critical changes with staff but will he?
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Tackling is better and they are getting into the backfield more often.
Not having to do trigonometry before each play is paying some dividends. It's not easy to forget 2+ years of being taught bad practices. I say give em two more weeks and see if forgetting 2+ years of teaching fixes a lot of ails.
Unless Kelly goes through a metamorphosis, the changing of anything but the OC or DC is just shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic.
The notion that new coaches are going to make players better when it is the scheme and play calling that is the problem is inane. For example, Heistand doesn't go from producing pro players to sucking in one year. As to ST, results are because of emphasis placed be head coach, not the coaching. Kelly places no emphasis on them so a change in coaching won't do a thing to outcomes.
Assuming the BK is the coach in 2017, he will be viewed as being on a very hot seat unless the team goes undefeated the rest of the way. Given that, his choice of coaches will be limited. He isn't going to be able to attract of DC outside of his coaching tree so I wouldn't be surprised if Hudson ends up as DC. He has nothing to lose and won't be in big demand. Unless both Denbrock and Sanford leave, he won't be hiring a new OC. If Denbrock stays, Sanford leaving would not be a surprise. If Denbrock does leave (which would be surprising since he doesn't seem to be in much demand). Sanford might stay to be OC but he might get better offers.
There will undoubtedly be changes because there are every year. But other than VG, new coaches aren't going to transform the team.
A very young and inexperienced team is going to be much better next year if no coaching changes, including BVG, were made. It's now for those who want rid of Kelly or at the earliest 3 years from now. (I believe that the smarter ones among those who despise Kelly, especially his "pass-happy" offense, realize there is a small window of opportunity to "encourage" his dismissal. Thus the maniacal desperation of the message board and "social" media warriors. In reality, because of Swarbrick's professionalism, it's actually a non-existent window. The one hope was that Kelly would stubbornly stick with BVG forcing Swarbrick to make a move. It didn't happen.)
Denbrock is an excellent WR and TE coach. He should be coaching WRs and TEs, not running the offense. (Another hangover from the mythology of the Music City Bowl.) Nor should Mike Sanford. I look at the posts below and once again see the bizarre Sanford adulation. He's the fucking QB coach and with Kelly spending time with the defense the position that scarily regressed was QB. (Boise State's offense continues to be Boise State's offense despite the departure of Sanford because, well, it was never Sanford's offense. It was Brian Hartsin's. As at ND, Sanford was a glorified QB coach.) I think fans have convinced themselves, with the help of the idiot local ND media, into believing that Sanford wants to run the ball -- which ipso facto makes him a great coach in their eyes -- despite Kizer saying last year that if Sanford had his way they'd chuck the ball down the field every down. I don't get it.
With respect to Hiestand, you're conflating developing individual OL skills with coordinating the OL, especially in the running game. Hiestand has a long history of mediocrity in doing the latter, including some horrendous years running the ball. (Last year was the best running game he was a part of and that hardly resulted from the OL dominating the line of scrimmage; in fact, when it was relied upon to do just that it failed.) If you can find any year in his coaching career when Hiestand produced a dominating running game, you're a better researcher than I am. His forte, prior to this year anyway, was protecting the QB. In my opinion, because of his hyped reputation, Hiestand is one of the most problematic members of the staff. If Kelly had the courage to replace him, I would have a lot more confidence in Kelly's remaining tenure at ND.
"He isn't going to be able to attract of DC outside of his coaching tree." Really? The Wake DC e.g. wouldn't consider a guaranteed 3-year, $1 million+ per year contract to coach ad ND? You're better than that. And, as has been pointed out multiple times, Les Miles was on the hot seat when LSU hired Dave Aranda. Miles, if you remember, was about to be fired last November and was saying his goodbyes when the AD was shamed into reneging. Aranda came anyway.
Greg Hudson is not in consideration as permanent DC. He's not. He's currently only DC in name. "I'm pleased to announce that I have hired as DC a man I did not have enough confidence in to give the duties of a DC." Not happening.
The team doesn't need to be transformed. If Kelly had replaced BVG at the end of last year with a sound college DC, despite the excess youth (a consequence itself of recruiting failures and personnel mismanagement on the defensive side) this could have been another 9 or 10 win season. I trust Kelly's ego has been punctured enough that he now realizes he can't manage a mediocre staff to success at ND. I'm hope that Swarbrick has made it clear to Kelly that he must identify the weaknesses in his staff and fix them. And if he refuses -- as Miles refused to make the changes the AD demanded at LSU -- then there might be more than a window of opportunity to remove Kelly. There might be a door with Swarbrick kicking him through it. The firing of BVG suggests otherwise.
IMO that group is a major part of the problem. Sloppy routes. None of them EVER fights for a ball. Had kids in high school that knew how to box out DB's better than these kids. Have yet to see a single receiver fight back towards their QB when he's under pressure to give him an outlet. They run (or tiptoe) through their routes then stop and watch the play unfold.
They block well, which is humorous, because the OL doesn't. Maybe Denbrock should be helping coach the OL. They catch the ball most of the time in dry conditions, as long as the ball is accurate and there isn't a DB competing for the ball. That's about the only positives I can come up with for the receiving group.
"Nothing will change without a change at the top because the root cause of the problems this season are the same as the root cause of the problems all his previous seasons: A lack of discipline."
"Discipline has to be a fully-integrated part of any successful program, ...."
"Unfortunately, the last seven years has revealed Brian Kelly not to be that kind of coach, which is why shuffling assistant coaches wont matter. Evidence of a lack of discipline is everywhere."
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The overall culture has to change and schemes need to be at the least, tweaked. The only hope for Kelly at this point is to make the right hire at DC and to give up his baby, the offense, and let either Sanford control it 100% or go out and find another OC that you want 100% in control.
The first thing can happen, pretty confident the second won't.
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