My 1 and only concern with Fleck

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UST82Gopher

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Lots of comments on Fleck here - but nothing really on the one issue that concerns me the most.

HC need to be a lot of things - recruiters, motivators, administrators, PR masters, fundraisers, tacticians, game mangers, etc. It is very rare to find a college football coach who is successful at each and every one of these things. I am concerned that with all things PJ is good at, there may be one serious weakness that he must address or we will never be successful.

In roughly 1½ seasons, I have yet to see a meaningful in game adjustment that takes away something on defense and/or exploits something on offense that the other team is doing during the game. We seem to have a very detailed game plan for what we want to do based on scouting - but don't seem able to on the fly make adjustments based on the flow of the game.

The one thing that impressed me, even in the early years of Coach Kill when we were getting trounced, was his staff's ability to adjust at halftime. If a team was beating us with something, we'd open the 2nd half by taking that away. Forced the other team to do something different. The other team might make a change that was even more successful (I remember one early game in Kill's tenure where Kill had his cornerbacks press up to stop the 7 yard out at halftime only to get beat deep) but at least we forced the other team to change. Kill and his staff always seemed willing to try something different as in game managers even if it might stretch the ability of this players.

I simply don't see Fleck having the knack yet for in game management - starting with his clock management all the way to in game tactics. That is very concerning as I don't see this as a culture things, a recruiting thing, a "young team" thing, etc. To me, game management is a key trait. I am starting to be concerned that this is not a strong suit for PJ.

If so, it's not a deal breaker for PJ. He simply needs to surround himself with a couple of key coaches who are excellent game managers. That will need to start very quickly - with likely a change at DC next season.

What say the rest of you?
 

Kill certainly had games where they made adjustments.... but plenty of games where it didn't seem to happen.

Kills teams also started painfully slow too... I guess adjustments are likely to look pretty good if the other team decides to play it safe at the half and your team finally gets going...

Anyway tactical adjustments are on the coordinators IMO.
 

That's been an ongoing concern I have had and expressed...starting with the MD game last year.
 

I want to see another recruiting class join the team and see where it goes next year before making any changes.

Scoring shows that we are better on defense in second half of games and worse on offense. Considering we are down at the half by an average of over 10 points per game in conference games, I would say it's more about game plan than adjustments. Teams play differently with a 10 point lead in second half. Our defense is bad from start to finish of each game which is about game plan and talent.
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
Kill certainly had games where they made adjustments.... but plenty of games where it didn't seem to happen.

Kills teams also started painfully slow too... I guess adjustments are likely to look pretty good if the other team decides to play it safe at the half and your team finally gets going...

Anyway tactical adjustments are on the coordinators IMO.
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Correct! Drove me crazy.
 




tikited said:
Well, this Friday's game has me at a level 2 for "pumped". I haven't been at level 2 since I don't know when.
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By game time I'll be about here dependent on if the babysitter arrives on time or not:

source-02.jpg
 

MaxyJR1 said:
I want to see another recruiting class join the team and see where it goes next year before making any changes.

Scoring shows that we are better on defense in second half of games and worse on offense. Considering we are down at the half by an average of over 10 points per game in conference games, I would say it's more about game plan than adjustments. Teams play differently with a 10 point lead in second half. Our defense is bad from start to finish of each game which is about game plan and talent.
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Not sure where you are going with this...you expect more true freshmen to be starting next year?
 



PMWinSTP said:
Not sure where you are going with this...you expect more true freshmen to be starting next year?
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Fleck says it's his job to out recruit the previous class. There will always be opportunities for true freshmen to play, but they shouldn't be in your Front 7 or OL.
 

MaxyJR1 said:
Fleck says it's his job to out recruit the previous class. There will always be opportunities for true freshmen to play, but they shouldn't be in your Front 7 or OL.
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Shouldn't, but life happens.

I mean we "shouldn't" suck for as many years as we have with at least a random great season of only due to randomness but ... nope.
 

MaxyJR1 said:
Fleck says it's his job to out recruit the previous class. There will always be opportunities for true freshmen to play, but they shouldn't be in your Front 7 or OL.
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Not sure that answers my question.
 




Halftime adjustments are largely a myth.

There are minor adjustments between series, but it's not like a whole new game plan is unrolled at halftime where they say "Hey! Let's try stopping the long runs to the outside aimed at our weakest tacklers!"
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
Kill certainly had games where they made adjustments.... but plenty of games where it didn't seem to happen.

Kills teams also started painfully slow too... I guess adjustments are likely to look pretty good if the other team decides to play it safe at the half and your team finally gets going...

Anyway tactical adjustments are on the coordinators IMO.
Click to expand...

Didn't Kill have the crazy streak where the team always lost if they were behind at half time and always won when they were ahead? I can't remember exactly what it was but I know there was something where the result never changed if we went into halftime a certain way.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Didn't Kill have the crazy streak where the team always lost if they were behind at half time and always won when they were ahead? I can't remember exactly what it was but I know there was something where the result never changed if we went into halftime a certain way.
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Yeah whatever we say about the "adjustments" it's not like they worked enough for us to win.... so not sure it matters.

My perception of the Kill & Co. "adjustments" were purely defensive... and while I felt like I saw them here and there, I think they were so infrequent that they were statistically insignificant... and certainly we weren't coming back to win so ... didn't matter.
 

My biggest concern is Flecks ability to evaluate coaching talent. I have no idea if our assistant coaches are worth a damn or not, and I'm not sure if he does either. I like youth, but we have a lot of that at the head coach position.
 


Word said:
Where did you hear this? That's contrary to pretty much everything I've heard from coaches and players that I know.
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I think the question is maybe more along the lines of "they exist" vs "are they significant".

The other team adjusts too so that complicates things.
 

Word said:
Where did you hear this? That's contrary to pretty much everything I've heard from coaches and players that I know.
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Can read this.

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1796628-what-really-goes-on-in-an-nfl-locker-room-at-halftime

I think they occur, but you also have adjustments after that first drive where the opposing team marched right down your throat, and maybe a bit more after the second drive again.

If there are halftime adjustments being made, I largely doubt it would be from Fleck (or any head coach). Mainly it would be positional coaches emphasizing some key points. The head coach I would think might tell his OC "Stop running X or Y plays". Or "We need to run the ball more, etc."

But as far as any tactical changes, I really doubt it. You might see a defensive coordinator change his defense some, but I don't think it's anything strongly related to the halftime of 10 minutes of which 2-3 minutes of it is walking to the locker room and back.
 


FWIW - the other team makes adjustments, too.

I agree - you rarely see some brilliant, major adjustment that changes the entire game. But, adjustments can be made in more subtle ways - in terms of personnel or positioning. maybe you blitz more on defense, or run more short passes as opposed to deep passes.

But, if the other team has a clear advantage in personnel or schemes, your adjustments will probably - at best - make it a closer game.

Honestly, adjustments are far from my biggest concern about Fleck. Fleck is admittedly not an X's and O's coach. he is more reliant on his coordinators to come up with the game plan and make adjustments. So Fleck is always going to rise or fall based on the quality of his coaching staff. there was a fair amount of turnover from last year to this year. It will be interested to see if there is more turnover before the 2019 season.

and, a word of caution - lot of people wanting a change in coaches - but the coaches also do the recruiting, so if you make too many coaching changes, that can disrupt or at least slow down recruiting while the new coaches get up to speed.
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
I think the question is maybe more along the lines of "they exist" vs "are they significant".

The other team adjusts too so that complicates things.
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Yeah - I guess I wouldn't say they are doing some sort of wholesale change in game plan (I interpreted FTF to be implying that there are no adjustments at all). But I would bet quite often there are subtle changes as others have alluded to. Some of those changes at halftime may have even been scripted before the game. I also think the number of changes is likely to be less in the NFL vs college. I think the better and more experienced players aren't going to need as much re-direction at halftime or during a game.
 

Word said:
Yeah - I guess I wouldn't say they are doing some sort of wholesale change in game plan (I interpreted FTF to be implying that there are no adjustments at all). But I would bet quite often there are subtle changes as others have alluded to. Some of those changes at halftime may have even been scripted before the game. I also think the number of changes is likely to be less in the NFL vs college. I think the better and more experienced players aren't going to need as much re-direction at halftime or during a game.
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Changes are made throughout the game, but most fans wouldn't notice them watching live.
 

UST82Gopher said:
Lots of comments on Fleck here - but nothing really on the one issue that concerns me the most.

HC need to be a lot of things - recruiters, motivators, administrators, PR masters, fundraisers, tacticians, game mangers, etc. It is very rare to find a college football coach who is successful at each and every one of these things. I am concerned that with all things PJ is good at, there may be one serious weakness that he must address or we will never be successful.

In roughly 1½ seasons, I have yet to see a meaningful in game adjustment that takes away something on defense and/or exploits something on offense that the other team is doing during the game. We seem to have a very detailed game plan for what we want to do based on scouting - but don't seem able to on the fly make adjustments based on the flow of the game.

The one thing that impressed me, even in the early years of Coach Kill when we were getting trounced, was his staff's ability to adjust at halftime. If a team was beating us with something, we'd open the 2nd half by taking that away. Forced the other team to do something different. The other team might make a change that was even more successful (I remember one early game in Kill's tenure where Kill had his cornerbacks press up to stop the 7 yard out at halftime only to get beat deep) but at least we forced the other team to change. Kill and his staff always seemed willing to try something different as in game managers even if it might stretch the ability of this players.

I simply don't see Fleck having the knack yet for in game management - starting with his clock management all the way to in game tactics. That is very concerning as I don't see this as a culture things, a recruiting thing, a "young team" thing, etc. To me, game management is a key trait. I am starting to be concerned that this is not a strong suit for PJ.

If so, it's not a deal breaker for PJ. He simply needs to surround himself with a couple of key coaches who are excellent game managers. That will need to start very quickly - with likely a change at DC next season.

What say the rest of you?
Click to expand...
So your one concern with Fleck is possibly the single most important thing that a head coach is responsible for? Cool.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Didn't Kill have the crazy streak where the team always lost if they were behind at half time and always won when they were ahead? I can't remember exactly what it was but I know there was something where the result never changed if we went into halftime a certain way.
Click to expand...

Yes I remember that and it was a good stat.
There was another stat which I'm not sure if I can dig up where it double digit games of the Gophers not scoring a TD on an opening drive.
 

Word said:
Yeah - I guess I wouldn't say they are doing some sort of wholesale change in game plan (I interpreted FTF to be implying that there are no adjustments at all). But I would bet quite often there are subtle changes as others have alluded to. Some of those changes at halftime may have even been scripted before the game. I also think the number of changes is likely to be less in the NFL vs college. I think the better and more experienced players aren't going to need as much re-direction at halftime or during a game.
Click to expand...

There are adjustments between almost every series.

I think fans believe that after a bad half of football the team goes to the locker room, and somehow the head coach says "I know, we're going to move this safety over here and we'll have our TE block there and PRESTO!"

There are adjustments, but in most cases I'm going to assume it's the DC and the OC or maybe a QB coach that would have some impact.
It's not the head coach rushing to the separate units asking for changes.

The "halftime adjustments" phrase to me sounds like more of what a caller calling in to a ventline show might say to sound intelligent, but really what they are saying is "Why do we lose every game where we are losing at half time?"

Issue is most teams that have a lead at halftime are better than the team that is losing, and therefore they are more likely to continue to win and outscore the losing team in the second half.
 


I just went through the 2011-2014 seasons for Kill.

In games we were losing at half, we lost all but one. A 39-38 Purdue game we won.

In games we were winning at half, we continued to win.
In games where we were tied, we won 3 and lost 1.

So essentially you could deride from this the "halftime adjustments" made exactly at halftime were almost meaningless in result of the victory or loss itself.
 


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