This goes back to Albin. When the players know their coach WILL NOT change his play call then what hope do you put in their minds. If the plays are not working and they are trying as hard as they can and still failing then I would think this could weigh on their mental toughness. IMOP.
If, in my business, my current strategy nets a loss of profit and my executive team makes it clear that there will be no changes and its up to me to work harder then what message does that send to me. Especially If I know. I I'm giving 110% and I'm the best available option on my team.and can not give more then what hope do I have.
Coaching staffs need to be able to instill some hope/confindence. Making a change would at least make these guys think the coaches have found a way to change the current outcome. Making no change and telling them to just try harder is a poor strategy.
If we can all see it then I suspect these players can see it as well,
I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with this analysis. You start with the assumption of incompetence at the top, and then justify the underlings questioning their managers. Any business with that going on is going to fail, whether or not the management team is actually incompetent, unless they get rid of the bad employees. Even good directives from management will fail if the employees are second guessing them. By contrast, even not very good strategies from management may work fine, so long as the employees follow them.
The same goes here. It's one thing if the fans are second guessing the coaches. That's normal, and goes on everywhere. But, if they players are? Then those players need to get benched, and replaced. If the players have doubts about the strategy, there is a time and a place for them to bring it up. That would be in meetings during the week. Come Saturday (or in this case, Tuesday), the plan is what it is, and the players better be behind it 100%, and do their best to make it work, even if they disagree with parts of the plan.
Just out of curiousity I went back and looked at MAC stats to see how the two Ohio coordinators stacked up, over the long run. During the years 2008-2010, Ohio was very close to last place in the conference in Total Offense, averaging only 322.5 yards a game, ahead of only Akron (322) and Temps (321.9). Since they re-made the offense after the Troy game, they are doing much better, averaging 432.6 yards a game, trailing only NIU (497), Toledo (457), and Ball State (437).
The defense in 2008-2010 was pretty good, giving up 350.2 yards a game, good for 3rd in the conference, behind NIU (321) and Temps (347). The uptempo offense did hurt the defense a little, and the average went up to 376.8 yards a game given up, which is still 3rd in the conference, behind BG (349) and Buffalo (371).
Looking at the numbers, the argument against Albin was pretty strong in 2010, when the Ohio offense had been bad for three years, averaging 364, 310, and 326 in 2008-2010. Was that about when Gdowski was named Co-Offensive Coordinator? In any case, with Ohio's offense doing much better the last three years, I'm looking more for fine tuning than wholesale changes.