Robb Smith out as D Coordiantor

NORMAN — Mike Stoops has been dismissed as the defensive coordinator for the Oklahoma football team. Head coach Lincoln Riley made the announcement.

"I have great respect for Mike," said Riley. "He's a quality football coach, great man and a close friend. It became time for a change in our program and that happens sometimes in football, but we cannot lose sight of the accomplishments Mike had at Oklahoma. He was responsible for a lot of success and deserves the gratitude of everyone associated with Sooner football, not only for his role in the winning, but for coaching with integrity."

For the remainder of the season, assistant head coach and defensive tackles coach Ruffin McNeill will serve as the defensive coordinator. Bob Diaco will move from defensive specialist to coach the outside linebackers.

http://www.soonersports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=31000&ATCLID=211775153

Deep coaching bench when they move up a former FBS HC in McNeill and the "defensive specialist" is a former FBS head coach and Notre Dame DC.
 

Frankly I'm shocked.

Good on Fleck!!! Clearly, Fleck does respond. He put in Tanner Morgan, and now he's getting rid of Robb Smith. I wish Smith good luck in the future, and no personal ill will, of course. This is just business. He did choose to come to Minnesota, and invest his time, energy, blood, and tears into our state, university, and team. That is worth something.


Now on to Joe Rossi.

Is there anything he can do that will make a significant, immediate impact?? Purdue is coming into TCF hot, having just knocked off Iowa. But I feel like if we can somehow hole Purdue to less than 35 points, we have a chance.
Yes, simplify and play the same scheme, and no offset looks with middle Linebacker. Get linebackers and safety on same page on what the called defense is. Anyone that is practicing well and was under the 4 game restriction needs to play. Take the gloves off and get the guys to stop playing scared. There is hope for coach Fleck after all. It's a shame someone had to be fired but the defense needs a fresh voice.

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Isn't it amazing how a lot of us saw this coming because we saw it as the main problem with the defense? And now it's obvious Fleck saw it too. I respect Fleck even more for doing it today because that just shows how serious he is. Now if only we could get the defense to show steady improvement like the offense has shown.
 

I'm surprised he did it now rather than wait until the season is over.
I wonder if there were any personnel decisions that mattered or if there were any fundamental disagreements between Fleck and Smith or if this was really a "We almost gave up a record breaking performance, we need to change for the sake of change".

Good on Fleck for having the conversation. I'm not going to bank on much improvement over these last three games however.
 

Credit to PJ for pulling the trigger. I'm sure it was difficult. Curious...do we now have any assistant coaches from year zero other than the WMU assistants?
 


nah, losing the oc and sc in the first 2 years is a fail on the hc. No staff no success - it’s over. A consistent staff is the coaches first job. He failed. Toss him out

How much would it take to get you to take your trolling butt back to the Sconnie boards? I'm sure most would pitch in.


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Credit to PJ for pulling the trigger. I'm sure it was difficult. Curious...do we now have any assistant coaches from year zero other than the WMU assistants?

I believe the entire defensive staff has now turned over. Our best recruiter from last year, linguist is at the top of the recruiting list this year, but with A&M, we can’t sell tickets, and our defense is in a shambles.

Nowhere to go but up. Hope someone told Fleck that next year is year 3, not year zero 3.0. He was hired to take the next step. I think we all assumed that would be forward. We may get there, but imploding the defense and losing 100% of your defensive staff before year 2 is done isn’t helping us head in the right direction.

We’re getting close to Butch Jones like comments at pressers that the boys are champions at life, football results don’t matter.

Which may be true, unless your getting over $3.5 million to change the culture - check; dramatically improve recruiting - one class a step up, this years class needs help to stay ahead of historical recruiting classes, improve ticket sales - nope, and win football games - not really.


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Ok, so he fired a coach we were told repeatedly (for about a month) was more or less “schematically ok”? But today, apparently, not so much? Either we are or we are not “ok”; which is it? This has really become quite the carnival. “Year One” Looks a lot like “Year Zero”, which are codes for “don’t look too hard at what’s really going on here please”. It’s fine if a percentage of Fleck die hards want to keep believing this nonsense, it’s only football/entertainment and minuscule in terms of life - but, if this is the “sales plan” - it’s going to be a tough sell going forward in terms of attendance. At $3.5 Million for four more years, there’s probably not much choice, unfortunately. It’s too bad we’re back in this same scenario again. Unbearable and embarrassing beat downs in BIG games, then looking for rationalizations why it’s not so bad and “wait until 2021 - we’ll be soooo good then.” Oh well, maybe PJ is a mad scientist genius and it will all work out this way, but, there’s nothing I see here that looks like we’re just two years away from being a lights out team. We will see; he’s not going anywhere in the next two years I don’t think.
 

This team has too many freshmen playing to give up on them. We were picked by the press preseason to finish 12th. The question is can PJ & his staff make these kids competitive and sustain that level? I have always maintained that we must win a minimum of two of the following; Nebraska, Northwestern, Wisconsin and Iowa in order to to be competitive. We need at least three of those to win the west. The rest of the Big Ten games will take care of themselves. Who cares about Nonconference games? We schedule those wins. In the next 2 years, our recruiting and coaching ability will tell the tail. For the record, I like the young kids were playing right now.
 



Oh well, maybe PJ is a mad scientist genius and it will all work out this way, but, there’s nothing I see here that looks like we’re just two years away from being a lights out team. We will see; he’s not going anywhere in the next two years I don’t think.

If the boat doesn't change course, I don't think it's at all unlikely that PJ is gone after next season. Ticket sales are going to take another huge hit next year. (Yeah, the home schedule improves a bit, but who is going to care?)

It may be my imagination, but I've thought the last 2-3 weeks that Fleck's sideline demeanor has changed considerably. Less swagger, more anxious. I strongly suspect admin has been turning up the heat. If not, he at least senses that the honeymoon is over. Hence Smith's firing.

I don't think the offense is that far away from becoming a "lights out" unit. The defense, on the other hand ...

JTG
 

If the boat doesn't change course, I don't think it's at all unlikely that PJ is gone after next season. Ticket sales are going to take another huge hit next year. (Yeah, the home schedule improves a bit, but who is going to care?)

It may be my imagination, but I've thought the last 2-3 weeks that Fleck's sideline demeanor has changed considerably. Less swagger, more anxious. I strongly suspect admin has been turning up the heat. If not, he at least senses that the honeymoon is over. Hence Smith's firing.

I don't think the offense is that far away from becoming a "lights out" unit. The defense, on the other hand ...

JTG
I doubt coyle put any heat on. He is in love with PJ.

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Frankly, this defense has looked it's best when it is in a press man to man coverage scheme. They did that a lot in the IU game but for whatever reason, didn't against IL. They should continue playing an aggressive scheme the rest of the season regardless of if they are playing against a dual threat QB or not. They have nothing to lose.
 

Frankly, this defense has looked it's best when it is in a press man to man coverage scheme. They did that a lot in the IU game but for whatever reason, didn't against IL. They should continue playing an aggressive scheme the rest of the season regardless of if they are playing against a dual threat QB or not. They have nothing to lose.

I thought the same as well, although maybe that was to keep being beaten long on the pass (that was happening earlier in the year).... so I guess we're just picking our poison.
 

If the boat doesn't change course, I don't think it's at all unlikely that PJ is gone after next season. Ticket sales are going to take another huge hit next year. (Yeah, the home schedule improves a bit, but who is going to care?)

It may be my imagination, but I've thought the last 2-3 weeks that Fleck's sideline demeanor has changed considerably. Less swagger, more anxious. I strongly suspect admin has been turning up the heat. If not, he at least senses that the honeymoon is over. Hence Smith's firing.

I don't think the offense is that far away from becoming a "lights out" unit. The defense, on the other hand ...

JTG

I think it would take a terrible season next year for Fleck to be fired after year 3 but his seat going into year 4 could be really warm.

The good news is that if the offense can realize the potential that all but the most negative of us can clearly see is there, the defense doesn't have to be great. It will just need to be solid and keep teams in check enough for the offense to do their thing and put points on the board.

Making the leap from where we are at to serviceable is not a huge ask. Just need a few new players or the development of current players and you can shore things up pretty quickly.
 


Poor take

This is just another Brewster sh** show thats all it is.

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Good move by Fleck. I'm a die hard, but the players know what's going on. Can't demand excellence from them and allow D to be led in such a poor fashion by the coordinator. Seemed like a good guy, but it's a results oriented biz. Hope Rossi can make the unit less embarrassing against 3 unique but good offenses down the stretch. After season, go out and get the next Mike Zimmer!
 

Frankly, this defense has looked it's best when it is in a press man to man coverage scheme. They did that a lot in the IU game but for whatever reason, didn't against IL. They should continue playing an aggressive scheme the rest of the season regardless of if they are playing against a dual threat QB or not. They have nothing to lose.

From a Rutgers fan on Reddit about this topic

[–]Rutgers • Paper Bagcrustang 14 points 14 hours ago

As a Rutgers fan... You didn't do any improvement, this might be a step backwards

Robb Smith was bad, Joe Rossi doesn't play press coverage

I still have nightmares about every team running bubble screens for gains. Every. ****ing. Time.
 

Count me surprised.hopefully we don’t lose any recruits.
 

From a Rutgers fan on Reddit about this topic

[–]Rutgers • Paper Bagcrustang 14 points 14 hours ago

As a Rutgers fan... You didn't do any improvement, this might be a step backwards

Robb Smith was bad, Joe Rossi doesn't play press coverage

I still have nightmares about every team running bubble screens for gains. Every. ****ing. Time.

There seems to be a theme here. Call it "the deadly combo": when you combine inferior talent, with a poor defensive scheme ... what you get is you make the opposing offense look incredible. Everything they run, works, and works big.


I just hope Rossi does something -- anything -- DIFFERENT than what Smith did. Even if this also doesn't work .... damnit just do it different!! Don't do the exact same thing ... it won't work!
 


<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
 

And he got the DC job formally, both times.

Was DC for Maine in 2009-2011, and DC for Rutgers 2014-2015.
 

*IF* Rossi doesn't have the interim tag removed by next year, meaning he gets the D back on track, then PJ's hire of replacement D Line coach and new DC will determine whether Fleck is Brewster 2.0.

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NORMAN — Mike Stoops has been dismissed as the defensive coordinator for the Oklahoma football team. Head coach Lincoln Riley made the announcement.

"I have great respect for Mike," said Riley. "He's a quality football coach, great man and a close friend. It became time for a change in our program and that happens sometimes in football, but we cannot lose sight of the accomplishments Mike had at Oklahoma. He was responsible for a lot of success and deserves the gratitude of everyone associated with Sooner football, not only for his role in the winning, but for coaching with integrity."

For the remainder of the season, assistant head coach and defensive tackles coach Ruffin McNeill will serve as the defensive coordinator. Bob Diaco will move from defensive specialist to coach the outside linebackers.

http://www.soonersports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=31000&ATCLID=211775153

I’d take Stoops here. Not sure that he’d want it.
 






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