Tracy Claeys on Sports Huddle 6-19-16

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Gopher FB coach Tracy Claeys appeared on the Sports Huddle with Sid and Dave on Sunday.

Sid: Did players report in good shape?
TC: kids took a little time off, reported in pretty good shape.

Sid: New rules for coaches working with players?
TC: We can have 2 hrs a week. Given them 3 weeks for conditioning. 2 days a week we'll take an hour a day and work with kids. get a jump on fall camp.

Sid: Transfer from Oregon?
TC: he'll have one year. played in system similar to ours. get terminology down. big help on special teams. had concerns about depth at safety. give chance to let younger kids develop.

Mona: do you balance out recruiting classes by position?
TC: still recruit QB and RB - maybe could play another position if they had too. can't get caught short at QB or RB. we'll take one whether we need to or not.

Sid: good crop MN kids for 2017?
TC: not the worst year, but not like last year. 6 kids or so we think are our type of players.

Mona: RB's in spring game?
TC: Femi-Cole and Johanessen had good springs, continuing to work. didn't get a lot of reps last fall. made strides in the spring. special-teams aspect. added JUCO Mc Crary - big kid. we have tremendous competition for playing time.

Sid: Leidner at QB camp?
TC: excited about going back. allows him to go through drills with top QB's in country. very small margin between great ones and everybody else. improve techniques, lot better at throwing the ball. look forward to seeing improvement this fall.

Sid: Pirsig hurt last year?
TC: overhauled offensive conditioning for OL. completely different training than in the past. think it will pay off - guys stay healthy and get more physical. lifting 5 times a week, but not lifting as long. lot more resistance training. designed around drive blocking. take away some of running - more conditioning through blocking movements.

Sid: center position?
TC: Tyler played OK for a true freshman. needs to continue to develop. needs to identify LB's - determine blocking schemes, protections. with Coach Johnson's system, letting the QB take over more of the identification. Tyler had good off-season, gotten better. hard to play as true FR. he'll be a lot better.

Mona: Johnson's offense?
TC: last year threw 85% of time with 3WR in game. with johnson, will be a 50-50, 60-40 split with more running game out of 3 WR set.

Sid: players going to NFL? does that help recruiting?
TC: people dream of having opportunity. great goal to have as long as they get education. see how many DB's we've had in NFL. kids think we're training them for opportunity. on offense, trying to do some things to help kids out.

Sid: how is recruiting going?
TC: going good. just got through camps. have another camp in late July. finish up evaluations. going as well as can be expected. our goal: replace kids who are leaving with kids who are better - on course to do that.

Mona: change positions on recruits?
TC: with Eric Murray, he tested well and his HS coach brought him back for DB drills. that's the advantage of camps. With QB & TB, don't have as big a need, so look at position changes.
 



Mona: Johnson's offense?
TC: last year threw 85% of time with 3WR in game. with johnson, will be a 50-50, 60-40 split with more running game out of 3 WR set.

Limegrover's/Kill's offense was prone to overtendencies and opposing coaches feasted on that. It also sounds like Johnson will at least try to install and audible or two to get out of bad plays. We never saw that level of trust.
 

Thanks, SON. This message from scorching St. Johns, AZ.

Dry, hot, NO MOSQUITOES!!! Wildfires in general area but no danger to us in Woodland Valley Ranch.
 


Pompous Elitist said:
Mona: Johnson's offense?
TC: last year threw 85% of time with 3WR in game. with johnson, will be a 50-50, 60-40 split with more running game out of 3 WR set.

Limegrover's/Kill's offense was prone to overtendencies and opposing coaches feasted on that. It also sounds like Johnson will at least try to install and audible or two to get out of bad plays. We never saw that level of trust.[/
Pompous E- I would appreciate you expanding on the "prone to overtendncies" and "defenses feasted on that". I am not contesting the comment, I just want to understand the specifics of what you are saying.
Click to expand...
 

Down and distance tendencies. Claeys just pointed out one a personnel tendency. Claeys knows as well as any observer which is why there is a change.
 

Thanks Son for this Father's Day recap!
 

Thanks SON
Best news to me is the overhaul of the OL training. WAY too many injuries and concussions. Really liked watching Bart work in practice. Interesting possibilities for OL this year. Most important position group on the team. Hard not to be optimistic.
 



short ornery norwegian said:
Mona: Johnson's offense?
TC: last year threw 85% of time with 3WR in game. with johnson, will be a 50-50, 60-40 split with more running game out of 3 WR set.
Click to expand...

If this stat is for real, there is no excuse that Kill and Limey could give to justify it. In this day of stats, everyone would know of this and use it against us. This is unacceptable. It proves Limey should have been fired. Likely would have justified firing Kill too. Glad we have someone with the light on in charge now.


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Right on!

Spoofin said:
If this stat is for real, there is no excuse that Kill and Limey could give to justify it. In this day of stats, everyone would know of this and use it against us. This is unacceptable. It proves Limey should have been fired. Likely would have justified firing Kill too. Glad we have someone with the light on in charge now.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...


Not to mention the change in O-Line training, which almost has to be a better system by default, if not for increased performance and health.
 


Thank you Short Ornery, great job as usual.

Yeah, as mentioned in the previous posts, that 85% stat and the new conditioning for the O line are very interesting.

Thanks again for picking up on doing this.
 



Recruiting going great locally. Right now,not that well nationally if you look at Rivals, Scout, and 247. That could change after the July camps
 

thx, good update. love the thought of the new oc and o-line coach.
 

Spoofin said:
If this stat is for real, there is no excuse that Kill and Limey could give to justify it. In this day of stats, everyone would know of this and use it against us. This is unacceptable. It proves Limey should have been fired. Likely would have justified firing Kill too. Glad we have someone with the light on in charge now.


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Click to expand...

Well, it was a pretty obvious stat. Pompous Elite even pointed it out right after it was reported by S.O.N. after it was mentioned on radio by Claeys. I just wish P.E. would have notified the coaching staff about that tendency when it was happening.
 

The quality control guys or film addicts like Claeys break this stuff down, to whatever level of detail they want. It's tedious to chart a game much less a season but certainly doable. Without charting and pages of statistics even slackjawed fans like myself can pick up on things and make predictions. I'm sure you could do it if you set your mind to it. Just another way to generate better match ups in a complicated chess match.
 

I'm not neccesarily disagreeing with anyone's comments, but Limegrover was in a difficult situation last year.

At the beginning of the season, Mitch was really struggling. I'm not bashing him, I am sure he'd agree with me, but he wasn't very good early in the season. He was missing the easy throws and he was missing them badly. Additionally, our OL struggled all year.

When your QB isn't playing well and your OL is struggling, the OC is in a tough situation. You're almost forced to go RUN-RUN-PASS, RUN-RUN-PASS, repeat. When Mitch started playing better, the offense opened up a bit more and we became less predictable. I know for some people that's a chicken & the egg argument, but for me, it isn't. In my opinion, it would have been lunacy for Limegrover to have "opened it up" more earlier in the season.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
I'm not neccesarily disagreeing with anyone's comments, but Limegrover was in a difficult situation last year.

At the beginning of the season, Mitch was really struggling. I'm not bashing him, I am sure he'd agree with me, but he wasn't very good early in the season. He was missing the easy throws and he was missing them badly. Additionally, our OL struggled all year.

When your QB isn't playing well and your OL is struggling, the OC is in a tough situation. You're almost forced to go RUN-RUN-PASS, RUN-RUN-PASS, repeat. When Mitch started playing better, the offense opened up a bit more and we became less predictable. I know for some people that's a chicken & the egg argument, but for me, it isn't. In my opinion, it would have been lunacy for Limegrover to have "opened it up" more earlier in the season.
Click to expand...

Yup. Additionally, when you have a weak o-line, you use two WRs to allow for more blockers. Then when it is 3rd and 8, you bring in another wr and you throw the ball. Like most, I hated the Limegrower offence but I think people are over-reacting on this stat. Basically, other opponents knew the Gophers were likely to pass on likely passing downs. They will this year as well.

I will also add that it is very easy to hypothetically project statistics like 50-50 run/pass with 3 WRs but much harder to implement come game time. The only way they will is if they go 3 wr fairly often on first down.
 

Also, at the time our RB core wasn't as diverse, so you could tell who was getting the ball a large percentage of the time.
 

Winnipegopher said:
Yup. Additionally, when you have a weak o-line, you use two WRs to allow for more blockers. Then when it is 3rd and 8, you bring in another wr and you throw the ball. Like most, I hated the Limegrower offence but I think people are over-reacting on this stat. Basically, other opponents knew the Gophers were likely to pass on likely passing downs. They will this year as well.

I will also add that it is very easy to hypothetically project statistics like 50-50 run/pass with 3 WRs but much harder to implement come game time. The only way they will is if they go 3 wr fairly often on first down.
Click to expand...

Agree. And frankly I'd like to see that.

I also agree I'm not shocked they passed 85% out of 3WR. The Gophers used that formation like most teams use 4WR/5WR formations - only in obvious passing situations. That was one of the reasons so many people didn't like Limey's offense. There's a difference between wanting to run the ball while being a little conservative and what they had last year with one or two WR 90% of the time (probably not a real stat but it felt like it). It just seemed like they were going to forgo the pass game in lieu of the run game. Now it seems like they want to at least have a competent pass game and a good running game, which will be a big relief if it actually happens.

Of course, with the easier schedule this year it might happen even if they don't improve a lick... :)
 

So if passing 85% of the time out of a certain personnel set isn't an issue, why is TC making a point to change it?


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Spoofin said:
So if passing 85% of the time out of a certain personnel set isn't an issue, why is TC making a point to change it?


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Click to expand...

No one said it wasn't an issue.

If you are referring to my post, I was just pointing out that it is difficult to be unpredictable when your QB and o-line are struggling. I hope we're more unpredictable this season, I completely support Claeys decision to move on from Limey, but it doesn't change the fact (IMO) that Limey was in a tough situation last year.

As to your last point, people disagree with coaches all of the time. Coaches are usually right, but I've seen plenty of times when lay people were right and coaches were wrong. People (rightfully) criticized the way the end of the Michigan went down. It wasn't handled correctly just because our coaching staff did it.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
I'm not neccesarily disagreeing with anyone's comments, but Limegrover was in a difficult situation last year.

At the beginning of the season, Mitch was really struggling. I'm not bashing him, I am sure he'd agree with me, but he wasn't very good early in the season. He was missing the easy throws and he was missing them badly. Additionally, our OL struggled all year.

When your QB isn't playing well and your OL is struggling, the OC is in a tough situation. You're almost forced to go RUN-RUN-PASS, RUN-RUN-PASS, repeat. When Mitch started playing better, the offense opened up a bit more and we became less predictable. I know for some people that's a chicken & the egg argument, but for me, it isn't. In my opinion, it would have been lunacy for Limegrover to have "opened it up" more earlier in the season.
Click to expand...

There certainly seemed to be a play calling element to Mitch's early difficulties. Claeys did mention it (and said that we weren't going to do it this year). That was when we had third and long (say 8 yards), we would call for a 20+ yard pass. We did this all the time. I believe Claeys quote was something to the effect that, this year, when we have third and 8 we are going to try throwing it 10 yards instead of 20 yards.
 

OL has nowhere to go but up, at least when it comes to run blocking.
 

Ecstatic about hearing about the change in philosophy for O-line offseason conditioning. With an emphasis on resistance training we should see an immediate impact for the O-line in improved stamina and the ability for the kids to stay healthy and recover sooner.
This is how Wisconsin, Ohio State and Nebraska train. Minnesota needed this change for a long time, pre-Kill and Brewster even.
 

Spoofin said:
So if passing 85% of the time out of a certain personnel set isn't an issue, why is TC making a point to change it?


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Click to expand...

Claeys seems to think it matters and I like that. Seems like this game can be as simple or as complicated as a coach wants it to be. Some just want to line up and play. Overpower the other team despite what look they're giving. Others want to try to create as frequent of favorable match ups as possible, keep the defense off-balance, keep the offensive line/backs confused on their blocking assignments, study tendencies.

The injury issues last year crippled their ability to do a lot of things effectively on the ground and Mitch was not well protected. Bad recipe. I also think Kill's obvious lack of confidence in Leidner had an affect on him, conscious or not. The team was basically told on numerous occasions the last several years "I don't trust you to get the job done". Nobody plays well when they're trying to obsessively avoid mistakes. Play loose and have fun. Seemed like that happened more as the season wore on.

Just spitballing, why not run out of spread formations? On first down? Its a simple numbers game, a hat on a hat. Prolific offenses like Baylor do it all the time.
 

Inverted veer with Mitch and Smith/Brooks

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WJW-Ka3-AX0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 

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