Welcome New OC

[3632]

His inability to form his offense around the talent he inherited is a sign of his OC skills.

This is true. And look, as positive as we are about Coen, and as highly thought of as he has been....he had these issues at times as well. The point of this isn't to crack on him but just to bring up that because he was sought after for his brains it's not like he was without issue and was still growing as a playcaller. He had some good play designs or the offense did or both. But we still too often would do things like we may be moving the ball down the field by running it right over the defense then throw it 3 straight times. Or we may get down in the red zone and forget that Rodriguez was on the roster....and I mean that happened in the bowl game too so it's not like that ever stopped. Our winning score was only because we had Rodriguez in the game. Prior drives we had been putting other backs in the game as we approached the goal line and we would stall some. The play call on the Rodriguez score was busted up quickly and any other back in there goes right down. But Rodriguez broke the tackle and made a play. For all of his genius he still had some head scratching things in the practical thinking department.

 

[gobigbluebell]

You can’t say all that without mentioning we couldnt trust CRod last year, especially near the goal line.

 

[3632]

You can’t say all that without mentioning we couldnt trust CRod last year, especially near the goal line.

No doubt. But at some point he/the staff has to acknowledge that nobody else was going to make the play(s) down there to get traction toward the end zone. We used him plenty to get down the field and frankly a turnover is more damaging to the team to have it in the middle of the field...but they used him there. We would get to the 40 or 30 and he would disappear quite a bit. Sometimes before we had even made it to field goal range. But you either A) accept the odds are higher on not punching it in without him or B) take a 50/50 type proposition that Rodriguez can make the play but may turn it over. When forced with the circumstance that it was the last drive of the game and we had to have a TD they had him in against Iowa. I guess I just don't understand that if you feel like that's the guy when it comes down to it all, like it was in that situation, why he would disappear so often at the end of other drives. Even more perplexing because they went more and more with McClain down there when he is the speed/receiving back that seems to fit more when you are in spots of the field where more space is available to exploit.

And I will add that in the Scangarello's lone year as an OC in Denver, it seems there were similar assessments to above. "Guy has great play design. Struggles with play calling at times." Doesn't mean it will be the same here or that those assessments were even accurate...we'll see...but it's probably accurate because that was his first and only season calling. There is intellect and feel in OC'ing. And feel obviously comes to some coaches by doing it more often. I feel like our advantage at this moment in time is that, while everybody in the NFL is going this offensive route, nobody is using this particular offense in college but us. So maybe we will have a cushion of staying ahead of the defenses for a bit. Coen could be clunky at times as he was growing and improved as the season moved forward. I still felt like some practical thinking would take a backseat to "smart play calls" at times.

 

[Porkins1413]

Ran into this Interview (https://www.denverbroncos.com/podca...-got-a-great-offensive-mind-and-has-had-it-fo) with JT O'Sullivan talking about Rich Scangarello when he had just been announced as Denver's OC. If you don't know JT O'Sullivan played in the NFL for about 10 years and runs a Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheQBSchool that is really great follow for QB and passing scheme info. He played under Rich at UC Davis and Rich mentioned him in his introductory press conference.