Kyle Whittingham

[couginphx]

Just finished the RB, heck of a game, but it's a game that reinforces to me why coaches like Whittingham are hard maddening and frustrating.

I know, he will likely for a very long time win 8-10 games every year and have his team in the conversation for conference titles, etc. But he is so blasted conservative that to me he will always leave wins on the table. He is that old school conservative coach who doesn't use the TO's well, is risk adverse to a fault, and doesn't make adjustments based on what's happening in front of him. He will punt in the 3rd quarter with a one score lead when it's 4th & 1 from his opponents 40 yard line. He won't go for 2 with 2 minutes to go against an opponent who has vastly better talent than his, won't adjust his defense when it's getting lit up like a Xmas tree for 3 quarters, cause bah gawd, this is what we do!
I genuinely believe he would rather win games by 3 points rather than 3 TD's. If his team is down a few scores he will coach them back into it, if his team is up a few scores he will coach the other team back into it.

Pete Carroll is the same way, only difference is PC has had runs with more talent than anybody else so he has won big, but as soon as the talent advantage goes away, they don't win at that level anymore. It goes back to win a lot, but never the truly big ones.

If I were a Utah fan tonight, this rose bowl game is a perfect illustration of why he is a really good head coach, but not a great one. I'd look at the last 5 minutes or so and just shake my head. Why do you not burn any time outs to save clock? Walk-on back up QB, why not go for 2 on the last TD and try to put that pressure on OSU? Why did the defense do nothing different and just allow OSU to move the ball at will the entire 2nd half?

I'm sure some will disagree, but it's just some random thoughts I've had on him for a while and watching this game, just makes me scratch my head. To me Leach was very much the same (albeit with the air raid), just did it by throwing the ball, but never would adjust and take a good season to a great season.

Anyway, happy new year.

 

[COUGinNCW]

Just finished the RB, heck of a game, but it's a game that reinforces to me why coaches like Whittingham are hard maddening and frustrating.

I know, he will likely for a very long time win 8-10 games every year and have his team in the conversation for conference titles, etc. But he is so blasted conservative that to me he will always leave wins on the table. He is that old school conservative coach who doesn't use the TO's well, is risk adverse to a fault, and doesn't make adjustments based on what's happening in front of him. He will punt in the 3rd quarter with a one score lead when it's 4th & 1 from his opponents 40 yard line. He won't go for 2 with 2 minutes to go against an opponent who has vastly better talent than his, won't adjust his defense when it's getting lit up like a Xmas tree for 3 quarters, cause bah gawd, this is what we do!
I genuinely believe he would rather win games by 3 points rather than 3 TD's. If his team is down a few scores he will coach them back into it, if his team is up a few scores he will coach the other team back into it.

Pete Carroll is the same way, only difference is PC has had runs with more talent than anybody else so he has won big, but as soon as the talent advantage goes away, they don't win at that level anymore. It goes back to win a lot, but never the truly big ones.

If I were a Utah fan tonight, this rose bowl game is a perfect illustration of why he is a really good head coach, but not a great one. I'd look at the last 5 minutes or so and just shake my head. Why do you not burn any time outs to save clock? Walk-on back up QB, why not go for 2 on the last TD and try to put that pressure on OSU? Why did the defense do nothing different and just allow OSU to move the ball at will the entire 2nd half?

I'm sure some will disagree, but it's just some random thoughts I've had on him for a while and watching this game, just makes me scratch my head. To me Leach was very much the same (albeit with the air raid), just did it by throwing the ball, but never would adjust and take a good season to a great season.

Anyway, happy new year.

If Dickert built the program to be what Utah is presently I’d be happy as a clam.

 

[BiggsCoug]

If you asked Utah’s team to raise their hand if they had a scholarship offer from Ohio State, how many hands go up?

KW coached, developed and willed these kids to overachieve and be in a game against kids much more talented.

He may very well be all those you wrote. But zero credit for taking a team full of kids to the Rose Bowl that Ohio State wouldn’t even evaluate out of high school?

You give him all the credit for what went wrong and none of the credit for anything that went right. That’s horse crap.

 

[couginphx]

If you asked Utah’s team to raise their hand if they had a scholarship offer from Ohio State, how many hands go up?

KW coached, developed and willed these kids to overachieve and be in a game against kids much more talented.

He may very well be all those you wrote. But zero credit for taking a team full of kids to the Rose Bowl that Ohio State wouldn’t even evaluate out of high school?

You give him all the credit for what went wrong and none of the credit for anything that went right. That’s horse crap.

Not true at all, I said he will always have them in that 8-10 win range and is a good coach, he just has that gene that will keep him from going bigger, and that is why he'd be maddening to cheer for.

 

[couginphx]

If Dickert built the program to be what Utah is presently I’d be happy as a clam.

And I get that, it's basically the ol coug argument of would you rather have the highs of Mike price or the consistency of leach, personally I'd take price, I would prefer the championships and rose bowls over the consistent 8 win but no championships or rose bowls.

 

[BiggsCoug]

Not true at all, I said he will always have them in that 8-10 win range and is a good coach, he just has that gene that will keep him from going bigger, and that is why he'd be maddening to cheer for.

With the resources he has available at Utah, how much bigger than 8-10 wins is out there for him?

 

[couginphx]

With the resources he has available at Utah, how much bigger than 8-10 wins is out there for him?

With some better in game coaching today he'd have 11 wins and a rosebowl win to build off of.

 

[BiggsCoug]

With some better in game coaching today he'd have 11 wins and a rosebowl win to build off of.

Sure. Continue to ignore that he got kids with less talent into the game and to compete to that level. You give him all the credit for what goes wrong and none of the credit for what went right.

 

[How_did_this_happen?]

And I get that, it's basically the ol coug argument of would you rather have the highs of Mike price or the consistency of leach, personally I'd take price, I would prefer the championships and rose bowls over the consistent 8 win but no championships or rose bowls.

I'm with you on this one.

 

[couginphx]

Sure. Continue to ignore that he got kids with less talent into the game and to compete to that level. You give him all the credit for what goes wrong and none of the credit for what went right.

Sure continue to ignore that he took 3 TO's home with him, didn't make any adjustments for his less talented kids to get a better chance to win, and some other issues. You continue to give him all the credit for what went right, and none for what went wrong.

 

[BiggsCoug]

Sure continue to ignore that he took 3 TO's home with him, didn't make any adjustments for his less talented kids to get a better chance to win, and some other issues. You continue to give him all the credit for what went right, and none for what went wrong.

Is there meat on the bone? Yes.

Would another coach with his roster talent and resources at Utah put them in the Rose Bowl and take Ohio State, a team that wouldn’t waste their time with any kid on his roster, to the wire?

No.

 

[How_did_this_happen?]

Unfortunate that they lost Rising in the 4th quarter.

That game was a toss up.

 

[couginphx]

Is there meat on the bone? Yes.

Would another coach with his roster talent and resources at Utah put them in the Rose Bowl and take Ohio State, a team that wouldn’t waste their time with any kid on his roster, to the wire?

No.

Thank you, that's all I'm saying. Is he a very good coach,yes 100%,but does he with his own decisions and personality leave meat on the bone, also 100%, and to me that is maddening.

 

[BiggsCoug]

Thank you, that's all I'm saying. Is he a very good coach,yes 100%,but does he with his own decisions and personality leave meat on the bone, also 100%, and to me that is maddening.

And with the talent he has he probably shouldnt have been in that game to begin with…. let alone taking them to the wire with his walk on qb… but yeah, shitty coach lol

In his best coaching job ever, you chime in about how it isn't enough.

 

[couginphx]

And with the talent he has he probably shouldnt have been in that game to begin with…. let alone taking them to the wire with his walk on qb… but yeah, shitty coach lol

In his best coaching job ever, you chime in about how it isn't enough.

At what point did I say he was a shitty coach?

It can be his best year ever and one can still point out he has flaws and those can cost the team games. These things are not exclusive of each other.

 

[BiggsCoug]

At what point did I say he was a shitty coach?

It can be his best year ever and one can still point out he has flaws and those can cost the team games. These things are not exclusive of each other.

He was in the Rose Bowl against a program that has forgotten about more talent than his program has. For a coach that costs his team so many games, how did he get to the Rose Bowl? How did he compete with Ohio State?

 

[couginphx]

He was in the Rose Bowl against a program that has forgotten about more talent than his program has. For a coach that costs his team so many games, how did he get to the Rose Bowl? How did he compete with Ohio State?

You clearly are 100% missing the point.

 

[BiggsCoug]

You clearly are 100% missing the point.

No.

 

[Coug90]

Unfortunate that they lost Rising in the 4th quarter.

That game was a toss up.

Rising is a gamer. Reminds me of Minshew in a lot of ways

 

[Observer11]

Unfortunate that they lost Rising in the 4th quarter.

That game was a toss up.

Best game of the bowl season. A different ending would have ended up being made into a movie. The freshman coming off the bench and rallying them to a tie was clutch.

Whittingham failing to burn timeouts was puzzling time management, for sure. Ohio State decision to kick to Covey to end the game was a head scratcher too - that kid could take it back to the house in a heartbeat.

Sometimes I wonder what is inside these coaches' heads.

 

[BleedCrimsonandGray]

Best game of the bowl season. A different ending would have ended up being made into a movie. The freshman coming off the bench and rallying them to a tie was clutch.

Whittingham failing to burn timeouts was puzzling time management, for sure. Ohio State decision to kick to Covey to end the game was a head scratcher too - that kid could take it back to the house in a heartbeat.

Sometimes I wonder what is inside these coaches' heads.

EGO.

 

[dgibbons]

If you asked Utah’s team to raise their hand if they had a scholarship offer from Ohio State, how many hands go up?

KW coached, developed and willed these kids to overachieve and be in a game against kids much more talented.

He may very well be all those you wrote. But zero credit for taking a team full of kids to the Rose Bowl that Ohio State wouldn’t even evaluate out of high school?

You give him all the credit for what went wrong and none of the credit for anything that went right. That’s horse crap.

Just to explain your hypocrisy to you, what phx posted is basically your criticism of Leach. Curious how little credit you Leach for beating Oregon with guys Oregon wouldn't touch.

 

[425cougfan]

My views:

- All coaching approaches have trade-offs, need to be examined in context, and usually wind up being judged in results-based ways that don't account for the counterfactual. People point out decisions that didn't work out and fail to consider the benefits of the underlying approach / theory.

- More generally, all coaches (and players, for that matter) should be evaluated in light of where they are at and the resources available.

I can apply this to Leach, Whittingham, Minshew, Gabalis, JdL, Dickert, and whoever else, but the applications are pretty obvious and most here can't be bothered with reading words, preferring to save their time and energy for trying to win Internet debates about politics and social issues.

 

[chipdouglas]

1. On the game, I watched the very end but was following it on my phone. Utah did exactly what I suspected and got out to a big early lead. Halftime, things were going as planned. Then, it turns out tOSU just has enough raw talent to muscle back into games, especially with a perennial Top 4 recruiting class (prevent offense & defense never helps). I watched with horror as tOSU scored 7 on almost every drive in the 2nd half while Utah decided to rip a page out of the Falcons-Patriots Super Bowl.

2. I bet on the game. Nobody's sicker about the outcome than I am: I had a few thou in bc I got duped by one of those big "risk free bets" scams, thinking the newly-legalized-in-my-state sports houses would play it straight by virtue of being big recognizable brands and give me my money back if I lost. Turns out, you don't get cash back - you get "betting credits" back. Also, depending on the house, you:

• You lose your stake (meaning you HAVE to bet on and win with an underdog to avoid losing money)
• They break your betting credits into $200 increments, knowing you're unlikely to win net-net
• Houses allowing full amount won't let you parlay or split bets, so ALL $ must go on 1 straight underdog bet
• You may have to roll your bets over 2 or 3 times before you can withdraw, knowing you'll prob lose it all

All designed to tie up your money and fleece you. No doubt 70% of people here knew this and are ROFLing at me, so mea culpa - but I'm not much of a bettor and could "see" why they'd offer these kinds of deals on a first-time basis. Live and learn...

 

[How_did_this_happen?]

1. On the game, I watched the very end but was following it on my phone. Utah did exactly what I suspected and got out to a big early lead. Halftime, things were going as planned. Then, it turns out tOSU just has enough raw talent to muscle back into games, especially with a perennial Top 4 recruiting class (prevent offense & defense never helps). I watched with horror as tOSU scored 7 on almost every drive in the 2nd half while Utah decided to rip a page out of the Falcons-Patriots Super Bowl.

2. I bet on the game. Nobody's sicker about the outcome than I am: I had a few thou in bc I got duped by one of those big "risk free bets" scams, thinking the newly-legalized-in-my-state sports houses would play it straight by virtue of being big recognizable brands and give me my money back if I lost. Turns out, you don't get cash back - you get "betting credits" back. Also, depending on the house, you:

• You lose your stake (meaning you HAVE to bet on and win with an underdog to avoid losing money)
• They break your betting credits into $200 increments, knowing you're unlikely to win net-net
• Houses allowing full amount won't let you parlay or split bets, so ALL $ must go on 1 straight underdog bet
• You may have to roll your bets over 2 or 3 times before you can withdraw, knowing you'll prob lose it all

All designed to tie up your money and fleece you. No doubt 70% of people here knew this and are ROFLing at me, so mea culpa - but I'm not much of a bettor and could "see" why they'd offer these kinds of deals on a first-time basis. Live and learn...

Just buy bitcoin next time. 😜

 

[How_did_this_happen?]

Just to explain your hypocrisy to you, what phx posted is basically your criticism of Leach. Curious how little credit you Leach for beating Oregon with guys Oregon wouldn't touch.

Speaking of Leach and Oregon...

In his last 5 seasons or so ending with Minshew...
He dominated Furd (when they were good)...he dominated Oregon...he dominated Utah...and of course he dominated OSU.

But damn if that guy couldn't beat the dogs to save his life. Weird stuff.

Old Miss will dominate him too (and already has)...and he'll do well against most of the rest of the SEC teams except, of course, Bama.

 

[CougEd]

At what point did I say he was a shitty coach?

It can be his best year ever and one can still point out he has flaws and those can cost the team games. These things are not exclusive of each other.

You could if you are expecting perfection. He was supposed to lose that game by how many? Lost by 3 in last 12 seconds. The mistake was made scoring on the wheel route with 2 minutes left and leaving time on the clock. Utah couldn't stop them. the only thing he could have done is attempt an onsides kick to keep the ball after they went up.

He was nearly perfect. If you are perfect in your job then feel free to mention "the flaws".

 

[CougSinceBirth]

1. On the game, I watched the very end but was following it on my phone. Utah did exactly what I suspected and got out to a big early lead. Halftime, things were going as planned. Then, it turns out tOSU just has enough raw talent to muscle back into games, especially with a perennial Top 4 recruiting class (prevent offense & defense never helps). I watched with horror as tOSU scored 7 on almost every drive in the 2nd half while Utah decided to rip a page out of the Falcons-Patriots Super Bowl.

2. I bet on the game. Nobody's sicker about the outcome than I am: I had a few thou in bc I got duped by one of those big "risk free bets" scams, thinking the newly-legalized-in-my-state sports houses would play it straight by virtue of being big recognizable brands and give me my money back if I lost. Turns out, you don't get cash back - you get "betting credits" back. Also, depending on the house, you:

• You lose your stake (meaning you HAVE to bet on and win with an underdog to avoid losing money)
• They break your betting credits into $200 increments, knowing you're unlikely to win net-net
• Houses allowing full amount won't let you parlay or split bets, so ALL $ must go on 1 straight underdog bet
• You may have to roll your bets over 2 or 3 times before you can withdraw, knowing you'll prob lose it all

All designed to tie up your money and fleece you. No doubt 70% of people here knew this and are ROFLing at me, so mea culpa - but I'm not much of a bettor and could "see" why they'd offer these kinds of deals on a first-time basis. Live and learn...

Damn, sorry to hear.

I just told myself when these things became popular to only bet at the sports books in Vegas to play it safe. What a bunch of bologna with all the *terms and conditions.

 

[cr8zyncalif]

Coaching is a lot like running any organization. There are a ton of things, both big and small, that figure into the position that the "team" finds itself in at any point in the "season", including in every single "game"/competitive situation. And certainly the boss won't be perfect, because nobody is perfect. So he/she will make some judgment calls that don't go his/her way. Some of those in hindsight will look like mistakes, and some will look like a good call that simply did not succeed. There will also be some really dumb missed opportunities, that often happen because the coach/boss is so wrapped up with something else that he/she does not see the situation coming in time to make a good decision.

Over time, the goal is to build a team that is capable of realizing that the coach is not focused on the right thing at a particular moment in time and can get his attention in time to make a good decision.

In Whittingham's case, there were two things going on at the Rose Bowl. One was his somewhat conservative lean in how he does things. That is what got him where he was that day, which meant winning the league, so I don't think you can criticize that. You dance with the one who brung ya. The other thing was that distraction thing. I'm sure in hindsight he wishes that he had done some other things. If I were to offer a criticism, it is that his staff clearly did not make much of an effort to steer him in a particular direction at some of those key moments (when he in a later moment of reflection probably would agree that the right staff person might have been correct to get in his face).

We all evolve with time, and I'm sure Whittingham has, also. But it is also important that we build a team around us that can recognize when we've missed something or are behind the curve on recognizing something. What I saw at the Rose Bowl suggests that Whittingham's team needs work in that area. And that has to start with Whittingham, if he is honest with himself (and I've got no reason to believe that he is NOT honest with himself, so I'd expect that he will learn from this experience).

 

[chipdouglas]

Just buy bitcoin next time. 😜

I own almost no Bitcoin but am sniffing $100k in gains from the second-tier cryptos... lots of elite resistance to crypto though. They regard it as a threat and want CBDCs like China. God help us if/when that happens.

 

[dgibbons]

My views:

- All coaching approaches have trade-offs, need to be examined in context, and usually wind up being judged in results-based ways that don't account for the counterfactual. People point out decisions that didn't work out and fail to consider the benefits of the underlying approach / theory.

- More generally, all coaches (and players, for that matter) should be evaluated in light of where they are at and the resources available.

I can apply this to Leach, Whittingham, Minshew, Gabalis, JdL, Dickert, and whoever else, but the applications are pretty obvious and most here can't be bothered with reading words, preferring to save their time and energy for trying to win Internet debates about politics and social issues.

Mike Leach needs to run more formations, have TE and H-back and run more plays.

Did I sum it up correctly?

 

[dgibbons]

Speaking of Leach and Oregon...

In his last 5 seasons or so ending with Minshew...
He dominated Furd (when they were good)...he dominated Oregon...he dominated Utah...and of course he dominated OSU.

But damn if that guy couldn't beat the dogs to save his life. Weird stuff.

Old Miss will dominate him too (and already has)...and he'll do well against most of the rest of the SEC teams except, of course, Bama.

But we just won the only game that matters. Who cares about the Sun Bowl, right?

 

[wazzucougs96]

Wasn't Utah playing a running back at CB for most of the game?