OL Coach Stacy Searels Leaving UNC for Georgia
- Thread starter ACokeForRoy
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Excellent news! Addition by subtraction. Apparently UGA fans aren't happy.
They're not stupid.
Will Chizik play a major role in hiring a new OL coach? I'm not just asking for fun. If a top DC tells that a particular OL coach has given him fits, then you might want to pay close attention to that OL coach and any of his proteges.
I took a look at UGA fan responses. Here is one: "Yep, I remember when we hired him away from LSU and everybody was talking about how it was such a great hire and we stole him away from LSU. Piss poor recruiting and the OL pretty much sucked his entire time here. Just an awful hire imo."
My complaining about Searles being hired by Mack focused on the poor jobs he'd done at Miami and VT in his two stops before Chapel Hill. And I also have noted his time at Texas as largely mediocre with fans increasingly wanting him gone. But I am not well aware of his performance at UGA when Richt was HC.
Isn't he a HS HC? Has he ever coached OL in college or the NFL? WE do not need another Dre Bly on the staff - but at least HS HC is much more experience than Bly brought.
After 1 guy said Searles couldn't be all that bad because even UNC had a pair of 1000 rushers in 2020, another guy said: "I hardly ever comment negatively on topics like this, but this one has got me reallyyy questioning things. I watched a few UNC games last year and their OL was warm butter."
warm butter
I've also seen a couple that mention Howell running for his life.
warm butter
I've also seen a couple that mention Howell running for his life.
Will this lead to less bitching from you now?
About Searles? Of course. But if we get another 7, even 8, win regular season I will be saying that we are poorly coached and underachieving, because that would be true.
One thing I picked from reading UGA fans complaining about Searles going back to Athens is that when Searles left UGA, he was replaced by Will Friend. Some of the UGA fans also bash Friend, but the defenders of Friend have asserted that while they don't think Friend is capable of attracting enough OL talent to win the SEC, Friend is a very good OL coach who took the talent that Searles left behind and made a better UGA OL his first year in Athens.
Mack needs to find a Will Friend, a coach who will come in and re-evaluate the talent we have and shift positions as needed and produce a better OL than Searles managed.
Mack needs to find a Will Friend, a coach who will come in and re-evaluate the talent we have and shift positions as needed and produce a better OL than Searles managed.
If their OL sucks then there must have been some truth to it being his coaching because they probably have better talent on the oline so no excuses.
I know you're looking forward to that but what if they win more than that? Then what would you say?
What is obvious: If Mack had changed OL coaches and made a couple of major hires to his defensive staff after Year 1, then program would have been better from then on.
That staff Mack gave us had no chance in Hell of ever winning the ACC. He repeated every error he had in his final years at Texas.
We still do not have enough top level position coaches, even if Mack gets an OL coach improvement, to ever compete with the best in the SEC, even halfway. Warren can cover most of Bly's weaknesses, but Thigpen remains no better than an average LB coach whose best days as recruiter are in his past. Cross shows little sign of ability to be more than an average DL coach. As with Searels, Porter's glory days were long ago at LSU, where talent fell in his lap because LA per capita is loaded with top talent and LSU is the only P5 school in the state. Galloway may never develop a sound 3 man 2nd team of WRs fully able to play, regardless of talent assembled.
UNC has top level ACC talent. If we'd had the right staff, we'd have been in the ACC Championship Game last year, instead of Pitt.
You act like these coaches have had a ton to work with. We're just NOW getting these highly recruited kids on the damn depth chart. If the staff can't find success with guys like Greene, Nesbit, Cheeks, Rara, Power, Boykins, Nash, Silver, Ritzie, Shaw, Rice, Echols, Blackwell, Sutton etc, then I'll agree with you.
You consistently act like this staff took over Alabama's roster. The program had FIVE wins COMBINED in 2017/2018 before Mack won 7 in year 1. New guys on the D staff, new OL coach and an entirely new roster make up this year, now is the time to see if the rubber meets the road.
Then he won't log on.
mike munchak is unemployed and is an elite line coach…mack might even have ties to him.
selfishly i’d like him in dallas, but carolina would also be outstanding.
selfishly i’d like him in dallas, but carolina would also be outstanding.
Jack Bicknell - Football Coach - University of Louisville Athletic
Jack Bicknell Jr., who owns 33 years of coaching experience at the NFL and collegiate level, has been named the offensive line coach at Louisville. Bef...
A definite improvement over Searels. His weakness is that he spent so many years in the NFL. That means he has not had all that much experience developing young guys into top CFB linemen. But he had 4 years in the SEC: 3 at Ole Miss - 2 with Longo as OC - and 1 at Auburn. And last season he was at Louisville.
Hopefully a new set of eyes will discern things that have not yet been seen. Hopefully it means some guys buried without any hope of being in Searels' favorite 8 can show that we have more OL depth than we have seen.
Every spot is open for sure. We should see a lot of hard work to earn PT.
If we get the improvement on D that Chizik and Warren delivered the last time they came to Chapel Hill, and we get a steadier, more consistent OL, this team can win the Coastal and look tough in post-season.
Huh? 8 years of college experience, 7 years of NFL experience and 7 years being a HC is a weakness? Christ, man.
Having a new OL coach gives me hope that we can get to 7-5. Wouldn't mind taking a look at the S&C staff, but it's probably too late for that.
Are you under the impression that Mack was his choice?
Everyone has a weakness - or 2 or 3 or 4. The issue is that some weaknesses are much worse than others.
It is clear what I highlight: Bicknell does not have much of a history of developing young linemen or in taking an underachieving OL and producing a lean mean machine.
What we need is both of those. We need much better development of the OL players we have, which includes not focusing on just 8 a year as the Favorites come Hell or high water. That is the long time pattern of Searels.
Can Bicknell do what is needed and show meaningful results in 2022? Yes. But he does not have a good history doing that, nor has he had much chance to do that.
Bicknell being a slightly below average HC at a non-P5 program is experience that means virtually nothing to the job that needs to be done by the UNC OL coach. As HC he could not have directed the OL. Bicknell's 7 years as an NFL coach mean 7 years not developing college OL talent from 18 year old signees to 5th year seniors.
The best experience he has is the 4 year period in the SEC because the SEC has the best, deepest DLs. 4 years working to produce OLs that can protect the QB and open holes for RBs while going against the monster Ds in the SEC West and at UGA (Auburn's annual cross-division rival) should mean he knows exactly what the UNC OL needs to be and have in order to dethrone Clemson (SEC style and quality DL) and have a chance to make the playoff.
Also good about Bicknell is that he worked with Longo at Ole Miss. That means he will not need to spend the next few days of Spring Practice making certain he knows what his new OC is doing.
I think I mentioned Bicknell as a better choice than Searels when Searels was announced, precisely because he had worked with Searels in the SEC and his OLs had not been swamped by the SEC DLs. Those Ole Miss OLs were not dominant against SEC DLs, but in the passing game, they more than held their own.
The good things about Bicknell do not make any weaknesses vanish. That is true of players as well as coaches.
Of course everyone has weaknesses, my question was why is 15 years of college experience a weakness as you stated? He doesn't have much of a history in developing young linemen? Did you study every player under his tutelage the last 30 years and draw up that conclusion?
Perhaps you would've liked him a lot more and he would posses less weaknesses if he was hired by literally anyone else other than UNC.
I think so, and that doesn't bother me much at all. Longo still has the weakness he showed at Ole Miss: lack of power running game inside the Red Zone. That partly is about erratic play calling, but it also is something that can be overcome if you have a 1st rate OL. If the OL gels and becomes consistently good, then what Longo designs for game plans and the plays he calls inside the Red Zone are going to work more often.
We can win the ACC with Longo as OC; we would never have had a decent shot to win the ACC with Searels as OL coach.
Props to @WoadBlue for watching football so closely that he knows even walk on lineman haven't developed. I mean, it's one thing to have watched every single starter, but to know about their backup and their backup's backup? That takes major dedication. I'm wondering if he does this with every coach or just the ones that he knows will end up at UNC some point in the future.
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