Why No Heat On The O Line Coach?

Davis is the golden child on this board by posters and mods. Prepare this thread to be anchored with the quickness. The entire offense was not “aligned” as BK would say. Have a big arm qb but no true consistent deep threat. Need more athleticism on the OL to do some of the things they would like to do. Not enough physicality to do the other things they would like to do. Interior OL was overmatched at times and literally blew plays up. QB had issues counting in the box so wrong plays were checked into or not out of. Also highly adverse to taking runs when they were there. Had no consistent short controlled passing game and relied more on longer developing routes. Plenty enough criticism to go around and yes OL development by Davis needs to step up. Great recruiter but wouldn’t mind see him get help with coaching limits off.

Same reason some punk asses on this board defend Hankton

Reasons:
Great recruiter and he’s gonna have a number one draft pick this year next year from the old line.

Lame excuse

Davis has a solid track record here. If we don’t get a true C in the portal the heat will turn up next year, but one down year for the position group isn’t gonna be enough to do it.

He’s definitely been mentioned on the board. I think the issue is more than just him though.

Running backs - Durham certainly seemed to be consistent with the o line. He had vision and burst. Some things lacking in Williams and Jackson.

Formations/playcalling/tendencies - before the Florida game, I called out every run play with 95% success rate. Very few times did I miss, if I can do this, so can our opponents. The second down and long run was virtually a gimme until OU.

Not sticking with success - Outside zone to the right side was very successful against bama. We ran it a few times and then never again. Same story against Florida. We ran up the middle plenty this year with limited success, but didn’t utilize our strengths in the run game well.

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Formations/playcalling/tendencies - before the Florida game, I called out every run play with 95% success rate. Very few times did I miss, if I can do this, so can our opponents. The second down and long run was virtually a gimme until OU.

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This is the absolute truth. Play calling was abysmal and so easy to predict run plays.
Is it 2nd down? Does LSU have the ball? RUN incoming.

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Maybe it didn't help that we ran 90% of the time on 2nd down. That probably didn't help.

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I never understood that.... pass incomplete... run for 2 yards and now it's 3rd and long...

I guess Sloan was trying to throw em off.. all year long...

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Davis is the golden child on this board by posters and mods.

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He’s caught a ton of flak on here this year, with a number of posts calling for him to be fired. Especially during the losing streak.

Brad Davis should be the first assistant to get the axe after the Mediocrity Bowl!

Pre-Season concensus TOP 5 OL in the country with 4 starters returning, can't run block for shite and have grossly under performed all year.

WC has been down coached and declined to being close to falling out out of the first round. The entire OL has looked worse.

That's grossly under performing Coaching right there. BD gets no heat because he's the OL Slylvester Croom of the SEC.....

we were starting to turn the corner then the Dellinger and Durham injuries sorta set us way back

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We all know the O-Line can't run block worth a damn. Davis can recruit, but where is the development in the run game. I've been waiting for at least small steps to be taken that lead to improvement. Is a consistent lack of effective running a play calling problem or is it a technique problem?

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People here are often prisoners of the moment. Davis was highly regarded the previous two seasons not just for recruiting well, but also for taking an OL that had 2 SEC quality players left after the 21 season and then a cobbled together OL with 1 portal guy and 2 true freshman and making them into a serviceable group far better than what we had the season before.

Other than vs FSU, the OL wasn’t seen as a problem last season. There’s a reason we had high expectations going into this season. And It wasn’t all the simple answer that casuals throw out that it was all because of Daniels. They were legitimately good. Not great, but good, and good was still a massive step forward from where we were in 21.

BUT- there’s no sugar coating the legitimate issues this year. Pass blocking was good to great through mid season, but even that faltered after three guys got banged up. Run blocking was never good enough and only improved a little over the course of the season. There were busts and way too many penalties for such an experienced group, and it wasn’t just Chester.

I like Davis and respect the job he did in 22 and 23, but that don’t mean he deserves a free pass for 24. He deserves heat for the problems and he has to fix them. That said, this wasn’t a House-level disaster. It was just a big (and legitimate) disappointment in light of the big expectations. We also just landed another very good recruiting class up front and sealed it with a 6 star flip.

Davis has done enough in his time here to earn a season to fix the issues. He did a very good job rebuilding the OL in 22, so let’s see if he can do that again this offseason. If he can’t, we should move on after 25.