FWST: In replacing his defensive coordinator, TCU’s Sonny Dykes owns one major mistake

[Putt4Purple]

Mac, as usual, misses the salient point. He states his observations thusly: "(TCU's defensive problems)...were not scheme but talent. It showed in the team’s 45-42 Week 1 loss to Colorado, and it never much improved." The issue was, of course, the opposite of what Mac is attempting to sell.

Giving massive cushions to wideouts and allowing under-10 yard completions removes any chance that talent could come into play. If your players are in a deep zone, and unable to engage early, then talent is wasted. At least, on the defensive side...

It was this passive, "don't attack them, just contain them" philosophy, and the stubborn adherence to it that got Gillespie fired. Opposing coaches schemed for this ridiculous concept, and all of them had huge days taking advantage of it. We never adjusted, at least effectively, and the overall philosophy never changed. The very definition of insanity. Why it took so long to make this decision is puzzling, and we pretty much wasted a year of everybody's eligibility, and life, waiting on Sonny to figure out that Gillespie's scheme was utterly ineffective. Hell, I coulda told him that at halftime of the CO game...

Good points but changing coaches and schemes after the first game would give mass lack of trust and confusion for the entire coaching staff, not just the defense by the players. The time to act was now. Not during the season.
Everything else you stated is spot on.

 

[Bizarro Frog]

I think we are going to find out our players are better than we think once they are in a competent scheme.

 

[FrogCop19]

I'm hip.*

I, too, am looking forward to what the FNG can do with what he has to work with. Like 2022, I am sure he will see things others were blind to, and play to those strengths.




*Actually, no. Not hip at all. Painfully un-hip as a matter of fact...

I hurt my hip yesterday, does that count?

 

[BrewingFrog]

I hurt my hip yesterday, does that count?

You'll have to call Dr. Jerry Noland. He's hip.

 

[BrewingFrog]

Good points but changing coaches and schemes after the first game would give mass lack of trust and confusion for the entire coaching staff, not just the defense by the players. The time to act was now. Not during the season.
Everything else you stated is spot on.

What I can't understand is that, at some point in 2-a-days, or late summer full practices, or pre-game Staff meetings, the passive scheme wasn't addressed or critically torn apart by the rest of the Staff. They have to talk about these things, game them out, bounce ideas back and forth a little. That couldn't have happened in a total vacuum.

As I said at the time, it didn't change my opinion of Sanders one bit, but it did change my opinion of our Staff a whole lot. That it continued the rest of the season is beyond comprehension.

I agree that firing Gillespie after the 1st game is a silly idea. One would think that, as a professional, he would think: "Wow! My whole scheme didn't work! A bunch of 1st year guys rang up 500 yards on my ass, in my own Home Stadium! Maybe I ought to re-think this whole thing!" Of course, what he actually thought was, "I need to double down on this!"

But, it is done.

 

[gohornedfrogs]

What I can't understand is that, at some point in 2-a-days, or late summer full practices, or pre-game Staff meetings, the passive scheme wasn't addressed or critically torn apart by the rest of the Staff. They have to talk about these things, game them out, bounce ideas back and forth a little. That couldn't have happened in a total vacuum.

As I said at the time, it didn't change my opinion of Sanders one bit, but it did change my opinion of our Staff a whole lot. That it continued the rest of the season is beyond comprehension.

I agree that firing Gillespie after the 1st game is a silly idea. One would think that, as a professional, he would think: "Wow! My whole scheme didn't work! A bunch of 1st year guys rang up 500 yards on my ass, in my own Home Stadium! Maybe I ought to re-think this whole thing!" Of course, what he actually thought was, "I need to double down on this!"

But, it is done.

It's a wonder that some of these DCs don't get in fist fights with some of these HUNH OCs in team meetings these days. All that is to say...you'd think the head coach would have to step in at some point to manage both of his coordinators to make sure that they aren't working at odds with each other.

 

[This Ain't Chopped Liver]

What I can't understand is that, at some point in 2-a-days, or late summer full practices, or pre-game Staff meetings, the passive scheme wasn't addressed or critically torn apart by the rest of the Staff. They have to talk about these things, game them out, bounce ideas back and forth a little. That couldn't have happened in a total vacuum.

As I said at the time, it didn't change my opinion of Sanders one bit, but it did change my opinion of our Staff a whole lot. That it continued the rest of the season is beyond comprehension.

I agree that firing Gillespie after the 1st game is a silly idea. One would think that, as a professional, he would think: "Wow! My whole scheme didn't work! A bunch of 1st year guys rang up 500 yards on my ass, in my own Home Stadium! Maybe I ought to re-think this whole thing!" Of course, what he actually thought was, "I need to double down on this!"

But, it is done.

I agree, I have been wondering this too. The Frog offense practices against the Frog defense so why couldn’t Dykes and the offensive staff recognize that the defensive scheme was poor or not working as is. Maybe this also hurt the Frog offense, practicing against a soft subpar defense and thinking they were better than they were. Maybe this had something to do with the slow offensive starts in games - being a bit shocked while having to adjust to a better game day defense.

I am back to - if you are a good offensive mind, you must know good and bad defense because you scheme to beat defense, and then play against it. So why did Dykes appear to not address this, till now.

I remember Dykes saying when he coached at SMU against Gillespie at Tulsa he thought his defense was challenging to go up against. So he hired him.

 

[tetonfrog]

As a coach, you try to get along with the local media. It is fine to get upset with them at times, but I believe Dan Jenkins said it something like this, you have a problem, I have a typewriter. We’ll see who wins. (This is a summary not a quote).

I remember GP & Stefan S. From the Star-T had a terrible relationship. It showed in SS’s Frog coverage as he bashed GP & TCU in almost every article.

Sure, Mac is a putz, but if Sonny can’t deal with him, then we are going to have bigger issues than a crappy column every week or two. And, when the FW paper folds, TCU will be lucky to get any coverage at all from The DFW Morning News.

 

[Froggy Style]

Well, ok, but I don't see what good that does for a coach other than stoke his ego a little bit. The guy is going to write whatever he wants to write. And if nobody gives a crap what he writes about, how come so many TCU fans get all pissed off at some of his columns?

Because 99% of his articles are written for his target audience of UT, A&M, and Tech fans in the city. Seems like to you don't pay attention sometimes.

 

[Cfrog1985]

For a sports writer, honest to god truth Mac often seems to be an idiot. Based on his article there is close to zero chance our defense will be better next year. I'd bet the farm we greatly improve. The coaching was so damn awful it's hard to not be better.

 

[Horny4TCU]

Mac, as usual, misses the salient point. He states his observations thusly: "(TCU's defensive problems)...were not scheme but talent. It showed in the team’s 45-42 Week 1 loss to Colorado, and it never much improved." The issue was, of course, the opposite of what Mac is attempting to sell.

Giving massive cushions to wideouts and allowing under-10 yard completions removes any chance that talent could come into play. If your players are in a deep zone, and unable to engage early, then talent is wasted. At least, on the defensive side...

It was this passive, "don't attack them, just contain them" philosophy, and the stubborn adherence to it that got Gillespie fired. Opposing coaches schemed for this ridiculous concept, and all of them had huge days taking advantage of it. We never adjusted, at least effectively, and the overall philosophy never changed. The very definition of insanity. Why it took so long to make this decision is puzzling, and we pretty much wasted a year of everybody's eligibility, and life, waiting on Sonny to figure out that Gillespie's scheme was utterly ineffective. Hell, I coulda told him that at halftime of the CO game...

If it wasn't for it being his first year, I could've told you the same at halftime during the Natty. We let the last three teams we played in 2022 score a 141 points. After CU, we should've parted ways. There was clearly no prep done for CU. Film be darned, the secondary's experience should've covered any lack of film we had.

 

[y2kFrog]

For a sports writer, honest to god truth Mac often seems to be an idiot. Based on his article there is close to zero chance our defense will be better next year. I'd bet the farm we greatly improve. The coaching was so damn awful it's hard to not be better.

There’s about 100% chance it will be better next year because there is 0% chance it will be worse.

 

[bmoney214]

What I can't understand is that, at some point in 2-a-days, or late summer full practices, or pre-game Staff meetings, the passive scheme wasn't addressed or critically torn apart by the rest of the Staff. They have to talk about these things, game them out, bounce ideas back and forth a little. That couldn't have happened in a total vacuum.

It never happened because Sonny thought the offense was that great. Remember that he said this year's offense was going to be more explosive then last year's. Now we know why he thought that, because he was practicing against that [ Finebaum ]ty defense all the time lol.

 

[TopFrog]

Disagree with Mac's point on the talent vs. scheme. As said and observed by most who had to watch our D the last two seasons, the approach/prosecution/coaching of the scheme was terrible.

We have better talent than what the results produced. Sure you are always looking and wanting to improve talent and players and personnel plays into it but the philosophical approach to the base defense was so bad and weak that had to change.

The numbers and stats speak for themselves. Without an offense to cover like last year, Gillespie's poor strategy was further exposed to the point there was no defense for keeping him.

As Shreve said there were a couple of times the last two years the defense played great. Last year's Texas game and this year's BYU game, where we got after the QB and brought pressure all day. I thought OK this is more like it, maybe we are going to become more aggressive going forward -- but nope. We went back to giving QBs clean pockets and time to wait for a receiver to open up.

And I will never understand safeties that let receivers run past them while they have their eyes fixed on what is happening at the LOS or biting on play-action.

 

[BrewingFrog]

As Shreve said there were a couple of times the last two years the defense played great. Last year's Texas game and this year's BYU game, where we got after the QB and brought pressure all day. I thought OK this is more like it, maybe we are going to become more aggressive going forward -- but nope. We want back to giving QBs clean pockets and time to wait for a receiver to open up.

You touch on the most frustrating aspect of this whole drama: They could indeed do it, but the Coach held them back in nearly all cases due to his passive philosophy. No wonder there was the "laughing" kerfluffle following the KSU match. The kids had given up. They no longer believed in the whole Defensive strategy they were being ordered to execute, and acted accordingly.

I remember sitting there on that beautiful October day and watching the Defense knock the BYU QB around, and wondering out loud, "Who are these guys?" And I wasn't the only one. We could do all that was needed, if only we chose to.

 

[Toad Jones]

What I can't understand is that, at some point in 2-a-days, or late summer full practices, or pre-game Staff meetings, the passive scheme wasn't addressed or critically torn apart by the rest of the Staff. They have to talk about these things, game them out, bounce ideas back and forth a little. That couldn't have happened in a total vacuum.

As I said at the time, it didn't change my opinion of Sanders one bit, but it did change my opinion of our Staff a whole lot. That it continued the rest of the season is beyond comprehension.

I agree that firing Gillespie after the 1st game is a silly idea. One would think that, as a professional, he would think: "Wow! My whole scheme didn't work! A bunch of 1st year guys rang up 500 yards on my ass, in my own Home Stadium! Maybe I ought to re-think this whole thing!" Of course, what he actually thought was, "I need to double down on this!"

But, it is done.

Can you tell me what was accomplished this year? Surprised that you found one.

Season gone, what are the plans to improve Hoover? It would help if he threw 2000 passes in the off-season.

 

[fanatical frog]

Can you tell me what was accomplished this year? Surprised that you found one.

Season gone, what are the plans to improve Hoover? It would help if he threw 2000 passes in the off-season.

Teach some kids how to pass block.

 

[tjcoffice]

At least he did it. The last HC didn’t like firing anyone.

It ain't easy to self-assess and look at what you did critically. SD - at least in that - is much different from GP.

 

[FrogCop19]

It's a wonder that some of these DCs don't get in fist fights with some of these HUNH OCs in team meetings these days. All that is to say...you'd think the head coach would have to step in at some point to manage both of his coordinators to make sure that they aren't working at odds with each other.

Or even MORE effectively, making sure they are very specifically working IN TANDEM with each other! What a novel friggin' concept!

Make sure the offense understands when a team is blocking every single attempt at the HUNH, we don't go tempo every time so we give our D time for a rest. Make sure the defense understand when their offense is throwing short passes we adjust our coverage so as not to put our O behind the 8 ball and force them into panic mode and make them have to score quickly to keep up.

Reminds me of the line from Remember the Titans when the coach is telling Boone what the defense runs and he interrupts and says, "As a part of my offensive strategy."

 

[BrewingFrog]

Can you tell me what was accomplished this year? Surprised that you found one.

Season gone, what are the plans to improve Hoover? It would help if he threw 2000 passes in the off-season.

Accomplished this year? Very little. More a possibility of "improvement through subtraction" than anything else. We will have to wait to see if there is actual improvement.

Hoover already has proper mechanics: a good throwing motion and footwork. Go back and watch the BYU game. He is most impressive, provided he gets some protection. The KSU game the following week illustrated that...