Monroe, with 7,900 some posts, you have given B. A. posters hundreds of examples of your lack of understanding of the coaching profession in general, and more specifically coaching college football and building a respected mid-major football program, but your last post "takes the cake" and removes any doubt! To assume that any coach, let alone any bobcat attack poster could teach a running back a new fundamental style of running the football in a matter of months is amazing to say the least. If this was the case, then a great coach like Nick Saban would not have recently sent a couple of very highly touted college running backs on to the NFL where they were not able to meet expectations in part because of running styles that were too "up and down" and too "high" to allow them to be successful. I am sure that Saban and his staff worked tirelessly to try to correct the fundamental flaws that those players had shown since their biddy league football days, but were never completely successful. It is just not as easy as you tend to proclaim....over and over and over. Like winning a MAC Championship, there are many things involved in player development that you just do not understand. Judging from your long history of postings, you have convinced most of us here that you will probably never have that accurate understanding. Not nearly as easy as you assume.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/379871-path-to-the-nfl...

It was a long shot, for sure. Just saying it hurt his chances and his chances weren't zero. They might have been close to zero. It's super frustrating when an injury prevents you from taking your best shot, even if it's a long shot.

Monroe, if you think that you can take any old person and make teach them basic bookkeeping in six month, I agree. If you think you can make them into an accountant, I doubt it. If you think you can make them into a CPA, I'd say definitely not. If you think you can make them into one of the best CPAs in the country in six months, you're absolutely wrong.

Believe it or not, not every star high school running back will become an NFL caliber back. Some players take awhile to learn the additional things, and no, 2 1/2 years is not unusual. Irons came in as a very good high school running back, but he also came in as one recruited only by Ohio. Why didn't teams closer to him, like Washington or Washington State make him an offer? They surely saw him in recruiting camps. I presume it was because of his upright running style.

Running upright allows him to see the field better, and to have better balance, so it's natural for him to run like that in high school, and to try to take every run the distance. Most high school backs do that. To transition to college and beyond he has to accept that he can't take every run the distance, and that often he needs to take what he can get, get some forward lean and yards after contact, and move on to the next play.

Can every running back learn this? No. I've seen many great backs in high school that move to college, and struggle with the high pad height issue. With their upright style, they break a few big runs, but also often get tackled for short yardage or losses. Not every high school back will become the back you hope they will become.

As far as Maleek, I see significant progress from a year ago. He's clearly working hard, and running lower. He wasn't ready to start two years ago, and he wasn't ready to start last year. This year, when he has started, he's done a fine job. Is he NFL ready now? Hardly, but if he continues to progress for the next two years, I still believe he can become a RB that will be considered an Ohio great. Give him time, and let's see how far he progresses. He's already come from being a high school star to an decent college back, and I don't think he's peaked yet.

Nobody said anything about the NFL.

This is merely about learning to run the right way, if that is required to maximize one's talent and/or playing time.

This is not rocket science. If I asked you to stop writing with your right hand and to use your left hand, I think you'd have that pretty much licked in six months.

The change to running lower isn't nearly as complicated.

Yes, I can teach you to be a highly effective accountant in six months.


Stop with the rigid 'old ball coach' thinking, will ya?


It's just football.





Or: Keep thinking that the old steel factory jobs are coming back. Keep resisting the structural change that has moved those jobs out of the country. So, don't adjust; stay rigid.

I must have missed those posts.

Then, I believe and feel strongly that those who think over 2.5 years to teach a running back to run lower should go to a wide variety of boards similar to this one.

There, post that there's a running back who looks to be quite good but between the player and/or the coaching it will take longer than 2.5 years to teach the running back to run appropriately lower to the ground.

See what kind of reaction you get. See if everyone understands that longer than 2.5 years is what this process should take.




#whatplanetisyourthinkingfoundon

Have you ever played football??

I'm sure you knew the answer without having to ask.

It kind of depends on how dominate your dominate hand is. Some people can learn to write with the opposite hand rather easily, for others it is a real struggle. Amputees sometimes have to deal with this issue because they've lost their dominate arm or hand. For some the transition is rather swiftly accomplished, for others it is a lifelong struggle.

Robert--With the incentive of don't-learn-it-then-no-playing-time, I think teacher and student would be motivated (with teacher being motivated by wanting to put potentially best players on field).

L.C.--The guys who play in the NFL, for the most part, make it on physical skill. You or I could be taught the intellectual side of it for forever and never come withing a zillion miles of it.


Sorry. But I find the assertion that it takes one who's physically capable of 'running lower' 2.5 or more years to learn it or to receive adequate coaching/education re how to do it to be seriously dumbdown.

I'll start a list of things that could be so complex that 2.5 years are not enough...but people get 'em done.

Learn to drive a car.
Win a MACC (at least---at least--12 years needed)
Take snap directly from center instead of in pistol.
Switch from QB to TE (Roback at OHIO, T Pryor for the Browns).
Coordinator to head coach.
POTUS (which, of course, no one could become since never had experience at it until won the office).
Care for a dog.
Learn a software program.
Learn to paint a house.
Millions and millions and millions and millions of other things.

2.5 years? Do I hear 5.7? 7.4?


That anyone thinks it's okay to need 2.5 years to learn, or be taught, to run lower is impressively unthoughtful.

So, business owners across the nation should allow employees years to be able to get up to speed on doing the very basics of the job?

Clearly you have developed a keen knowledge of human development as a result of the many years mentoring and coaching the countless individuals who you must have recruited, hired, trained, fired, and promoted as they advanced through your massive accounting and international pet sales and distribution enterprises.

In which case we all need to respectfully stand down and accept the facts.

(...if you have a podcast (or TEDtalk) let us know. I know that I am always looking for guidance.)

Non of them are great. Good not great.