Pre-JH
- Thread starter tarun262
- Start date
I believe AZ is now 2-7 in Rich Rocket Scientist's 5th year, so these are all his recruits. He seems completely disinterested in playing defense, which we sadly got to endure for 3 seasons here.
He also doesn't seem to even care about controlling the LOS on either side of the ball, which makes 0 sense to me.
It's not that shocking to me that a RichRod defense is terrible. We saw that here. I am a little surprised that his offense has also flatlined, though.
As for Hoke, I suspected he was more of a technique guy (for the DL) than an X and O guru. That appears to be the case.
I remember back when I had a facebook account, there was a fb page called Hokeamaniacs. So i figured, eh why not, ill follow this page. Boy o boy did that page go on a downward spiral after Hokes second season. and the guy that started the page was getting pretty delusional because it was obvious that UM was regressing after Hokes first season. As hard as that may have been to except , UM was not going to return to elite team status under Hoke.
RR has finally had an epiphany regarding football. He is trying to change but it may be too late. One UA fan said the following about him (leave off some injuries) and get's 'it'.
1. RR doesn't recruit well enough
2. His lines are undersized
This was my biggest revelation with RR after he was at UM for a couple of years. Leave off his schemes, etc. It was he isn't a very good recruiter/evaluator of talent other than for certain positions. He recruits athletes but just thinks he can plug in any player on the lines like he is playing in the Big East. RR just never adapted to a better level of competition on the recruiting end. Look at his UA roster...it's basically all lower level 3 star guys trying to beat USC, UCLA, Wash.
If RR wants to survive in the future he is going to have to hire himself a top notch recruiter because if he had pretty decent talent (high 3 stars to low level 4 stars) he would do okay along with some common sense changes on the defensive side of the ball.
The guy knows how to work the dual threat qb and does fine for the most part except when the better teams come along who just are better in the trenches and have better defenses. Where Hoke is incompetent....RR is stubborn and didn't adapt quick enough. He should have really learned his lessons from UM which were plentiful. It's like RR thought he was still going to succeed at UM.
Those FEW UM fans who still think he would have succeeded at UM are delusional.
RM
How is he trying to change? Just curious - I haven't watched too much of them this year.
I'm not convinced that he is. Until he gets serious about OL and DL mattering, and decides that stopping the other team matters, it's the same old "doesn't get fixed overnight" RR.
He is on the defensive side of the ball. He scrapped the 3-4 and is going traditional 4-3. Looked into a new DC and hired him...I forget what he was looking for but he talked about it at length. He knew there was going to be a transition.
So give him that much...that he knew his defensive schemes weren't working and that he had to adapt to more power oriented run attacks. It's understandable that he didn't get it right away at UM but he should have made these changes when he arrived at UA.
At Chicago Blue said...he still hasn't gotten serious about recruiting high level guys in the trenches, lb, etc. He still has this mindset that his schemes will beat any other talent because his will strike gold with a great qb/rb and will outscore his opponents although with the defensive changes he at least recognizes a 3-4 won't work against most Pac 12 teams.
Here is how RR thinks (IMO). He focuses on hitting the jackpot with a Lamar Jackson type and the rest of the roster is secondary. The exact opposite of a guy like Dantonio who knows he can't recruit with the big boys but tries to get the hidden gems up and down the roster because he understands football is not just the qb/rb.
Dantonio would take a 2nd tier qb with 2nd tier football roster and coach them up whereas RR would take a 1st tier qb/rb and then take a 3rd tier football roster and coach them up. Dantonio gets it. RR still hasn't gotten it. Meyer/Saban/Harbaugh want the 1st tier qb/rb and 1st tier football roster.
RM
Interesting; I didn't know he was trying to change defensive schemes. Of course, scheming is one thing and properly implementing it is another.
I just don't think he's that good at developing solid, fundamentally sound football teams. His teams never seem to control the line of scrimmage. For a few years he could mask these deficiencies with his scheme, as he was a pioneer of the spread and read-option and defenses were scrambling to adapt. But they eventually did, and then his trump card was gone.
I just don't think he's that good at developing solid, fundamentally sound football teams. His teams never seem to control the line of scrimmage. For a few years he could mask these deficiencies with his scheme, as he was a pioneer of the spread and read-option and defenses were scrambling to adapt. But they eventually did, and then his trump card was gone.
I agree completely. It was two fold.
1. He played in a weaker conference where his competitors couldn't really exploit his defense and the size of his OL/DL/talent didn't really come into play. As one person said when he played a Oklahoma they hadn't seen his scheme. Give him credit for developing a unique way to confuse defenses and take advantage of the dual threat qb.
2. Recruiting. I still can't for the life of me understand why RR is such a poor recruiter. Doesn't like it? Arrogance? Maybe he likes small lines? I don't know if I have ever seen/read where a coach just didn't particulary care about talent outside of skill positions. It's shocking how BAD he recruited at UM. He recruited at UM like he was at Ball State. Amazing and would LOVE to hear his side of the story. Same thing in a strange way to Beilein. Is this a West Virginia thing where they couldn't get guys to go there? They stayed so long at one area that it became ingrained in their psyche that they couldn't recruit?
RM
1. He played in a weaker conference where his competitors couldn't really exploit his defense and the size of his OL/DL/talent didn't really come into play. As one person said when he played a Oklahoma they hadn't seen his scheme. Give him credit for developing a unique way to confuse defenses and take advantage of the dual threat qb.
2. Recruiting. I still can't for the life of me understand why RR is such a poor recruiter. Doesn't like it? Arrogance? Maybe he likes small lines? I don't know if I have ever seen/read where a coach just didn't particulary care about talent outside of skill positions. It's shocking how BAD he recruited at UM. He recruited at UM like he was at Ball State. Amazing and would LOVE to hear his side of the story. Same thing in a strange way to Beilein. Is this a West Virginia thing where they couldn't get guys to go there? They stayed so long at one area that it became ingrained in their psyche that they couldn't recruit?
RM
