Ash: "We are not that far away."

[MADHAT1]

I say we are more than a few years away and that means not that far away is wrong in my opinion.
2 years is not that far away, this roster needs to be purged of Flood's roster and new players that can fit into Mehringer/Ash's system need to be developed.
Year three of the Ash era will be when we see how close to being a good program RU will be.

 

[Caliknight]

do you have a clue? You don't think it's coacing that allows a kid to field a punt inside the 10!!!!!!!! or how about snaps, you are fine keeping your qb out from center on 4th and 1 with the snap issues we've been having? Let's not get into the sideline coaching

TOs suck, are a part of the game but a good coach limits the probability of them

you guys make way too many excuses for a guy that still hasn't done on field adjustments!!!!! What games are you guys watching????

Do you think they don't go over that in practice?

A kid with more talent makes a simple catch.

 

[AreYouNUTS]

Wow. And 2 likes to boot.

He's one of the worst posters around this place. A "re-tread" for sure and I think I've figured it out. Very, VERY similar traits to a guy I had it out with a long time ago on a very personal level, if I'm right.

 

[rucoe89]

Bottom line - we got BEAT by a team yesterday that had a 2nd string QB that COULD NOT THROW, a 1-4 team, and at home. That defines what it means to be BAD up and down the organization. Star Ledger grades had it right. Only reason pass defense was an 'A' is because Illinois had no pass offense. Won't say if we've reached bottom yet as we seem to find new bottoms. Ash gets 4 years to move this in right direction and if that means sinking to new lows first then we'll just have to be patient.

 

[AreYouNUTS]

Do you think they don't go over that in practice?

A kid with more talent makes a simple catch.

DING DING DING DING DING! Hey brother shoot me an e-mail real quick don't think I've got your new address.

 

[scarletschuyler]

"Talented" players don't make tons of mental mistakes and turn the ball over as often as our players have, thus it's fair to say we don't have many talented players.

 

[MikeR0102]

If execution was better, we could be 4-3 right now. It's not. The record is what you say it is.

Are there still winnable games on the schedule? Yeah

 

[bac2therac]

we are the worst team in the Big 10 so yes nowhere to go but up from here and its a low bar set if people just want to be not far off from being competitive with our fellow dregs in the league

 

[AreYouNUTS]

do you have a clue? You don't think it's coacing that allows a kid to field a punt inside the 10!!!!!!!! or how about snaps, you are fine keeping your qb out from center on 4th and 1 with the snap issues we've been having? Let's not get into the sideline coaching

TOs suck, are a part of the game but a good coach limits the probability of them

you guys make way too many excuses for a guy that still hasn't done on field adjustments!!!!! What games are you guys watching????

I'm thinking I have much, much more of a "clue" than you do:

1) it's drilled into the kid's head NOT to field that punt.

2) the coaches don't fumble the ball

3) the kid probably snaps just fine in practice and is our best option as such

4) TO's are a basic premise of the game: HOLD ONTO THE DAMN BALL, right?

Again, this is a roster that has been depleted in many ways (we are an entire CLASS short of scholarship athletes who should be in their 2-4th seasons in the program), with a roster filled with kids lacking P5 offers (many lacking more than a couple of FBS ones, as well), with a new staff, and new systems.

WTF were you expecting this year? Let me guess: you're one of the guys thinking we could have won 6-8 games with the "talent on this roster" LOL!!! So glad that I - and many others - saw this coming 3 year ago. We called the impending disaster. Now it's time to, unfortunately, wait it out until Ash gets his recruits in here.

 

[BoroKnight]

We might not be far away in terms of Ash seeing what must be done. Doing it, on the other hand, is another matter

 

[RU#1fan]

Yeah, the TO's are on the coaching, okay. SMH.

It's called preaching FOCUS to your players .
Apparently it's not being done.

 

[waretown]

And when Ash arrived in January he said, "You' re going to like this offense. We're going to score a lot of points." Really, coach?

he has since entered a program, you wont hear that from him again, i hope

 

[AreYouNUTS]

It's called preaching FOCUS to your players .
Apparently it's not being done.

Pure assumption and very likely cow poopie.

 

[NorthernKnight]

"Not that far away" from what?

If it is competing with the top tier of the B1G, then I say no. We have 5 years of building to get anywhere close to competing with Ohio State, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nebraska.

If it is competing with the lower tier of the B1G, then I say yes. The Illinois, Indiana, Purdue, Marylands just aren't that much beyond us. I can see us competing with 1-2 teams this year.

The middle of the pack teams? Not yet. I think it'll take 2-3 good recruiting classes to consistently compete with the Penn State, Iowa, Northwestern, MSU tier.

I don't think our lines are uncompetitive with the bottom tier or maybe even the middle tier. I think our DB's when healthy can compete. I think our RB's can compete. But our receivers and QB can't...and no passing offense is like playing with one hand tied behind out back. I also think that can get better/stronger faster than other areas. Get/go with a QB. Next year receiving corp will be: Grant, Harris, Washington, Mitchell, Melton, Others coming in? How can that not be a big improvement?

 

[RU31trap]

I think he's speaking from the perspective of cut out the miscues and we win the game. If we can do that, then yes, we're close. But that remains to be seen. At least we didn't have to wait till Q4 to see a first down.

Al: That would apply to any program. If Illinois was to cut out just half of their mistakes they would have scored two more TD's. It's coach speak.

 

[GoodOl'Rutgers]

I think of it this way..

Flood had us on a slow downward trajectory. A major problem of that was gameday coaching, stubbornly sticking with a QB, being overly conservative.

I expected Ash to correct some of the problems and halt the downward trajectory.

Instead he seems to have embraced it and welcomed it.

And while Schiano did the same thing.. not caring about beating the beatable teams. He invested in training his D to run his system even when, it terms of beating some teams, he would have been better off not blitzing and stunting so often.

I just don't think investing in running this offense with this personnel is the same thing. I don't see how these players running this offense so poorly is going to lead to this offense running better next year and the next. Maybe if they invested in Oden or Gio from the start and paired them with some young RBs and WRs.. but to make the offense and whole team and fans all suffer with the worst offensive production of all time.. with no benefit tospeak of.. it just boggles the mind.

If this were an NFL team I'd say he's sandbagging the season to get the top draft pick. As it is, its like he wants a godawful record this year so he might show minor improvements in subsequent years and get re-upped in year 3.

 

[RU31trap]

Bottom line - we got BEAT by a team yesterday that had a 2nd string QB that COULD NOT THROW, a 1-4 team, and at home. That defines what it means to be BAD up and down the organization. Star Ledger grades had it right. Only reason pass defense was an 'A' is because Illinois had no pass offense. Won't say if we've reached bottom yet as we seem to find new bottoms. Ash gets 4 years to move this in right direction and if that means sinking to new lows first then we'll just have to be patient.

Allow me to politely explain why giving any coach 4 years to rebuild a program similar to ours is a big mistake. First, you will lose between 10-15 percent of your season ticket holders by the end of next season. Now if that is not a big deal let's go to number 2. The coach will lose credibility with the players and more importantly recruits. 3. We almost always lost 5* recruits, but two consecutive losing seasons will jeopardize 3 star recruits which is our lifeline right now. Some of the older posters can tell you that throughout the 80's and 90's we had teams loaded with 2* recruits which generated one and two win seasons. Finally, coach Ash will not wait to be fired, he will leave on his own at the end of year 3 unless he has a real shot to take this program to a 9-3 season. Take that to the bank.

 

[RUGT]

It's called preaching FOCUS to your players .
Apparently it's not being done.

I guess Alabama doesn't preach focus either, since they lost to Ole Miss last year after 5 turnovers. Or Tennesse this year when they had 7 turnovers against Texas A&M. Or Biill Bellichick when the Patriots turned it over 4 times against KC their Superbowl year in 2014. Or <insert many other instances of good teams having bad games here>.

Shit happens. We happened to be on the wrong end of the turnover luck fairy on Saturday. But unless you can provide some evidence that this staff doesn't preach focus and it manifests itself as consistently turning the ball over (which before this game, we only had a TO margin of -1 (and half those games were against potential CFB playoff teams)), your complaining appears to be based on nothing other than visceral, emotional anger

 

[RUTGERZ_R00LZ]

I think of it this way..

Flood had us on a slow downward trajectory. A major problem of that was gameday coaching, stubbornly sticking with a QB, being overly conservative.

I expected Ash to correct some of the problems and halt the downward trajectory.

Instead he seems to have embraced it and welcomed it.

And while Schiano did the same thing.. not caring about beating the beatable teams. He invested in training his D to run his system even when, it terms of beating some teams, he would have been better off not blitzing and stunting so often.

I just don't think investing in running this offense with this personnel is the same thing. I don't see how these players running this offense so poorly is going to lead to this offense running better next year and the next. Maybe if they invested in Oden or Gio from the start and paired them with some young RBs and WRs.. but to make the offense and whole team and fans all suffer with the worst offensive production of all time.. with no benefit tospeak of.. it just boggles the mind.

If this were an NFL team I'd say he's sandbagging the season to get the top draft pick. As it is, its like he wants a godawful record this year so he might show minor improvements in subsequent years and get re-upped in year 3.

Grassy knoll?

 

[Rush12]

Allow me to politely explain why giving any coach 4 years to rebuild a program similar to ours is a big mistake. First, you will lose between 10-15 percent of your season ticket holders by the end of next season. Now if that is not a big deal let's go to number 2. The coach will lose credibility with the players and more importantly recruits. 3. We almost always lost 5* recruits, but two consecutive losing seasons will jeopardize 3 star recruits which is our lifeline right now. Some of the older posters can tell you that throughout the 80's and 90's we had teams loaded with 2* recruits which generated one and two win seasons. Finally, coach Ash will not wait to be fired, he will leave on his own at the end of year 3 unless he has a real shot to take this program to a 9-3 season. Take that to the bank.

He'll leave a guaranteed $2mm income to take a another job as a non-hc after 3 years if he hasn't broken through? I'm not taking that to the bank.

 

[RUbacker]

Are you saying the talent is not there to beat Illinois, a team we outplayed yesterday? At least that was the game I watched.

Yeah we lost again right ? You keep saying we have the talent. Did you ever think that maybe we don't? Have you seen our Line backs? How about the d backs? Online? Wrs? TE? Have you a seen our kickers and special teams? Have you seen how thin we are at every position? Oh have you seen our QBs?

 

[devoted2ru]

Some of the posts in this thread are beyond ridiculous. -Do those who are lambasting the staff honestly believe they don't teach ball security over and over again in practice? No doubt they try to drill that into the players heads each and every day, just as I'm sure that they've tried to correct CL's issues like throwing off his back foot, taking sacks when he shouldn't, etc. But you can try to coach, teach, instruct, preach, (or whatever else you want to call it), as much as you'd like, but if players have all that mentally go out the window when they're on the field in a real game, how is that the fault of the staff? Coaches can only show players how things should be done. It's the players who have to go out and execute what they've been shown.

I think a few of the most critical of this staff are people who wanted a different guy hired as head coach and believe if the individual they wanted was hired none of this would be taking place. (Or somehow things would be substantially better.) But even if their choice did get the job, he'd still have to deal with what the Flood regime left behind, and unless he was a magician or miracle worker, he'd be having the very same problems this staff is trying to deal with and fix right now.

Ash & Co. were handed a HUGE rebuild situation that's going to take a while to correct. That's simply the fact of the matter. -So the folks who are being super critical of just about everything these coaches do might as well relax, 'cause this staff is going to be given the time to have a fair shot to show if it can get this program where we all want it to be.

 

[Jersey Boys]

for those who say...hire a better coach
there have been NO established coaches showing up for the job when its been open
very few coaches will even CONSIDER a rebuild like we need

That's false. Mind you, I don't say that as a knock on Ash, but there were serious rumors that Narduzzi among others were interested. Hobbs saw something and made a conscious decision to go with Ash.

While it's obvious the honeymoon is over, we need to give him our support this year and see how he finishes on and off the field with the recruits.

Like you, I find Gio's play encouraging. Not because I think he's the next Tebow, but we finally saw how this offense can produce with a real athlete behind center playing with some confidence.

 

[Jersey Boys]

I think a few of the most critical of this staff are people who wanted a different guy hired as head coach and believe if the individual they wanted was hired none of this would be taking place. (Or somehow things would be substantially better.)

I must say that there is some truth to this statement.

 

[Knight Shift]

That's false. Mind you, I don't say that as a knock on Ash, but there were serious rumors that Narduzzi among others were interested. Hobbs saw something and made a conscious decision to go with Ash.

While it's obvious the honeymoon is over, we need to give him our support this year and see how he finishes on and off the field with the recruits.

Like you, I find Gio's play encouraging. Not because I think he's the next Tebow, but we finally saw how this offense can produce with a real athlete behind center playing with some confidence.

Not only a real athlete (and maybe it comes with being a real athlete), but a QB who surveys the field while the pocket is breaking down, and he is stepping forward in the pocket and/or scrambling to see if he has any open receivers. Ray Lucas was praising how Gio did this on several downs. This should be QB 101, but we have seen over and over how CL gets jittery, gets sacked, ineffectively tries to run, and/or just tosses the ball out of bounds--sometimes in situations where you don't want to stop the clock. I think the kid just gets all balled up and limits his options, where Gio steps up and makes something out of nothing--at least from what we saw yesterday.

 

[shields]

We did gain almost 400 yards vs Iowa and if get better QB play yes I think we are close to the Minnesotas and Iowas of the conference.

 

[Scarlet Bri]

Yeah, the TO's are on the coaching, okay. SMH.

When you run CL down near the goal line and he gets smashed and fumbles, you are not putting your players in a position to succeed. He is not a running QB, stop calling his number to run near the goal line. Coaches job is to put players in a position to succeed.

 

[TODDB33]

Why you would suggest that we get another coach after 7 games of his initial season, with a nice group of commits thus far for 2017 is kinda strange. Unless Nick Saban is calling....looking for a change of scenery....are you SURE you wanna be advocating a change at this point ?

 

[TODDB33]

Because he has no concept of what we are facing at this time. Any new coach coming into this type of situation needs a minimum of 3 of his own recruiting classes to be judged as to how good or bad a coach/recruiter he is

 

[RUBand]

Bio can throw the long ball, if we can get receivers to run routes correctly we are there.

Can they run fast enough to get any separation?

 

[Bunk350]

Can they run fast enough to get any separation?

They did this past Saturday

 

[RU848789]

He's one of the worst posters around this place. A "re-tread" for sure and I think I've figured it out. Very, VERY similar traits to a guy I had it out with a long time ago on a very personal level, if I'm right.

Yes, you're instincts are correct. The ghost of Rutgers95 is back to haunt us with stupid posts and bluster. We'll see if he can "keep it clean" or if he comes unhinged like he has in the past.

 

[rutgersguy1]

I don't know how close or not close we are but I've said I stay even keel. Wasn't through the moon with recruiting or slogans being pumped out nor am I through the floor with these dreadful losses. Just basically wait and see. I tend to think that this staff may not be the best at adapting to the talent they have but how much a difference that would make in some of these games I don't know. Many coaches are similar, it doesn't necessarily mean they can't do better when they get their own guys in their system. Just a couple examples this season off the top of my head where I thought some good coaches could have done better adapting. Kelly throwing the ball so much in that monsoon against NC St. or Helfrich continuously going for 2 in close game against Nebraska. He said that's what they do as his explanation. So it happens.

Look at Bielema at Arkansas. He was winless in the SEC during his first season at Arkansas and quite a few here and others here were harpooning him, some public statements of his didn't help. I said he's still a solid coach regardless of the record and did a great job at Wisconsin and have to give him some time to see what happens. So far he's steadily improved them and got them ranked. I won't say anything earth shattering but a solid job. Now can we have the faith in Ash similar to Bielema? Of course not Ash doesn't have the career record Bielema did when he went to Arkansas. Point is though even with that good record there was still a transition period, a particularly brutal one. So whether you're a good coach with a solid record or a newbie there's always a good possibility of a transition in these kind of turnarounds and you just have to wait and see how it turns out, especially this early. Questioning is natural especially with the newbies, so I don't bemoan it but in reality we can't really know without having the benefit of some time.

 

[MikeR0102]

These threads are always great for figuring out who to put on ignore.

 

[FELONIOUSMONK]

Just as Trump is good for the media our woes on the field are good for this venue. Lots of traffic here. If we were winning what would you all be talking about,?Winning? Nah that's boring.:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

 

[rutgers4life11]

Defense: Yes
Special Teams: No
Offense: No way in hell

 

[orange830]

If we had a QB we beat Iowa and Illinois. Iowa was 7-7 in 4th quarter.

And if Illinois had a qb, what would the score had been?

 

[rucoe89]

Allow me to politely explain why giving any coach 4 years to rebuild a program similar to ours is a big mistake. First, you will lose between 10-15 percent of your season ticket holders by the end of next season. Now if that is not a big deal let's go to number 2. The coach will lose credibility with the players and more importantly recruits. 3. We almost always lost 5* recruits, but two consecutive losing seasons will jeopardize 3 star recruits which is our lifeline right now. Some of the older posters can tell you that throughout the 80's and 90's we had teams loaded with 2* recruits which generated one and two win seasons. Finally, coach Ash will not wait to be fired, he will leave on his own at the end of year 3 unless he has a real shot to take this program to a 9-3 season. Take that to the bank.

Would disagree. Where is he going to go? He goes once he turns this around and gets bigger opportunities.

 

[MYHATINTHERING]

I think of it this way..

Flood had us on a slow downward trajectory. A major problem of that was gameday coaching, stubbornly sticking with a QB, being overly conservative.

I expected Ash to correct some of the problems and halt the downward trajectory.

Instead he seems to have embraced it and welcomed it.

And while Schiano did the same thing.. not caring about beating the beatable teams. He invested in training his D to run his system even when, it terms of beating some teams, he would have been better off not blitzing and stunting so often.

I just don't think investing in running this offense with this personnel is the same thing. I don't see how these players running this offense so poorly is going to lead to this offense running better next year and the next. Maybe if they invested in Oden or Gio from the start and paired them with some young RBs and WRs.. but to make the offense and whole team and fans all suffer with the worst offensive production of all time.. with no benefit tospeak of.. it just boggles the mind.

If this were an NFL team I'd say he's sandbagging the season to get the top draft pick. As it is, its like he wants a godawful record this year so he might show minor improvements in subsequent years and get re-upped in year 3.

Agree

 

[BoogieKnight]

We didn't turn the ball over ONCE at Ohio State and their defense has been scoring more points than our offense has been. We turned it over once vs Iowa and once vs Michigans tremendous D. I'd say that's a big improvement in taking care of the football from the past several years. But yeah, I guess the staff stopped coaching ball security this particular week. Got it...

The sandbagging accusation to get extended in year 3 is just flat out ludicrous. The problem is people have had a way overinflated perception of how good our team actually is for a long time now.