So now that we’ve finished another disappointing season, the call to fire coaches and make staff changes is upon us. Some of these viewpoints are with solid backing, and some don’t make any sense. Let’s take a look at the coaching staff and their accomplishments, while keeping in mind that this season was an anomaly that largely threw an already difficult schedule and made it tougher. Another thing to recall, is that the resounding opinion in this sub when Frost took the job was that it would take about 5 years to right the ship, and now there are pitchforks because it hasn’t been done in effectively 2.5 seasons.
**Offense:**
**OC/WR Lubick:** Hard to gauge what his influence has been on the receiving corps in year 1, other than receiver blocking seems to have taken a good step forward by season’s end. I say this because when a screen pass is thrown properly, we’ve seen it go for a decent positive gain. The problem, however, is that there were only 3 wr that hit triple digits. We also relied on Wan’Dale heavily this season, with his 45 receptions being more than the combined total of all our other WR combined. Things were made increasingly difficult in having a new coach not have any spring ball to mesh with the team, and not having any easier non-con games to get alignment.
**QB Verduzco:** Luke showed obvious youth, something that has unfortunately become a trend under Verduzco’s tutelage. A solid Freshman season followed by a sophomore slump was seen in Adrian, and now is also present (albeit likely due to a very small sample size in 2019) in Luke’s 1/6 TD/INT Ratio. Adrian had an inconsistent year, with the benching, that does not show in his decently impressive 68.3% completion rate. The problem here is just that his average pass was for 6.5 yards, and his longest pass was a 45 yard dump pass to Zavier Betts on an end around. Better QB play is essential for this offense to take the jump to the next level, and right now we aren’t seeing that from any of our QBs.
**RB Held:** Held’s recruiting prowess has shown in his time here, being responsible for more commits than any other coach due to his JUCO ties and RB recruiting. The product hasn’t been very evident this season, with QB draws being the most successful play that we’ve run. Fumbles are a problem with this group, however this is something that is more evident in the youth of the team, and the QBs.
**TE Becton:** Becton’s group this year showed impressive gains in both pass catching and blocking ability. Austin Allen’s emergence this year has been impressive. Couple that with locking in the commitment of Fidone, and this group has the potential to be a bright spot in the 2021 campaign.
**OL/Run Game Coordinator Austin:** Austin’s group has been static in their position in the conference during this staff’s tenure, at 4th in the B1G rushing yearly. This season saw 3 players that were RS Soph or younger starting by year’s end. The team was 42nd in the nation in sacks allowed which was good for 7th in the B1G, an improvement from last year’s sack allowance rating (86th in the nation), which was similar to the team’s status in the 2018 season (77th). Jurgens remains the biggest piece to work on entering the 2021 season.
**Defense:**
**DC Chinander:** Defense played statistically similar to last season, with total defense going from 64th nationally and 10th in conference, to 66th nationally and 9th in conference. From a scheme standpoint, frustration set in when reluctance to blitz would result in higher completion percentages from opposing qbs because there was too much time in the pocket. One other area of improvement oft overlooked was the swarming that occured this year that was more evident than in the past 7 seasons. Tackling breakdown on the season is where you want it to be in a 3-4, with 4/6 of the top tackler spots and 5/10 top tackler spots being held by the linebacking corps, and the other 2 of the top 6 being safeties.
**DL Tuioti:** Tuioti took a group from last year and replaced all 3 starters, and had the group perform similarly or better than their predecessors almost across the board. Couple that with the fact that none of them are seniors, and this group is well poised for 2021.
**OLB Dawson:** OLB was inconsistent, but better than last season. Domann was a bright spot, and leading tackler. Logan Nelson needs to be coached up so that he has better vision to compliment his tenacity and tackling if this group is to be improved in 2021. This was another coach who was affected by not having spring ball to work with and mesh with the team. The fact that the OLB spot was the weak point in our front 7 was a good sign, as the group as a whole was wildly improved.
**ILB Ruud:** ILB play was vastly improved from last season, with Miller, Honas, Reimer, and Henrich looking good. ILB and OLB in a 3-4 defensive scheme are the stars of the show, which was evident in Honas being #2 on the tackles list, and Reimer and Miller being #5 and #6 respectively.
**DB Fischer:** DB play was statistically much worse than last season, but that can be explained by the front seven not being as porous as in years past. This group has had a prevalence of poor tackling form and targeting fouls, which at this point must be addressed as a coaching issue. The other thing to consider here, is that Fischer’s strong suit has been recruiting, in which more of his scholarship players than any other coach on the staff have put themselves into the transfer portal. A senior-led group this past season, it will be interesting to see which players elect to remain for another season.
**Head Coach:**
**HC Frost:** Acting as HC and playcaller has obviously not been working. This needs to be a change made over this offseason. Off-field things such as poor interviewing responses also need cleaned up, but that isn’t directly related to the product on the field. Our offense has gotten statistically worse in the three seasons that he has been here, but some of that must be attributed to youth. Regardless, Frost needs to make strides in this offseason to improve the offensive woes, and clean up the penalization that the team is facing. These mental errors are ultimately on him as the head coach.
If we are going to have discussion on who needs to go, we need to take into account the full body of information present. For a resource, I suggest the [NCAA statbook](https://stats.ncaa.org/rankings/change_sport_year_div) as it is where I got all of my team stat data for the past 3 seasons.
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