D Coordinator Firing is a Scapegoat, Plain and Simple

This message reads like you are suggesting the fans fired Smith. It was Fleck's decision, are you suggesting he made the wrong one?

Yes very much so. I think there are major issues in his own coaching schemes, strategies and decisions and is using Smith as a scapegoat to really move blame from him to an individual coach. That is not good. We are only halfway through year two. Fleck should not be pulling the lever so quickly and firing his coordinators. Try to work these things out in year two and three, but if nothing improves halfway through year three into year four, then you can start making some of these decisions to fire coordinators (But by that time, the head coach may be fired anyway). This was too early and too fast in his tenure. Fleck is just as much responsible for the defensive mess as Smith. It has been a month-long of games where we gave up 40 to 50+ points to below average offenses, and Fleck did not have any say or coaching influence in how the defense adjusted from those games week after week? Hard to believe he did not.
 

Fleck had to do something. As another poster said, he wasn't going to fire himself.

It was either now, or in the offseason. I think doing it now does send a message, to the fans and boosters, that Fleck does care what they think about his program. He is listening, and he won't just accept that things aren't working. He will try something else ...
Ala Tim brewster
 

Were you hoping for a Fleck resignation?

No, not at all. I was hoping for no firings of any coordinators and keeping his coaching staff intact, and trying to work these things out in year two. This just moves blame and dismantles the process so early in Fleck's tenure.
 

I am in favor of paragraphs.

Me too. I read the first and last line and I think I got the gist of it:


"Will this firing really solve anything? Hell no!"

"This is a scapegoat, and I fear Fleck is not going to take responsibility to fix issues within his own coaching strategy to help the program succeed in the future."
 

Purdue is NOT A YOUNG TEAM. They have seven Seniors on offense and six Seniors and Juniors on Defense. Don’t make things up to back up your argument.

Would that be the Purdue Boilermakers with the 71st ranked team talent level by 247Sports? What good are older players if they all suck......?
 


How many coaches did fleck fire back at western mich? We hired the some dude who put together aMAC team with the best talent in the MAC. Could just admit we screwed up and go get a real coach with a real staff with a real history of success at the BCS level.

I’m sure successful power 5 coaches are just clamoring to take over at Minnesota.
 

Didn’t read the OP but everyone wanted Robb gone so it’s really not a scapegoat firing.


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The defense has been bad, Smith was the defensive coordinator, not sure why this is complicated. It’s Fleck’s job to fix it once it’s clear it’s a problem. If he doesn’t he should be fired.


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Yes very much so. I think there are major issues in his own coaching schemes, strategies and decisions and is using Smith as a scapegoat to really move blame from him to an individual coach. That is not good. We are only halfway through year two. Fleck should not be pulling the lever so quickly and firing his coordinators. Try to work these things out in year two and three, but if nothing improves halfway through year three into year four, then you can start making some of these decisions to fire coordinators (But by that time, the head coach may be fired anyway). This was too early and too fast in his tenure. Fleck is just as much responsible for the defensive mess as Smith. It has been a month-long of games where we gave up 40 to 50+ points to below average offenses, and Fleck did not have any say or coaching influence in how the defense adjusted from those games week after week? Hard to believe he did not.

Ask Mike Leach how much he is involved in the defense. PJ made a mistake hire, now he’s going to try and correct it. Probably hired him because of familiarity. Overlooked his abysmal performance at Arkansas.


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I just don't want this to turn into Brewster 2.0 with the carousel of coordinators, this time on the defensive side of the ball. It will never work if that's the case.

Hopefully he can find someone in the off-season that can take our current and incoming players and make them into a solid, sound defensive football team. They don't have to be flashy, but they have to be consistent.
 

The defense has been bad, Smith was the defensive coordinator, not sure why this is complicated. It’s Fleck’s job to fix it once it’s clear it’s a problem. If he doesn’t he should be fired.


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I completely agree. But his solution to fixing it is flat out firing the coordinator three weeks after we knew the defense was disastrous. It was a clear problem almost a month ago, and Fleck did nothing. Fleck is still the head coach, and I highly doubt Smith was the sole person responsible for the schemes and adjustment strategies after the Maryland game to move forward. It was a month of disastrous games of allowing 40 to 50+ points. Fleck definitely had influence and responsibility on the defense in that time to make fixes and nothing improved. It deescalated.
 

No, not at all. I was hoping for no firings of any coordinators and keeping his coaching staff intact, and trying to work these things out in year two. This just moves blame and dismantles the process so early in Fleck's tenure.

I get what you are saying and agree to a certain extent but the performance of the defense was so bad I don't really think Fleck had much choice in the matter. Maybe Rossi will do well enough over the next few weeks that they can hand the reigns to him and keep some continuity. If the defense was just struggling a little but still being competitive I think you stick with Smith and ride it out but when you are getting gashed over and over again by pretty much everyone in the Big Ten something has to change.
 



Would that be the Purdue Boilermakers with the 71st ranked team talent level by 247Sports? What good are older players if they all suck......?

You are doing it wrong. On this board, we cherry-pick the metric (talent ranking, age, record, etc.) to use for evaluating a team based on how it impacts a specific narrative. The rules are as follows:

1. For an opponent this year, pick the metric that makes the team look as strong as possible.
2. For the 2016 Gophers, pick the metric that makes the team look as weak as possible.
3. For the 2018 Gophers, it gets tricky. You need to overstate performance well enough to claim improvement and success, but understate the quality of players so as to build in an excuse for any performance standard applied by someone who isn't sophisticated enough to understand that it doesn't matter whether we win or lose football games.
 

I just don't want this to turn into Brewster 2.0 with the carousel of coordinators, this time on the defensive side of the ball. It will never work if that's the case.

Hopefully he can find someone in the off-season that can take our current and incoming players and make them into a solid, sound defensive football team. They don't have to be flashy, but they have to be consistent.

I completely agree. Even though I disagree with the firing this early in Fleck's tenure, now that he is gone, we need to go after a solid/consistent coordinator that will bring success to our team. But just like you said, I do not want to see different coordinators coming in left and right on a yearly basis just because the head coach cannot keep this program intact. It is not good for the players to be adjusting to new schemes and strategies every single year. That is not healthy and we saw how that worked out with Brewster.
 

No, not at all. I was hoping for no firings of any coordinators and keeping his coaching staff intact, and trying to work these things out in year two. This just moves blame and dismantles the process so early in Fleck's tenure.

The defense was giving up yards and points near a historical level.

Firing Smith was obviously the right move and not a way to shift blame.

It’s really not that complicated.


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I completely agree. But his solution to fixing it is flat out firing the coordinator three weeks after we knew the defense was disastrous. It was a clear problem almost a month ago, and Fleck did nothing. Fleck is still the head coach, and I highly doubt Smith was the sole person responsible for the schemes and adjustment strategies after the Maryland game to move forward. It was a month of disastrous games of allowing 40 to 50+ points. Fleck definitely had influence and responsibility on the defense in that time to make fixes and nothing improved. It deescalated.

What makes you so certain that Fleck did nothing and what makes you think that Fleck was directly involved in trying to fix the defensive scheme? Fleck has been an offense guy his entire career. He has never coached defense at any point. Kill was much more heavily involved with the offense then he was the defense, Mason and Brewster were the same way and I would bet that it is that way with Fleck as well. The flip side to that was during Claeys time as head coach I would bet everything I own that he stayed more heavily involved on the defensive side of the ball.

I am sure Fleck hoped things would get better after the Maryland game but they haven't on that side of the ball so he made the tough decision to get rid of the DC and try something different.
 

Would that be the Purdue Boilermakers with the 71st ranked team talent level by 247Sports? What good are older players if they all suck......?

What the hell is your point? Mine was they are not young and getting better.
 

Yes very much so. I think there are major issues in his own coaching schemes, strategies and decisions and is using Smith as a scapegoat to really move blame from him to an individual coach. That is not good. We are only halfway through year two. Fleck should not be pulling the lever so quickly and firing his coordinators. Try to work these things out in year two and three, but if nothing improves halfway through year three into year four, then you can start making some of these decisions to fire coordinators (But by that time, the head coach may be fired anyway). This was too early and too fast in his tenure. Fleck is just as much responsible for the defensive mess as Smith. It has been a month-long of games where we gave up 40 to 50+ points to below average offenses, and Fleck did not have any say or coaching influence in how the defense adjusted from those games week after week? Hard to believe he did not.

So you believe coaches should live and die with their original hires even when it is obvious it isn’t going to work?
 

Will this firing really solve anything? Hell no! The University of Minnesota put their trust in Fleck when they hired him, therefore they put trust into who he hires to fill these critical roles. Fleck hired Smith, and still oversaw the Defense in some capacity in these abysmal games where we gave up huge yardage plays to below average offenses and saw no improvement week in and week out. In the end, this goes back to Fleck. I think the NFL is different in this aspect of coaching, but college is different when it comes to hiring and firing of coordinators. We already seen in a past coaching regime here at Minnesota, one that shall go unnamed, where we went through offensive coordinators every year, changing coordinators after the first season. And how did that turnout? Did it solve anything? No. This is all but a scapegoat, and Smith is the sacrificial lamb taking the hit for mistakes that go through the entire coaching staff. Fleck is only in his second year, and all his coaches are only in their second year as well. We bring Fleck in, and we are willing to give him time to build this team up and trust in the process. You let this thing play out. You do not dismantle the process and place the blame on one person for issues that cycle through the whole team and the entire coaching staff. If you want Smith gone, might as well fire the entire coaching staff and start over because when we can't fix issues week after week after week of giving up 40 to 50 points to below average teams, there is an issue beyond Smith. To say that Fleck had no involvement whatsoever in how this defense has been performing and being coached is completely asinine. After the Maryland game, and then the Iowa game, two games where we gave up over 40 points, I highly doubt Fleck was just staying out of Smith's way and letting him do all the defensive coaching. Fleck still had influence in the past month of games to how our defense has played, and we have seen our defense, and some parts of our offense, deescalate. We have seen nothing but excuses out of Fleck about how young this team is, and how inexperienced they are, and that is true to some extent. We are a very young team, but there has been no sign of improvement, and these players are continuing to make the same mistakes when young teams like Purdue are improving on a weekly basis. This firing is nothing but another excuse. I am not saying to give up on Fleck. We must give him time. He is only in his second year, but he has issues beyond the Defensive Coordinator that needs to be addressed and issues that go back to him as the head coach of the Gopher football team. This is a scapegoat, and I fear Fleck is not going to take responsibility to fix issues within his own coaching strategy to help the program succeed in the future.

Disagree with me all you want, but it is what it is. A Scapegoat. Plain and Simple.

Mason fired Elliott Uzelac, offensive coordinator after year 1 and the offense was significantly better after that.

Whatever happens next can’t be worse than the current state of the defense.


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The defense was giving up yards and points near a historical level.

Firing Smith was obviously the right move and not a way to shift blame.

It’s really not that complicated.


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But... but.... but... uniform design. Uniform colors. Shiny helmets! *headsplode* [/satire]

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What makes you so certain that Fleck did nothing and what makes you think that Fleck was directly involved in trying to fix the defensive scheme? Fleck has been an offense guy his entire career. He has never coached defense at any point. Kill was much more heavily involved with the offense then he was the defense, Mason and Brewster were the same way and I would bet that it is that way with Fleck as well. The flip side to that was during Claeys time as head coach I would bet everything I own that he stayed more heavily involved on the defensive side of the ball.

I am sure Fleck hoped things would get better after the Maryland game but they haven't on that side of the ball so he made the tough decision to get rid of the DC and try something different.

I agree for the most part, but Fleck is responsible for this defensive disaster as well. I only hope for the best with Fleck, and I hope he hires somebody that he feels will bring success to this program. But the idea he had no responsibility in this defensive disaster is idiotic. To fire a coordinator only halfway through year two is dumb in my opinion. There are issues I see in the entire coaching staff right now that need to be addressed, and I think they needed to stick with the entire coaching staff throughout the season. But I think Fleck was flustered, knew the media was getting on him and he made this move to kind of shift the blame off his back. I hope this move makes a difference, but this will not solve any of our issues. Only better recruiting and better coaching stemming from the head coach will solve our woes.
 

Would that be the Purdue Boilermakers with the 71st ranked team talent level by 247Sports? What good are older players if they all suck......?

You are stuck in 2017 man. That is when Talent Rankings mattered. This is 2018 - age of the players is now what matters.


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We would have all shat a Subaru if Smith had been retained past the Monday following season's end. It had to be done. He's the 3rd highest paid public employee in the state and his unit is performing at a historically poor level.
 

So you believe coaches should live and die with their original hires even when it is obvious it isn’t going to work?

No, not necessarily. I just do not think head coaches should be doing this so early in their tenure. We are only halfway through year two, or what Fleck calls Year 1 because last year was technically year 0, according to him. If I were him, I would be sitting down with all the coaches and trying to work out the schemes and strategies because these coaches have only been here a season and a half. If for example, we are in year 4, and our offense is doing much much better, but our defense is not making the plays at the right times, then you can consider this, but when your defense is giving up a ton of points to terrible for consecutive weeks, all the coaches need to look in the mirror and figure their stuff out. This is not all on Smith when we are giving up 40+ points to bad offenses. This had to do with Fleck as well. And this early in a coach's tenure when you have the issues we are having, you cannot just fire a coordinator and think we are going to bring some savior to bring our defense to the promise land when the issue may be the head coach right now.
 




The idea of the OP is to wait until year four and if you’re still giving up yards and points near a historical level that is when you make a move with a coordinator.

Though it might not make any difference at that time since the HC is probably going to be fired anyway.

SMH
 




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