I'm sure some of the early season troubles can be blamed on the oline. I also think some can be blamed on Mullen for pulling fitz vs USA, wr drops, rb personnel decisions, and fitz getting comfortable.
I'll agree on those points. Early season with exception of AU & KY the D actually played good enough for us to win. It's a combination of many things this past year, thus my giving the whole staff rope to see what happens next year. With the flipped schedule I'll probably give them some rope next year too on the overall record (as long as we don't play 2 hand touch football for about 6 of the 12 games).
2018 is a different story tho.
How many points did LSU score in the 2nd half? Were they playing their backups? Were they playing prevent? If not, it wasn't "garbage time". If they were, then it was just another example of Les Miles having yet another brain-fart and doing something really stupid.
RP, I know we sucked ass most of the game...but LSU also sucked a large part of the 2nd half. In any case, I just don't think you can call it "garbage time" unless the game is truly out-of-reach, and the team ahead has shifted to prevent and/or gone to backups.
The very fact that we were able to get within 3 and force an LSU punt from deep in their territory with over 2 minutes left is evidence it wasn't garbage time. That doesn't mean we weren't out-played overall....just that I don't think it qualifies as "garbage time". Had we managed to pull that one out, we would have "stolen" one.
I think that was Hevesy being a blind squirrel finding a nut after Calhoun got hurt because that caused us to play Jenkins more at LG and move Desper to RG and then everything suddenly clicked. Why was he not able to figure that out before midseason? So, I think it goes deeper than just recruiting with him. He misevaluates our guys and where they fit in sometimes as well. And that hurts us a lot too. Had those injuries not happened who knows what happens?
I think his strength is he knows a lot about how to play o-line which is a good thing obviously but at the end of the day there's more to it and in college you have to be able to recruit, evaluate, and figure out where all the pieces go.
And to be totally fair we have had personnel issues at other position groups as well. But you are right there are too many obvious issues with him that it's hard to look past the recruiting issues alone. It's just shocking that he has been allowed to go on for so long as is. Even Croom was going to demote McCorvey before he got fired and Byrne never gave him a chance to do it- not that I'm complaining but just saying it's bad when Croom has more insight into what's holding the team back than Dan. It's going to take Cohen and/or the boosters stepping up to fix it. And going back to the title of the thread, I would definitely tell Dan no extension if Hevesy is still on the field coaching with the option to demote vs. firing him.
Hev's history:
He was OL coach at Florida, then Mullen brought in Addazio as Centers/Guards coach and "moved" Hev to OT/TE coach. That was not necessarily a demotion, just a change. Then the next year, he made Addazio OL coach and moved Hev to TE coach. The no way to put lipstick on that pig. I have no idea if Meyer was really going to fire Hev when Mullen hired him, but he does usually have an ace recruiter at the TE coach position. (Hev is not an ace recruiter.)
Since many agree that Hev can coach OL but not recruit OL, does anyone have any facts as to who Hev recruited/signed on the OL at Florida? Was he signing 4 and 5 star OL recruits for them?
By the way, per the OP's subject title in this thread, is there any indication that Mullen firing Hev is anything other than wishful thinking? Just because people say it over and over on the message boards doesn't mean it is anywhere close to happening, but some talk as if Cohen will make it happen, etc. Cohen or any other AD anywhere isn't about to tell a head coach to fire an assistant position coach, especially two years from a record-setting offense.
He signed Percy Harvin, if I'm not mistaken.
Here is the thing. First off I've said several times now we should replace him. He can coach OL but his recruiting is crap for the most part. Now when he actually recruits at times he can hit it out of the park. Chris Jones, Dak, etc. guys who like him (because nobody talks about this side of the equation) really really like him. But he is going to hit .150 and strikeout 225 times in a season. The reward for his coaching is not overcoming his recruiting risks. I don't care if an OL coach is a great recruiter, that irrelevant to me. But he can't be a detriment either.
ETA. My bad, Gonzo signed Harvin. Chris Jones and Rankin are his 2 highest recruits here and of course he got Dak.
Name someone on our staff besides Mullen with 3 better signees than Percy Harvin, Chris Jones and Dak Prescott. Hev might be only batting .125 but that's with 3 walkoff grand slams in the World Series. Seems the error here is on who we place Hev with to recruit. Identify the type that love him and pair him with those guys.
I've decided to hang for 2 more years and see if we can have another peak as good as or better than '14 with whatever staff Mullen decides upon. Cause ultimately ... Dan will get the credit if we peak and IMO should get the blame if we don't get there.
In '18, anything less than 10 regular season wins I'd be questioning personally. Fitz will be a RS senior. Key and Kyllin Hill will be RS freshmen probably. We should be loaded at RB. The 2015 stud recruiting class will be seniors, or RS juniors. These Jucos we just signed will be seniors. There shouldn't be any excuses or moral victories that year. No excuses about RBs that can't pass block. No moral victories like "Well if Dan had just called that timeout against LSU" or "if we had just made that FG" or anything like that. I think we should expect to beat everyone in the west, but will accept a close loss to Bama.
It's up to Dan to get all this melded together and working almost as precise as "the process" just east of Starkville. If he doesn't then it's on him IMO. We'll see what happens.
Those aren't the only high profile croots Hev has gotten or helped out with. I think the real point here is that Hev doesn't have any problems recruiting players who don't have to play directly for him in the near future. I suppose it's semantics though since whatever the root problem is, there's been no signs in 8 years that's it's attempting to be solved.