I never said our coaching staff is infallible. I criticize them when criticism is due. OUellette is not necessarily our best back. He may be the 4th best....or he might be the first best in certain situations. He was the first best last year because nobody else seemed to be able to hang onto the ball. It doesn't matter how skilled you are at running, if you can't hang onto the ball as a running back, you're not going to play. I think we are seeing that Daz and certainly Papi have improved and are getting more carries and opportunities as a result.

I'm still waiting to hear your source on why Irons needs more carries at this time. Because someone on a message board knows somebody who saw one practice and that one person told another person who told someone on this board and then you read it on this board?

I'm not suggesting that Irons can't play. He might be the best runner. But there are many possible factors as to why he isn't playing as I stated earlier. Maybe it IS that the coaches just don't like him. I don't know. But for now, without any reason to think that might be the case, I'll give the coaches the benefit of the doubt. When I start see AJUTM repeatedly when we are losing by 10 in the 4th quarter, I'll start to wonder....

How could it be? Perhaps it could be for the same reason no one else in the country offered him a scholarship. There probably just wasn't enough information on him, or his competition was suspect. Good on our coaches for giving him a chance and getting him a scholarship within weeks. How, exactly are you saying that reflects poorly on our staff? (Hint: it doesn't)

fixed it for you

Love the limerick!

BTW, I was chuckling this morning at the fact that Monroe had complained for years about the single back (pistol) set....and then lo and behold: the staff implements a two back set!! With Heitzman on Saturday playing the role of Monroe's "BIG MANZ."

Despite the assertions by some, football is not THAT complicated and those of us that have watched Ohio play it every week for decades may at times have valid observations and even the occasional prescription for a fix.

To take a page out of Mike Johnson's playbook, a personal story...I once interned in the labs division of a famous software company that filed a large number of patents. The researchers would explain the inventions (algorithms) to the lawyers who document them and submit the patents. I was told by my boss that after 15 years of this pattern with the same lawyers, the lawyers starting suggesting new algorithms and optimizations to the computer scientists! And they were apparently pretty good.

Anyway...keep doing your thing Monroe!

No personal stories today. But as a counselor with SCORE - one of my involvements in my post-corporate phase of life - I frequently encourage clients to experiment, stating what is often clear: If you don't experiment you don't know. That can apply to sports as well as business.

Go back to 2012, Independence Bowl. Knight at TE doing the same work. Give/take credit wherever you like.

Bingo. (And it gets more credibility because I didn't write it--that's not a compliment to most of you, by the way.)

Great limerick...very clever.


For the record, to me a two-back set is one in which either back can directly get a hand-off and/or directly lead block. So, to me, we've not used two-back sets much yet. I want sets in which the it's not obvious to the D which back will get it if we run a straight ahead, power running play.


Responses to my incredibly inspired, genius posts often cite statistics. Okay, which of our running backs has the highest yards per carry this year?

According to ESPN, Kylan Nelson. :)

I'll take it one step further and suggest we should be starting Greg Windham at QB. He has 100% completion rate and a Rating of 259.6. The next closest is Vick, with a measly 69.4% completion percentage and rating of only 182.1. Windham's yards per attempt are also much higher.

On a less sarcastic note...bigger and faster does not mean better. It does not mean he can pick up blitzes better. It does not mean he can read the zone read better. It does not mean he catches the ball on swing passes better. It simply means the number on the scale is slightly higher he and runs a 40 yard sprint in a few less 10ths of a second.

And Has nothing at all to do with the coaches doing what he says. What a joke.

I love it when statements are made with such absolute resolve when they are actually made with complete abandonment of any fact.

Not really. Then we'd just think "the coaches brought him along at the proper speed, and see what a good job they've done with him". ;P

I agree irons isn't much bigger and not much faster. Plus how can everyone judge AJ when he's only getting less than 10 carries a game? It takes time to get in a groove and when your O line isn't opening holes there's not much you can do. Has anyone played college football on here haha its looking like no. If AJ received 15 to 25 carries a game you wouldn't even have this post plus he has one thing everyone knows (dependability) can't replace that.