Fire Brock Spack

[topiarydan]

Yes we shit the bed against EIU. However any blame for the players? We make it sound like it was all Spack. I call BS. Look at number of turnovers we had, look at how "owned" Bussone was all game, look how we missed 2 FGs and a PAT. So c'mon - the players did Spack no favors. Sure he has some fault but look also what we have to work with - DIAA (FCS) is a joke - we're the minor leagues now for FBS teams - we had 6 starters who have left to go to bigger programs over the past couple of years and even some other good ones who jumped ship to other FCS teams. And we get FBS cast offs that don't always pan out. Spack has to re-recruit his team every year now and our NIL is dogshit. Even ND State is losing players. So let's see how they bounce back in 2 weeks at home vs SD State.

 

[TIMMY]

Yes we shit the bed against EIU. However any blame for the players? We make it sound like it was all Spack. I call BS. Look at number of turnovers we had, look at how "owned" Bussone was all game, look how we missed 2 FGs and a PAT. So c'mon - the players did Spack no favors. Sure he has some fault but look also what we have to work with - DIAA (FCS) is a joke - we're the minor leagues now for FBS teams - we had 6 starters who have left to go to bigger programs over the past couple of years and even some other good ones who jumped ship to other FCS teams. And we get FBS cast offs that don't always pan out. Spack has to re-recruit his team every year now and our NIL is dogshit. Even ND State is losing players. So let's see how they bounce back in 2 weeks at home vs SD State.

Eastern's D-tackles certainly used their lack of height to get under both of our guards pads! The film session had to be ugly.

 

[Redbird]

Yes we shit the bed against EIU. However any blame for the players? We make it sound like it was all Spack. I call BS. Look at number of turnovers we had, look at how "owned" Bussone was all game, look how we missed 2 FGs and a PAT. So c'mon - the players did Spack no favors. Sure he has some fault but look also what we have to work with - DIAA (FCS) is a joke - we're the minor leagues now for FBS teams - we had 6 starters who have left to go to bigger programs over the past couple of years and even some other good ones who jumped ship to other FCS teams. And we get FBS cast offs that don't always pan out. Spack has to re-recruit his team every year now and our NIL is dogshit. Even ND State is losing players. So let's see how they bounce back in 2 weeks at home vs SD State.

Every team has to deal with this not just Spack. Playing field is level in that regard. Sure players not performing can be an issue but the pattern of behavior over the last eight seasons is poor coaching not poor playing.

 

[Reggie1857]

This is simply not true

If Larry wasn't pushed out, that's a damning indictment of Illinois State's administration.

 

[fourthandshort]

Fourthandshort...you are a beacon of light around this place and you deserve GREAT props! I eagerly read your posts.

I'm 100% with Redbird on this one. Punting with a short field...repeatedly. Getting so uptight in crunch time that we lose track of very basic fundamentals - and I'm talking from a coaching perspective. And this kicker bullsheep has gone on much much much too long. These 3 aspects are beyond concerning, they're ALARMING. I cannot believe there's not a kicker on campus who can hit a 40 yarder regularly...under pressure... boot the ball in the end zone...and hit XP's at a 95% clip. Somebody's off-season job, even an undergrad intern, should have been assigned this: To find a kicker with balls. Even if it means a women's soccer player. Sorry for the unintentional faux pas there.

An A.D. with a football background would be borderline livid right now, imo, regarding those 3 issues and its combined ripple effect...on top of a predictable offense. A Coach's wet dream, exclaims Timmy! That ripple effect, I bet, has cost us 2 wins a year the last several years. Football peeps, tell me I'm lying!

Personally, I really like Brock. Professionally, I'm checking out.

Here's why. We're playing a hunkered down, timid, fearful, and terribly predictable game in crunch time. Is there anything more gross in all of football???

I do acknowledge Brock could go out and make 1M a year as a DC for a strong P5. As a head coach...is he getting better?? I don't see it. Bless his heart.

agree with your main point ... he regresses to what he is comfortable doing under stress. Several of us were wondering how long his post-game "modern offense" comments would hold true. He just doesn't want his offense or special teams to lose the game for him ... which is very common among most coaches at some point in any game youre trying to win. But with Spack, he hits that point much quicker than most. But i hate prevent defense combined with prevent offense. I think if everything goes well, it's great ... but it doesn't always, and when it doesn't, youve totally killed any momentum and confidence you might have had otherwise.

 

[TIMMY]

This is my problem at the risk of being redundant. As a coach, just be true to yourself. Run the style offense that supports it and recruit to it. If you're going to be conservative (I was) you have to be able to run the ball when everyone knows you're running the ball. And you won't be successful at that when you're spread out all over the field. If you're all spread out you have to throw it once in a while when everyone "knows" you're running it and that's not in Coach Spack's DNA. Or mine for that matter. Be who you are and own it.

 

[Virginia Redbird]

I'm glad I watch the games. If I only depended on this board for news, I would believe that we have a run the ball predictable offense. Here are the facts. Through 3 games we have 1276 yards of offense. Of that 699 yards have come through the air and 577 on the ground.

The first good Redbird offensive drive ended when Annexstad threw deep for an INT ON FIRST DOWN. On first down gets all caps because that used to be a common complaint. We were predictable, we never threw on first down. Well there's your first down pass. Another drive ended when we attempted a WR pass.

Most of the basis for criticism comes from the Redbird possession that began with 2:48 to go and the 'Birds leading 13-7. Most coaches are going to run the ball every down in that situation. That is especially true when you've already thrown 2 int's and your defense has been playing very well. If you know football you know that's true. When it comes to the actual execution of those 3 plays I will defer to Timmy. He found plenty of flaws and that's why his posts are must read material. With the poor execution there was never any hope of gaining a first down, but it did force EIU to use up their timeouts and that was a major goal of the three running plays. As it turned out 2:48 was a little early to focus on just getting EIU to use up T.O.s. They got the ball back with 1:32 to go but they only needed 1:07 to travel 93 yards. The defense should have held. In hindsight it's easy to say we should have pressured the QB more because that was working (I agree) but we also could have won if we had been able to tackle EIU receivers inbounds.

Coulda, woulda, shoulda but didn't, resulting in a loss and a board meltdown. Now that's predictable.

A couple of things regarding your post. First, you selected one single sentence from my post to, I assume, bolster your point. The context of my post was lost with your selective use. I never said ISU was not passing more. They are. I said I think Coach Spack is still a grind it out type of guy. When he made the comment about modern offense it seemed to me he said that grudgingly. You can disagree but I don't see him becoming the second coming of Air Coryell anytime soon. Your facts are just some stats and you can do anything you want with stats. If you are trying to say the offense is balanced by the total yards gained I would submit the way to gauge balance of attack is attempts not yards gained. Yards gained is just the result. I looked back at the first three games, against Dayton the Birds attempted 37 passes and 24 rushes. Against WIU the Birds attempted 26 passes and 41 rushes. In the EIU game the Birds attempted 37 passes and 30 rushes. The most balanced attack was probably the EIU game but in the end it really does not mean much. Those total yard stats can be misleading too. A couple long runs or pass completions can impact stats.

The end of the game situation is what was so irritating. Spack said he wasted to force EIU to use their time outs. He did that, success, right? Not if you leave them so much time and then play soft defense. I saw in his postgame comments that Spack said that everyone in the stadium knows you are going to run the ball and you have to run it. So you do the exact thing everyone is expecting, and are not successful. The coaches call the plays and need to factor in what the skills of the players are to successfully execute those plays. They have a package (or should) for this situation. I thought the end of the game was badly coached, both offense and defense. So if we comment on that it is a board meltdown? I dont think so.

 

[gobirds85]

This is simply not true

I believe Larry Lyons was forced out. His Muller contract was an utter disaster for the university and he had other short comings that led to this decision. He needed to go and did.

 

[MadBird]

Virginia Redbird, I'll point out, as I do from time to time, often in response to fourthandshort, that the record shows that Spack IS willing to open up the offense and pass, and pass, and pass. He was head coach when Matt Brown set many ISU records. Head coach when Tre Roberson passed his way into top 5 in many ISU passing categories. Likewise, Jake Kolbe. Brady Davis is top 5 in a category or two. Three of the top 5 career leaders in avg. passing yards per game came during Spack's years. Etc.

What's changed? I dunno. But my hunch is he's still looking for the QB/receiver combination he had with those other teams. I know things are generally "what have you done for me lately", but I'm not going to forget the "body of work" that includes some major league passing offense.

 

[Total Red]

Yes we shit the bed against EIU. However any blame for the players? We make it sound like it was all Spack. I call BS. Look at number of turnovers we had, look at how "owned" Bussone was all game, look how we missed 2 FGs and a PAT. So c'mon - the players did Spack no favors. Sure he has some fault but look also what we have to work with - DIAA (FCS) is a joke - we're the minor leagues now for FBS teams - we had 6 starters who have left to go to bigger programs over the past couple of years and even some other good ones who jumped ship to other FCS teams. And we get FBS cast offs that don't always pan out. Spack has to re-recruit his team every year now and our NIL is dogshit. Even ND State is losing players. So let's see how they bounce back in 2 weeks at home vs SD State.

And the FBS is the minor leagues of the NFL so you could leave off College Football altogether.

I continue to monitor the results of the transfer portal and NIL. It has provided only a very slight additional advantage to the rich in their quest to get richer.

This past weekend FCS Sacramento St. beat FBS Stanford (a P5 FBS too),
before that SIU beat NIU, and Northern ILL tries to be a football school.

They play really good ball in the Valley, and like it or not we're going to be here for quite a while. I've decided to enjoy it.

 

[Total Red]

Virginia Redbird, I'll point out, as I do from time to time, often in response to fourthandshort, that the record shows that Spack IS willing to open up the offense and pass, and pass, and pass. He was head coach when Matt Brown set many ISU records. Head coach when Tre Roberson passed his way into top 5 in many ISU passing categories. Likewise, Jake Kolbe. Brady Davis is top 5 in a category or two. Three of the top 5 career leaders in avg. passing yards per game came during Spack's years. Etc.

What's changed? I dunno. But my hunch is he's still looking for the QB/receiver combination he had with those other teams. I know things are generally "what have you done for me lately", but I'm not going to forget the "body of work" that includes some major league passing offense.

Coach Spack has allowed change to take place with different Offensive Coordinators and those OC's have changed the offense to suit the personnel.
Timmy says that you should develop an offensive philosophy, recruit to it, and then stick with it.

I've seen football programs win with either of those approaches so I wouldn't say that one was better than the other.
I think it stills remains to be seen if what we're currently doing could be classified as working or not working. Was it a bad day or is it a bad offense? We'll see.

 

[TIMMY]

Virginia Redbird, I'll point out, as I do from time to time, often in response to fourthandshort, that the record shows that Spack IS willing to open up the offense and pass, and pass, and pass. He was head coach when Matt Brown set many ISU records. Head coach when Tre Roberson passed his way into top 5 in many ISU passing categories. Likewise, Jake Kolbe. Brady Davis is top 5 in a category or two. Three of the top 5 career leaders in avg. passing yards per game came during Spack's years. Etc.

What's changed? I dunno. But my hunch is he's still looking for the QB/receiver combination he had with those other teams. I know things are generally "what have you done for me lately", but I'm not going to forget the "body of work" that includes some major league passing offense.

When Matt Brown was a senior at QB in 2012 we ran it more than we threw it 476-442 even though we averaged 7.7 per pass attempt and just 3.7 per rush. We were balanced and that's great. But I'm sure as shit that with 2:48 left in a game and a 6-point lead, we would never have lined up with 4 wide receivers. Neukrich would have been at FB, O'Shaughnessy would have been the TE, and Dunn would have run the ball and the clock out. I love football!

 

[Virginia Redbird]

Virginia Redbird, I'll point out, as I do from time to time, often in response to fourthandshort, that the record shows that Spack IS willing to open up the offense and pass, and pass, and pass. He was head coach when Matt Brown set many ISU records. Head coach when Tre Roberson passed his way into top 5 in many ISU passing categories. Likewise, Jake Kolbe. Brady Davis is top 5 in a category or two. Three of the top 5 career leaders in avg. passing yards per game came during Spack's years. Etc.

What's changed? I dunno. But my hunch is he's still looking for the QB/receiver combination he had with those other teams. I know things are generally "what have you done for me lately", but I'm not going to forget the "body of work" that includes some major league passing offense.

Offensive coordinator was one thing that changed. Speaking of Coordinators, I have not heard much discussion about the offensive and defensive coordinators and the play calling at the end of the game. All the discussion seems to be about Coach Spack but it is the coordinator's responsibility to make the calls. Spack can over rule them of course, but...

 

[CaliRdBrd]

Yes we shit the bed against EIU. However any blame for the players? We make it sound like it was all Spack. I call BS. Look at number of turnovers we had, look at how "owned" Bussone was all game, look how we missed 2 FGs and a PAT. So c'mon - the players did Spack no favors. Sure he has some fault but look also what we have to work with - DIAA (FCS) is a joke - we're the minor leagues now for FBS teams - we had 6 starters who have left to go to bigger programs over the past couple of years and even some other good ones who jumped ship to other FCS teams. And we get FBS cast offs that don't always pan out. Spack has to re-recruit his team every year now and our NIL is dogshit. Even ND State is losing players. So let's see how they bounce back in 2 weeks at home vs SD State.

P5 teams (even the top teams) have the same portal issues Spack has.

 

[Total Red]

When Matt Brown was a senior at QB in 2012 we ran it more than we threw it 476-442 even though we averaged 7.7 per pass attempt and just 3.7 per rush. We were balanced and that's great. But I'm sure as shit that with 2:48 left in a game and a 6-point lead, we would never have lined up with 4 wide receivers. Neukrich would have been at FB, O'Shaughnessy would have been the TE, and Dunn would have run the ball and the clock out. I love football!

Definitely true about 2012 but I've heard coaches and even a RB talk about running the ball from a 4 wide formation. They actually see it as an advantage because it forces the defense to spread out, unless they want to leave someone uncovered. If that happened I would hope that Annexstad could call an audible or just give the receiver a look. When the offense bunches up with 2 TEs and a FB, so does the defense.

 

[Total Red]

Eastern's D-tackles certainly used their lack of height to get under both of our guards pads! The film session had to be ugly.

The only good part of this is that we've been able to do the same to other teams. Both EIU and WIU had some mammoth OLine players but they were fat and slow. This 320lbs, 340, 360, 400 anyone? thing has gone too far. Get some 290 pounders that can bend and move. Just because somebody, somewhere was able to carry 350 that doesn't mean everyone can do it. Most can't.

 

[TIMMY]

Definitely true about 2012 but I've heard coaches and even a RB talk about running the ball from a 4 wide formation. They actually see it as an advantage because it forces the defense to spread out, unless they want to leave someone uncovered. If that happened I would hope that Annexstad could call an audible or just give the receiver a look. When the offense bunches up with 2 TEs and a FB, so does the defense.

Absolutely right. In a normal situation. But not when your opponent knows there's no way on earth you are going to throw. Spack teams always run in these situations. Sure the OC calls the play but he's wearing a headset and he's hearing the boss say run it. EIU loaded the box with 6. 4 linemen 2 LBs and had a safety flying to the point of attack. They were man on our WRs Our O-line was outnumbered in addition to getting smoked by their DTs. Coaches may differ, but in this situation, I want to create another bubble by adding a TE and by using my fullback to outnumber them at the point of attack. Personally, I would have run strong side ISO with a double team on their 3 tech DT. Then a weak side lead and a 3rd down power sweep if I'm not already taking a knee. But I'm just an old fart football coach.

Heck, the Chiefs won a Super Bowl by running Lombardi's sweep and they're not exactly conservative.

 

[BJJ guy]

My high school kids team lost a game on Friday night because they threw the ball on 3rd down in almost the same situation and stopped the clock. All the fans couldn't believe that they didn't run the ball because everyone knows that is what you are supposed to do in that situation. Where you stand depends on where you sit sometimes;-)

 

[dpdoughbird06]

My high school kids team lost a game on Friday night because they threw the ball on 3rd down in almost the same situation and stopped the clock. All the fans couldn't believe that they didn't run the ball because everyone knows that is what you are supposed to do in that situation. Where you stand depends on where you sit sometimes;-)

NCHS scored TDs on their first eight offensive possessions last Friday against Peoria - plus a pick-six sandwiched in between. Let’s do whatever they were doing.

 

[Redbird82]

I don’t have a problem with the 3 runs, might have liked them to maybe try to get it to the edge, but making EIU burn TOS is fine. BUT it’s the frickin prevent defense, and you played that poorly! In college 1st downs stop the clock and then you let them get out of bounds at will. You stop them all game maybe 1 in a 100 they hit a big play, but it’s better than just letting them march down field. It’s like not fouling the 3 pt shooter. I think once I have seen a team make the first miss the second get the rebound and score. Seen endless times a guy hits a 3 no matter how well defended.