Valpo (0-4) at Dayton (3-1)

[milanmiracle]

Well boys and girls, let's hope for the improvement from last week to continue? If this game is as close as that one I will be ecstatic! No win coming here, but not getting beat by 40 would be nice.

Dayton gives up over 22.5 pts per game, so maybe the offense will show up this week? Then again after last weeks outburst, Valpos only up to 8 points per game. We can hope right?

What concerns me is that Valpo give up 39.5 points per game, and Dayton averages 34.5. That's the 112 ranked defense vs. the 11 ranked offense. Yikes

[milanmiracle]

Final score...Dayton 48, Valpo 14. More than one touchdown for the second consecutive week. Hey, at least it's something positive. Only 200 yards of total offense...not so positive.

[vuchunga]

It would appear that the secondary has lived up to its previous performances with 10 passing first downs, not to mention 10 rushing first downs, and did special teams allow two TD's?, Now that we are 0 and 5 should Carlson be looking for the final replacements in his coaching staff? I understand not wanting to clear out everything in his first season, but he might as well post the ads now.

[jj]

Valpo has now lost 14 games in a row. A glimmer of hope to end this streak could be a win over Marist. Hope so,other wise 0-20 is a real possibility.

[rlh]

Oct 2, 2010 18:35:16 GMT -5 vuchunga said:

It would appear that the secondary has lived up to its previous performances with 10 passing first downs, not to mention 10 rushing first downs, and did special teams allow two TD's?, Now that we are 0 and 5 should Carlson be looking for the final replacements in his coaching staff? I understand not wanting to clear out everything in his first season, but he might as well post the ads now.

Not sure where you are getting your information, but there is only one coach remaining from the previous staff. Give them 3 years before making judgements. It takes time to change the philosophy and atmosphere and to get his type of recruits in here. No one like to lose, but making coaching judgements after this few games is unfair and quite frankly ridiculous

[milanmiracle]

Oct 3, 2010 0:34:01 GMT -5 rlh said:

Oct 2, 2010 18:35:16 GMT -5 vuchunga said:

It would appear that the secondary has lived up to its previous performances with 10 passing first downs, not to mention 10 rushing first downs, and did special teams allow two TD's?, Now that we are 0 and 5 should Carlson be looking for the final replacements in his coaching staff? I understand not wanting to clear out everything in his first season, but he might as well post the ads now.

Not sure where you are getting your information, but there is only one coach remaining from the previous staff. Give them 3 years before making judgments. It takes time to change the philosophy and atmosphere and to get his type of recruits in here. No one like to lose, but making coaching judgments after this few games is unfair and quite frankly ridiculous

Nobody's saying that Carlson should be fired, not even close, but to make an assessment of how things are going after a few games seems very reasonable. It's only unfair and ridiculous if everbody shares your thought process on how to coach. It appears (not sure here, just making a hypothesis) you come from the school of thought that a coach runs a "system" and you can't be competitive (notice I didn't say win) until you have round pieces to plug into round holes.

OR, you can come from the school of thought that says...Hey, I was given square pegs, maybe I shouldn't use the round hole board, I might need to adapt here. What can I do to make these square pegs fit? How can I adapt my coaching style to get the most out of the players on the roster.

With that, I can make some sort of assessment, and I don't think it's unfair. I don't think you change the culture by getting embarrassed 50-7 during the first night game at VU against a DII school starting a wide receiver at quarterback.

I think it's fair to assess that Valpo had a 151 yards of offense in the first half against Dayton, and after the "halftime adjustments" ganed 49 in the second half.

Look, Coach Carlson might be the answer everybody's been looking for and in 3 years, he might have all the talent to put a competitive 1-AA product on the field. We can only hope! Who knows what will happen at that point and I absolutely think you wait three years until you make a decision on if you should retain the coach, but that doesn't mean you can't assess until then. Let's just hope there are more competitive games in the future and more wins down the road and we can quit talking about this every season.

[vu72]

Oct 3, 2010 9:21:28 GMT -5 milanmiracle said:

Oct 3, 2010 0:34:01 GMT -5 rlh said:

Not sure where you are getting your information, but there is only one coach remaining from the previous staff. Give them 3 years before making judgments. It takes time to change the philosophy and atmosphere and to get his type of recruits in here. No one like to lose, but making coaching judgments after this few games is unfair and quite frankly ridiculous

Nobody's saying that Carlson should be fired, not even close, but to make an assessment of how things are going after a few games seems very reasonable. It's only unfair and ridiculous if everbody shares your thought process on how to coach. It appears (not sure here, just making a hypothesis) you come from the school of thought that a coach runs a "system" and you can't be competitive (notice I didn't say win) until you have round pieces to plug into round holes.

OR, you can come from the school of thought that says...Hey, I was given square pegs, maybe I shouldn't use the round hole board, I might need to adapt here. What can I do to make these square pegs fit? How can I adapt my coaching style to get the most out of the players on the roster.

With that, I can make some sort of assessment, and I don't think it's unfair. I don't think you change the culture by getting embarrassed 50-7 during the first night game at VU against a DII school starting a wide receiver at quarterback.
I think it's fair to assess that Valpo had a 151 yards of offense in the first half against Dayton, and after the "halftime adjustments" ganed 49 in the second half.

Look, Coach Carlson might be the answer everybody's been looking for and in 3 years, he might have all the talent to put a competitive 1-AA product on the field. We can only hope! Who knows what will happen at that point and I absolutely think you wait three years until you make a decision on if you should retain the coach, but that doesn't mean you can't assess until then. Let's just hope there are more competitive games in the future and more wins down the road and we can quit talking about this every season.

This is the second time, as I recall, that you called out the football team for losing to a D2 program. While I agree that the size of the loss is embarassing, please note that St. Joes, as a D2 program, offers athletic scholarships. Same for NAIA schools.
Valpo plays non-scholarship ball similar to D3. That fact makes the loss to Franklin much more embarassing.

To play competitively with schools like Western Illinois, St. Joes and others, it will take a completely different type of player, not trying to make players lacking skills fit into any program.

Do the kids play hard? Certainly. Will they get better this year? For sure. Will they be competitive or wins most of their games? Not at this point. What rlh elluded to is the fact that Coach Carlson undoubtedly recognizes the shortcomings and will be recruiting a different type of player. Remember, he came in so late that he lost out on kids who otherwise would have considered Valpo. This coming class should make a difference but again, it will take time.

Here is a site which describes the various type of schools and their athletic scholarship situation:

www.collegescholarships.org/scholarships/sports/football.htm

[vuchunga]

I have gotten my information from the VU-Football roster page. There it shows that at least 3 assistant coaches are from the previous head coach, and the lack of success from that campaign was obvious. I do not dispute Carlson's "vision" or leadership, the blogs that are posted by him clearly display a well thought out and methodical plan for winning. But to agree with milanmiracles "square peg vs. round hole" analogy I believe that if he is not getting what he wants in finishing games then he needs better motivators and talent evaluation.

[biasedobservor]

I had hoped for some improvement this year, but it doesn't look like it will happen. Still, it is Carlson's 1st year and he has only 1 recruiting class. While the previous coaching was pretty bad, the cupboard is pretty bare as well.