Up to the players

[koleszar]

Kol serious question for you based on your FB knowledge.

Based on where we are today what pieces do you see missing and what pieces do you see in place.

Also rate the following going into next year on a scale of 1 ( worse case ) to 10 best
QB room. O line. D line. LB. corners. Safeties. RB. TE. Receivers ( if you want to break down between wide and slot do so). Special Teams by Kicker, punter and coverage.

Feel free to add any part of team I missed

I'll start with the obvious one QB. I hate to write off Fr. players and I'm not going to with Sitkowski. He can still be an average P5 QB but not the game changer we all hoped for. But now we're talking average by Senior year possibly Junior year. What do we do till then? I don't like that the staff is moving any QB we have to WR and TE. It's an area of deficiency and I saw nothing Art did that Lewis couldn't do. Why not give it a shot, what was to lose later in the year.

RB- I like what I see. But not how they're being utilized. Pacheco should be the bell cow back. He does his best work between the tackles and is a hard charger getting stronger as the game moves on. He has a passion you can't teach, he despises failure. Straight line quick twitch and go. Not lateral like the staff has him run. Blackshear is not a pure RB more of a scat back. Lateral, more in space runner. He should not be being hammered up the middle. You can't design passing plays where he's your outlet? Why?

WR- You'd be just as well putting tree stumps out there and putting numbers on them. They lack will and concentration. Watch the drops and you'll see a lack of concentration instead of looking the ball in they're constantly looking at who's coming or where they're going to go. The will part comes from lack of blocking. They're horrible at it and seem to lack the will to do it as they give a half-assed swipe at it then give up. Even with Gio scrambling and buying time they still couldn't get open. This unit needs a shake of from personnel to coaching.

TE- I like this units future potential. Drops are down, they just need to improve their blocking. My question why aren't they more of a focal point in the passing game?

OL- I'm not even sure if we have the best 5 out there or they're even in the right position. After watching Applefield play for Virginia he was their best OL. Blazek couldn't recognize he plays better in space and is not a mauler on the inside. That discussion becomes even more amplified with Seymour's ineptitude. Maeitti is not a P5 center he lacks size, strength and is slow. Left guard is a mess Venesky/Londsdorf combo misses a lot of assignments and leave DL free to crush the backfield. This unit needs a lot of work and Blazek isn't getting it done.

Special teams- He found two good kickers can't fault Okruch for that. But mental break downs continue. He couldn't find a reliable punt returner till week 3 or 4 I forget. Only now did he have the confidence to begin to return them. Why not try blocking a punt during that time if you're just going to fair catch? Are they running back in case he muffs one? Is that really a sound strategy? Kick coverage has been good and special teams are becoming more routine like they should be. So this unit gets an A OK.

Defensively- I really like this new DL coach the young kids seem to be progressing. Just need more of them but recruiting has been lacking. So it's going to struggle. LB's the entire coaching staff needs to go Niemann and Nienas. They're constantly out of position and lost in space in the passing game. Db's are good to go but the safties unless somebody steps up quickly that'll be trouble. But have confidence in DB coaches to get it done. They know what they're doing.

Coaching- what took till game 7 to figure out blitzing causes havoc? Our defensive prowess coincided with an increase in aggressive play calling. Play calling on both sides of the ball have been too conservative. That's fine if your Alabama and just use your superior recruiting to crush the world but we're Rutgers you need to take chances.

Now this is just my opinion so you can all tell me I'm full of sh*t. But it's the way I see it. I know more about offense than defense as that's the side I played on. Defense is just a bunch of Neanderthals basically, "go fetch ball". I kid all you defensive guys. So there are pieces as you can see I didn't lambast every unit but there's just not enough of them. It's year 3 there should be more but there isn't. As far as number valuation per unit, tough to say but overall my optimism level is at about a 2.

 

[TODDB33]

I'll start with the obvious one QB. I hate to write off Fr. players and I'm not going to with Sitkowski. He can still be an average P5 QB but not the game changer we all hoped for. But now we're talking average by Senior year possibly Junior year. What do we do till then? I don't like that the staff is moving any QB we have to WR and TE. It's an area of deficiency and I saw nothing Art did that Lewis couldn't do. Why not give it a shot, what was to lose later in the year.

RB- I like what I see. But not how they're being utilized. Pacheco should be the bell cow back. He does his best work between the tackles and is a hard charger getting stronger as the game moves on. He has a passion you can't teach, he despises failure. Straight line quick twitch and go. Not lateral like the staff has him run. Blackshear is not a pure RB more of a scat back. Lateral, more in space runner. He should not be being hammered up the middle. You can't design passing plays where he's your outlet? Why?

WR- You'd be just as well putting tree stumps out there and putting numbers on them. They lack will and concentration. Watch the drops and you'll see a lack of concentration instead of looking the ball in they're constantly looking at who's coming or where they're going to go. The will part comes from lack of blocking. They're horrible at it and seem to lack the will to do it as they give a half-assed swipe at it then give up. Even with Gio scrambling and buying time they still couldn't get open. This unit needs a shake of from personnel to coaching.

TE- I like this units future potential. Drops are down, they just need to improve their blocking. My question why aren't they more of a focal point in the passing game?

OL- I'm not even sure if we have the best 5 out there or they're even in the right position. After watching Applefield play for Virginia he was their best OL. Blazek couldn't recognize he plays better in space and is not a mauler on the inside. That discussion becomes even more amplified with Seymour's ineptitude. Maeitti is not a P5 center he lacks size, strength and is slow. Left guard is a mess Venesky/Londsdorf combo misses a lot of assignments and leave DL free to crush the backfield. This unit needs a lot of work and Blazek isn't getting it done.

Special teams- He found two good kickers can't fault Okruch for that. But mental break downs continue. He couldn't find a reliable punt returner till week 3 or 4 I forget. Only now did he have the confidence to begin to return them. Why not try blocking a punt during that time if you're just going to fair catch? Are they running back in case he muffs one? Is that really a sound strategy? Kick coverage has been good and special teams are becoming more routine like they should be. So this unit gets an A OK.

Defensively- I really like this new DL coach the young kids seem to be progressing. Just need more of them but recruiting has been lacking. So it's going to struggle. LB's the entire coaching staff needs to go Niemann and Nienas. They're constantly out of position and lost in space in the passing game. Db's are good to go but the safties unless somebody steps up quickly that'll be trouble.

Coaching- what took till game 7 to figure out blitzing causes havoc? Our defensive prowess coincided with an increase in aggressive play calling. Play calling on both sides of the ball have been too conservative. That's fine if your Alabama and just use your superior recruiting to crush the world but we're Rutgers you need to take chances.

Now this is just my opinion so you can all tell me I'm full of sh*t. But it's the way I see it. I know more about offense than defense as that's the side I played on. Defense is just a bunch of Neanderthals basically, "go fetch ball". I kid all you defensive guys. So there are pieces as you can see I didn't lambast every unit but there's just not enough of them. It's year 3 there should be more but there isn't. As far as number valuation per unit, tough to say but overall my optimism level is at about a 2.

Thank you for your assessment. Lots of good points

 

[chrisru99]

If Recruiting is the lifeblood of a program how can so many of you have hope? We play in a murderers row conference. We are currently last in recruiting and we are offering kids with no Power 5 offers for the most part. We just took a wr from a 1AA and he says he is coming on scholarship and he never played a down. We have 1 DL committed who the Mods basically said is not Coming here. I can go on and on recruiting alone. Why are people optimistic? What gives you the warm and fuzzies about next year? Is it that we did not get blown out by a banged up Michigan State team on a down year? I just don’t get the optimism. We have bad lightly recruited players. We go up against teams recruiting very well. No QB but somehow we will find one as a grad transfer or a JUCO. We have Pacheco and Blackshear but not a good OLine to block for them. Defense is losing a ton but no worries we will replace them and be just as bad. Am I missing something that some of you are optimistic. We just went 1-11 and lost to Kansas.

 

[Knight Shift]

Not clueless, just off by a year. After Year 4 I remember having arguments about it. I said any coach should get five years, and I'll decide after Year 5. (Which, of course, was much easier.) But at least we had a glimmer of hope from the improvement from Year 2 to Year 3 with Schiano, so Year 4, while disappointing, was seen as a bump in the road instead of the start of a slide off a cliff.

With Ash, he had the better year in Year 2 and fell back in Year 3. But the level of regression is almost frightening.

The one thing they have in common (along with three-year records) is both of them liked to screw up quarterbacks. But the pickings are much slimmer this time around, which is partially on Flood, of course.

Look, I'm not happy Ash is coming back. But deep down inside most of us knew he would be coming back. I don't blame anyone for not buying season tickets under the circumstances, but, being 2,500 miles away, that's not an option for me anyway. I'll still be watching whenever I can and still be reading news sites and this site daily. And I'll still be hoping and I'll still get excited if a game is close late. (I'm well rested after this year.)

Very well-reasoned post.
Let's not forget that in year 3 of Schiano, the wins were:
Buffalo 1-11
Army 0-13
Navy 8-5 (OK)
Temple 1-11
Syracuse 5-7

Not exactly the stuff of legends.

In 2002, Schiano lost to 1-11 Buffalo, 4-8 Temple and 4-8 Syracuse. #11 Tennessee was on the schedule instead of Navy.

2004 was another step back, and things started to click in 2005.

 

[Knight Shift]

If Recruiting is the lifeblood of a program how can so many of you have hope? We play in a murderers row conference. We are currently last in recruiting and we are offering kids with no Power 5 offers for the most part. We just took a wr from a 1AA and he says he is coming on scholarship and he never played a down. We have 1 DL committed who the Mods basically said is not Coming here. I can go on and on recruiting alone. Why are people optimistic? What gives you the warm and fuzzies about next year? Is it that we did not get blown out by a banged up Michigan State team on a down year? I just don’t get the optimism. We have bad lightly recruited players. We go up against teams recruiting very well. No QB but somehow we will find one as a grad transfer or a JUCO. We have Pacheco and Blackshear but not a good OLine to block for them. Defense is losing a ton but no worries we will replace them and be just as bad. Am I missing something that some of you are optimistic. We just went 1-11 and lost to Kansas.