re: So apparently it is a running joke in SEC coaching circles

I was drinking at Nick's watching the Saints game and a guy who introduced himself to me as Lou Tepper told me how to defend against LSU's offense.

He appeared to be homeless-adjacent so I don't know if he knows what he's talking about.

Do you have any reason to believe that isn't true? Seems well earned to me.

That does not prove anything aside from someone concluding that it is plausible, maybe likely. Very different than it "being a running joke in SEC coaching circles". I guess you cannot see that.

Pate did say that coaches around the sec mentioned advantage to Ole Miss because their defensive staff is obviously superior to our offensive staff. I'm a Kelly defender but my heavens, that's rough.

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He can't throw the deep ball because of an injury....you don't lose the elite arm talent unless there is an injury...last year timing of the deep ball was off but he was mainly over throwing those shots until Hilton got healthy. This year he puts everything he has into a throw and it dies at 35-40 yds. When I have seen this guy hit Watkins 65+ yds with ease.

The offensive scheme has been terrible. The Coaching of the offense has been abysmal. The route concepts, spacing, depth of routes, style of routes, etc. has been terrible. Sloan is not a good play caller whether his scheme is good or not is irrelevant because he is not a good play caller.

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Agree with all of this and want to add that we have the worst O-Line coaching and development we've ever had. This has been broken since at least JD's last year. He was just good enough to mask it.

Fix the line first, now. Surely they have the resources to bring in someone else to at least get these guys back to fundamental run blocking. They couldn't be much worse, honestly.

Then clean house.

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Idk what we are coaching but it is 100% impossible for every single player to be bad. Its Coaching. They are confused, they don't know where to have their eyes, they don't know how to pass off or pickup stunts, they run over each other, and cannot go to the second level to pickup backers.

On top of that they don't fire off the ball and drive defenders into the ground. Its all Coaching. The entire system is broken and there will be 3 new offensive coaches next season.

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Kind of amazing it's this bad under an (alleged) offensively minded HC. I honestly think the base talent level has gone up, but I agree that the linemen just look lost. Makes me think of our linebackers under Lou Tepper. They had no clue as to what they were supposed to be doing, and they came off as ill-prepared and unaggressive.

When you consistently can’t run against a 5-6 man box and can’t pass protect against a 3 man rush, there’s a problem.

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Kind of amazing it's this bad under an (alleged) offensively minded HC. I honestly think the base talent level has gone up, but I agree that the linemen just look lost. Makes me think of our linebackers under Lou Tepper. They had no clue as to what they were supposed to be doing, and they came off as ill-prepared and unaggressive.

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The worst thing you can make a college football player do is think. That’s how you make a fast player look slow and a smart player look stupid. It’s also how you take every ounce of conviction and aggression out of a player. Do all of these not apply to our OL right now?

P4 players don’t have time to think after the snap. Whatever you are doing has to be drilled and refined to the point that it becomes INSTINCT for them. And with the practice rules that are in place in college football, that is a challenge. This is why most college coordinators don’t run particular complex schemes today. Remember good ole Matt House- complex read and react doesn’t work unless you have a lot of experienced upperclassmen, which he didn’t in 2023.

I don’t think Sloan’s offense is particularly complex, but he and Davis (and possibly Atkins) have been asking a new OL to do a lot out of the gate this season. They run zone some and then gap with pullers. They run RPO. We’ve also got WRs and a TE like Green who isn’t a blocker first out there doing things beyond just basic take out the man in front of you, and some of the busts on these plays are on them as much as the OL.

I wouldn’t normally say this is too much, but with a group that is struggling like this, it’s probably time to simplify things and find a few things they can execute, and then try to build off of that. What we are doing right now definitely isn’t working, so continuing to bang away at it is just going to add to the frustrations and problems.

You don’t need “proof”. Hell, I’m not a DC and I know the O is a joke. 1st and goal at the 3 against SELA. THE 3!
You don’t have to scheme this O line. Rush 3/drop 8. Double cover Anderson and Brown. Game over.