To expand on the points that Penguin68 made, coaching inexperience or poor judgment cost us wins against Western Illinois and North Dakota. I firmly believe that we would have outscored Indiana State had Crenshaw not been forced out of the game. We could have actually won six games.
The offensive line could not pa$$ block against anybody, but they opened enough holes for McLaughlin and Crenshaw in the five conference games in which they were not hopelessly overmatched.
Phillips stated many times that he intends to build the team from the bottom up by recruiting freshmen. I generally support that approach, but six transfers could do wonders for the morale of both the players and the fans. Two on the oline, two on the dline, and two linebackers, please. With our less demanding schedule next season, such additions could perhaps make us competitive.
Good points. As I have stated all year.
#1. Phillips was handcuffed a bit going in. I would ask anyone, who would have done better? The one thing that Phillips has over Pellini (and was evident early) was the kids never quit any game all year even if they were hopelessly overmatched.
#2. As I've been saying all year, don't go at this with high expectations and be patient. This isn't an easy fix because it involves the lines and it takes time to develop them. Without transfers it will take 5 full years to get the required depth with our scholarship level. As my Italian friend Bobby says "Thanks Pelini, You filled the roster full of 5'7" Degos from Mooney and now we suck." Isn't that insightful? He hardly watches anymore.
#3 Phillips has a philosophy that is similar to Tressel and it starts on the defensive side of the ball with a defense oriented team.. Our secondary would have been one of the best in the FCS if we had a DL and a few more LB's to help them out. When you have to cover for 8 seconds, which I observed multiple times against the Salukis, it's almost impossible to be efficient in stopping the pa$$. Secondly, the kids he did bring in are pretty good, and they will be exceptional with more development and time. What I know about his offensive philosophy is that we will run the ball first. I agree with what he wants to do here. However, I did see them try to work with what they've got in the pa$$ing game. Notice how may pa$$es Crenshaw was releasing the ball as soon as he got it.....like throwing to a spot to reduce protection time. They did a lot there as coaches, especially Crenshaw's footwork improvement. That was done to help the OL deficiencies. Another year in the weight room for both sides of the ball will do a lot of good. What I will say in comparison to Tressel is that both appear to try to fit an offense that fits their people. We had option teams with Tidwell and pocket pa$$ers with Ryan etc. I see similarities in a lot of areas.
We were blown out a lost games for 3 reasons this year. #1. We didn't match up well with the best teams athletically on the LOS (will be fixed through weight training and recruiting as he has said multiple times). #2 we didn't have the depth when we were in some of those games and faded out in the second half several times. #3 Phillips wasn't going to change his coaching philosophy or his game plan because they weren't working in a specific game. He wasn't hasty and always allowed them time to work out (or not work out) in a game. He simply identified what they thought our strengths were and tried to game plan to them. We're we out coached in a few games with our inexperienced staff? Yes, but Phillips is just not going to throw out his entire philosophy and in the middle of a game he's losing. He's just not built that way.
We should have won 6 games. If you watch any significant amount of football, you would see that against the Dakota teams we look like a high school team playing a college team on the LOS. Just to be in the other Valley games shows you the grit of the kids playing. I would rather see that than watch a Pelini team give up in the second quarter because they got down by 2 scores and folded like a house of cards. That never happened, even if we were overmatched. Could they have done better? Sure. But.....
#4. Remember you have a young team that is inconsistent. And some of that also goes on an inexperienced coaching staff. They've got a lot to work on in the off season, but everything is easily identifiable. I think they did a good job this year all things considered because I kept my expectations low.
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