TSM Coaching Approval Meter (Post-Cincinnati, 2009)

I despirately wanted to keep hoping that Stew was getting his act together, and our record going into the USF game seemed to indicate that. I guess I bought into the whole “it was ugly, but a win is a win” philosophy. But I now realize that the tougher opponents quickly reveal our weaknesses. The players don’t get a pass on execution, but decisions by the coaching staff often put them in a bad position. The emperor (Mullins) has no clothes.

My one “no” vote was after USF, mostly because we were flat, undisciplined, and failed to execute in any phase of the game. Although I disagree with the whole 4th and 8 sequence, I can understand where Stew is coming from. We had the #5 team in the country on the ropes at their place, but came up just short. When was the last time we had that good a showing on the road? And if UC doesn’t get a few breaks here and there, we probably win the game. I’m not always going to agree with everything a coach does, but overall, I approve.

Reasons for me to vote yes:

- The 4th and 8 call did show some guts. I like guts in my coach.
- A 3rd and 9 run makes sense if you know you are going for it on 4th down. Get 4th and managable.
- Stew alleges he would have gone for 2 if we’d scored. Again, I like guts.
- We had a good gameplan, i.e. committing to the run.

Sarcastic Reasons to vote yes:

- Pete Carroll lost, and the two coaches are entirely comparable!
- He has the best winning percentage thru 23 games ever here!
- He LOVES West Virginia! Wheeee!

Reasons for me to vote no:

- Going for it on 4th and 8 was the wrong call. Guts without brains is useless. The chances of us converting on an obvious passing down, with our O-line, is about 10%. The chances of recovering an onside kick, also about 10%. The chances of making a field goal there is about 70-80%. The chances of us stopping Cincy was about 50%. All a TD and PAT do it tie the game up anyway. If you’re playing to win, you need 2 scores anyway. You kick the field goal there, offsetting the possibility of Cincy scoring again and the very high risk 4th and 8 play.

- If you know you are going for it on 4th down, a run or safe underneath pass on 3rd and 9 is smart. But you also want to at least give yourself the opportunity to get the 1st down on the 3rd down play, while at worst picking up 4-5 yards. Jock Sanders from the ACE, or ANYONE from the ACE is terrible. That lu-lu formation hasn’t worked all year. QB draw. QB rollout run pass option. (Formerly bread and butter) stretch play from the shotgun. A Ryan Clark run. Even a bubble screen to Jock makes more sense than a dive from our worst formation.

- Going for 2 if we scored? Gutsy, but also borderline insane. If we had scored, it would have been with 4 minutes left, and we would have had time to score again to win it. So would Cincy. Why in the world would you go for 2 there?

- We were committed to the run, FINALLY. Why does it take to play a #5 team to decide to establish the run at the beginning of a game? BUT, too many runs from the ACE. Not enough Ryan Clarke, and a drive in the second half where they couldnt stop the run, but then we call a pass on 1st down and Jarrett is sacked for 9 yards, killing the drive.

Maybe the biggest reason for no:

- We are not good at running. We are not good at passing. Stew achieved his balance, but only because we suck at both. You win games in practice, not play calling in games. We obviously don’t improve enough in practice to be successful in games.

- Our gameplan was to dominate the clock, keep it away from CIncy, and hopefully sneak out a win. We used to not care who we were playing, WE were going to run whatever we wanted and beat them down. The other team could adjust and play scared. We were just going to do what we did best and see if they could stop us. Now we don’t do anything well and adjust our gameplan to try to eak one out, because we aren’t the superior team anymore. We played like we knew we were inferior, and we were. And we shouldn’t be.

So I vote no because we play and look like a middle of the pack big east team.

Its getting bad as a Special Teams coach wouldn’t you know when to kick the field goal

because we suck. i don’t think Cinci is that good either.

But I was closer to voting Yes than after the two previous weeks. It was probably the best game we’ve played all year; without The Reversal maybe we even win it.

For me the 3rd and 9 call was the problem. Need to knock that down to a 4th and 4 or so.

Anyone think that with our O line being what it is, that we should be alternating our jumbo/power and scatback running approaches a bit more? I think Devine would get as many yards as he does now as a change-of-pace back, and we’d gain more on run-of-the-mill off-tackle run plays by using some bigger backs. I realize we may not have the personnel to do this, though. Clarke could do it, but maybe he’s not in good enough shape to carry that load.

as I stated before, my view is based on the long term and not game to game. JMO.

I disagreed with fourth down call, but even more with the playcall on third down if the intention was to go for it on fourth. Jock Sanders into the line made no sense to me there.

Yes, we used to dictate the play and didn’t waver from what we do, and guess what? We lost games due to that stubbornness as well. I don’t know what has happened to the O since Syracuse, but I do know that many were predicting we would get hammered in this game, and are pissed we did not because they didn’t get to be right about it. If you had told me that we were going to hold them to 24 before the game, I would have said we win. Again, we failed to hit the magic number of 31, and again we lost. But I think our defense, The Tandy included, did enough to win, and I thought that we showed some mettle on both sides of the ball.

If we lose to Pitt, I will be a “No.”

No one is mentioning running out the clock at the end of the first half with the ball on our own 35 and 35 seconds left in the half…there was plenty of time to get in field goal range. We missed 2 scoring opportunities, one to take the lead at the half and the one everyone IS mentioning. His time management or lack thereof is reprehensible.

because I saw improvement in enough areas to make me think we are headed in the right direction. We lost to the #5 team in the nation, it happens. It is not a moral victory because there is no such thing but we played well enough to win.

I saw Florida play live on Saturday night against South Carolina and I think Cincy’s O is just as good as Florida. We held them somewhat in check.

Overall there are some problems, but there are enough bright spots to encourage me that things will get better. If we lose to Pitt, I’ll have to think about it seriously. If we lose to Rutgers, I’ll definitely switch.

Ryan Clarke had 60 yards and a touchdown yet only carried the ball 5 times and was passed over for a small back in a single back formation dor a run straight into the middle of our weak line on the most crucial play of the game. Stew made that decision himself and approved Mullen’s horrible call.

UC’s defense was fast but undersized. We have a big advantage by exploiting that weakness like UConn did by using our TEs and big RBs. It works to perfection the 5 times we do it yet our coaching staff refuses to try to use it to take complete control of the game.

Stewart continues to prove that he doesn’t deserve this job. He’s overmatched and made some bad hires that some of us disagreed with 2 years ago – yet all we heard was how great the ataff is. What a crock.

That HCBS is not running a power attack? Last week he did not give the ball to Devine and Jock enough. Now he is not giving it Ryan Clarke enough.

It is easy to know what to do after the fact.