You might have misunderstood my meaning. I'm saying there's no way Mario will be able to coach us into 10 wins, we'll have to do it with talent. I'm not predicting 10 wins next season, either.
My apologies. I agree with you. In a perfect world, Mario hires an OC like Ken Dorsey, and lets Dorsey be in charge of all game day decisions (including timeout usage/down & distance decisions/all play calling), but I highly doubt that Mario can put his ego on the shelf and do what is best for the team.
I liken Mario to a guy like Ed Orgeron. A player’s coach that has a great personality and can recruit and coach his position group at a high level, but isn’t and will never be a scheme guy or play calling savant. Mario should copy the blueprint that Ed used at LSU, which was to hire a great OC and let the guy cook without interference.
All of our head coaches since Butch have been extremely stubborn, and that cost them their jobs.
Coker refused to let Berlin play full-time out of the shotgun, even though Berlin played lights out when in said formation, which ultimately cost us games.
Shannon was too much of a disciplinarian, and often played the less talented guys while keeping the talent in the dog house. He also over recruited several position groups, while ignoring others.
Folden hired a great OC (Fisch), but refused to fire his best friend after a number of disastrous seasons of defensive play. If Folden would have hired a different OC with an attacking philosophy and let him cook, his tenure here most likely would have been better.
Richt refused to fire his son, which he should have never hired as a QB coach, and also refused to hire a cutting edge OC and it ended up costing him and us, as I firmly believe that we could have won bigly with him if he would have just done those two things.
Manny adapted offensively after making mistakes in hiring, and I give him credit for that. His downfall was his lack of recruiting at certain positions, which cost him big time on the defensive side of the ball.
Mario is on the same path as these previously mentioned coaches, except he has a way worse record in his 1st two seasons here than any of the aforementioned. He has woefully underperformed as a game day coach, and our QB, CB and DT rooms are either a mess or not looking good. He has also failed to properly use a very talented TE room, as well as our RB’s as receivers out of the backfield.
Chris Johnson Jr. should have at minimum been used as a pass catcher out of the backfield this past season. Riley Williams and Arroyo (when healthy) are legit matchup advantages that were rarely thrown to. Robby Washington, Shemar Kirk and Tyler Harrell (all speed guys) collected dust on the bench. Brashard Smith should have gotten way more plays designed for him, but also was woefully underutilized.
Any competent HC would have found ways to get our speed guys involved in the game plan.
