Josh Gattis - Broyles (Best Asst.) Award Nominee

Only when they don’t work. 

This, times 100.  The performance of the D compared to its preseason expectations far outpaces those of the O.   Credit to Macdonald and the players buying into his program. (And to #97.)

I'm glad we got Macdonald. But the one game we lost wasn't on Coach Gattis! 

And while the notion that Jim calls the plays is debunked, Gattis calls 'em within the strictures laid down by Harbaugh. Given the kind of philosophy he brings to the table, and Jim's, I'd say he may be a genius at successfully combining very different kinds of approaches.

Fans tend to be driven by the last win or loss, and to offload all of their life frustration on their football teams--few think terribly clearly, or even have the distance to judge, in the main. My feeling is that Gattis has done incredibly well under very trying circumstances, including a continually shifting approach to the offense. 

I do believe each school gets to nominate only one assistant, so this would imply Harbaugh put Gattis up for the award and not MacDonald. I recall this being a point of contention between DJ Durkin and Drevno/Harbaugh. 

I don't like Gattis from his first two years here. This year he has been OK to me, nothing more. I will say I haven't seen a PA pass call on 3rd and 10 from him, which is better than the last guy.

Obviously I just don't understand enough to know good from bad considering he is up for this award.

Good for him.

That video showed the team believes in him too.

Are you sure it wasn't Weiss who called the mesh route?     /s

Didn't Jim Herrman win this as a DC for Michigan????

I remember a post recently about how they doubted he would be a HC candidate anywhere. So I guess he probably will be, somewhere. Wonder what it will take for him to accept a job elsewhere?

What hasn't been mentioned as much is that what we've really been lagging at for a while now is recruiting.

I realize "starz" and recruiting services are not prescient, and scheme/fit is a thing, but Hoke brought in some very highly ranked classes and players (consecutive Top-5 classes), our 2016 team was loaded with talent, that was recruited in 2013/14, and while I'm willing to concede discretion to the coaches over recruiting-news-tainment sites, recruiting really is the lifeblood and comes down to the array of coaches personalities/mentorship/excitement, so no matter who we hire/retain I'd be happier to see some higher recruiting classes.

I’d actually like to see the numbers on this one. I feel you, but I think it probably seems worse than it is relative to other teams. 

Or four yard routes on third and five.   I honestly can’t complain but sometimes I still do…

Huh, I didn't think of it that way. Yeah, if it helps get him out of here, great.

I think Seth has a ton of understanding of the game of football, but I'm dubious he understands the humanity of football. Hard to make my point when I don't understand it completely myself, but anyone who knows someone who is technically great at their job in every way, but nevertheless never gets it quite right; that's Seth.

I know that sounds like a slam, but I don't wish it to be anything more than an observation based on his UFRs. He obviously knows more about the game than I do, but many of his conclusions contravene his own data (imho).

I still learn a lot from his UFRs.

If the data conflicts with everyone's "feels" then that's the very point of doing analysis.  "Some award nomination" > "careful plodding observation" is probably the worst take I'll read this month.

Gattis' habits of running plays without running any of the counters to those plays, or using decoys that are never actual threats, are downright Borges-esque.  For all his blah-blah about "speed in space", he clearly doesn't grasp constraint theory, which is the fundamental concept behind creating space in the first place.  We have a good offense, sure.  Why?  Because we have legit playmakers.  In addition to two of the best RBs in the country, the WRs are underrated, All is a third All-American at TE, the O-line is well coached, and the QB is experiencing a Rudock-esque renaissance.  Again, it's a good offense.  It should be a tremendous offense, yet there was never any point in the season when the sum punched above the weight of its parts.  RPS is about putting players in a position to succeed, not about the players overcoming adversity, so the numbers look about where they should be:  High pluses for the players, huge negatives for the coaches.

Gattis is constantly getting lauded for asking the players to do insanely difficult things.  Seeing him get a nomination for that is annoying, like watching an idiot manager take all the credit for a brilliant employee.  It's not playcalling genius when the plan on 3rd and 2 is, "OK Hassan, go meet two linebackers and a safety behind the LoS and drag them for four yards," and he somehow manages to pull it off.  There are a few key playcalls when they finally break tendency, but they're nowhere near frequent enough to make up for all the downs set on fire, and RPS makes that clear:  If you bash your head against the wall 15 times to set up a game-winning RPS+3 killshot, your RPS total will be +3 - 15 = -12.  Being one-dimensional until you're losing and then pantsing the defense for one play is terrible game management compared to just using constraint theory to constantly put the defense in conflict.

Yeah, I don't get it either.

Fuck that.  Haskins and Corum deserve recognition, not Gattis.  And to a lesser extent, McNamara for not making mistakes.  This offense is doing well because of the players bailing out the horrible play-calling. The effort the players have made is not measurable - especially Haskins.