Denbrock it is
- Thread starter scubastevefl
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I doubt it was about the money for him. I would think LSU was willing to match ND offer.
Excited we have an experienced OC now. It was tough having an inexperienced defensive minded HC with an inexperienced OC.
I was initially hoping we may snag Cortez Hankton from LSU, he’s their passing game coordinator. I’ll be interested to see if Kelly now promotes him to the OC for LSU.
Either way, this is a good hire. Top offense in the country last year. He may not be the most energetic hire in terms of recruiting but thankfully that is one place Freeman can help. He’s much more charismatic on the recruiting trail than Kelly is currently.
I was initially hoping we may snag Cortez Hankton from LSU, he’s their passing game coordinator. I’ll be interested to see if Kelly now promotes him to the OC for LSU.
Either way, this is a good hire. Top offense in the country last year. He may not be the most energetic hire in terms of recruiting but thankfully that is one place Freeman can help. He’s much more charismatic on the recruiting trail than Kelly is currently.
Yeah, it was kind of unacceptable. But the football gods were smiling on ND, and given how apparently MF might have once again been unable to answer the bell and make a bold hire if the circumstance called for one, Mike Denbrock, in the most opportune fashion fell very conveniently into our laps. I'm not sure why we couldn't have done this a year ago, LSU's offense was pretty good last year too. But having the #1 offense in the country was just too much to pass up! I guess now he finally passes muster....
Quality coordinators on both sides of the ball now. Exciting times!
IMO the timing last year was all messed up. Rees left in what late Jan or Feb and by then I think most coaching staffs, not all, are settled in but I’m guessing.
Yeah, but will he dance with recruits in videos?... THAT'S what matters after all...
Do you remember Lane Kiffin asking if BK ended up in that video because he lost a bet? Classic.
He was offered more to go to TAM than either LSU or ND so he obviously is comfortable with the money he makes and isn't pushed directly by that amount.
Refreshing
Refreshing
Sort of. We did almost hire old boy from Utah, and presumably would have had we simply pulled out all the stops. In any case, Denbrock seems like a perfectly serviceable hire. Not that flashy, and it's not like he was the personal architect of LSU's #1-rated offense, that will always be BK's offense.
But overall, can't complain. And he's got a ND history and a MF history at UC. So I guess all the boxes are checked....
Good hire, I guess. He has a mixed record. The 2016 season in which he called our plays was terrible. However, the 2015 team had a good season, and he had great seasons in 2021 at Cincinnati and this year.
The only reason I'm not a huge fan of the hire is because I thought we'd gotten rid of the last vestiges of Kelly's offense when Rees left. I wasn't a big fan of Kelly's offense. Too much finesse and not enough power football. I liked our offense this past season, relying on Estime and the power running game a lot, and using multiple TE sets a lot.
The only reason I'm not a huge fan of the hire is because I thought we'd gotten rid of the last vestiges of Kelly's offense when Rees left. I wasn't a big fan of Kelly's offense. Too much finesse and not enough power football. I liked our offense this past season, relying on Estime and the power running game a lot, and using multiple TE sets a lot.
Well.... I guess you got more of BK to endure, as much as you nonsensically hate him. If it's any consolation, LSU had one of the most badass offenses in CFB history a year ago, so they must have been doing something right..
But they did lose 3 games, and their offense was one-dimensional. It was all Daniels. He was their leading rusher and passer. He ran for 1,100 yds, and all their RBs combined for 1,400 yds.
I prefer a more balanced offense, emphasizing the power running game.
When you have a kid like Daniels, a good OC rides that horse.
The losses primarily came due to the defense.
In terms of you saying you like 3 tight end sets, ND has been doing that long before Parker’s tenure.
Jayden Daniels threw for 3800 yards. When you carry a high powered rifle, fire the damn thing.
Lmao they had the number one offense in the country, their defense was ranked outside of the top 100.
The losses were NOT Denbrock's fault.
If he runs Leonard as much as he ran Daniels, he won't last the season IMO. He didn't last the season this year, when he ran a lot.
I'd rather run the RBs more, and establish the running game with them. That's a more balanced offense IMO - and also can keep your QB healthier.
Like I said, they only had 1400 yds rushing from their RBs this year. Estime had almost that many by himself, and our RBs combined for over 2000 yds.
And in their toughest games, they ran it even less with their RBs. Their RBs only had 49 yds against FSU and 43 against Alabama.
So I hope that Freeman tells him to establish the running game with the RBs more than he did at LSU.
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If you watched the Duke/ND game, you’d know that Leonard’s injury was him getting tackled awkwardly on a pass play. It had nothing to do with his rushing attempts.
You also have no idea the play calling Denbrock will bring to ND in 2024. We don’t have Daniel’s, we also have a stable of high level backs (LSU’s top back left ND due to this stable), you can’t assume the play calling will be identical. Also, Denbrock was our previous OC, and he wasn’t overrunning the QB.
Leonard will run (thankfully) because it’s a part of his skill set but to assume Denbrock will run him until injury is just odd.
I edited my other post, but I added this sentence:
So I hope that Freeman tells him to establish the running game with the RBs more than he did at LSU.
Because he didn't really do that that much this year.
I know, it's true. And that's what I'm saying, I don't know how great he really is or not. But he did good at UC as well. And Logan Diggs was a quality back for them. I guess this means so long power running game, which was MF's predilection, apparently.
I think it’s healthy to assume Leonard will get 10-15 carries in games we need him to run. We didn’t bring in a running QB not to run him, Denbrock adjusts his offense to the skill-set of the roster.
With ND in 2015, running backs had 72% of the carries, and that’s with Deshone Kizer, a pretty good dual threat QB.
I hope Riley Leonard runs very very little, a la Ian Book.
I think Jayden Daniels most of the time just took off on his own. And that was like a 1000 yards largely on ad-lib runs by an impossibly physically gifted QB, which I'm sure he was given a green light to do at will. Jayden Daniels certainly did not get 10 to 15 deliberate QB runs a game.
Certainly two different “running QB’s” so I would agree with you there. With Leonard being more of a power runner, I expect him to get more 3rd and short, 4th and short designed runs.
I don’t necessarily hope Leonard runs a ton, but given his skill set, I certainly don’t see him being a drop back passer at ND.
He is a lot different player at ND compared to Book. I see him moreso comparable to Kizer, so that’s the ND offense I was looking at in comparison.
The offense was one of the best 5 offenses of the past 20 years. “One-dimensional.” lol
They lost three games due to zero defense with one of the games involving bad mistakes in the first quarter.
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So if their running game was largely Daniels taking off and running on his own sometimes on passing plays, then that furthers my point that they didn't develop a traditional running game very well. Daniels had 1134 yds, followed by Diggs with 652, followed by another guy with 233.
And again, it worked fairly well for them this year. But I'm just generally not a fan of the QB-as-one-man-show offensive strategy.
It’s a BK coached team, three losses doesn’t surprise me.
Looks like Ford had a great season that year. That's good to see. I hope our offense looks more like that 2021 Cincinnati offense than like this year's LSU offense - more balanced. That also helps out your defense to have more balance, because you tend to have longer possessions with more running involved.
