“Secure Victory” – Time for a Paradigm Shift?

When times are good it seems as if no criticism of the staff is accepted (‘the coaches know football better than us laymen’). When we lose like this, criticism becomes unhinged (fire Les, fire Chavis, fire Stud, fire Raymond).

IMO, there are legitimate concerns that are as evident in winning as in losing. For example, when USCe and A&M scored on their last possessions last year no big deal. They were two score games and we recovered the onside kicks. We won. When Bama scored just before and the half and at the end, and Clemson, and UGA, and OM and we lose, it becomes loudly obvious that Chief’s approach has some glaring flaws. That warrants (legitimate) criticism. He’s an outstanding DC (he is) but this is a fault that transcends talent (should it take NFL caliber talent all-overt the field before we can stop someone with the game on the line on their last possession?), experience (BTW, we are no longer young – this game #8), etc. It’s inherent in his scheme.

But an even greater concern is Les’s “secure victory first” approach to each game. If I understand, this is his guiding light of football philosophy. I assume he inherited this from Bo. And it shapes everything we do in football. This explains why starters play well into blowouts (some were asking why AJ10 didn’t see the field in the 4th vs MSU or why Mett got very little playing time in ’11 – because if there is any doubt that we have secured victory then starters play on), why our gameplans are repeatedly vanilla, why we seemingly play down to the competition (ex. AU and Arky in ’12).

Does it work? I would say it’s worked quite well during his tenure. We rarely lose to bad teams. Into his 9th season there have been three (UTenn in ’05, Arky, ’08, and OM ’13 – maybe Arky in ’07?). While we’re lickin’ wounds, we do it a lot less than just about everyone else.

But coaches are always assessed on not only what they accomplish, but what they reasonably could have accomplished, e.g., it wasn’t unreasonable to expect us to beat OM last week. So could Les be even more successful (within reason)?

His approach has its flaws: it atomizes games, precludes much needed in-game experience, is less aggressive, and often has us play down to the competition.

While it’s been successful, another approach would be even more successful and Les needs to shift his guiding light from “secure victory first” to “excellence and dominance.” It’s simply a better approach.