QB Brooks Haack Leaves UL for Northwestern

[AirBill]

Anyone who has ever followed football knows that when a coach says he is splitting reps between two QB's it almost always means you do not have a good enough QB.

^^ THIS

Now, it's over. Best of luck to Brooks. I hope he leads NSU to the FCS championship. I think we can all agree on that. That said, can we drop it now and talk about UL sports instead of a former player? Sheez...

[mxt3999]

^ MetryCajun gets it

[CajunRebel]

This Hud/Haack debate is one of the strangest I have seen here on RP. For 4 years Hud delivered an above average offense and a below average defense. And more wins than we have ever experienced. We get a new QB and all a sudden he is an egomaniac who has turned out OC into one of the worst play callers in Football. How can that be?
Anyone who has ever followed football knows that when a coach says he is splitting reps between two QB's it almost always means you do not have a good enough QB. As the season played out it became painfully obvious that the coaches initial assessment was correct. Neither had the skill set to be a consistent winner at this level of football.
But still to this day we have people ripping the play calling and saying we are headed for the gutter. The fact is we are only headed for the gutter if Davis, Ray or Weaver play like the guys we had this year. Broadway/Gautier level play will get us back to winning and and bowl bids. Yes we have issues at other positions, but we almost always do. Finding a more consistent QB will cover up a multitude of sins.
Good luck to Brooks and I have no doubt he will be an asset to NWST.

And at the end of the year our "terrible" OC that had no idea how to coach Haack ended up at a Big 10 school and our "stud" QB ended up at a Southland school. I'm no football expert, but that tells me all I need to know right there.

I wish Haack the very best at Northwestern. I hope he is able to get the playing time he wanted and I hope he kicks butt there.

With that said, I'm really excited about the QBs we have on OUR team.

[ULGrad@HOU]

I think you are right Metry in the fact that it wasn't clear at first, who could be the consistent QB, but the whole situation was handled poorly from the beginning and it was painfully obvious the timing on swapping them was wrong. It did become clear and should have become clear in practice that Nixon was not really cut out to throw the ball, and you can't have a QB running the offense at the FBS level that doesn't have that skill set. We'll never know if Haack had been given the opportunity from the beginning and the offense built to use his ability of throwing the ball from the beginning on how well the offense could have been. It was just a mess and that is where I see the frustration coming from.

[MetryCajun]

I think you are right Metry in the fact that it wasn't clear who could be the consistent QB, but the whole situation was handled poorly from the beginning and it was painfully obvious the timing on swapping them was wrong. It did become clear and should have become clear in practice that Nixon was not really cut out to throw the ball, and you can't have a QB running the offense at the FBS level that doesn't have that skill set. We'll never know if Haack had been given the opportunity from the beginning and the offense built to use his ability of throwing the ball from the beginning on how well the offense could have been. It was just a mess and that is where I see the frustration coming from.

Agree on Nixon. He was not a QB, but I think it speaks volumes that Haack could not beat him out. My biggest beef is that Haack/Nixon were given too many opportunities. I would have gone with Davis earlier and used Haack as a back up. Oh well as AirBill said... It is in the past. Really hope Davis or the other guys are the answer.

[Just1More]

This Hud/Haack debate is one of the strangest I have seen here on RP. For 4 years Hud delivered an above average offense and a below average defense. And more wins than we have ever experienced. We get a new QB and all a sudden he is an egomaniac who has turned out OC into one of the worst play callers in Football. How can that be?
Anyone who has ever followed football knows that when a coach says he is splitting reps between two QB's it almost always means you do not have a good enough QB. As the season played out it became painfully obvious that the coaches initial assessment was correct. Neither had the skill set to be a consistent winner at this level of football.
But still to this day we have people ripping the play calling and saying we are headed for the gutter. The fact is we are only headed for the gutter if Davis, Ray or Weaver play like the guys we had this year. Broadway/Gautier level play will get us back to winning and and bowl bids. Yes we have issues at other positions, but we almost always do. Finding a more consistent QB will cover up a multitude of sins.
Good luck to Brooks and I have no doubt he will be an asset to NWST.

The two individuals in question are not football compatible. I think the lesson from last year is that all future Hud QBs require major athletic mobility and a decent arm. We didn't have that in our two competing QBs last year. Some of us felt the offense should have adjusted towards the better passer... not a hopeless exercise of wishing one of those two would become Gauthier/Broadway. I think we're back on track for Hud with JD and Weaver.

I do agree with you in that the QB is a monsterously important component of an offense. I don't think a QB so much can mask other failures as much as he must make the successes occur... or they won't happen. As this particular chapter closes (hopefully), I believe it's more about Hud returning to his system (and QB style) than anything else.

[Just1More]

Agree on Nixon. He was not a QB, but I think it speaks volumes that Haack could not beat him out. My biggest beef is that Haack/Nixon were given too many opportunities. I would have gone with Davis earlier and used Haack as a back up. Oh well as AirBill said... It is in the past. Really hope Davis or the other guys are the answer.

I think we'll get back to our past successes with JD and/or Weaver.

[CajunT]

Agree on Nixon. He was not a QB, but I think it speaks volumes that Haack could not beat him out. My biggest beef is that Haack/Nixon were given too many opportunities. I would have gone with Davis earlier and used Haack as a back up. Oh well as AirBill said... It is in the past. Really hope Davis or the other guys are the answer.

Once injuries on the offensive line made it impossible for Haack to function in the offense consistently, it was a forgone conclusion that the offense was going to have problems with either QB. Coach Hudspeth thought it would be easier to stick with a base offense, but the offensive line proved to be less then adequate to run it as well. Improvement on the offensive side of the football this season begins with the offensive line period.

[CrazyCajun]

I guess everyone forgets these same coaches couldn't decide who was a better QB between Gautier and Masson until halfway through a season...we ended up with a pretty damn good QB so the whole 2 QB's means you don't have one isn't always true. Again, I'm not advocating for or against anyone, but not deciding on a QB doesn't have to mean they both suck or you must totally mishandle the QB situation.

[Just1More]

Agree on Nixon. He was not a QB, but I think it speaks volumes that Haack could not beat him out. My biggest beef is that Haack/Nixon were given too many opportunities. I would have gone with Davis earlier and used Haack as a back up. Oh well as AirBill said... It is in the past. Really hope Davis or the other guys are the answer.

Before the horse corpse is cold, I'd like to chuckle with you about you questioning the decision of Hud and Jay on not putting Davis in sooner... after only minutes earlier attacking anyone critical of their play calling. They're masters at play calling, but you knew better of who should be playing QB. Just chuckling with you...

[Turbine]

This Hud/Haack debate is one of the strangest I have seen here on RP. For 4 years Hud delivered an above average offense and a below average defense. And more wins than we have ever experienced. We get a new QB and all a sudden he is an egomaniac who has turned out OC into one of the worst play callers in Football. How can that be?
Anyone who has ever followed football knows that when a coach says he is splitting reps between two QB's it almost always means you do not have a good enough QB. As the season played out it became painfully obvious that the coaches initial assessment was correct. Neither had the skill set to be a consistent winner at this level of football.
But still to this day we have people ripping the play calling and saying we are headed for the gutter. The fact is we are only headed for the gutter if Davis, Ray or Weaver play like the guys we had this year. Broadway/Gautier level play will get us back to winning and and bowl bids. Yes we have issues at other positions, but we almost always do. Finding a more consistent QB will cover up a multitude of sins.
Good luck to Brooks and I have no doubt he will be an asset to NWST.

UL had a quarterback that had a completion percentage better than 15 NFL quarterbacks, yet we could only get 140 yards a game out of him.

That's play calling.

[MetryCajun]

But I am not Chuckling so aren't you are just laughing at me?

I am not questioning his decisions. Hud knows those QB's way better than me and I am not a football coach. I was just sharing my unqualified opinion with Another poster (not you) on what I would have hypothetically done strictly out of desperation since what we were doing was not working. In the end it probably did not matter what he did. We just were not good enough.
Passive aggressive much?