I’m going with Mike Munchak. Ain’t gonna happen, but that dude could fix any/all OL woes this team has.
One hire Franklin could make that would pay instant dividends
- Thread starter Player2BNamedL8r
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Honestly, Traut isn't the problem...the talent is the problem...a coach can't fix a lack of physical/athletic talent.
True but some of that is the OL not knowing their assignment. I think we had 2 players blocking 1 guy, while a defensive player comes clean a couple of times on Sat.
Yeah, I hate to say this, but Trautwein has not performed and would the one guy who may need to be replaced. It pains me because he is a graduate of the HS I graduated from, and I had spoken to one of the current assistant coaches when he got the PSU job, and that guy raved about Traut. So, I feel a bit of a connection.
Seriously, how the fck do you know that? You can guess, but there is really no way to know that. And, of course, yes, he isn't going to go from coaching OL in the NFL to coaching OL in college.
Well in fairness to the OP he did say "aint going to happen".
But If I'm going to wish for things thats a pretty good one.
I don’t know that…just speculating my friend. As a Steelers fan, there was a remarkable difference in overall line play - with the same relative cast of characters - before he was there and after he left. He’s the real deal IMO…a true OL whisperer.
May I ask, hypothetically of course, who you would pick?
How about bringing in Ed Orgeron to coach the DLine? That would be a splash hire and then some…
I always heard that it takes an intelligent person to be a good offensive lineman at the D1 level. "Not knowing their assignment" may mean that they recruited the wrong player. Great in high school against basic defenses that change every play vs what they are up to at this level. Just a thought.
Oh, who's in charge of picking the target recruits? Is intelligence part of the equation? <<=Hypothetical question.
At this point, he may be the only one that can fix our OL mess .... LOL
Wait a minute here....just get whoever Wisconsin uses, or Minnesota, or Georgia, or any of ~50 teams that produce better lines that Penn State's.
If only it were that simple. Traut represented that kind of thinking.
PSU would have to hire an interpreter for him because no one would be able to understand him! LOL
In as much as I understand what you are saying, there are 20 OL on the roster, and only 5 of them start. How on Earth do you pick 20 kids who aren't physical and lack athletic talent? PSU seems to pick physical / athletic linemen on the other side of the ball. Points to coaching and strength / conditioning if you ask me.
And it is just not the OL. How many times have we seen RB's whiff on delayed blitzes - all of them. Sometimes they don't even see it. These are the plays the killed the season.
I don't know, is three voices better than one?
The problem is the offense wants to run shotgun 99.9% of the time. You can't consistently run effectively out of that set. The defense gets extra time to diagnose the play, and the linemen do not get enough plays that allow them to fire off and wear out a defense. Franklin has to fix that first, then let's see what an offensive line coach can do. Focusing on the OL coach simply ignores the root cause of the problem.
The OL plays with a lack of confidence because they fail athletically/physically time after time. Then they begin second guessing themselves which adversely impacts the mental aspect of the job. There is a lack of leadership because the senior anchor of the line is it's weakest link.
I think the point you make is probably the first critical question. The recruiting services have our OL ranked probably higher than most of the BIG teams. We have a lot of 4* OL on the top 10-15 players. I know that it is accepted that the OL ratings are the ones that are the most in error, but we have had many of these high ranked OL since James came. It would seem unlikely that they can all be totally wrong. Equally, some of the 2/3* types would turn out to be diamonds in the rough. If you sent all our recruits the last several years to Iowa or Wisconsin, and we took all their players, would we have a different result? Have we actually been missing on OL players we wanted badly?
maybe the talent issue is more of a minute detail. Caden Wallace was a consensus highly ranked 4* OL player. Maybe OL does NOT mean every OL position, and perhaps he could be an all BIG guard, but one of the worst tackles in the league. we could have a team of all guards and no tackles and only maybe one person who can play center. in other words a mix issue.
also related to talent would be the individual capabilities and development of the players. if we were doing a great job here, we would have some 2/3* types wind up being all BIG and some of these 4* types in the NFL. I know we have a couple OL in the NFL, but not sure how we are doing in terms of this development. I know we have shown well at the NFL combine, but that seems to be more along the line of the offensive skill players and the DE's and LBs. I doo not recall if OL has been done well at combine in terms of speed and strength.
this gets to the S&C program under Gault. He seems to have done wonders with many, but what about OL strength? Are our OL players stronger than opponents DL? we certainly do not seem to get push (per Matt Millen). Is it also possible that the last two years of strength training has been worse than competition for some reason?
We also may have a blocking scheme issue that connects to the entire offensive game plan. This may also relate to the types of OL we recruit. are there certain body types and athletic skills that translate to different types of OL? I recall that when Brett was coaching Wisky that he talked about the athletic skill of the Ohio State OL, and said he does not get those kinds of players. yet the Wisky OL was effective for what it was built to do. we do seem to be getting athletic OL players. If you have ever seen the 4x100M relay for the weight guys, we might excel at that. What if we are recruiting the wrong types of OL players in terms of body types and athletic talent that does not fit our scheme?
just seems like a lot of possible items here. We have had several OL coaches with decent resumes. would like to see Traut get this fixed. If it is talent then this will take the portal and recruiting so may not happen fast.
Landon Tengwall looked good for a true freshman. Does Traut get credit for that? Maybe let the guy develop his own recruits. Way too soon to fire the guy. It’s not good for recruiting either when you’ve fired 2 offensive line coaches in a span of 3 seasons
I see other offenses run effectively while operating almost exclusively out of the shotgun formation.
Talked to my buddy who is active in the Letterman's Club. I said is Traut the problem He said , the feeling is the guy knows his stuff. Failing OL is kind of a msytery but it needs to be solved.
Bielma seemed to whip Illinois into shape in one season, diet, weights, technique i don't know you tell me.
Iowa and Wisconsin seem to do the same.
Bigger bodies over lanky bodies seems to be the answer but PSU is playing more BigXII than Big 10 on the
O- line.
Iowa and Wisconsin seem to do the same.
Bigger bodies over lanky bodies seems to be the answer but PSU is playing more BigXII than Big 10 on the
O- line.
I am sure Miranda is a great kid...but he is suppose to call out line assignments (I believe). Numerous time through out the season, not just Saturday, he would leave his area/gap and go to double with the left guard leaving the middle wide open. That is not coaching that is on him and not knowing his reads or assignment.
I am going to say this and duck behind something because it is blasphemy to say anything negative about strength staff at penn state but….I see a great deal of linemen being pushed back in the backfield or at the least being stood up at the line. I can’t recall a time when someone got push and “handled” an opponent. It’s hard to run when there are 10 guys stuck in front of you. Maybe they should reassess lineman strength training. Testing numbers are cool and all but if they can’t be translated to the field it doesn’t matter.
it's a tough question ... he had very good success at BC and sending players to the next level. He has played high levels in college and NFL. So to me he hasn't forgotten how to coach. Obviously Covid has hurt initially teaching a whole new technique to the linemen. Add in what another poster referenced and I thought made sense. PSU had been recruiting long athletic linemen whereas Traut seems to like road graders. He seems to be recruiting a different type of oline now at PSU. Was is coincidence when Tengwell was in they were getting a push up front? I am not sure but for me I am willing to give him another year to get his players, work more on teaching technique not under the Covid umbrella on zoom calls. Who knows maybe JF makes a change but I am willing to give another year to see if we get improvement.
That happened a few times almost EVERY Saturday..... Which brings into question if this new offense was soup yet. I mean, 90% keep you in the game, but 100% wins them. I say this because not only were OL missing assignments, but also the RB's.
Case and point. Against UM we were deep into MI territory, and bam, Clifford get sacked. Not sure if that drive ended in a missed FG, FG or a punt, but it didn't end in a TD.
So, you're saying if we could put his smarts on one of the big and athletic types we'd have something. I agree, we should recruit smart, big, and athletic guys who are also "tough" guys.
Don't you know by now that everything that goes wrong is because of the coaching and everything that goes right is in spite of the coaching?
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