OC Drew Mehringer Game Week Press Conference - Maryland

[PaKnight]

You're joking, right? Of course there were coordinator press conferences. They just weren't on YouTube.

Not true, under GS and KF he coordinators did not meet weekly with the press, maybe just once before the start of camp.

 

[gef21]

$100 says they didn't even watch it.

Ill take that $100.

 

[gef21]

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."

This is kind of the point I have been making. We seem to just be running plays to run them as opposed to creating an identity or having a true game plan. We run the same exact things against everyone. I think he is going to be a great OC and I see a lot of positives he is already doing. Like I said earlier I do not think he develops a strong game plan and, more importantly, he does not develop a strong exit strategy. The plan if the initial plan fails. The "What do we do if they do x or y?" stuff. This is why I would love to see someone come in as a support role for the offense to be able to say this plan is all well and good but what if they move to a head up technique at the DT spot, or what if they bring the $ down into the box, what if they play press man etc. etc.

 

[mildone]

$100 says they didn't even watch it.

No bet. I think you're probably right.

 

[greenknight]

"Hi thank you all for coming today". "I have nothing to say today, zero, nadda, zilch, goose egg, rien, zip, nil, naught, nix diddly squat, nyet null, zippo.....

Ignorant

 

[GoodOl'Rutgers]

Ignorant

"I'm just here so I won't get fined".. oops.. Marshawn Lynch trademarked that.. I suppose that's why Drew didn't go with that.

BTW.. Its not about the press conference. Its about what happens on offense in every game. Even if you say the talent is not there, they are under-performing. That's on the coaches.

Navy doesn't have great talent. They must have great coaches because they EXECUTE.