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Pete Thamel@PeteThamel

Sources: Troy is set to hire UAB assistant Joe Craddock as the school’s offensive coordinator. Craddock is the former OC at SMU and Arkansas and worked three seasons at Clemson.

Damn what a huge loss. I was hoping he could get bumped up to OC at UAB.
Maybe there will be some shifting at UAB soon.

Good for Coach Craddock. I love it when people get promoted. I appreciate everything he did for us. God Bless and Merry Christmas

I would be okay with losing him to a head coach position to a "smaller" school...
or a OC position at a "bigger" school
losing him to a OC position at troy seems like a very bad sign

Lol, Troy. You had one job, take Vincent from us.

Yeah that seems like a lateral at best move.

Sucks to lose him. The offense, and especially the tight end production, has been significantly better this year.

Thank you for your time here

What are we getting with this guy? He seems highly regarded by you all, but treated like garbage by Arkansas fans.

I'm not familiar with what his offensive philosophy is, besides working under Chad Morris.

He modernized our passing game within the constraints of the ball control, run first system we run. What changed for our offense when he got here is that we specifically targeted and punished linebackers and safeties with play action and misdirection instead of just taking deep shots to wide outs.

Our tight ends more than doubled their targets per game once he got here and the nature of their routes changed from being safety valves to often times being the primary receiver in the route tree.

He was also one of the better recruiters on the staff. Since you hired a defensive minded head coach, I would not be surprised if he runs a lot of 11 personnel like we do here with a run first offense designed to punish you when you pay too much attention to the run.

Y'all are getting a good one.

...we still get to keep Zeno even though he has connections with Craddock, yes?

Hopkins did an amazing job yesterday at the game, but I still want a good QB competition and great QB room.

(12-19-2021 09:53 AM)blazerblazer Wrote:  ...we still get to keep Zeno even though he has connections with Craddock, yes?

Hopkins did an amazing job yesterday at the game, but I still want a good QB competition and great QB room.

Craddock may have been the connection, but I’m sure it was Bill that closed the deal on landing the pledge.

(12-19-2021 12:58 PM)BlazinBham Wrote:  

(12-19-2021 09:53 AM)blazerblazer Wrote:  ...we still get to keep Zeno even though he has connections with Craddock, yes?

Hopkins did an amazing job yesterday at the game, but I still want a good QB competition and great QB room.

Craddock may have been the connection, but I’m sure it was Bill that closed the deal on landing the pledge.

Combination of Craddock, Larry Smith and Bryant Vincent being diligent and Bill helping close the deal.

(12-19-2021 09:25 AM)BlazerMatt Wrote:  He modernized our passing game within the constraints of the ball control, run first system we run. What changed for our offense when he got here is that we specifically targeted and punished linebackers and safeties with play action and misdirection instead of just taking deep shots to wide outs.

Our tight ends more than doubled their targets per game once he got here and the nature of their routes changed from being safety valves to often times being the primary receiver in the route tree.

He was also one of the better recruiters on the staff. Since you hired a defensive minded head coach, I would not be surprised if he runs a lot of 11 personnel like we do here with a run first offense designed to punish you when you pay too much attention to the run.

Y'all are getting a good one.

Thank you for that info. That's good to know. Craddock seems like a pretty sharp guy from most articles I've read about him.

His time as OC at SMU and Arkansas wasn't spectacular statistically... but I don't know how much of a heavy hand Chad Morris had in all of that.

PS - Fantastic win against BYU... the Blazers seemed confident and controlling throughout the game.

(12-19-2021 02:17 PM)CardinalBlackTrojan Wrote:  

(12-19-2021 09:25 AM)BlazerMatt Wrote:  He modernized our passing game within the constraints of the ball control, run first system we run. What changed for our offense when he got here is that we specifically targeted and punished linebackers and safeties with play action and misdirection instead of just taking deep shots to wide outs.

Our tight ends more than doubled their targets per game once he got here and the nature of their routes changed from being safety valves to often times being the primary receiver in the route tree.

He was also one of the better recruiters on the staff. Since you hired a defensive minded head coach, I would not be surprised if he runs a lot of 11 personnel like we do here with a run first offense designed to punish you when you pay too much attention to the run.

Y'all are getting a good one.

Thank you for that info. That's good to know. Craddock seems like a pretty sharp guy from most articles I've read about him.

His time as OC at SMU and Arkansas wasn't spectacular statistically... but I don't know how much of a heavy hand Chad Morris had in all of that.

PS - Fantastic win against BYU... the Blazers seemed confident and controlling throughout the game.

UAB fans that follow this are upset about the loss, that should be all you need to know haha. Our TEs went from after thoughts to highlights of the offense under him.

I wouldn't expect him to be in Troy for too long though. He's a friend of a friend and apparently had a real tough time going from an OC in the SEC to UAB's TE coach, so I'm sure he'll be looking to move up if given the opportunity. But it's not like anyone at our level can truly stop someone from moving on anyway (and if he moves on then he probably did great things for y'all). Ok sorry I'm rambling about nonsense. Excellent hire for Troy, and I'm really sad that UAB didn't promote him over Vincent to prevent this move from happening.