(10-24-2014 11:08 PM)owl40 Wrote:  Talon- agree 100% on the first down pass. A recurring theme all year. The stats point it out very clearly.

Love the other tendency breakdowns... Especially the third down pass tendency to Dillard and fourth down to Taylor.

Surprising to see Rice 90% run on 2nd down between 4-6 yards and 70% on 1-3 yards. The three yards/cloud of dust mindset. Seems like the opportunity to take some shots downfield but we have obviously not done that. If a guy writing a blog sees that gotta believe you will see NT staff load the box up for Davis/Dillard in same situation tomorrow.

Every team after ND and A&M have loaded the box against us....but when we counter with the spread offense, this necessarily means at least one receiver option (usually Hull or Taylor in the slot) will be wide open. This was certainly the case against Army; we simply chose not to exploit it as frequently as we could. It was ours for the taking all game long.

(10-24-2014 07:34 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(10-24-2014 07:00 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  This can't be. It's been proven conclusively by a number of Parliamentarians that Rice football players do not improve or show progress during their stay here due to the inability of the coaches to actually, you know, . . . coach.

That's not what's been said, and you should know better.

The process of growing from age 18 to age 21 necessarily improves the vast majority of athletes, barring some significant injury. The point that has been made is not that they don't improve at all, but that there seems to be little improvement that is greater than the norm.

well, there's one good reason for redshirting Gray, or anybody.

How can you tell what improvement is due to getting older and what is due to coaching or what is due to experience?

Was there something about getting older that taught Gray to use his feet properly?

We have had a lot of athletes improve and some not improve, but they all got older. Some guys improved a lot - McDonald for example. I don't think he would have been just as good sitting in the library aging.

We bring in a lot of guys from small schools or Canada who have not faced top opposition, and walk-ons who are lightly recruited if they are recruited at all. Some of them get quite good. Kutzler, Nordstrom, Bradshaw, McD, Willson, Covington, others. Maybe it is just aging, but how can you tell?

Don't know if I missed seeing this, but Zach Patt returns tomorrow. He will be used in a backup role and worked back slowly into the lineup. Zach Wright will miss a few weeks due to a leg injury sustained in practice this week.

(10-24-2014 07:34 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(10-24-2014 07:00 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  This can't be. It's been proven conclusively by a number of Parliamentarians that Rice football players do not improve or show progress during their stay here due to the inability of the coaches to actually, you know, . . . coach.

That's not what's been said, and you should know better.

The process of growing from age 18 to age 21 necessarily improves the vast majority of athletes, barring some significant injury. The point that has been made is not that they don't improve at all, but that there seems to be little improvement that is greater than the norm.

Actually as good a poster as you are, you should know better.

Your review of my post merely points out the difference between my overstated 'no improvement' and your 'age related only improvement.'

Your posts are relatively veiled, but other posters trumpet the same theme, and are actually insulting at times, IMO, toward our coaches abilities to do their job.

I'm glad people care and want to do better. But some of the criticism of our coaches is based on their personalities and some of our posters preconceived notions that you have to fit a certain personality mode to be a 'good' coach.

No one is saying our coaches are the best in the NCAA (Wayne excepted). But they are good coaches, and they do well in a difficult situation. And by difficult, I mean difficult in the sense of competition with programs who spend much, much more and have better working conditions, and less stringent recruiting conditions.

Yes, Bailiff is fairly well compensated, and yes, he doesn't deal with Alabama-type expectations. But driving back from Waco this afternoon, after listening to half of the Rice game on the internet, I turned on the TCU-Tech, game and listened to Schlossnagel talking about the new facilities they are building for the baseball team there, and thinking how even Wayne sometimes is fighting against a $-stacked deck, funded by BCS money.

I'm not really aiming this at you. You know this. Frankly all of us know this.

I just hate it when we insult our coaches or discuss them in a condescending way. (again, not aimed at you, and not aimed at any one, just a general reaction to a variety of posts from a variety of people over the years) It's not right.

(10-25-2014 06:55 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  

(10-24-2014 07:34 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(10-24-2014 07:00 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  This can't be. It's been proven conclusively by a number of Parliamentarians that Rice football players do not improve or show progress during their stay here due to the inability of the coaches to actually, you know, . . . coach.

That's not what's been said, and you should know better.
The process of growing from age 18 to age 21 necessarily improves the vast majority of athletes, barring some significant injury. The point that has been made is not that they don't improve at all, but that there seems to be little improvement that is greater than the norm.

Actually as good a poster as you are, you should know better.
Your review of my post merely points out the difference between my overstated 'no improvement' and your 'age related only improvement.'
Your posts are relatively veiled, but other posters trumpet the same theme, and are actually insulting at times, IMO, toward our coaches abilities to do their job.
I'm glad people care and want to do better. But some of the criticism of our coaches is based on their personalities and some of our posters preconceived notions that you have to fit a certain personality mode to be a 'good' coach.
No one is saying our coaches are the best in the NCAA (Wayne excepted). But they are good coaches, and they do well in a difficult situation. And by difficult, I mean difficult in the sense of competition with programs who spend much, much more and have better working conditions, and less stringent recruiting conditions.
Yes, Bailiff is fairly well compensated, and yes, he doesn't deal with Alabama-type expectations. But driving back from Waco this afternoon, after listening to half of the Rice game on the internet, I turned on the TCU-Tech, game and listened to Schlossnagel talking about the new facilities they are building for the baseball team there, and thinking how even Wayne sometimes is fighting against a $-stacked deck, funded by BCS money.
I'm not really aiming this at you. You know this. Frankly all of us know this.
I just hate it when we insult our coaches or discuss them in a condescending way. (again, not aimed at you, and not aimed at any one, just a general reaction to a variety of posts from a variety of people over the years) It's not right.

Not quite sure I appreciate the "Hey, I'm not attacking you, but I'm going to attack your post as a way of attacking other people." If you want to attack me, attack me. If you want to attack them, attack them. But at least be honest and straightforward about it. I think you're kind of playing dirty pool here. And you're usually better than that.

I've posted several times that attacking the stuff like he's not fiery enough on the sidelines is absurd. And I understand most of the "conservative" play calls so I don't really agree with that criticism either.

But there are some legitimate gripes too. I don't think we have developed players as well as possible. I don't think the development has been zero in many cases, as you seemed to be implying that the criticism suggests. But I also recognize that some improvement is inevitable, barring injury, as athletes mature from age 18 to age 22, and I haven't really seen much in the way of improvement that I would attribute to anything more than that. If you have, then I'd be interested in names. I actually think Driphus might turn out to be one. Then again, if he was considered a peer of Chuckie Keeton out of HS, his development has certainly been slower paced than that.

I guess my standard for development is probably a bit high because I watched Bear Bryant take guys I played against in HS and that we didn't think were all that special and turn them into guys who were all-conference performers on national championship teams and went on to have good careers in the NFL, and then I watched Guy V take guys like Hayes and Drexler who were good HS players, but not at the top of the recruiting lists, and turn them into two of the top 50 players of all time--not to mention the job he did with Hakeem (comparing him as a freshman to what he turned out to be is nothing short of amazing).

Heck, Hatfield took a lot of diamonds in the rough and turned them into excellent players. I just don't see that happening as much here now.

I don't have a handy-dandy metric that says this much improvement is due to maturity and this much is due to coaching. But kind of like Potter Stewart on pornography, I think many of us know it when we see it. And if you think there has been remarkable improvement anywhere, I'd be interested in knowing who and where.

I think part of it is that some of us are always trumpeting what a great recruiter Bailiff is (and he is), and I think that has the tendency to lead to the idea that maybe all that recruiting should be producing more talent on the field.

We have improved recruiting dramatically, but we're still way closer to the bottom of D1 FBS than to the top. We're not going to out-recruit Texas. If we're ever going to have that signature win over them, we're going to have to out scheme and out execute them. And therein lies the frustration. We seem willing simply to run the same schemes as half of FBS right now, and we don't have the people to be overpowering doing that. I agree with Hambone, to move up we are going to have to contrarian. Or Hatfield, with his, "Do something better or do something different," philosophy. We don't seem to be able to elevate our execution above our opponents. So it seems to me that we're going to have to do something different. And I don't see that happening.

(10-25-2014 09:04 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  I think part of it is that some of us are always trumpeting what a great recruiter Bailiff is (and he is), and I think that has the tendency to lead to the idea that maybe all that recruiting should be producing more talent on the field.

We have improved recruiting dramatically, but we're still way closer to the bottom of D1 FBS than to the top. We're not going to out-recruit Texas. If we're ever going to have that signature win over them, we're going to have to out scheme and out execute them. And therein lies the frustration. We seem willing simply to run the same schemes as half of FBS right now, and we don't have the people to be overpowering doing that. I agree with Hambone, to move up we are going to have to contrarian. Or Hatfield, with his, "Do something better or do something different," philosophy. We don't seem to be able to elevate our execution above our opponents. So it seems to me that we're going to have to do something different. And I don't see that happening.

+1. I'll add that we always seem to have the same game plan on offense, regardless to whom we're playing. Consequently, we rarely exploit (over and over again) what the defense is giving us. Rather, after a successful play call we may not see that play again the rest of the game.

(10-25-2014 08:59 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(10-25-2014 06:55 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  

(10-24-2014 07:34 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(10-24-2014 07:00 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  This can't be. It's been proven conclusively by a number of Parliamentarians that Rice football players do not improve or show progress during their stay here due to the inability of the coaches to actually, you know, . . . coach.

That's not what's been said, and you should know better.
The process of growing from age 18 to age 21 necessarily improves the vast majority of athletes, barring some significant injury. The point that has been made is not that they don't improve at all, but that there seems to be little improvement that is greater than the norm.

Actually as good a poster as you are, you should know better.
Your review of my post merely points out the difference between my overstated 'no improvement' and your 'age related only improvement.'
Your posts are relatively veiled, but other posters trumpet the same theme, and are actually insulting at times, IMO, toward our coaches abilities to do their job.
I'm glad people care and want to do better. But some of the criticism of our coaches is based on their personalities and some of our posters preconceived notions that you have to fit a certain personality mode to be a 'good' coach.
No one is saying our coaches are the best in the NCAA (Wayne excepted). But they are good coaches, and they do well in a difficult situation. And by difficult, I mean difficult in the sense of competition with programs who spend much, much more and have better working conditions, and less stringent recruiting conditions.
Yes, Bailiff is fairly well compensated, and yes, he doesn't deal with Alabama-type expectations. But driving back from Waco this afternoon, after listening to half of the Rice game on the internet, I turned on the TCU-Tech, game and listened to Schlossnagel talking about the new facilities they are building for the baseball team there, and thinking how even Wayne sometimes is fighting against a $-stacked deck, funded by BCS money.
I'm not really aiming this at you. You know this. Frankly all of us know this.
I just hate it when we insult our coaches or discuss them in a condescending way. (again, not aimed at you, and not aimed at any one, just a general reaction to a variety of posts from a variety of people over the years) It's not right.

Not quite sure I appreciate the "Hey, I'm not attacking you, but I'm going to attack your post as a way of attacking other people." If you want to attack me, attack me. If you want to attack them, attack them. But at least be honest and straightforward about it. I think you're kind of playing dirty pool here. And you're usually better than that.

I've posted several times that attacking the stuff like he's not fiery enough on the sidelines is absurd. And I understand most of the "conservative" play calls so I don't really agree with that criticism either.

But there are some legitimate gripes too. I don't think we have developed players as well as possible. I don't think the development has been zero in many cases, as you seemed to be implying that the criticism suggests. But I also recognize that some improvement is inevitable, barring injury, as athletes mature from age 18 to age 22, and I haven't really seen much in the way of improvement that I would attribute to anything more than that. If you have, then I'd be interested in names. I actually think Driphus might turn out to be one. Then again, if he was considered a peer of Chuckie Keeton out of HS, his development has certainly been slower paced than that.

I guess my standard for development is probably a bit high because I watched Bear Bryant take guys I played against in HS and that we didn't think were all that special and turn them into guys who were all-conference performers on national championship teams and went on to have good careers in the NFL, and then I watched Guy V take guys like Hayes and Drexler who were good HS players, but not at the top of the recruiting lists, and turn them into two of the top 50 players of all time--not to mention the job he did with Hakeem (comparing him as a freshman to what he turned out to be is nothing short of amazing).

Heck, Hatfield took a lot of diamonds in the rough and turned them into excellent players. I just don't see that happening as much here now.

I don't have a handy-dandy metric that says this much improvement is due to maturity and this much is due to coaching. But kind of like Potter Stewart on pornography, I think many of us know it when we see it. And if you think there has been remarkable improvement anywhere, I'd be interested in knowing who and where.

Well, I said I wasn't attacking you, because I wasn't. Look back in the thread.

My original post (with the comment about snarkiness) was Post 118. It was not a response to anything you said, or a post of yours, or in a series of posts that involved you.

While you have talked about lack of development, there are others that have as well. And while you try and be fair and even-handed (I agree with a lot of your post above - and I do notice where you defend Bailiff), I think its fair to say that not everyone's opinion on the matter is expressed in that vein.

There is a tendency of posters (hey, all of us at one time or another) to assume a comment is directed at them, when in fact it may be a response to someone else entirely, or the cumulative tendencies of those who take an opposing view on something. Post 118 was prompted by the latter, cumulative tendencies . . . . not anything you've posted.

(10-25-2014 09:40 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  Well, I said I wasn't attacking you, because I wasn't. Look back in the thread.
My original post (with the comment about snarkiness) was Post 118. It was not a response to anything you said, or a post of yours, or in a series of posts that involved you.
While you have talked about lack of development, there are others that have as well. And while you try and be fair and even-handed (I agree with a lot of your post above - and I do notice where you defend Bailiff), I think its fair to say that not everyone's opinion on the matter is expressed in that vein.
There is a tendency of posters (hey, all of us at one time or another) to assume a comment is directed at them, when in fact it may be a response to someone else entirely, or the cumulative tendencies of those who take an opposing view on something. Post 118 was prompted by the latter, cumulative tendencies . . . . not anything you've posted.

Very simple. Don't respond to my post with snarky comments interspersed with, "Hey, not attacking you, of course."

If you want to attack me, then quote my posts. If you don't want to attack me, then don't quote my posts. Is that unreasonably difficult?

Sorry if that's a bit snippy, but I thought that your longer post was really pretty unreasonably snarky, and I did not appreciate the way it was set up or worded.

(10-25-2014 09:57 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(10-25-2014 09:40 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  Well, I said I wasn't attacking you, because I wasn't. Look back in the thread.
My original post (with the comment about snarkiness) was Post 118. It was not a response to anything you said, or a post of yours, or in a series of posts that involved you.
While you have talked about lack of development, there are others that have as well. And while you try and be fair and even-handed (I agree with a lot of your post above - and I do notice where you defend Bailiff), I think its fair to say that not everyone's opinion on the matter is expressed in that vein.
There is a tendency of posters (hey, all of us at one time or another) to assume a comment is directed at them, when in fact it may be a response to someone else entirely, or the cumulative tendencies of those who take an opposing view on something. Post 118 was prompted by the latter, cumulative tendencies . . . . not anything you've posted.

Very simple. Don't respond to my post with snarky comments interspersed with, "Hey, not attacking you, of course."

If you want to attack me, then quote my posts. If you don't want to attack me, then don't quote my posts. Is that unreasonably difficult?

Sorry if that's a bit snippy, but I thought that your longer post was really pretty unreasonably snarky, and I did not appreciate the way it was set up or worded.

Again, my first post was not directed at you. I was not responding to you, and I wasn't quoting your posts.

YOU responded with "You should know better . . . " first.

I was honestly trying not to escalate which is why I tried to explain my first post was not a response to anything you said.

At this point, yes you are being snippy.

(10-25-2014 11:44 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  Again, my first post was not directed at you. I was not responding to you, and I wasn't quoting your posts.
YOU responded with "You should know better . . . " first.
I was honestly trying not to escalate which is why I tried to explain my first post was not a response to anything you said.
At this point, yes you are being snippy.

Merely responding in kind.

I agree that your post #118 was not directed at me. My post #119 was directed at you in response. That's why I quoted your post. I realize that your comment was sarcasm, but I still thought it was over the top. So far, we have a difference of opinion, but beyond that I had no complaint.

My comments are directed at your post #124. You quote me and then launch into a long diatribe interspersed with random, "Of course, I'm not talking about you, just others," comments. Seems to me that if you're not directing it at me, you don't quote my post. If that's not the way you roll, then we had a misunderstanding.

I don't want to escalate this either. I respect your judgement, even when we disagree. I understand that your first post was not a response to anything I said. That was never an issue with me. My problem is trying to understand how I am supposed to conclude that your next post, which did quote me, is not a response to anything I said.

(10-26-2014 06:50 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(10-25-2014 11:44 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  Again, my first post was not directed at you. I was not responding to you, and I wasn't quoting your posts.
YOU responded with "You should know better . . . " first.
I was honestly trying not to escalate which is why I tried to explain my first post was not a response to anything you said.
At this point, yes you are being snippy.

Merely responding in kind.

I agree that your post #118 was not directed at me. My post #119 was directed at you in response. That's why I quoted your post. I realize that your comment was sarcasm, but I still thought it was over the top. So far, we have a difference of opinion, but beyond that I had no complaint.

My comments are directed at your post #124. You quote me and then launch into a long diatribe interspersed with random, "Of course, I'm not talking about you, just others," comments. Seems to me that if you're not directing it at me, you don't quote my post. If that's not the way you roll, then we had a misunderstanding.

I don't want to escalate this either. I respect your judgement, even when we disagree. I understand that your first post was not a response to anything I said. That was never an issue with me. My problem is trying to understand how I am supposed to conclude that your next post, which did quote me, is not a response to anything I said.

Just defending my original post from the "you should know better".

There are other posters who use hyperbole (or maybe they really believe some of what they post in the emotion of the moment.) and they are very dismissive of our coaches ability to coach (and develop players). In light of that 118 wasn't really over the top IMO. But that is just a difference of opinion, as you point out.

That said, I probably shouldn't have reacted to the "you should know better." Sorry. dead issue

(10-26-2014 07:43 AM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  Sorry. dead issue

No worries. Sorry too. Same here.

Probably a case where the impersonal nature of message board posts did not serve either of us as well as talking face to face would have worked.

(10-25-2014 09:04 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  We don't seem to be able to elevate our execution above our opponents. So it seems to me that we're going to have to do something different. And I don't see that happening.

I'm quoting this because it touches on the same theme.

Yes, we are developing players... but if you're relying on talent to bridge the gap, then you can't merely take unheralded talent and turn them into marginal NFL talent (because the teams you're competing against are FILLED with marginal NFL talent) or even take a few 3 star guys and turn them into first day players... with 2 or three guys taken overall, but instead you need to develop that talent into having 2 or 3 guys taken on the first day and 6+ overall. (obviously speaking euphemistically) because that is the talent that top 25 teams are producing.

In other words, it's not about merely being slightly better than average at identifying and developing talent, which we may be... but about creating (either through development or recruiting) a similar talent profile to the top 25 or even top 40 teams where we want to compete. And I don't think it is fair to expect them to compete for talent with top 25 teams from CUSA, nor is it reasonable to expect them to develop that talent far enough to bridge the gap... and as good as they might be, they can't. Which is why I am so adamant about adding a unique scheme to what David and his staff are doing well. They just can't possibly do what they do well, 'well enough'.