James Coley in a nutshell

ilovelamp

Recruit
Joined
Feb 1, 2012
Messages
111
The Good:
- One of the best recruiters in the country.
- Excellent evaluator of QB's.

The Bad:
- In 3 years, he has not designed a coherent offense with any rhyme or reason.
- His scheme and passing concepts fail to create any schematic advantage. Still don't understand why he hates to use motion.
- Attention to detail is lacking. Even simple bread and butter rub routes or screens are routinely poorly executed.

In a nutshell, he is an excellent recruiter and evaluator but a poor coach. Coley is basically the polar opposite of Jed Fisch or Patrick Nix reborn as an excellent recruiter and evaluator.
 
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me thinks supercane disagrees for some reason but lacking a detailed analysis of what and why will forever leave us in doubt. oh nos
 
At the beginning of the season, I would of said its very important that he be retained by the next staff. After watching his play calling against two inferior teams, I realize he might be part of the problem as well. Our two best offensive players signed here cause of Coley (Kayaa and Yearby). And his play calling may be the reason they don't make it through a season.
 
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When your O can't convert 3rd downs, for three years, there is a really big problem with the play calling.
 
Too predictable in his formations. Run formations yield run plays. Same as pass plays. Relies too much on the horizontal passing from side to side. So far haven't seen much in the middle or even down field.

That boils down to knowing your own personnel a imagination and route concepts.
 
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No identity on offense.

Coley should basically be a recruiting coord/Qb coach. that should be his niche.
 
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The purpose of motion is to diagnose man vs. zone coverage. Motion rarely creates matchup advantages unless you have a freakish TE or RB who can run WR routes.

Very much agree with the point about execution though. Route running has been terrible under Coley.

What I'd like to see is more vertical stretch concepts like switch-verticals, post-corner, post-dig , sluggo seam, etc. Use your NFL QB and athletic WRs. Use the deep middle of the field. Send the RBs on wheel routes. Stop designing offense for Wake Forest talent.
 
What evidence is there that he is one of the best recruiters in the country?

One of the biggest myths around
Just at the RB position alone he missed on Sony, Collins, Cook, Cronkite, Scarlett. The OL is a dumpster fire. Our backup QB is Malik Rosier. I realize that is not all his fault but I think it is a stretch to call him one of the best in the country.
 
The purpose of motion is to diagnose man vs. zone coverage.

In video games, sure.

In real football it does even more. It changes numbers on either side of the ball. A 2x2 formation turns into a 3x2 (empty) formation when you motion the RB out. This could dictate a change in coverage versus some defenses.

Most defenses set their strength to the side where there's more receivers. If I'm in 2x2 I can motion the slot WR to the opposite of the formation and have 3 WR's on the weak side of your defense.

There's all kind of advantages motion gives you other than diagnosing man vs. zone IMO.
 
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Coley's route combinations don't propose any problems for the defense. Our pass plays are easy to cover, that's why you seldom see anybody open.

That long pass to Waters last night was pure luck. It was thrown into double coverage.

Where are the CONCEPTS?! I don't see any concepts with Coley's offense, it's just plays. It also looks like all of Kaaya's throws are pre-determined, like he's told to "throw the ball here" no matter what. Good offenses don't work like that. Defensive coverage dictates where the ball should go.

OC's have plays/routes they like versus Cover-3, versus Quarters, versus Man, versus Cover-2, etc etc etc. They tell their QB "if the defense comes out in Cover-3 this is where we wanna go with the ball." It doesn't look like we're doing that.
 
In video games, sure.

In real football it does even more. It changes numbers on either side of the ball. A 2x2 formation turns into a 3x2 (empty) formation when you motion the RB out. This could dictate a change in coverage versus some defenses.

Most defenses set their strength to the side where there's more receivers. If I'm in 2x2 I can motion the slot WR to the opposite of the formation and have 3 WR's on the weak side of your defense.

There's all kind of advantages motion gives you other than diagnosing man vs. zone IMO.

Most defenses adjust their alignment to match the numbers advantage from motion.

Many if not most college defenses set the defensive strength based on the width of the field because of the wide hash marks.

I listed examples of matchup advantages that motion can create. The obvious example is the Pats game where they motioned from a 3 TE tight set to a 2 wide set to the wide side of the field. Gronk vs. a backup LB is an easy TD. Most of the time motion is built into a playcall to diagnose coverage i.e. back lines up wide then motions to backfield.
 
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Coley's route combinations don't propose any problems for the defense. Our pass plays are easy to cover, that's why you seldom see anybody open.

That long pass to Waters last night was pure luck. It was thrown into double coverage.

Where are the CONCEPTS?! I don't see any concepts with Coley's offense, it's just plays. It also looks like all of Kaaya's throws are pre-determined, like he's told to "throw the ball here" no matter what. Good offenses don't work like that. Defensive coverage dictates where the ball should go.

OC's have plays/routes they like versus Cover-3, versus Quarters, versus Man, versus Cover-2, etc etc etc. They tell their QB "if the defense comes out in Cover-3 this is where we wanna go with the ball." It doesn't look like we're doing that.

Yup. Coley pass plays involve pure progression reads (look at #1 throw if he's open, then 2 then 3 etc). Kaaya is capable of executing coverage reads like you mentioned, which would put more stress on coverage.

Berrios is the best WR at running option routes though so it's hard to trust the other WRs to read coverage and adjust their routes properly.
 
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In video games, sure.

In real football it does even more. It changes numbers on either side of the ball. A 2x2 formation turns into a 3x2 (empty) formation when you motion the RB out. This could dictate a change in coverage versus some defenses.

Most defenses set their strength to the side where there's more receivers. If I'm in 2x2 I can motion the slot WR to the opposite of the formation and have 3 WR's on the weak side of your defense.

There's all kind of advantages motion gives you other than diagnosing man vs. zone IMO.

Most defenses adjust their alignment to match the numbers advantage from motion.

Many if not most college defenses set the defensive strength based on the width of the field because of the wide hash marks.

I listed examples of matchup advantages that motion can create. The obvious example is the Pats game where they motioned from a 3 TE tight set to a 2 wide set to the wide side of the field. Gronk vs. a backup LB is an easy TD. Most of the time motion is built into a playcall to diagnose coverage i.e. back lines up wide then motions to backfield.

I know, what I'm referring to is this...

Let's say the ball is near the middle of the field, not on either hash. Offense is in 2x2 formation. Defense is zone coverage. The defense has to set their strength somewhere. The Nickel DB is going to align to the strength. When I motion my slot WR away from the Nickle, to the opposite side of the formation, I have essentially changed the strength of my offense and have put more WR's to the defense's weak side. You've now forced the defense to adjust their coverage and move their defenders. Is it a huge obstacle for defenses? Not really. But it makes them think more, it makes them adjust more pre-snap, which IMO is always beneficial.

Defenses run different covers versus Trips (3x1) than they do versus Doubles (2x2), so when you trade/motion WR's to opposite sides you're forcing defenses to change their coverage on the fly.

That Pat's TD was a result of personnel groupings. Pat's came out with 3 TE's so Pitt but bigger personnel on the field. (DL and LB's) When the Pat's shifted their offense the Steelers had no choice but to put an LB on Gronk. Same thing happened during Walford's long TD against FSU last season. That was the advantage of personnel'ing.
 
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