Admittedly I didn't do much digging when he was hired. Was pretty "meh" about it. I'm a Cohen fan, btw. It's my belief if Stoops would've just stayed out of Liam's way last years offense would've been much better than it was, and I think it was good given how bad the QB play was. Fact is, Hamdan had called plays for three years prior to UK. Petersen's last two years at Washington and those were his worst two years. Washington's DC gets the job and doesn't retain Hamdan. Hamdan winds up as QB coach at Mizzou (I live and coach in MO, go to most home games) for three years. Drink gives up play calling duties and goes outside to hire Kirby Moore, which is how Hamdan winds up as Boise's OC. He's OC there for a year and their HC gets fired. He's been the OC for three not very good offensive teams. He wasn't good enough to get the job when Drink gave up play calling at MU. And this is worth mentioning, he worked alongside Drink daily both on the field and in game prep/planning. Those two were the offense until Drink hired Kirby. Long winded way of saying I'm not sure our OC is worth a crap. Coupled with a HC whose offensive philosophies resemble the caveman era and an O-line coach who is more recruiter than developer and we've got some real issues on that side of the ball.
How much of this is on Hamdan?
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I think you nailed it....I didn't know all that history. My main grave concern before the season was when Mizzou decided to cut him as coach and go to a new OC (and then their offense sort of improved a bunch)....that was a major red flag to me. And he's living down to that at UK>
Throwing the ball has been such a chore with Stoops. Neal Brown and Shannon Dawson were the best chances to fix that. Neal didn’t inherit much talent and Dawson was too strong of a personality for Stoops and liked passing too much if that’s possible.
It has been proven, it doesn’t matter who the offensive coordinator is.
Well, I'm not sold either way right now. It would have been madness to continue to throw the ball against USC as our OL was obviously overmatched (not Hamdan's fault). Posters on this board are bemoaning how much we ran the ball but, to be fair, running straight at the defense was the only (however limited) success we had on Saturday.
However, my perception of a complete lack of preparation and ability to counter what the defense was doing is damning. Yes, it became obvious pretty quickly that dropping back into a pocket and throwing downfield was not going to work. We could not block them well enough to give BV any time to execute those plays. But, where was Plan B? Where were the adjustments? We don't have any short passes in the playbook? We don't have any play action? No letting the DE go wide, chip the DT inside and let BV QB draw into the hole? No screens? Nothing to take some of the teeth out of their pass rush? It appeared that, once USC proved we couldn't block them in pass pro for very long, that we had no alternatives, no answers, no fall back position. That is 100% on Hamdan and no one else. Not Stoops. Not Wolford. Not anyone else - Hamdan and him alone.
I hope he took the ass whipping on Saturday as a lesson learned and as motivation to be MUCH better going forward. With his resume, I'm frankly shocked he hadn't already experienced this and learned from it, but it is what it is. Georgia is not going to be worse at defense and, when something isn't working on Saturday, he damn well better have an adjustment to counter what they're doing. It won't make much difference as they'll win by 4 TDs. But, we can't be as impotent and pathetic on offense this Saturday as we were last. If we are, then I'll buy into he was a bad hire (Stoops calling card for OC, evidently).
However, my perception of a complete lack of preparation and ability to counter what the defense was doing is damning. Yes, it became obvious pretty quickly that dropping back into a pocket and throwing downfield was not going to work. We could not block them well enough to give BV any time to execute those plays. But, where was Plan B? Where were the adjustments? We don't have any short passes in the playbook? We don't have any play action? No letting the DE go wide, chip the DT inside and let BV QB draw into the hole? No screens? Nothing to take some of the teeth out of their pass rush? It appeared that, once USC proved we couldn't block them in pass pro for very long, that we had no alternatives, no answers, no fall back position. That is 100% on Hamdan and no one else. Not Stoops. Not Wolford. Not anyone else - Hamdan and him alone.
I hope he took the ass whipping on Saturday as a lesson learned and as motivation to be MUCH better going forward. With his resume, I'm frankly shocked he hadn't already experienced this and learned from it, but it is what it is. Georgia is not going to be worse at defense and, when something isn't working on Saturday, he damn well better have an adjustment to counter what they're doing. It won't make much difference as they'll win by 4 TDs. But, we can't be as impotent and pathetic on offense this Saturday as we were last. If we are, then I'll buy into he was a bad hire (Stoops calling card for OC, evidently).
Not sure all the timelines add up. Bush was the QB coach at Mizzou and Drinkwitz (who also served as the OC) turned over some of his play calling to Bush the last 3 games of the 2022 season...and they averaged 10ppg more those last 3 games than the games leading up to that. Also, Bush left Mizzou as their QB coach on December 14th to become OC at his alma mater and Moore wasn't named OC at Mizzou until January 4th, so 3 weeks later. @Eagles_Ball do you know if Drinkwitz had already decided he wanted an OC in the 2023 season before Bush left Mizzou?
As for the answer...there is one common denominator and it's Stoops. I have no idea if Bush Hamdan was a good hire, but I do know that we have our 5th coordinator in 5 years....that's on the head coach.
Let’s see
UK at home
Inexperienced QB
Questionable OL
Shouldn’t he have started off by going w a roll out to try to get some confidence and energy going?
UK at home
Inexperienced QB
Questionable OL
Shouldn’t he have started off by going w a roll out to try to get some confidence and energy going?
Everyone knew Drink was being forced to give up play calling duties. It's why Hamdan was allowed to call "some" of the plays those last three games. Had a buddy that was a GA during that time. The offense was no different in the three games you mentioned, the Tigers just had the luxury of New Mexico St being one of those three games.
But I agree...Stoops is the common denominator. I don't think there's any evidence that Hamdan is even a below average play caller, especially in the SEC. Problem is, Stoops has had some good ones and hasn't allowed them to do their thing. And he's had some bad ones. He needs to be smart enough to go find a good up and comer and give him the freedom.
I don’t think the USC OLine causing an offensive melt down debacle is fully in Hamden…..
Now what happens moving forward absolutely falls on him. You’ve seen your OLine get challenged by southern Miss and manhandled by USCjr that Old Dominion was able to relatively block enough to sustain drives. If we don’t see drastic adjustments…that’s all on the OC. If you have to completely scrap half the playbook, then do it. If you have to completely adjust course on the entire offensive strategy, then do it. But a good OC will put the best strategy on the field to overcome and hide weaknesses…
Now what happens moving forward absolutely falls on him. You’ve seen your OLine get challenged by southern Miss and manhandled by USCjr that Old Dominion was able to relatively block enough to sustain drives. If we don’t see drastic adjustments…that’s all on the OC. If you have to completely scrap half the playbook, then do it. If you have to completely adjust course on the entire offensive strategy, then do it. But a good OC will put the best strategy on the field to overcome and hide weaknesses…
I think at this point we can safely conclude that Stoops is bad at hiring people especially in the last 4 years. That’s probably cause he’s become complacent; we have guys on our staff that would be D-II assistants or high school coaches if they weren’t employed at UK.
How many assistants actually earn their keep from a recruiting/development standpoint?
How many assistants actually earn their keep from a recruiting/development standpoint?
Our defense has been the Brad White show since time immemorial. Our offense has been one new quarterback, one new OC, and one new line coach after another, not to mention a line built on portal plug-and-play. It seems to me that continuity of purpose, design, personnel, and coaching would help.
The first game we played which everyone seems to have forgotten about, the play calling was pretty good and we had excellent offensive production, albeit against a weaker team. More than anything it just seems like their were issues with multiple position groups and nothing cohesive could get established. Even good coaches have bad games when multiple things go wrong. The rest of the season will bring clarity.
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