OC Drew Mehringer Game Week Press Conference - Maryland
- Thread starter Tango Two
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What is the problem? He gave extremely thoughtful and insightful answers to the questions, especially our first play after the kickoff recovery. Don't just hate for hate's sake.
Spot-on Shift. Drew has gotten better and better at his pressers every week. He's no longer the nervous "kid" he was in September. He thinks out his responses and is insightful, understanding, and astute. He's learning how to explain things without getting emotional which can't be easy for him right now. There's not doubt in my mind that if he's given the chance, with another off-season to hone his game as well as the team's, we're going to be much happier with things next season.
I still have slight concerns that we are a little light on experience on the offensive side of the coaching staff. Would it hurt to bring in an adviser or even a co-OC to help guide Mehringer? Our offensive coaching staff had very little to no P5 experience before this year--the exception is the WR coach from Purdue. I understand that Mehringer is supposed to be a whiz kid, but sometimes it is good to have an experienced , older coach on board. The defensive staff is very solid, in my opinion.
I would be 100% fine with that and wouldn't be surprised to see something as such. That is, of course, if Ash isn't half as stubborn as Schiano was!
I see some of those same stubborn tendencies that Schiano had. That can be bad, but IMO, it is better than the previous guy who would bend and blow whichever the way the wind was blowing to please people. But I see a difference with Coach Ash, at least in his demeanor with the press. He at least appears to be open-minded and does not appear to have that snide, know-it-all way that Schiano sometimes displayed in pressers. Maybe I am misremembering Greg.
No, you're spot-on IMHO, but a couple of guys seem to think otherwise (see: Cured's thread). Oh well. They were also huge Flood supporters.
Not entirely true. Remember how people were BEGGING for a QB change? He was stubborn when he wanted to be.
Though I agree...is it only at Rutgers that we hire a kid with no experience, pay him 400k and give him a few years to learn on the job, hoping he'll one day have the lightbulb cone on? Yeah, I know 400k for an OC is nothing in the P5, but it's a 400% one-year increase and overly generous for his experience level.
Drew made a good point today when asked about "trick plays" and whatnot. He said something to the effect of, using JT Barrett and OSU as a reference point, "he's been in that system 5 years now...there are so many more options, on any part of the field, because of his familiarity with the system. We're still learning the system...these kids have been in it for 9 months now...so there are only so many things we can even try" or something like that. Anyway, switching systems with the wrong personnel and all that aside, IMHO, we've GOT to take this into account. The reps this year are going to be nothing but a huge step forward, for next year, when you include the winter sessions the kids do on their own, spring and summer camps, etc...the more reps, the more of the O they can open up, because Gio will become more and more comfortable running the very basics of it.
I know it's not easy to sit back and TRY to be patient with Drew and the O - and understand why some feel he's overpaid - shit even I left early for the 2nd time this season - but it IS only Season 1. I think part of the problem, and I'm gonna get shit for this, but part of the problem is that there are still many here who believe Flood got hosed, and wasn't a bad coach, and because the boards were all over him by the middle of Season 2, these guys are all over Ash - and many have been from Day 1 - and won't stop. It's like a steamroller effect on these boards and we're all fighting when, bottom line, we just don't have the horses on O or ST's, and lack depth on D (along with the youngest group of LB's in the nation), and it's absolutely killing us right now. I'd love to see what our average starting field position, vs our opponents, is this year as well. We can't go into next year with the same punter and kicker. Just can't.
Sorry, babbling, lol!
Actually if you listen to the whole thing he does a very good job in light of, well, the mess on O.
People giving Mehringer crap for this press conference are being petty. Nothing wrong with it and actually, he did a very nice job of explaining how they go back and review the offensive play-calling.
Are you trying to say he didn't say anything meaningful? What would you have liked him to say?
Oh, I see. Just curious, but what was the point of you saying that? Did it make you feel good about yourself or the team or anything else? Just trying to brighten people's day?
Seriously, why did you say feel compelled to say it? I can't figure it out.
I felt compelled to say it because that is pretty much what he has done. He was a bad choice, and I figured maybe we can come up with a new way to zero since his high powered offense seems to produce that result regularly.
That explains what you were thinking. It doesn't explain why you felt it necessary to share it. You thought maybe it would cheer people up? You thought you'd win an award for it? You figured maybe one our commits might read it and be cheered for his good choice?
Why post something so negative if there's absolutely zero value in doing so?
I see what you did there, you used zero in your response.
Well lets see There are hundreds of negative posts on here, I added one. I couldnt care less if you understand my motivation. I assume in your role of the motivation police you are asking everyone why they post?
Why do you post half the crap you do?
I have nothing else to discuss with you on this.....zero.
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You have to remember that after a bad loss, people would jump all over Flood for what he did/did not say at his press conferences. It's natural for fans to take their frustration out on the coaches, and I would not take someone to task like you did here. I don't recall if he did it, and I don't think that he did, but I don't recall Flood allowing his OC and DC to give ress conferences after games or at game week.
i will have the same reply next week, that is if i still have a job. really is a nice guy, wished he had worked out, but he's young and has time. we don't have that luxury
The offense is inept.
You can call it lack of talent or lack of reps.. but it is inept even if you factor in both of those point.
They burned Oden's redshirt early. He is the QB best prepared to run this thing and they use him sparingly. We could be losing big with him back there while getting him reps throwing the ball in live games. We could be building that "experience in the system" that Drew-defenders lean on.
Drew has Hicks going sideways on the snap... I suppose because he has shown a knack for using his lightning speed to stretch the field wide rather than plow ahead forward for some tough yards up the middle.
Drew has....ehhh why bother... you all have been watching the games. Flood.. both as co-OC and head coach showed no feel for the offense. His and Drew's offenses never seemed deceptive enough, smart enough. They both seem to allow the defense to do what it wants.. to seize and keep the initiative. But....
"HEY! LOOK OVER THERE! THE PUNTER AND KICKER ARE NO GOOD".
Maybe they just need reps in the system.
You know.. there are people out there that suggest Ash doesn't want to win.. this season. That he really doesn't mind losing big.. this season. All so that he might show gradual progress next year by winning a conference game or two. I thought that was crazy... but now I am wondering. We saw Schiano do that same thing.
But he was doing it building a defensive system that paid off over time. He wouldn't play a straight-up, no-blitz D against teams we should have been able to handle without taking those risks.. and teams like UNH and Nova and even Buffalo punished us for that blitz/stunt every down defense. It is just so hard to watch on offense.. if that is what they are doing... ehhhh..
I just don't see blaming the talent as a legitimate excuse. I see no reason to believe we will ever have the talent of the top teams in the Big Ten. We have to win the big games being smarter, executing better, having more "heart". I would have liked to have seen evidence of that this season in games we had the talent to win. It is there in spots on the D.. on O.. not so much.
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I would love to see a veteran come in with a title like "run game coordinator" or "offensive quality control coach" in order to be another set of eye, ideas, and opinions.
Believe me when I say people close to RU ,and several "others ",who know football currently say Merhinger is in over his head right now.No adjustments,same plays run as scripted from start of game to end of game,no matter what happens during game.RU defense held a top 15 team in country to NINE points at half and Drew couldnt/wouldnt scheme anything different to attempt to score points,shots down field,play Martin..NOTHING..
He needs to be reassigned.
He needs to be reassigned.
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I'm willing to beg Fridge to come back if his health permits...
Calling major BS on this unless you can give more details.
I swear that some of our fans think that the current state of RU FB is OSU or Michigan FB and want to hold the coaching staff to those standards.
Are you aware that Ash inherited a rebuilding job at RU ? If not then no need to reply.
It's actually easier to be patience this time for me, rather than the 1st time we tried this change with Captain Kirk. If you sat through that season you knew exactly what we were getting into. I just didn't want to believe it would be as painful the 2nd go around.
But alas I was completely wrong. So many of us old timers have seen this movie before. But many choose to forget recent history. I'm not going to be so quick to call for the hatchet this time around. The spread option was so new back then. Schiano had the right idea, but not the patience, neither did the fan base.
This was posted on another board (Sorry, it is long). Can you or @LotusAggressor comment?:
"Part of my frustration as an observer is that things don't seem to be done offensively the way it was discussed in the preseason. We heard plenty about tailoring the offense to fit the personnel, but did we really get that? Laviano on designed keepers, jet sweeps to dump truck slow skill position guys, and plenty of option plays that blew up terribly made the offense do absolutely nothing this year. I get wanting to put it all out on the table early on and see what you've got to work with, but by the midway point of the year we should have seen Mehringer start to design his playcalling around the players, and I personally didn't see much of anything in terms of offensive adjustments other than letting Gio run with it more since he has the ability (when he isn't hurt). There didn't seem to be much in terms of playcalling around the personnel, something we were explicitly told was the offensive gameplan in the preseason. That is concerning to me not because we were held to under 200 yards four times this year including under 100 twice, or that we were shut out four times, or that our 3rd-down conversion rate was torturously bad. That is concerning to me because you just flat out need to be able to make those kinds of adjusmtnets.
I am troubled by the team's inability to build a gameplan around exploiting the opponent's weakness while highlighting our strengths. It honestly felt like the last two seasons under Flood. "We want to be a run the ball, stop the run kind of team." Okay, but if you're playing a team running a spread with linemen on both sides of the ball with a 25-pound, 3-inch height advantage, you aren't going to win a power-against-power matchup, so you have to adjust. We didn't do that then and it showed in the games against the upper echelon teams where we'd run dive plays up the gut into a wall of tackles every down. I'm worried by the fact that Mehringer continually returns to plays that don't work not because of execution but because of scheme and personnel. Some, like the sweep to Hicks on the first play this past weekend, are plays where it isn't inherently a bad playcall, but a good OC would know based on how PSU schemes their defense and what personnel we had on the field that it was a play that wouldn't work. Hicks is not a shifty speed guy, and having him go east-to-west expecting the guard to pull hard right with a receiver blocking on the perimeter just wasn't going to happen, but we've seen Mehringer go back to plays like that and watch them fail not because they weren't executed on that particular attempt but because they're plays that this team with these players are not capable of executing. It's a bit of an absurd example but it's like expecting to watch Army suddenly start trying to run a pro-style offense midseason. They don't have the horses to do it or a quarterback to make those reads. Their plays would be dead in the water before the ball is snapped. That's where we're at, and Mehringer isn't able or isn't willing to adapt the plays called to ones the team can execute properly.
I like him. I do not think he should be fired. He is an excellent recruiter, a brilliant young offensive mind in terms of the power spread, and a guy the players can connect with both on and off the field. That said, he does not seem to have the chops to be completely in charge of the offense yet. He has not shown an aptitude for making adjustments, and the stats speak for themselves on how we've fared offensively. I think Ash would be well-served to bring in a coordinator from a school with experience running a similar offense, and give Mehringer the chance to be either co-offensive coordinator alongside a veteran, or strictly be quarterbacks coach to help develop Gio, Oden, and Lewis. I think he has the ability to eventually be a solid P5 coordinator, but until he learns to mold a gameplan around his players instead of making situational playcalls thinking it would be the same to have the Patriots offense as it would having the Browns offense, he just isn't ready for this yet in my opinion."
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