What I don’t know and can’t figure out is what the exact reoccurring flaw is in Tech not clearing the hurdle of climbing one step better than where we are. For one reason or another we go through the same sort of thing every year. Is it that as a team our players just aren’t physically talented enough or are they not football smart enough to comprehend and execute a sophisticated enough offense and defense to make the difference against good competition?
We’ve all seen how simplistic our offense has been under Holtz. We can usually call the plays before they’re run so you the other team has a good idea too. As far as a defensive strategy goes, we are rarely aggressive along the line or with our linebackers. It’s usually more like bend slowly then break.
Is it that our assistant coaches aren’t good enough to coach our players up? As for our O & D coordinators, on either side of the ball we always seem so ‘blah.’ It’s like our strategy is to play with the brakes on.
I know Holtz as the head coach is responsible for everything. Maybe he can’t identify what it is that we need to improve on to take that next step. Maybe he micromanages his other coaches too much and he’s not good at that. I get the impression that he coaches too much against making mistakes and tries to bridle things too much.
It seems he definitely would rather the other team make the mistakes to lose the game than for Tech to run away and win it. It looks like every game is one of a cautious approach. And then even in the game when things are going well for Tech, he’ll do something unnecessary that throws a monkey wrench into the gears.
Holtz is also not a very energetic type of guy on the sidelines. If you’re not excited there I don’t think you can be at practice either. Maybe his lack of excitement and energy brings the team down. I’m not saying he should be a chicken with his head cut off like the young guy at S. Miss, but some enthusiasm as certain key times can’t always be a bad thing.
So, what it is?