Where Will Mike Gundy Go in Looking for His Program's New Coordinators - Defense Version

Well I guess we agree on a few things....Knowles is great DC, Ohio St has a great defense, and I also expect Oregon to beat Penn St. I don't think we are on an island with those thoughts.

Getting back to Yurcich and Penn St....Yurcich was brought in to modernize the Penn St passing game and improve their QB play. Their QB and passing game really struggled in 2023 (57th in pass rtg and an abysmal 6.8 Y/A --80th in the country). It was obvious that things were not clicking with the star QB and add that they scored a total of 27 points vs Mich and Ohio St (the best defenses in the country though). The feeling at Penn St was that the offense was going backwards. The passing game was simply ugly to watch. I know because they are one of a few teams that I watch every week and they simply could not or would not throw the ball down field. Do I think Franklin is a great coach? No. Has Kotelnicki done a good job? Yes. The numbers (or receipts as some cool folks say) show that. This year, Kotelnicki's first, which we know can often be a rough transition year, their QB's comp % is up 12 pts; passer rating is up 30 pts; perhaps most impressive is their Y/A has gone from 80th in the country to 5th. Impressive improvements.

So, thanks for letting me defend my opinion even without using all caps or exclamation points.

Go Pokes!

I would take Yurcich back in a heartbeat! There were only three opposing Coaching staffs in the Big XII at the time that could match him on the chess board when both teams had comparable talent going against each other! TCU, Kansas State and OU! OU HAD SUPERIOR TALENT! K STATE AND TCU had Snyder and Patterson, two chess masters! I use the Phil Steele magazines when doing comparative and statistical analysis because he breaks down the averages for both the offense and defense for each team going back SEVEN YEARS and he has the complete schedule history with scores going back five years! I have every Phil Steele magazines from 2010 to this year 2024. The other factor that helped Penn State was that their NEW D Coordinator, Tom Allen, former Indiana Coach, had their defense perform as well of not better than the Manny Diaz units of the past two years as they allowed only 14 points per game to opponents! Yurcich would have killed to have a DC like that during his tenure here at OSU where we didn't have to outscore people at times!