GDGD to Iowa?

I don’t know how successful he’ll be at Iowa, but it’s not like his offenses weren’t high-powered and high-scoring at Texas. Maybe his offense just does well when there’s a real offensive line, like back when Texas had one?

I do think that there’s a time at which certain coaching personalities can become too long in tenure in one position. A guy in that position may still have all those great abilities that made him very successful for a really long time, yet be so long-tenured that he’s prone to analysis that is flawed, such as not being able to step back and see the whole situation. I think most of the rhetoric calling him lazy, a poor evaluator/recruiter, incompetent, unimaginative, uninnovative, etc. is actually lazy itself, because in the end, the guy commanded some of the program’s and nation’s top offenses over a sustained period of time. People can say it was the talent level’s success despite GD, but that’s ridiculous, because Texas’ offenses usually either rivaled or exceeded the performances of other highly-talented programs with well-respected recruiters. I just think that Greg Davis, being a very analytical sort of guy, had come to the point where a few analytic flaws were torpedoing his overall strategy. While I whole-heartedly reject the notion that his offensive scheme was impotent, as many have plainly called it, I do believe that the way he ran it presumed competence on the part of the offensive line. As such, as the OL deteriorated, the running game waned. I believe at that point GD did what he could to sustain offensive production, which was to lean heavily on his star QB in Colt, and the results were generally still very good, despite the imbalance. But when Colt left, that negated that adjustment, so the continued OL failures meant that GG and the running game were both effed. Some offensive schemes can overcome extremely weak OL play, but I don’t believe GD’s really could.

In the end, I think GD could’ve stuck around, and Texas would’ve been in great shape again on offense, but only if the OL play had improved significantly. Whether that would’ve happened or not, obviously we’ll never know, but I don’t believe poor Mac was going to be the guy to do it. I’m not convinced Searels is a rainmaker at the position, but I’m truly optimistic that he’ll at least represent an improvement, and that’s what we really need to see in order for Texas to become an offensive force again. It’s clear that a lot of people think Harsin’s the superior OC to GD, but whether or not that’s true, I think the most improvement by far could be from a much-improved OL, not from the change at OC.

Welcome to BON Mrs. Davis!

It’s too bad his fans don’t seem to grasp this concept. Instead, they just look into the past for stats. They don’t seem to understand that dinosaurs like GD have a hard time adapting. GD thinks running 5 laterals in a roll doesn’t mean it’s not working, it just means they’ll get it done on the sixth try.

If you’re going to say it was due to excellent QB play, fine, but that kind of succession management at the position isn’t something that happens in the presence of the kind of ineptitude you’re indicating there was. Furthermore, plenty of mega-talented QBs have gone to a lot of schools and done almost nothing, and it’s not by chance that a mix of talented and untalented QBs sustained that kind of impact over the years. Look at Matthew Stafford. Sure, he was extremely talented and actually developed into such a refined passer that he was taken #1 overall in the NFL draft, but Georgia still wasn’t anywhere near the dangerous offense under him that Texas was for most of the GD era. Let’s compare Stafford’s three years at UGA to Colt’s first three at UT, which were the same seasons.

2006
UGA 24.7ppg, 321.1ypg
UT 36.8ppg, 392.6ypg

2007
UGA 31.9ppg, 379.1ypg
UT 36.0ppg, 462.0ypg

2008
UGA 32.1ppg, 433.9ypg
UT 43.9ppg, 476.4ypg

That was also with Bobo as QB coach the whole time, Callaway as OC and OL coach in 2006, then Bobo adding OC and Searels arriving from LSU as OL coach for the other years. So what’s the deal? Why did the offense with a far more talented quarterback and similar levels of talent at the other offensive positions never really come close to equalling the production of the most unimaginative and vanilla coordinator in football? GD’s wasn’t an insanely gimmicky offense, but it wasn’t “literally the most vanilla offense that consisted of no originality.” You want vanilla and zero originality, look at the SEC or Big Ten. I won’t argue that the offense didn’t hit a brick wall once Colt was gone, but like I said, I believe it was because the entire shift to Colt’s passing game was due to the complete ineptitude of the OL, and GD knew Colt could handle it. When Colt was gone, there wasn’t any way to mask the OL’s failures, and meltdown ensued. And while it wasn’t under center a whole lot, “never under center” is a big exaggeration. Let’s not act like an offense that operates from under center is necessarily or even usually superior to one that goes from the gun and/or pistol, either.

As for whether Harsin runs circles around GD, we’ll see. I sure hope so, but there’s not really any evidence to suggest that so far.

BOH’s answer would just be to cite offensive stats during GD’s tenure, ignoring all other factors other than that those stats were piled up during GD’s tenure, thus in his mind, any and all points you make, or will make, mean nothing to him.

The above response surmised from the last few hundred defenses of GD’s greatness by BOH.

it was something of an absurdist work of art – a mockery of pointless, unproductive, partisan arguing.

But then, sometime this morning, the bickering resumed…