Is Billy Napier a Good Play Caller?

2008 type talent

 

We’ll see soon. 2008 talent wasn’t hindered by predictable play calling. I hope you are right.

 

So many fake Tebow runs were wide open pases.

 

It wasnt really genius playcalling. Tebows options were pretty easy to see but they had to pick their pois. How many plays came from a Tebow off tackle option.

 

Meh.. Not good enough to call his own plays. He doesn't have a good feel like Spurrier, Mullen. My main issue is Play calling in critical moments. It's always some "razzle dazzle" nonsense (that triple reverse pass vs fsu).

 

Staff ran pretty much ran the same plays damn near over and over again. Lol! Especially pre Ole Miss. Took them what halfway the Ark to figure out the "veer" offense/wide lineman formation. Boards used post the spinning wheel of 6-8 plays. It more about players, then plays. Especially when Percy was 100%

 

Kept the defense in single coverage for Murphy and Cooper while they tried to deal with Tebow, percy, and Hernandez. Dont play Tebows run and he just took an automatic 6-8 yards.

 

I haven't really tried to post on this thread up until now. The question has to be, "define 'good' ". I think most folks would define it as 35 points (not defensive scores) the standard. Fall short and they question whether you are up to the challenge. Football is WAY too complex to make it that simple of a test.

So, using 35 points as the standard, does that include a damn good defense and special teams (not scoring) to put the other team in a bind and can't open up their playbook as much as they would like? And so, field position is all on our side? I wished most folks would realize that plays called have elements of cost/benefit; what is the potential benefit if it succeeds and what is the potential cost if it fails...in various scenarios.

If I would have to take a guess, Spurrier's genius wasn't so much about breaking the mold to what is c/b, but rather he had a sixth sense on when you could surprise the other team with a play they didn't think could manifest at that time. He was extremely high on precision passing technicals (footwork, throwing motion, timing) so that when the opportunity was presented to him, he took the chance because his idea of what was the benefit outweighed what he thought were the potential costs.

And to a bigger point, he basically changed the way college football was played, away from the Woody Hayes concepts to the NFL ideals. But if you don't have certain prerequisites, you plainly can't pull off the results. And as a result, he got the college football world to evolve or die a dinosaur. And using the NFL as the standard, once the coaches have got you figured out and your "gotchas" have been identified, you either have the physical and mental skill to just plain win (ie, the jessies and the joes) or you don't. There is a reason why Marino was such an excellent QB who doesn't have a single championship trophy. He never had the talent around him. Elway didn't either until he was limited physically.

But still, is there some wiggle room in the game to allow offense to manifest in creative ways? Is a Leach out there? And to that, what did Leach (or even Kiffin) ever win of real value? Perhaps, a Leach (or maybe even a Kiffin) is like a football version of Paul Westhead, where his philosophy is to score as many points as possible while giving up a bunch and hoping to score just one more point than your opponent. Entertaining, but...?

And so, to the actual question of the thread, what is a Napier? Until further notice, he is conservative in the c/b analysis, until he gets some silly burr up his ass and calls silly plays. And when they blow up in his face, he sort of goes back inside his shell. He plainly does NOT have Spurrier's acumen in the "gotcha" department. He is a younger, and hopefully more modern, version of Mack Brown (albeit without the recruiting horsepower UTx had in his day) and that he can build a really nice team but probably needs a transcendent QB to carry it past his limitations. Remember, last year was Mertz's team and Lagway was not getting much in the way of strategic reps, even when Mertz's limitations were showing up in games (tends to check down due to pass rush in the pocket and a lack of elite arm strength). But then Mertz got hurt and the rest is history (even Lagway's injury).

And so the final push in my take: it depends. It depends on whether the hype of the O-line FINALLY is real. Last year was going to show us and all it did was blow up (IMO). Having NFL caliber players on the line is one thing, having all the pieces moving in an efficient manner is quite another. TBD. And IF the running game manifests in a way that reminds me of the classic UGa teams of say the past 20 years, I think the other pieces will work just fine. And, unless Napier pulls a "Mike White" (or a better analogy) where a Dallas Wilson doesn't play many snaps because a "vested veteran" is playing instead of the superior raw talent, the "gotcha" plays WILL manifest and 60-80 yard scoring plays will occur. And those make any coach look like an offensive genius.

Personally, I just want this team to stop shooting itself in the foot and to me it has been more about the coaches than the players. As I have posted plenty of times, I think Napier has a really good handle on "his kind of players" and can sign them (although not all of them) but I am still unsure of his acumen to identify and coordinate his coaching staff. Until further notice, he appears to believe that more is better and I say more means harder coordination. Throwing money at a problem is rarely a good idea. Better use of it is.

 

Exactly... it was offense on rookie mode.

 

Think about where his paycheck comes from. Does anyone think they would be okay with him sitting in the booth slamming the HC? I pretty much dismiss what someone has to say about anything when their paycheck is derived from that same entity.

 

Possibly, Shane has had some odd opinions over the years. There was a bit of a dust-up between him and Urban Meyer regarding criticism of the offense. Also he thought that Jack Del Rio would be a very good QB and he turned out just to be serviceable at best.

Maybe he got his penchant for arguing with Gator fans from Steve Russell

 

There was literally a playcalling spin wheel on this site years ago poking fun at our playcalling. Basically it was give the ball to Harvin or give the ball to Tebow and let them go.

 

In Napier’s defense you can only do so much with a guy who stands there looking blankly into the distance like he’s trying to remember if he turned off the oven every time you try and talk to him during a game.

 

Damn i posted the same thing then continued to read on to see you already posted it.

 

We had AR palying to not get hurt and to protect his stats. He had vast green acreage in front of him, but he refused to run and the was throwing the ball our of bounds on 4th down plays to avoid INTs on his stat sheet. He had over 400 yards passing, but his legs could/should have won it.

 

One of The best thing about the prolific offenses we had under wuerffel, Grossman, Tebow and Trask was that 3rd and long wasn't a drive killer. It has been for Napier mostly so far. Even 2nd and longer than 10 from a penalty more often than not feels insurmountable. Some of that in his first few years was due to poor pass blocking or receiving options but a good deal is also his play calling. College football is a game built for chunk yardage and our offense has looked like something from the early 80s. Our run game has been explosive so that's nice and we got a taste of lagway stretching the field so maybe its been more personnel limited. Guess we should find out this year.

My other big gripe is his inability to feel a game. I always return to the tennessee game at home two years ago where he took a nice lead and a roaring swamp crowd into the 3rd quarter and immediately turtled up the offense. He even admitted he went conservative too early. That was a big game for us but not really a pressure cooker game like so many some of us grew up experiencing and yet he coached scared. That 3rd quarter in particular was atrocious. Same with the utah opener in his first year. Thats a pattern.

I want him to succeed because he's done so many other good things and seemingly the right way at that but I cant think of a game where gameplan or adjustments in game was our biggest advantage. Meyer/mullen schemed wins against Georgia in 05, lsu in 06 and 08 and almost in 07 if not for some shady 4th doen spots for lsu and an untimely fumble by us for example.

 

He chose his guys to run with. Prolific Qbs dont grow on trees but AR and Mertz as much as we appreciated his moxie had significant limitations.

 

BN calls it "Complementary football", but what he's really saying is "conservative football". Even at his last stop, they rarely won big. I don't really recall last year's game agains UCF and had to look it up. Won 24-13 and had them 24-3 at half. I imagine he went "complementary" in the 2nd half and gave them a chance. You gotta put teams like that away.

 

I expect our offense to be in the top 3 in the SEC this year. We have too many weapons not to be.

 

You also have to have the playbook and a killer instinct.