Starting QB position still open after spring game

[zephyr]

I have a hard time disagreeing with anything you said here. I do believe we have better athletes across the board. I do believe our coaching philosophy has been overly conservative for the most part, especially last year.

I hope to see a significant improvement defensively this year, which should allow Coach Johnson the opportunity to take more risks. There is too much experience on the D staff this year for Hud to get overly involved in the game-plans each week, so we will some NFL type coverages with blitz packages etc. We will give up some big plays too, but hopefully not too many.

Hud can spin all he wants about who will be the starter, but Haack will start against the Wildcats as long as he is healthy. Brooks is no Metenberger in the pocket either. He's got good wheels, and can move the chains if and when the pocket breaks down. He's not Broadway or Gauthier, but he's not immobile either. He is a polished passer who makes quick reads and gets the ball out quickly. And, as Hud stated, he's the best deep ball passer he's ever seen. We have a ton of weapons on offense and if they can spread it out, similar to how the Saints do it, I can see us doing some real damage this year.

Athletes usually make coaches look really good. They can win games for you when coaching may not always be at its best. This is not the case for us. We have to show up every game and have most of our facets of our game working well in order to get a W....even in this conference. I like the level of athlete we are getting but we are fooling ourselves into thinking we are that much better than many of the other SBC schools in that regard. USA has outrecruited the rest of the SBC in that regard (when looking at recruiting rankings) which is a big reason you've seen such a jump in their success in such a short period of time. ASU has always recruited well, especially on the defensive side of the ball. WKU did the same thing before they left. Despite what Crazycajun says, we are physically dominating everyone in our league. We ran the ball well because we had a good scheme and the personnel to pull it off. Ga Southern does it but does it even better than we do it but I don't think any of us will annoint them the most athletic team in our league.

[CrazyCajun]

We get run on too. We are nowhere near a top of the SBC defense. How is that outmanning anybody? By your assessment, Ga Southern must have the best athletes in the conference since nobody can stop their running game either. The original poster said "out-athlete" which we all know is not even a word. We don't out-athlete anybody across the board. We have some very good athletes at many positions but we are not heads and tails above most SBC schools. Its a simple argument that you are turning into something it shouldn't be. I don't even know where Haack comes in to play in this entire argument....

Then get out the conversation... You inserted yourself in it. The title of the thread of the is starting QB and you don't why haack is in it? You are trying to make something out of nothing. Our zone read has dominated most of the sunbelt because our QB was the same size as the LB's trying to tackle him, our oline controls the line of scrimmage in the run game. You are gonna do that to sec teams with the zone read, you have to stretch the field.

[zephyr]

Then get out the conversation... You inserted yourself in it. The title of the thread of the is starting QB and you don't why haack is in it? You are trying to make something out of nothing. Our zone read has dominated most of the sunbelt because our QB was the same size as the LB's trying to tackle him, our oline controls the line of scrimmage in the run game. You are gonna do that to sec teams with the zone read, you have to stretch the field.

If you are going to continue in this conversation, at least stay on point. I was referring to another posters assertion that we "out-athlete " everyone and that is not the case. Like I said, we ran the zone read well because we had the personnel to do it. Because we are able to run the ball well does not mean we are a physically superior team to everyone in our conference. Ga Southern was the best running team in our conference and one of the best in the country. I don't think they have necessarily better athletes than us. I would say, outside of our O-Line, we have similar levels of athletes as many in our league.

[CrazyCajun]

If you are going to continue in this conversation, at least stay on point. I was referring to another posters assertion that we "out-athlete " everyone and that is not the case. Like I said, we ran the zone read well because we had the personnel to do it. Because we are able to run the ball well does not mean we are a physically superior team to everyone in our conference. Ga Southern was the best running team in our conference and one of the best in the country. I don't think they have necessarily better athletes than us. I would say, outside of our O-Line, we have similar levels of athletes as many in our league.

Ask TXST coaches if we out athlete them, ask your boys at stAte if we don't? The ones you say we don't... That Broadway told them 7 times in a row what play we were running and they still couldnt stop it. Why has georgia state been close the last 2 years against a team with better athletes? Because they didn't try to go toe to toe, they stretched the field, they spread us out, they got their guys away from ours.... If we want to beat teams that we aren't superior to in size, strength and speed we have to do the same. Having Nixon back there is trying to out athlete people.. Which works for the majority of the sunbelt. I don't know how much clearer I can be about that, you are the one trying to argue something that isn't there. I'm the one who said out athlete, so I'm not inserting myself into ___.. You are.

[cajun4life]

We have had the athletes to win the conference since '06. HUD has been ultra conservative on defense because our DLine was our only plus position with the exception of his first year here.

Our games have been close by design and game planning. If we truly open up the offense and treat every snap like Baylor does we could put up 40+ points per game. We will have the best RB, WR and QB in the Sun Belt this year.

If we play more press coverage and disrupt the timing of some QBs we will win 10 games.

[ManAboutTown]

Ask TXST coaches if we out athlete them, ask your boys at stAte if we don't? The ones you say we don't... That Broadway told them 7 times in a row what play we were running and they still couldnt stop it. Why has georgia state been close the last 2 years against a team with better athletes? Because they didn't try to go toe to toe, they stretched the field, they spread us out, they got their guys away from ours.... If we want to beat teams that we aren't superior to in size, strength and speed we have to do the same. Having Nixon back there is trying to out athlete people.. Which works for the majority of the sunbelt. I don't know how much clearer I can be about that, you are the one trying to argue something that isn't there. I'm the one who said out athlete, so I'm not inserting myself into ___.. You are.

Excellent post CC. Couldn't agree more.

[ManAboutTown]

We have had the athletes to win the conference since '06. HUD has been ultra conservative on defense because our DLine was our only plus position with the exception of his first year here.

Our games have been close by design and game planning. If we truly open up the offense and treat every snap like Baylor does we could put up 40+ points per game. We will have the best RB, WR and QB in the Sun Belt this year.

If we play more press coverage and disrupt the timing of some QBs we will win 10 games.

I like HUD, I do. Especially considering the past and the alternatives; but the man told all of us what kind of coach he is when he had the lead late at Florida. Hopefully having a weapon like Haack will move him out of his comfortable conservative zone, but vanilla is his flavor.

[Fais do-do]

You can take chances on offense when you can count on your defense to pull the slack. That just has not happened, maybe with the new scheme on defense, the offense will open it up. That's just my opinion.

[VObserver]

You can take chances on offense when you can count on your defense to pull the slack. That just has not happened, maybe with the new scheme on defense, the offense will open it up. That's just my opinion.

The bolded part has happened. It happened most recently in the New Orleans Bowl last December. We held the best non-P5 offense we played all year without a touchdown. We did it with the same athletes who "couldn't play defense" all year. We changed our defensive scheme from a "keep it all in front of you" soft zone into an in-your-face, hard charging, press, bump and run, aggressive and imaginative one, and all of a sudden those kids who "can't play defense" played lights out.

That, my friends, is a clear indication that we had a coaching issue, not a personnel issue.

[CrazyCajun]

The bolded part has happened. It happened most recently in the New Orleans Bowl last December. We held the best non-P5 offense we played all year without a touchdown. We did it with the same athletes who "couldn't play defense" all year. We changed our defensive scheme from a "keep it all in front of you" soft zone into an in-your-face, hard charging, press, bump and run, aggressive and imaginative one, and all of a sudden those kids who "can't play defense" played lights out.

That, my friends, is a clear indication that we had a coaching issue, not a personnel issue.

I would say more of a philosophy issue... Same coaches coached those last 6 quarters also.