(11-25-2015 05:19 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote: (11-25-2015 05:01 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote: (11-25-2015 04:53 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote: (11-25-2015 04:45 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote: What I meant was the really good players were playmakers: they could succeed regardless of the playcalling. If your tall beast of a tight end can sky for the overthrown ball and break a pair of tackles, then he can turn that across-field throw into triple coverage into a touchdown when defended by mere mortals. I didn't mean that they defied the coaches.
I think working against their coaches would be the same as succeeding in spite of poor coaching, right? I didn't mean that they were openly defying them.
What you're arguing is that the players were so good, that the bad play calls, bad prep, etc, didn't affect them, right? Well, my argument is more that the coaching has to at least be decent enough to leverage those resources to get a result like 2008 and 2013. You're right that these players could make plays out of nothing, but if you can't at least get the rest of the team to play decent, those few plays won't help you win 10 games in a season.
Like I said, there are other teams with more NFL talent that arguably performed worse than our 2008 and 2013 teams, which indicates to me that our coaches were doing something right. I just think they struggle mightily when they can't rely on a player making plays if they aren't naturally gifted at it. But they don't seem to make players worse, which other coaches can be guilty of.
Well of course the coaches are present and actively managing the game, but I wonder now how much of their playcalling was geniune strategy as opposed to getting the ball in the vicinity of the playmakers and hoping something would come of the talent differential. I'm also not sure who was the primary inspiration for team morale and chemistry - the locker room meeting after the Memphis loss was allegedly the players deciding to do better (though of course any or all of that may be apocryphal).
I think the thing is that either of those are valid coaching strategies, but one is obviously much more connected to the quality of the players on the team.
Some coaches use a system and can almost plug in players indiscriminately - a coach like this would appear to be the one that would thrive the most at Rice, and doesn't appear to be what DB and Co do. Instead, I think DB and Co. do the latter, and have had some success with it, but they obviously struggle when they don't have the type of playmakers they need to thrive. They try to win by out recruiting the competition, and in 2015, they have failed miserably at that.
I think that if you took both the 2008 and 2013 teams and gave them to other coaches, some would have taken them and done better, and others would have taken them and done worse. The fact that I think some coaches would have done a worse job at leveraging the talent those teams had makes me believe that the teams did not succeed in spite of the coaching, but were helped, but perhaps not maximized, by the coaching.
Looking at 2008 and 2013 and the senior "NFL-ready" talent on them, you have to ask if that NFL-ready talent was inherently going to be NFL-ready.
In other words, as I've suggested earlier, that these were all exceptional individuals, but that they were NOT NFL-ready when they arrived as 17, 18 or 19 year old freshmen.
In MLB, baseball players who make the majors at 20 years old make the HOF at a much higher rate than those who make the majors at 24 or 26. However, regardless of when they start, peak performance typically occurs between 25 and 29 years of age.
Why wouldn't that same logic apply to football. A college player who earns significant playing time as a freshman (redshirt or otherwise) or sophomore may be more likely to make all-conference or get drafted by their final years on campus.
However, when those players leave campus, they also leave roster spots that they have grown in, developed and excelled in over the years . . . . but where the person stepping in is either starting the process over, or, if an upperclassmen, moving in without the reps that their predecessor earned and utilized.
Rice in 2010-11 did not produce the records we had in 2012-14. But the young players who became the leaders later were getting reps and playing time.
The question is who we have in the pipeline, keeping in mind that in 2011 we didn't view Gaines and Callahan in the same way we see them now? Will Nate German be another Donald Hollas? I was happy when I heard that he'll move back to QB next year. (And I was happy he helped us out at receiver this year).
Back in Neely's time, there were freshmen football teams. Freshmen didn't play. For whatever reason, his teams, post 1950 seemed to peak in 4 year cycles: 1949, 1953, 1957, 1960-61. Maybe the freshmen teams recruited during their peak years were a little stronger, and were able to move into more prominent roles as sophomores and get the reps they needed to peak as seniors. Given the redshirt program, it seems that following our 2008 success, Bailiff and company were able to recruit a number of players that by the time they were seniors, were NFL ready talent. They may have been the Rice-equivalents of 19 year old Robin Yount, ready to play, but not yet the All-Star he would become.
None of us know yet, but I've certainly hoped we got a recruiting bump after 2012 and 2013 (bowl seasons and a conference championship are good advertising, as are NFL-ready players). I don't know which, if any, of our freshmen, red-shirt freshmen or sophomores who are getting playing time now, and growing stronger, will be all-conference in the next year or two, much less an NFL ready prospect. But regardless, I do know that playing now is only going to help them when they get older, stronger and more mature.
There's no reason to believe that kind of developmental cycle can't be repeating itself.
Someone could argue that it may not be repeating itself, but there is no reason I can see that it cannot be so. 2007 did not prevent 2008. 2009-2011 did not prevent 2012-14.
And 1959 (1 win) did not prevent 1960-61, 1955-56 (2 and 4 wins) did not prevent 1957. 1951-52 (5-5 each year) did not prevent 1953.
Who knows? Maybe our recruiting went in the dumper when we started winning. Maybe our young players playing this year don't improve or get bigger and stronger. Maybe they improve but not enough.
At least for now, I'm hoping for a repeat of the cycle. After 2008 and 2013, at least we know that it "can" happen. It's the "will" that is the question mark (in more ways than one).
