This was posted on another site and gives a nice perspective.
barney94 said:
Ok. I am an offensive line coach and offensive coordinator at a 3a high school in Colorado. Im sure there are much higher level coaches on the board, but none of my guys are Power 5 prospects so I will chime in. A couple of points:
1. Offensive line coaches don't generally change run blocking schemes. Coach Fisher has power, counter, pin and pull, and inside zone schemes in. The o line coach implements those schemes and coaches the techniques necessary to execute them. (Footwork, hand placement, aiming point, combo and double teams, etc.). We ran the same schemes with Spiller and Williams before him under different o line coaches.
2. Oline coaches may have preferred pass pro schemes but Fisher has so much control, I bet he dictates that too. Plus at the Power 5 level they pretty much run all the protections anyway, and can change them at the line. Center usually makes these calls, but with Jimbo we know (or think we know) that the QB is responsible for this too. (More on that later)
Maybe Addazio is being too technical. Maybe he has changed some of the things I mentioned above and it's been a failure. But I doubt it.
I've been in Addazio's practices when he was at Co State. When we hired him I got on here and said it was a mistake because he basically coaches by fear and loathing. It's all F bombs all the time, and his son is even worse (and not as technically sound as Pops). I was ridiculed as being soft and told that our guys needed to toughen up.
Well, these guys are playing like dogs that have been beaten too much. Tentative and scared. Not aggressive. Nobody is having fun out there. This was a bad hire of epic proportion and I bet there's at least one parent on here who would agree if they could.
Now, back to pass protection. Who else looks like a dog who's been beaten too much? The quarterbacks, of course. King mostly.
He's not only got to execute the pass/RPO game, he's also got to check and change the protections to boot, with the knowledge that if he screws ANY of it up he's going to be publicly humiliated as soon as he gets to the sideline. Tough job. Probably messes protections up a fair bit, which gets blamed on the o line as well.
Coaching is teaching. It's not throwing fits and getting your way. For better or worse athletes in 2022 don't respond to that well. O-line, believe it or not, can respond to it the worst. These guys were always the fat kids or the huge kids and haven't possessed the greatest self confidence for the better parts of their lives.
To compound that, they have to learn the most unnatural position in sports. Be huge but play low. Be huge, but be quicker over 5 yards than everyone else. Have long legs but take short choppy steps. Keep your butt down but your eyes up. Hand placement. Step angle. And all that is run game! Doesn't even touch on pass pro which is counter-intuitive to aggressive run blocking. O line is more technique sensitive than any other spot except maybe QB. People are born knowing how to run. Nobody is born knowing how to fit a down block or how to vertical pass set.
For the most part an o line coach needs to be about 40% sensei, 40% professor, and 20% drill instructor.
We hired the DI from Platoon to coach these guys and his idiot kid to help him.
The massive regression of Robinson and Fatheree is enough evidence for me to think I have this right. Not to mention the snap technique change debacle.
Of course all this falls on the head man. He needs a new offensive staff and a new approach. I just wanted to chime in with some observations as I am as frustrated as everyone else.
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