. 

I had to learn to cook basically everything else.  

One time we had an asst mgr. meeting and were challenged to come up with a new food item, so I took a standard lemon cake recipe and asked the pastry lady to top it with cream cheese filling instead of the usual lemon drizzle.  beyond delicious!

I developed a couple of kinds of entrees, my favorite being chicken-fried ribeye.  I took a leftover ribeye steak, ran it through the tenderizer, battered it with the usual,  flour, batter, crushed crackers, and deep fried it.  Delicious does not begin to describe the taste.  

  Imagine you are a late 20s single man working around made from scratch food 14.5 hours per day, with no energy left at the end of a shift to exercise.    Some locations, especially in San Antonio, senior mgrs. let everyone stop down for breakfast about 9:30 or so....some of the best breakfast tacos ever.  

When I started in 92 I probably weighed 180 pounds and left in 2001, only weighing about 217.  I can promise you, about 90% of managers who worked that length of time gained a similar amount of weight.  

 

 

 

 

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