[bluejacket]

Not really. You don't outplay the teams we have (just not the whole game) over the past few years without having the talent.

This. We have plenty of talent on the team to win a lot of FCS games.

But I would note that our depth is not nearly as strong as it has been. We have had key injury issues this season (particularly at MLB), but not at a debilitating level. Richmond had more depth overall than we did with roughly 90 players on their roster. That is concerning considering that we probably have fifteen more players on our roster than they do. Of course, you have to take into consideration redshirts and injuries, but there is still a considerable gap in the number of players that we have available compared to them. There will be a small talent gap in scholarship players because they are in the CAA, but our walkons and split scholarship players should be much better than theirs. It did not appear that way on Saturday.

[forbidden]

But you really haven't offered a good reason to say why he's not the coach to lead us. I still don't see how anyone could say the coaches are not emphasizing certain points that seem to become issues on game day. I know for a fact that some things are addressed. The only thing that comes to mind for me is that the coaches believe that not all of the talent is there to do some of the things they want, so they don't do them. We all know the kids if given the continued opportunity will not step aside. But like I said this is based on time not just a game or two.

Drops in a game by the wr is not a reflection on the coach as much as the player for dropping them. The coaches are doing the drills. The problem I see is that they apparently feel the talent behind them is not good enough to sit the players that make the same mistakes. That's where I blame the coaches, because they did pick the food that they wanted to cook with. Same thing on defense, if players aren't doing there jobs but keep being allowed on the field is that the player or the coach, for letting them stay out there.

We are more than capable but they need to find a way to hold on for the same 4QF they want the fans to have. It baffles me because I would like to know what type offense we run with Masha as opposed to Josh, how much if any does it change, because the skill sets are a little different. Pocket passer vs dual threat, then you still have the Bradwell kid waiting in the wings, with Swanson and Shashaty. On defense I think it's the philosophy they are gonna live and die with in the bend don't break. Try to make a team consistently have a long drive and hope for a mistake to force a punt, but dang giving a team 10 yd cushions and my old HS QB could make those throws for the most part.

So are you saying it's the players or coaches. You start by saying it's NOT the coaches then finish saying it IS the coaches
I do agree with you that the WR drops are on the players as long as they are running drills in practice. I have experience in this for sure. You can run drills to improve a skill but that doesn't always mean it will improve

Have always stated, that some is on players, but some is on coaches, because the coaches know that these players are making the same mistakes over time not months but continue to give them more game time instead of bench time, and not rely or TRUST the backups, who are the same peoples whose houses they sat in and told them how much they could help LU, by them attending.

To me this is like giving that undrafted guy a shot, not really believing they can, but are pressed to use them and then when they shine, they the first ones to holler out how well we drafted per say, and how it's supposedly next man up when times are ruff or injury.

[R i]

SJ, doesnt think he is the man for the job because he is unorganized, which I related to penalties and off the field problems and potentially graduation rate, and none of those are correct ?

So these claims that he is unorganized, can you support those claims ? (other than your sources told you he was unorganized)

If he is so unorganized that you think he cant, wont, and shouldnt be the man to lead us forward, fire him now. No need to wait because it would be less stressful for Jeff in one year.



The reason I am not letting this go is becaue I truely believe that some of you come on here after a big loss or an emotional game (Rocco , homecoming, only trip to the burg) and claim that our coach isnt the guy, I think you do it as a medicine of sorts, not because its a logicially thought out opinion. Emotional Reaction.

[flamehunter]

One thing I've learned reading this forum over the past too many years is that SJ doesn't post without thinking it through, especially in the last couple years. I don't always agree with him, but he's not posting emotional over-reactions.

[bluejacket]

SJ, doesnt think he is the man for the job because he is unorganized, which I related to penalties and off the field problems and potentially graduation rate, and none of those are correct ?

So these claims that he is unorganized, can you support those claims ? (other than your sources told you he was unorganized)

If you want immediate proof, look at the play on the field. It took one month of fall camp plus six games for the offense (which is where TG focuses his attention) to figure out what they were doing; during that time, we erratically tried a ton of completely different things trying to make the offense work.

The defense has a consistent, organized philosophy (Isn't it interesting that the defense is where TG focuses least?), but their gameplans have not properly meshed our strengths against the opposing teams weaknesses. Anyone who knows anything about ISU or Richmond knows that their offenses are built around short passes and yet we give it to them almost uncontested for the entire first half in each case.

Special teams has no guiding philosophy as well and is becoming increasingly disorganized. Take, for example, the final play of the first half against Richmond. Our two starting safeties handled the ball on that field goal return. Why did we not have someone else who was prepared and ready to handle that situation? Why on earth would you risk Hagen and Sampson on a play like that? The entire thing seemed like an off the cuff reaction to the situation and the team did not seem practiced or prepared at all.

If he is so unorganized that you think he cant, wont, and shouldnt be the man to lead us forward, fire him now. No need to wait because it would be less stressful for Jeff in one year.

Talk about an emotional reaction. Give him to the end of the season; there is still a chance that they can fix it (very unlikely in my opinion). Then make adjustments in the offseason and give TG another chance next season. After that, make the tough decisions if you have to.

[LUalum12]

The offense is not the problem. The defense can't stop anybody. We play 10 yards of the receiver and can't get to the QB both are recipes for disaster for a D unit. Press coverage is much better. TG's philosophy about long drives are a joke. What are the odds of completing an 80 yard pass because you get burned ever now and again versus completing a 7 yard pass every time. I would take my chances on giving up the deep ball any day. Not saying He should be fired but his overall track record as a coach if you look at W and L's speaks for its self. Unfortunately coaches are gauged by the wins and losses. However I think he is a great man and good for the University. Not so sure he is or ever will be a great coach.

[SuperJon]

If he is so unorganized that you think he cant, wont, and shouldnt be the man to lead us forward, fire him now. No need to wait because it would be less stressful for Jeff in one year.

It's not about Jeff's stress level. It's about the contract, the buyout, and the national perception. Give the guy four years. That's standard operating procedure. He deserves that long to prove himself.

The reason I am not letting this go is becaue I truely believe that some of you come on here after a big loss or an emotional game (Rocco , homecoming, only trip to the burg) and claim that our coach isnt the guy, I think you do it as a medicine of sorts, not because its a logicially thought out opinion. Emotional Reaction.

If you go back and read my posts this entire season, you can see I haven't been a Gill fan. I've been questioning things from the get go this year. It wasn't until after seeing it myself and talking with others that it solidified what I was already thinking. Me not thinking Gill is the right coach isn't limited to post-Richmond.

[Purple Haize]

When I hear 'unorganized' I think it's different than 'undisciplined'. To me 'undisciplined' means lots of penalties, especially unsportsmanlike, poor clock management out of control players etc. I don't see that. 'Unorganized' to me deals with administrative tasks, off field time management, lose practice schedules etc. 'Undisciplined' can only be fixed by a philosophical change. 'Unorganized' can be tightened up

[bluejacket]

When I hear 'unorganized' I think it's different than 'undisciplined'. To me 'undisciplined' means lots of penalties, especially unsportsmanlike, poor clock management out of control players etc. I don't see that. 'Unorganized' to me deals with administrative tasks, off field time management, lose practice schedules etc. 'Undisciplined' can only be fixed by a philosophical change. 'Unorganized' can be tightened up

This is absolutely right.

I will note that the organization problems did not originate at Liberty. To my knowledge, fans at Buffalo did not comment on these problems in large numbers; they were just happy to win games. However, many fans at Kansas commented on organizational problems under TG.

[forbidden]

The offense is not the problem. The defense can't stop anybody. We play 10 yards of the receiver and can't get to the QB both are recipes for disaster for a D unit. Press coverage is much better. TG's philosophy about long drives are a joke. What are the odds of completing an 80 yard pass because you get burned ever now and again versus completing a 7 yard pass every time. I would take my chances on giving up the deep ball any day. Not saying He should be fired but his overall track record as a coach if you look at W and L's speaks for its self. Unfortunately coaches are gauged by the wins and losses. However I think he is a great man and good for the University. Not so sure he is or ever will be a great coach.

Look, I dont always agree with what everyone says, but what you just stated is clearly the reason some of us are fans and others are coaches. That philosophy of making a team drive the length of the field over a certain number of plays is and has been proven to be alot more effective, because most OC's are not content with taking there time to drive the ball but want to hit the homerun shot via the bomb. Not trying to take a shot at you, but you clearly are WRONG in your assesment. I have been coaching for a long time myself and that is a well known philosopy.

If you believe the offense hasnt been a problem, again I wonder what in the blue hell you have been looking at. I guess UNC or ISU were not games on the schedule. Now granted Defense didnt help the cause but to say offense is not the problem or part of the problem is quite frankly dilusional.

[SuperJon]

I saw something on Twitter that made me laugh and made me sad. It said, "If you're in Lynchburg and don't want to catch Ebola, go to the football stadium. No one catches anything there."

[Purple Haize]

The offense is not the problem. The defense can't stop anybody. We play 10 yards of the receiver and can't get to the QB both are recipes for disaster for a D unit. Press coverage is much better. TG's philosophy about long drives are a joke. What are the odds of completing an 80 yard pass because you get burned ever now and again versus completing a 7 yard pass every time. I would take my chances on giving up the deep ball any day. Not saying He should be fired but his overall track record as a coach if you look at W and L's speaks for its self. Unfortunately coaches are gauged by the wins and losses. However I think he is a great man and good for the University. Not so sure he is or ever will be a great coach.

Look, I dont always agree with what everyone says, but what you just stated is clearly the reason some of us are fans and others are coaches. That philosophy of making a team drive the length of the field over a certain number of plays is and has been proven to be alot more effective, because most OC's are not content with taking there time to drive the ball but want to hit the homerun shot via the bomb. Not trying to take a shot at you, but you clearly are WRONG in your assesment. I have been coaching for a long time myself and that is a well known philosopy.

If you believe the offense hasnt been a problem, again I wonder what in the blue hell you have been looking at. I guess UNC or ISU were not games on the schedule. Now granted Defense didnt help the cause but to say offense is not the problem or part of the problem is quite frankly dilusional.

Dropping the ball is the problem. That's a player thing not an offensive thing

[forbidden]

The offense is not the problem. The defense can't stop anybody. We play 10 yards of the receiver and can't get to the QB both are recipes for disaster for a D unit. Press coverage is much better. TG's philosophy about long drives are a joke. What are the odds of completing an 80 yard pass because you get burned ever now and again versus completing a 7 yard pass every time. I would take my chances on giving up the deep ball any day. Not saying He should be fired but his overall track record as a coach if you look at W and L's speaks for its self. Unfortunately coaches are gauged by the wins and losses. However I think he is a great man and good for the University. Not so sure he is or ever will be a great coach.

Look, I dont always agree with what everyone says, but what you just stated is clearly the reason some of us are fans and others are coaches. That philosophy of making a team drive the length of the field over a certain number of plays is and has been proven to be alot more effective, because most OC's are not content with taking there time to drive the ball but want to hit the homerun shot via the bomb. Not trying to take a shot at you, but you clearly are WRONG in your assesment. I have been coaching for a long time myself and that is a well known philosopy.

If you believe the offense hasnt been a problem, again I wonder what in the blue hell you have been looking at. I guess UNC or ISU were not games on the schedule. Now granted Defense didnt help the cause but to say offense is not the problem or part of the problem is quite frankly dilusional.

Dropping the ball is the problem. That's a player thing not an offensive thing

Or a coaches thing, and that's the truth Ruth.

[Purple Haize]

i was unaware coaches ran routes during games. Here are the Blame Scenarios.
If the coaches run drills to improve the players ability to catch- Fault:Players
If the players don't work on it on their own- Fault:Players
If the coaches don't run drills to address the problem and prohibit the players from working on it on their own - Fault:Coaches.
If the players are focusing their hands more on Ruth than catching a football- Fault: Players

[LUalum12]

When is the last time you seen a bend don't break defense philosophy be part of a championship team? NEVER, North Dakota state, App state when they were winning championships and yes there is the Seattle Seahawks who all played mostly press not to mention man to man. Guess I really am delusional. When I played football bend don't break was not even in the vocabulary and I played for a very successful coach who would have laughed at you previous comment.

[forbidden]

PH - players fault for drops in gms as much as it happens especially when it's worked on in practice, coaches fault for allowing it to keep happening by putting them in the game, how do u know what other players can do in live situations if never given the chance.

I hope ur not gonna tell me that Seattle plays mostly man, u will hv to remove ur self kind dri from all football conversations. The Seahawks play more cover 3 than anyone mixed in with some man. They even will make the cover 3 look like man be us they show a press then play the 3 out of a bail technique, but not what u just stated. No dak st plays mostly zone as well, so I'll refute that to, I hv a player that I formerly coached who has played against them. The philosophy is out there period, I never said it was the best, so u might wanna look up the term and see how it's applied. Nm I'll do it for you. Here are keys to the BDB D we seem to b playing:

Stop the run - Pass - we do above avg job there
Limit big plays - Pass - no real "explosive" plays against us
Force opposition to kick FG's - Fail - we can't never seem to get off field on 3rd or make them have to kick them

[bluejacket]

i was unaware coaches ran routes during games. Here are the Blame Scenarios.
If the coaches run drills to improve the players ability to catch- Fault:Players
If the players don't work on it on their own- Fault:Players
If the coaches don't run drills to address the problem and prohibit the players from working on it on their own - Fault:Coaches.
If the players are focusing their hands more on Ruth than catching a football- Fault: Players

Scenario #5: Coaches keep running the same old drills in practice and keep seeing the same old unsatisfactory results in games but don't correct the receivers' technique or change the personnel. Fault: Coaches.

I would completely agree with you and blame the players if these were isolated incidents. But they aren't.

[Humble_Opinion]

The offense is not the problem. The defense can't stop anybody. We play 10 yards of the receiver and can't get to the QB both are recipes for disaster for a D unit.

For the record, I have said this multiple times in this thread. But the issue is NOT that we can't get to the QB. I'm going to use the Peyton Manning example here... wherever he goes and wherever he's played, he has consistently been one of the least sacked QB's in the league. The reason why isn't because he has ALWAYS had an amazing offensive line. The reason is he recognizes blitzes well and he gets the ball out of his hands quickly, which gives 0 time for the D to get to him. We could have had the best rushers in all of football (college or pro) on the field for us against Richmond and ISU and we still wouldn't have had time to get to the QB. When you provide a cushion against a spread/west coast style offense - you are going to neutralize your own pass rush, and that's what we did. In my opinion, if you're in a Cover 2, there's no reason to give the opposing teams WR's any type of cushion.

[forbidden]

We def were not in a C2, if your playing that the cb is either press or will "squat" at bout 7, bottome line is these other teams were running routes that made whatever we were trying to run, null and void and hopefully that changes.

[jinxy]

Wimbo has just looked to be outclassed and slow to respond the last 2 weeks. I still think special teams have been the worst side of the ball by far.

[R i]

SJ , always respect the way you go about defending your positions, especially ones that arent that popular.

Here is a question I have, If we would have stopped them on one of those third downs, and won the game, Would your tune be completely different. Big momentum changer for the program. Gill has the ship headed in the right direction, sort of thing ?

[SuperJon]

SJ , always respect the way you go about defending your positions, especially ones that arent that popular.

Here is a question I have, If we would have stopped them on one of those third downs, and won the game, Would your tune be completely different. Big momentum changer for the program. Gill has the ship headed in the right direction, sort of thing ?

It wouldn't be completely different. I'd have hope that maybe I was wrong. In fact, I would absolutely love to be wrong on this entire discussion. I want nothing more than a man like Turner Gill to carry our program to new places we haven't been. It would take more than one game to convince me (just as it took more than one tournament run for Toman to convince me), but had we won, I would've started giving him the benefit of the doubt a little bit in certain places.

[phoenix]

In my opinion I'm convinced more and more we are not FBS ready. I feel we need to be a consistent top five FCS team and we're not even a steady top 20. Let's become a top FCS program first and then talk about moving up.

I'm thinking along these lines more and more. CAN a team move up without a decent FCS record? Yep - UNC-Charlotte and Georgia State spring to mind right away. It can happen. SHOULD that be what we want to do? THAT I'm not so sure of.

[bluejacket]

It wouldn't be completely different. I'd have hope that maybe I was wrong. In fact, I would absolutely love to be wrong on this entire discussion. I want nothing more than a man like Turner Gill to carry our program to new places we haven't been. It would take more than one game to convince me (just as it took more than one tournament run for Toman to convince me), but had we won, I would've started giving him the benefit of the doubt a little bit in certain places.

For the most part I agree.

The most frustrating part for me is that this staff has shown that they can put together great gameplans against almost any FCS team and quite a few FBS teams. Several of them did it at Buffalo and Kansas and they have done it here. Unquestionably, there have been individual game plans that were brilliant. But they need to start consistently putting those plans together and winning games against good teams before they can reverse the current trajectory. They can do it, but, based on their past, I am not confident that they will.

[Hold My Own]

I may be the only person to feel this way but the reaction and continued coverage of "the kick" is starting to worry me a bit. We're coming off a few losses that we should have won not just for where we want to be as a program but in our current position and missed opportunities to take that next step. I'm not saying there shouldn't be excitement but when you look at post game interviews you would swear it was the game winner. As of yesterday there are still interviews and coverage focusing on it. To me it comes across as the players & media being satisfied with a moral victory as if we chalk it up as a W (or at least a shared W ).

I think it's a distraction and if I was HCTG I would have addressed it one time in the locker room/presser and congratulated him, but after that the team is no longer discussing it and it's 100% App State. No more smiles and talking about one moment as if it was the result you went into the game expecting. Their mentality and what they are projecting is beginning to worry me.

/rant