This past week I had a business meeting with a past PSU offensive letterman. I asked for his candid assessment of John Donovan as an offensive coordinator (who has obviously taken a bit of heat). I thought his reply was right on the money: Closely paraphrased: " I'll be able to tell you by the end of the first quarter of the first game. If Hackenburg comes out in a hurry up, calls the game from the line of scrimmage and the coaches sit down and stay out of his way, then Donovan is a good coordinator. Hackenburg is such an unbelievable stud-- you gotta let your stud play.". Amen.
John Donovan Question
- Thread starter nittanylawion
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Notice this staff had their best performances when they were given extra time to prepare. That's a very good sign that they know what they are doing. Arguably our best two offensive performances were in the opener against UCF and the Bowl Game against BC.
So true, but they still only have a week to prepare throughout most of the season. That is obviously where the team struggled last year. That said, we have to be careful judging the coaching staff based on last season because the talent and depth in many areas was severely lacking.
It's just hard to imagine the offense not making huge strides this year. There is talent at WR and TE. RB should be OK, but we are unproven after lynch. We have a giant question mark at LT, but hopefully a more experienced Hack can handle that. As NJPSU already said the team looked good when it had time to prepare. I also think it was probably when they were most healthy as well. After the season ended you started to hear stories about how banged up the team was. Didn't Gattis say at one point they only had 4 WR, or something close to that? Some of the depth issues will be mitigated as well at certain positions.
It wouldn't surprise me if that happens. Hack is a Jr. and now in his second year of understanding this offense and the calls.
I think the limited schollies and depth on the defensive side may have played a roll on not running a hurry up too much last season but thats just a guess on my part.
All that being said I'm not sure it will happen against Temple, although I believe they will be a much tougher test than many. I actually think we will get good read on our offense from this game. Temple is much better defensively but their offense is still "in the works".
I just hope we see a positive punt and kick return game and please God some consistency in punting.
A lot of the time they had the TEs and RBs in to help with blocking and protect Hack. If often didn't work. If the O-Line is okay, the offense will be okay. If like last year, they can't run the ball and pass protect, the offensive coordinator doesn't matter and the offense won't be good.
Last year, Hack and the offense was on fire until Big 10 play.
Last year, Hack and the offense was on fire until Big 10 play.
Probably not a coincidence that the team started looking worse once they hit the Big Ten schedule. Obviously the competition was stronger, but by then they'd started to accumulate injuries and their lack of depth was waiting to be exposed.
I'd like to see them put in a bunch of quick slants and short timing routes, like O'Brien was going to do, to minimize the amount of time the O-line has to pass block.
I'd like to see them put in a bunch of quick slants and short timing routes, like O'Brien was going to do, to minimize the amount of time the O-line has to pass block.
The hurry up, especially run by a QB like Hack, is probably the single best way to mitigate a weak OL. The staff last year was so afraid to run it though because of the concern about time of possession and shirt rest for the defense. That was a valid concern for sure, but I think they made the wrong call and realized it prior to the bowl game. PSU's defense was extremely good and could have given up a little production in exchange for increased offensive production. At the end of the day, taking the conservative approach and not using the hurry up most of the season really didn't help much any way because the offense was so inept.
I do think that the inexperience at WR was an obstacle, but one I think could have been overcome had game planned for the hurry up from the start. The offensive coaches got dealt a pretty terrible hand last year, but I think when they look back on the season they saw that they could have been better than they were. Unfortunately, it took them until the very end of the season to all but scrap the wildcat, stop throwing 10 WR screens a game, avoid slant passes like the plague, take some deep shots early in the game to keep the defense honest, sit Belton and play Lynch, scrap the long developing passing routes, realize that the TE's simply can't block and stop running plays that rely on them to do so, etc. etc.
The truth is that this offensive staff might be smart and ultimately a good staff when they have all the parts they need, but they, specifically Donovan, is extremely inexperienced and was in WAY over his head when it came to dealing with the issues this offense faced. The stuff with him "needing" to be on the sideline for Hack, then crying to the media about how much better he can call a game from the booth was pretty telling as well. The guy has a lot to learn and last season was trial by fire. If he doesn't come out allowing Hack to run this offense I'm not sure what to think... you have a potential #1 overall pick as a junior, you leverage every bit of that talent.
I do think that the inexperience at WR was an obstacle, but one I think could have been overcome had game planned for the hurry up from the start. The offensive coaches got dealt a pretty terrible hand last year, but I think when they look back on the season they saw that they could have been better than they were. Unfortunately, it took them until the very end of the season to all but scrap the wildcat, stop throwing 10 WR screens a game, avoid slant passes like the plague, take some deep shots early in the game to keep the defense honest, sit Belton and play Lynch, scrap the long developing passing routes, realize that the TE's simply can't block and stop running plays that rely on them to do so, etc. etc.
The truth is that this offensive staff might be smart and ultimately a good staff when they have all the parts they need, but they, specifically Donovan, is extremely inexperienced and was in WAY over his head when it came to dealing with the issues this offense faced. The stuff with him "needing" to be on the sideline for Hack, then crying to the media about how much better he can call a game from the booth was pretty telling as well. The guy has a lot to learn and last season was trial by fire. If he doesn't come out allowing Hack to run this offense I'm not sure what to think... you have a potential #1 overall pick as a junior, you leverage every bit of that talent.
To add to Spud's post, I was reading another site where a poster named Ben Schaff really laid into Donovon for continually calling plays such as ISO power runs when there was no blocking TE or blocking FB, as we had recruited none.
Part of this is sanction related as O'Brien had no luxury to recruit a blocking FB and he apparently wanted receiving TEs.
Schaff's parting remark was that if you gave John Donovon a model ship kit, he would try to build a model air plane with it.
Part of this is sanction related as O'Brien had no luxury to recruit a blocking FB and he apparently wanted receiving TEs.
Schaff's parting remark was that if you gave John Donovon a model ship kit, he would try to build a model air plane with it.
That is exactly the type of thing I was discussing. There were a number of plays that Donovan CONSISTENTLY tried to run that required our TEs (aka. H-Backs) to make key blocks... and as a unit, they were awful blockers. Franklin called them out for their blocking a few times since the season ended and it was an obvious focus for the unit this past spring. the head scratching aspect was how inept Donovan was at adapting when it was clear that the playbook he put together wasn't going to work with this personnel. It was almost like they knew it was going to be a disaster and just chose to ride it out, playing conservative and taking their lumps.
I'm a critic for sure, but I also give him a bit of a pass. They didn't really have time to get a good feel for the kids they had so putting a playbook together was a bit of a guessing game. That said, I think they could have done better and surely could have done more in attempt to adapt as the season went on. They had 2 by weeks in the middle of the season so they had an opportunity to make some notable changes, but did very little.
At the end of the day, the sense I get from Donovan is that he is a system guy. Franklin will talk about flexibility and adapting to team strengths, but I'm not nearly convinced that Donovan is the right guy for that. The good news is that PSU's offense is only going to be increasing the overall talent level, especially on the OL, over the next 3 or so years. Even if Donovan is a disaster, they should get better based on talent alone... if they don't, that just makes the decision to move in another direction extremely easy.
The issue with this line of thinking, I think, is that there just aren't many kinds of offensive schemes that would have succeeded with our personnel. In fact, the scheme we ran last year and a lot of the concepts are generally the best concepts to use when you have an OL that, quite literally, can't do anything up front, wide receivers who struggle to create space and tight ends who struggle blocking and catching the ball. You're gonna get a lot of spot screens to the outside to supplant the outside running game, and little quick hitters to the wideouts that allow your QB to get the ball off. But there's not a lot of places to go with the football when a defense doesn't have to blitz their linebackers because they know they can get pressure with 3 or 4 down linemen.
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