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Alex Grinch - DC USC
- Thread starter White_Rabbit
- Start date
That's not true at all, I said I was unimpressed by him because of what I saw when I watched OU play. I am open to be convinced otherwise. I really don't know if he's good or not, I am just pointing out what I saw that concerns me/I have questions about, and trying to back it up with something a little more tangible. I even went back to see if the defense seemed to underperform because they played a bunch of high powered offenses (Big 12 narrative and all), and found they only played 2 top 25 offenses all year (LSU and TT). Like I said, I want to be convinced otherwise, but I haven't seen anything to suggest that this guy is a big time up and comer except for his defense for the 2 years he was at Wazzu. Which still leads me to believe that there are a LOT of unknowns with Grinch.
Also, yes, effort. It was a big reason why I liked MT when we hired him, you saw his guys play hard as hell for him. That translates
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LOL...okay, we can just agree to disagree there. But I will say that Wilcox, for example, his guys play HARD, and you can see that. Wait, we are planning on finding an ideal candidate in February? Now I am excited!
And if we're basing this solely on improvement in numbers, then we should 100% go hire CSU's S&C coach when Drew Wilson leaves.
I don't pay attention to numbers and other fancy data surrounding Wilcox, I just concentrate on the EFFORT his players give through the screen.
lawdogg
Club Member
Once Duff goes all in on a guy, there’s no swaying him.
If he does not like Grinch, fine.
But arguing you can totally tell unquantifiable data like effort or hard work through a TV screen is bull****. How do you refute a completely subjective opinion?
Why is it that you're being a jerk about this? I have never said I don't like Grinch....I have only said I am unimpressed. All of these guys should be questioned if we want to get it right. You're saying that it is impossible to see what I say I see on tape....yet every coach I have ever been around says that they can see effort on film.....and grade their players on it. Good luck
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Fine. Have a nice night.
lawdogg
Club Member
Just giving you grief, brother. Don’t think we’re really players for Grinch, personally, but there’s definitely stuff to like there.
I think he's easily the best coordinator candidate
lawdogg
Club Member
What non-coordinators are we looking at? Andersen...Calhoun...Harsin?
Sark?
"We" meaning "fans" would include Napier. I'd expect that Mora threw his hat in the ring again.
You're certainly entitled to your opinion. I think there's a reasonable argument that Grinch isn't perfect.
I'm just not big on pushing aside solid metrics because you didn't like the effort. Were you the one that loved the effort of CU's defense earlier this season? I got into it with someone because they were super impressed by how well our guys got off the field. What seemed more concerning to me was that our defense was getting lit up like a Christmas tree, but they were totally pleased with our guys not falling all over themselves and substituting properly. (letting wide receivers run free was apparently not concerning)
I didn't see any lack of effort from Okalhoma when I watched them, but I won't lie I didn't make it a point to take in a lot of Oklahoma games this season. My interest in Grinch is mostly the incredible defenses he put forth at Wazzu and then coaching under two of the better coaches in the game the last two years.
I'd like to see this article you referenced earlier. Every coach wants turnovers and everyone tries for them, but in my experience they're mostly luck. This season we kept saying, man this defense is swiss cheese, but at least they're causing turnovers. But eventually the turnovers stopped coming. We then somehow turned the corner the last couple games of the year with Espy island out there, but it wasn't really related to turnovers or effort IMO. I'd venture to guess turnovers generally have a lot more to do with talent level than effort, but I remain open minded.
lawdogg
Club Member
Isn’t he a coordinator?
Somehow I'd forgotten.
I appreciate the thoughtful response.
I don’t think that it was you and I that got into that argument, mostly because I don’t think I would ever make an argument about players displaying effort because they are or are not running off the field. That said, I did think our defense played hard last year.
I should have been more clear about this earlier, but I didn’t really have the opportunity. To measure effort on film with a defense, you do two things 1) Create a baseline for a player as to the speed they are capable of playing at. When they get tired, or loaf, and they are visibly playing at a slower speed. That’s graded as a minus. 2) When they are away from the play, they should be busting ass to get to the ball. If they are jogging or just watching the play go because they think they aren’t in a position to make a play, that’s a minus. When watching OU, I remember seeing more minuses than you want to see for a decent to good defense. Lots of guys playing like they’re tired, and lots of watching from the back side.
Guys coming in on a blind side to make a hit as the ball carrier is trying to juke free, guys coming up to a pile and getting a ball that is stripped before an offensive player can get to it, guys running in behind the play catching a contested or tipped ball....these are all effort plays that happen a LOT in football and add up. We did this a ton in 2016 for example. I wasn’t referencing a specific article on this subject, more-so I was referencing something I’ve learned/heard from many many defensive coaches and thinking I might be able to find some literature or analytics on it to counter Duff’s belief that my observations are totally subjective. They are not.
Our struggles last year on defense were not effort related, but rather scheme and talent related. Effort isn’t going to magically create turnovers all the time, but on the whole, it will produce measurably more turnovers.
I pretty clearly said above that Grinch’s defense made undeniable improvement statistically. So the claim that I am ignoring the stats is false. What I was referencing was something I thought quantified my believe that OU didn’t play with enough effort on defense. Duff says OU is talent deficient, I refuse to believe that OU is, or ever will be truly talent deficient. There is no reason OU should ever average .7 takeaways per game, unless they aren’t playing hard all the time.
which lead me to ask these questions, because I think it could be reflective of Grinch not being a great motivator. I could be 100% wrong, just sharing an observation and thought on a message board
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I appreciate the thoughtful response.
I don’t think that it was you and I that got into that argument, mostly because I don’t think I would ever make an argument about players displaying effort because they are or are not running off the field. That said, I did think our defense played hard last year.
I should have been more clear about this earlier, but I didn’t really have the opportunity. To measure effort on film with a defense, you do two things 1) Create a baseline for a player as to the speed they are capable of playing at. When they get tired, or loaf, and they are visibly playing at a slower speed. That’s graded as a minus. 2) When they are away from the play, they should be busting ass to get to the ball. If they are jogging or just watching the play go because they think they aren’t in a position to make a play, that’s a minus. When watching OU, I remember seeing more minuses than you want to see for a decent to good defense. Lots of guys playing like they’re tired, and lots of watching from the back side.
Guys coming in on a blind side to make a hit as the ball carrier is trying to juke free, guys coming up to a pile and getting a ball that is stripped before an offensive player can get to it, guys running in behind the play catching a contested or tipped ball....these are all effort plays that happen a LOT in football and add up. We did this a ton in 2016 for example. I wasn’t referencing a specific article on this subject, more-so I was referencing something I’ve learned/heard from many many defensive coaches and thinking I might be able to find some literature or analytics on it to counter Duff’s belief that my observations are totally subjective. They are not.
Our struggles last year on defense were not effort related, but rather scheme and talent related. Effort isn’t going to magically create turnovers all the time, but on the whole, it will produce measurably more turnovers.
I pretty clearly said above that Grinch’s defense made undeniable improvement statistically. So the claim that I am ignoring the stats is false. What I was referencing was something I thought quantified my believe that OU didn’t play with enough effort on defense. Duff says OU is talent deficient, I refuse to believe that OU is, or ever will be truly talent deficient. There is no reason OU should ever average .7 takeaways per game, unless they aren’t playing hard all the time.
which lead me to ask these questions, because I think it could be reflective of Grinch not being a great motivator. I could be 100% wrong, just sharing an observation and thought on a message board
Fair enough.
http://harvardsportsanalysis.org/2014/10/how-random-are-turnovers/
That's the basis for what I was saying earlier.
Obviously some turnovers are created by talent, others are dumb luck. How many picks did Onu get that were throwaway picks? And who knows, maybe Oklahoma has a corner that was in position for at least 2-3 picks, but has crap hands. Or they forced some fumbles, but it was near the sideline and the ball went out of bounds.
I'm not trying to argue that we want Grinch because his defense didn't hustle. But I think to chalk it up as bad coaching because guys were lazy might be shortsighted. The Leach/Lincoln/air raid type offense is known to be extremely hard on defenses, it's why those teams generally have to win shootouts because their defense is passed out on the bench at halftime. So I think that needs to be factored in if you're counting every play where a guy looks tired as a negative.
What's more important to me is the end result. CU's effort may have been great in your view last year, but the end results for me were not good.
Last season our defense ranked:
total defense: 104th
scoring defense: 96th
3rd down conversion defense: 125th
Those metrics seem a lot more repeatable year-in year-out to me than hoping Onu and Rakestraw pick off 7 passes again.
But I'm bored so lets dig in to Grinch's defenses and see if his defenses just don't create turnovers
going off of sports reference. Fumbles / Interceptions / total
2019 Oklahoma: 0.3 / 0.5 / 0.8
2018 Ohio St: 0.9 / 0.9 / 1.6
2017 Wazzu: 1.0 / 1.2 / 2.2
2016 Wazzu: 0.8 / 0.9 / 1.8
2015 Wazzu: 0.8 / 1.0 / 1.8
contrast those with CU's 2019 number
CU 2019: 0.5 / 0.9 / 1.4
so high effort Colorado defense last year did obviously cause more turnovers than Oklahoma in 2019, but were a decent bit lower than any other Grinch coached defense.
Lets track Mel Tucker
2018 Georgia: 0.6 / 0.6 / 1.2
2017 Georgia: 0.5 / 0.8 / 1.3
2016 Georgia: 0.9 / 1.2 / 2.1
There are many things in here that I could pick out and continue our discussion with, but I don’t have the energy. What I see is this: maybe my eyes weren’t lying to me. But in regards to that, it seems that even if my observations are correct in regards to OU last year, it appears likely to be a false positive with regards to Grinch as a DC. Well done and thank you.
Trufflesauce
Well-Known Member
FWIW, a lot of OU fans were really happy with his work last season because they thought he did a good job rebuilding on the fly.
This is a situation like Lake last year where he may not be available this time next year.
He is my top choice, but I recognize there are other decent to good choices. But I think that top group of candidates is pretty small overall. If we go outside of that group, we are in big trouble IMO.
This is a situation like Lake last year where he may not be available this time next year.
He is my top choice, but I recognize there are other decent to good choices. But I think that top group of candidates is pretty small overall. If we go outside of that group, we are in big trouble IMO.
OUBuff
American
Honestly, I follow CU much closer than my own alma mater. From what I saw last year, the defense took on a new persona and was more aggressive than previous years. Clearly didn't do well enough, but it was a team loss against LSU (offense wasn't all that and a bag of chips either).
Wish I could tell you more, but I'd be happy if he was CU's next HC.
Ok, Boomer?
OUBuff
American
Sooner?
Later!
OUBuff
American
But I want a coach Nowwww!
We’ll get one, unless the Grinch steals him.
Copy cat