Staff Changes

I think "year 2 success" is an issue don't you? Why wouldn't you want and require, year 1 success. Special teams can turn around quickly. It's all about match ups and keeping it simply nuanced.
I'm not advocating either way in regards to Rutledge.  But, to your point, if "year 2 success" is an issue, then why hire someone who historically hasn't shown good results in year 1, but has in year 2 at school?  And then fire him after year one.  I'm a Frost guy, but I'll say the biggest issue here is the "hands off" approach HCSF has apparently taken thus far in regards to ST.  He's essentially admitted as much.  That really needs to change IMO.  Trust the OC more with the offense and spend some time with ST and D.  

 
I'm not advocating either way in regards to Rutledge.  But, to your point, if "year 2 success" is an issue, then why hire someone who historically hasn't shown good results in year 1, but has in year 2 at school?  And then fire him after year one.  I'm a Frost guy, but I'll say the biggest issue here is the "hands off" approach HCSF has apparently taken thus far in regards to ST.  He's essentially admitted as much.  That really needs to change IMO.  Trust the OC more with the offense and spend some time with ST and D.  
I agree, it makes no sense. IDK why you would hire a 2nd year guy anyway, in a business that is year to year. I think you need either a young guy who is all out teams, or you gotta hire an older guy who has done it a for many years, at a few spots/stops

 
look at USC for evidence of what ST coordinator may do for a program; coach was on a hot seat and he pulled out multiple games in last minutes with special teams this winter (long kick returns, on side kick success, etc.). It's an intangible but possibly the most revealing in this situation.

 
Mitch Sherman at The Athletic had an interview with Rutledge after he was let go. He did say a lot of the struggles were out of his control, but that he would probably let the ST analyst go as well were he in Frost's position. He didn't really expand on the out of his control other than Cerni's injury and injuries to "other guys who were critical to what we wanted to be." It's a paid site so I'm not going to pull more quotes, but he kinda goes all over the place. Didn't mind the system we had with him being an analyst, but does advocate for it being a staff position. He was pretty vague all around, so you can probably read into it however you want - did mention Frost was consumed by the offense though, not in ST meetings. Overall he wasn't burning any bridges but seemed relatively unhappy with his stuff translating to the field. As anyone with a sense of pride in their ST work would be. 


I thought the most interesting part of the Sherman interview was Rutledge basically saying that Cerni and some other injuries/departures drastically affected how they were doing on ST. What position guys got hurt that would have made that big of an impact?

 
I thought the most interesting part of the Sherman interview was Rutledge basically saying that Cerni and some other injuries/departures drastically affected how they were doing on ST. What position guys got hurt that would have made that big of an impact?
I thought our coverage on kickoffs looked worse after Farmer and Joseph went down. I guess we would have to go back an look but was Colin Miller on punt return team? I wonder who on the field we had responsible for checking numbers on punts.  Maybe that's normally on the return man and we seemed to be playing musical chairs at that spot

 
I really can't blame an analyst for our special teams struggles. Dude can't coach in practice, games, hell he couldn't even be on a headset during games. An analyst should be used to assist a full time coach, not be handling an entire unit. 


I thought quality control coaches/analysts were allowed to coach on field during practice this year due to covid.  

 
Only disappointment in keeping the staff in place is special teams. I'll hold out hope they make it Ruud or Dawson's responsibility. An analyst can help, but we need someone that has on the field responsibilities for their performance in practice and on game days. In my experience you need someone to "own" the task, in order to see results, and frankly it's not possible for an analyst to own this task.

 
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