Expectations have been set

[gspointer]

I don't know if I'm impatient...my issues with the team are:

The OL is terrible and it was a huge error in judgement to not fill some of the holes with more physically mature JUCO or transfer players.

The offense is outdated and it's a poor fit for our personnel.. With a bad OL, the ball has to go out quickly. We run plays that take too long to develop and our QB often holds the ball too long waiting for the routes to be run.

He's married to McDonald as our QB. McDonald is wildly inconsistent...he misses a lot of throws that an experienced QB shouldn't...I've seen him throw passes that were almost end over end

Loeffler makes some really odd decisions with gadget plays.

Maturation might fix problem 1 and part of problem 2...but I don't see McDonald getting any better nor do I see any inclination from Loeffler that he's open to adjusting his philosophy. So...my outlook for the program is kinda bleak

In other words you're saying our coach cannot coach? Not surprising since his track record is being a bad coach everywhere he's been prior to his promotion here.

Dude had already been Peter Principled to the OC job across the country and was a failure at pretty much every stop. We gave him a promotion and should be surprised that he can't coach?

The QB he wanted cannot play dead at the ACC level, but he's good enough to at least be meh by MAC standards. HE recruited him to both places and has now married himself to him. He has zero clue what an offense should look like in 2021. Hell Urban would laugh this scheme off the field 20 years ago when he was here. Has no feel for those gadget play timing/design either.

Give him 5 years. Maybe he builds his mystical roster capable of running his antiquated schemes. We'll still be mediocre at best, because dude can't coach. It's ingrained in him and we've seen absolutely zero evidence of improvement in his coaching. He was hired because he was the polar opposite of Jinks and that's exactly what we've gotten: and old school head in the sand coach that has no idea what it takes to score and win in the year 2021.

At some point though, you're REALLY going to struggle recruiting that side of the ball because nobody in their right mind wants to play in this system we're running, exactly like nobody wants to actually WATCH it. All we're likely going to have on offense, talent-wise, is the scraps that couldn't get scholarships to play at places that actually know how to score points.

Same guy who said the coach would never win a close game at BG. - right before the Minnesota game. Credibility. Not!

[hammb]

I don't know if I'm impatient...my issues with the team are:

The OL is terrible and it was a huge error in judgement to not fill some of the holes with more physically mature JUCO or transfer players.

The offense is outdated and it's a poor fit for our personnel.. With a bad OL, the ball has to go out quickly. We run plays that take too long to develop and our QB often holds the ball too long waiting for the routes to be run.

He's married to McDonald as our QB. McDonald is wildly inconsistent...he misses a lot of throws that an experienced QB shouldn't...I've seen him throw passes that were almost end over end

Loeffler makes some really odd decisions with gadget plays.

Maturation might fix problem 1 and part of problem 2...but I don't see McDonald getting any better nor do I see any inclination from Loeffler that he's open to adjusting his philosophy. So...my outlook for the program is kinda bleak

In other words you're saying our coach cannot coach? Not surprising since his track record is being a bad coach everywhere he's been prior to his promotion here.

Dude had already been Peter Principled to the OC job across the country and was a failure at pretty much every stop. We gave him a promotion and should be surprised that he can't coach?

The QB he wanted cannot play dead at the ACC level, but he's good enough to at least be meh by MAC standards. HE recruited him to both places and has now married himself to him. He has zero clue what an offense should look like in 2021. Hell Urban would laugh this scheme off the field 20 years ago when he was here. Has no feel for those gadget play timing/design either.

Give him 5 years. Maybe he builds his mystical roster capable of running his antiquated schemes. We'll still be mediocre at best, because dude can't coach. It's ingrained in him and we've seen absolutely zero evidence of improvement in his coaching. He was hired because he was the polar opposite of Jinks and that's exactly what we've gotten: and old school head in the sand coach that has no idea what it takes to score and win in the year 2021.

At some point though, you're REALLY going to struggle recruiting that side of the ball because nobody in their right mind wants to play in this system we're running, exactly like nobody wants to actually WATCH it. All we're likely going to have on offense, talent-wise, is the scraps that couldn't get scholarships to play at places that actually know how to score points.

Same guy who said the coach would never win a close game at BG. - right before the Minnesota game. Credibility. Not!

I've got plenty of credibility on this board. Have I been wrong sometimes? Sure. But when you beat Minnesota only to get blown out by Akron it screams of a blind squirrel more than anything.

Dude has never shown the ability to coach anywhere he's been an OC or HC. Kudos to him for winning a game I didn't think they had a chance to win. Turns out when he plays another team that is completely inept offensively he can pull out a win. Good for him.

I still don't think he can coach. We've still seen little evidence he can coach. He still has a track record of a decade as a crappy OC leading up to his 3 years as a crappy HC. You wanna keep seeing stuff that isn't there, more power to ya; when he set the bar as low as he did just getting a first down feels like progress. I just want a coach that can actually make BG football watchable again, because this ain't it.

[Flipper]

I think with a lot of our fans Loeffler is benefitting from the immense incompetence of Mike Jinks...Jinks was abysmal...beyond awful...truly, turly horrid. Almost anyone with a pulse will look good by comparison. Sure...we still suck on the field, but our guys know how to line up now and their shoes are tied and their helmets on on the right way...it's a huge improvement. Let's give Scott another year to turn it around

[MarkL]

Missing one call does not end credibility or else mine would be solidly in the red.

I've always found the talking point that Loeffler was a bad OC everywhere to be flimsy. Let's look at his tenure at BC. He inherited a dumpster fire of an offense when he began after the 2015 season. And let's look at his results.

Points per game
2015: 17.2
2016: 20.4
2017: 25.7
2018: 32.0

So similar ppg in his first year as prior. Then comes significant improvement.

Pass rating
2015: 92.83
2016: 113.92
2017: 111.28
2018: 141.39

Anthony Brown eventually took over the QB job as a freshman in 2017. His sophomore year he saw a major jump in passer rating.

Total rushing yards, average per carry
2015: 1976 3.93
2016: 1938 3.42
2017: 2865 4.64
2018: 2259 4.07

So rushing wasn't good before Loeffler arrived and still not good his first year. But then AJ Dillon showed up on the scene in 2017, and he missed some time in 2018 or else those numbers could have been better.

How about some individual stats? The QB for two of the years was Anthony Brown, the now Oregon QB who upset Ohio State. His freshman year (not full season in 2017, he took over a few games in):
134 / 258, 1367 yards, 11 TD, 9 picks

Sophomore year (2018):
158 / 285, 2121 yards, 20 TDs, 9 picks
Same number of picks in more games, near double the TDs, not bad for second year progression.

Rushing stats were ugly pre AJ Dillon. In 2015 (pre Loeffler), the leading rusher was a QB with less than 500. Loeffler's first year in 2016, only one runner hit 500, and that was 542 yards with a 2.95 per rush average.

Then in 2017, freshman AJ Dillon made his appearance. 1589 yards, 5.3 average, 14 TDs. Then in 2018, despite injury sidelining him some games, 1108 yards, 4.88 average, 10 TDs. And the improved passing offense made up for the dropoff.

Overall what I see here is Loeffler taking over for a dumpster fire. Year one was basically the same. But year 2 and 3 saw improvement from bottom of the ACC to a solid ACC offense. One must wonder how the offense would have fared under Loeffler in 2019.

Add to that the guy beat eventual national champs Ohio State in 2014 as the OC at Virginia Tech, along with a mostly solid and sometimes outstanding offense at Temple. He's had plenty of career successes. I don't count the disaster at Auburn against him. Gene Chizik is to blame for that disaster for his ludicrous idea of replacing Malzahn and the spread offense with a pro style. Loeffler was put in a bad position and truthfully shouldn't have taken the job.

I just don't buy that he's been a bad coach everywhere .... and neither do the stats.

[Falcon Commander]

Ahhhh…a breath of fresh air….
Thanks Mark!

[jpfalcon09]

Missing one call does not end credibility or else mine would be solidly in the red.

I've always found the talking point that Loeffler was a bad OC everywhere to be flimsy. Let's look at his tenure at BC. He inherited a dumpster fire of an offense when he began after the 2015 season. And let's look at his results.

Points per game
2015: 17.2
2016: 20.4
2017: 25.7
2018: 32.0

So similar ppg in his first year as prior. Then comes significant improvement.

Pass rating
2015: 92.83
2016: 113.92
2017: 111.28
2018: 141.39

Anthony Brown eventually took over the QB job as a freshman in 2017. His sophomore year he saw a major jump in passer rating.

Total rushing yards, average per carry
2015: 1976 3.93
2016: 1938 3.42
2017: 2865 4.64
2018: 2259 4.07

So rushing wasn't good before Loeffler arrived and still not good his first year. But then AJ Dillon showed up on the scene in 2017, and he missed some time in 2018 or else those numbers could have been better.

How about some individual stats? The QB for two of the years was Anthony Brown, the now Oregon QB who upset Ohio State. His freshman year (not full season in 2017, he took over a few games in):
134 / 258, 1367 yards, 11 TD, 9 picks

Sophomore year (2018):
158 / 285, 2121 yards, 20 TDs, 9 picks
Same number of picks in more games, near double the TDs, not bad for second year progression.

Rushing stats were ugly pre AJ Dillon. In 2015 (pre Loeffler), the leading rusher was a QB with less than 500. Loeffler's first year in 2016, only one runner hit 500, and that was 542 yards with a 2.95 per rush average.

Then in 2017, freshman AJ Dillon made his appearance. 1589 yards, 5.3 average, 14 TDs. Then in 2018, despite injury sidelining him some games, 1108 yards, 4.88 average, 10 TDs. And the improved passing offense made up for the dropoff.

Overall what I see here is Loeffler taking over for a dumpster fire. Year one was basically the same. But year 2 and 3 saw improvement from bottom of the ACC to a solid ACC offense. One must wonder how the offense would have fared under Loeffler in 2019.

Add to that the guy beat eventual national champs Ohio State in 2014 as the OC at Virginia Tech, along with a mostly solid and sometimes outstanding offense at Temple. He's had plenty of career successes. I don't count the disaster at Auburn against him. Gene Chizik is to blame for that disaster for his ludicrous idea of replacing Malzahn and the spread offense with a pro style. Loeffler was put in a bad position and truthfully shouldn't have taken the job.

I just don't buy that he's been a bad coach everywhere .... and neither do the stats.

Funny how a lot of people were saying the same thing after BG hired Clawson following his one bad year at Tennessee as OC.

There's enough evidence to argue both sides of the coin with Scot because he's been around the block a few times. It's been beaten to death on here but letting him go at this juncture is only going to prolong the time this program stays in the depths of Hell. Doesn't mean he's immune to criticism - he has my support and I surely don't see eye to eye on his offensive scheme - but he has a plan to try and make this place successful again. If you don't like him that's fine too, and there's other things you can do with your Saturdays then than watch Bowling Green football.

[hammb]

I suppose it's all in perspective. You can see year over year improvement at BC (and VaTech), which is real, but when I see it I see his very best offense ranking 39th in scoring and requiring a heavy lean on a 2nd round draft pick RB to do so. I suppose 39th for a program like BC isn't bad, but it's worth mentioning that the 32 point average was heavily skewed by big games against inferior competition...when playing other P5 programs they were again under 25ppg that season.

In 3 years at VaTech his offenses ranked 100th, 96th, and 52nd nationally in scoring. Again, I suppose it's progressive improvement, but again none of them were actually GOOD offenses.

The "mostly solid and sometimes outstanding" offense at Temple? He was there exactly one season, and they ranked 40th nationally in points per game.

Auburn was obviously a total disaster in his 1 year there.

I guess at both VaTech & BC they progressively went from being absolutely horrendous to slightly above average. Over 3 years. It's also worth noting that at every single place he's been the OC he was also the QB coach. No offense he's ever coordinated has had a 3000 yard passer (only 2 years over 2500 yds), and he's never had a full time QB complete even 60% of his passes. In fact you could make a strong case that Matt McDonald's 2021 is the single best QB season a Loeffler led offense has EVER HAD. McDonald is playing ok (I guess), but that's a really really low bar to set.

We can sit here and pick apart Loeffler's resume all day. Clearly some people see his resume of slow improvement to mediocrity as worth holding onto. I see a guy who has had more seasons with offenses ranked in the bottom quartile of college football than in the top 50, and only 1 season of ever having a top quartile offense. I see a guy who has just enough connections to keep getting jobs and even a blind squirrel can luck his way into an almost competent looking (but still not good) season.

I, for one, don't think it's asking too much for a guy to coordinate at least one legitimately GOOD offense when he's had 8 seasons of OC jobs throughout schools of varying budgets.

And no, I'm not asking for him to be fired, because we don't have the money and we're stuck with him. What I'm asking him to do is get his head out of his ass viewing the Lloyd Carr offense of 1997 as the panacea. I'm asking him to hire a forward thinking OC and to pull his own thoughts COMPLETELY out of offense, because I think we have 10+ years of evidence to say this man has absolutely no idea how to coach a good collegiate offense.

[BillyLP]

FWIW, USA Today released their head coach salaries yesterday. Saban, or course, leads the way with about $10 million. Never would have guessed David Shaw at Stanford to be number three??? Why?

Anyway, Loeffler is the third lowest salary of any reported coach, not including the $100,000 he gave back during the pandemic year, which it looks like brought him down to the lowest. Basically, if anyone is complaining about how much he is being paid, they are complaining that an FBS program exists at all. Frankly, it's shocking that BG has done as well as they have, historically, with their history of being one of the consistently lowest paying schools in FBS. That being said, Jinks was still overpaid by about $400,000 a year.

[mbenecke]

FWIW, USA Today released their head coach salaries yesterday. Saban, or course, leads the way with about $10 million. Never would have guessed David Shaw at Stanford to be number three??? Why?

Anyway, Loeffler is the third lowest salary of any reported coach, not including the $100,000 he gave back during the pandemic year, which it looks like brought him down to the lowest. Basically, if anyone is complaining about how much he is being paid, they are complaining that an FBS program exists at all. Frankly, it's shocking that BG has done as well as they have, historically, with their history of being one of the consistently lowest paying schools in FBS. That being said, Jinks was still overpaid by about $400,000 a year.

I also saw this list. Jimbo Fisher's buyout at A&M is 96 million dollars. Insanity!

Candle makes 2.5 times as much at Toledo as Loeffler does here at roughly 1.2M per year. If we want to talk overpaid by on-field production in the MAC... he's the guy to look at.

[Flipper]

I didn't care about Clawson's track record as an OC....I don't care what Loeffler did before he got here. The skill sets required are different. My concern with Loeffler is what he's doing here. Minnesota was a great, unexpected win...so was the Toledo game in 2019. If you can't build off a win like that...they mean less.

Kent and Akron should have been building blocks...they weren't

[hammb]

I didn't care about Clawson's track record as an OC....I don't care what Loeffler did before he got here. The skill sets required are different. My concern with Loeffler is what he's doing here. Minnesota was a great, unexpected win...so was the Toledo game in 2019. If you can't build off a win like that...they mean less.

Kent and Akron should have been building blocks...they weren't

Very true.

Only reason I bring up Loeffler's resume is because until proven otherwise I'll readily admit I don't like his resume and it will always frame my judgement of what he's doing here. But taken on its own what he's done here is underwhelming at best.

I'm a Browns fan, and have been forever. I cannot even remember the number of times over the years where they'd show some promise late in the year and it wouldn't carry over to next season. Or they'd unexpectedly pull off a win then get throttled against a lesser opponent the following week. Until you can start stacking good performances back to back, the handful of them we've seen just feel like anomalies. Beating Minnesota & UT were great, but when you follow it up to losing by 2 TDs against some of the worst teams in D1? Meh, meh, meh...

I was also never a fan of Clawson's offense or his track record as an OC, but he had a very proven track record as a HC. And as Flip stated, the skills are definitely different. The big difference here is Loeffler has no track record as a HC to fall back on, and the evidence we've seen is again, BAD.

[TommyG]

You have a bad coach and a bad AD. Football isn’t winning anything until both are gone.