Paul Rhoads won games with Steele Jantz. Tom Herman knew how to put people in a position to succeed.
If there are several different areas of the offense that suck and nothing is changing, the blame is solely on the offensive coordinator.
The blame is on the HC - the Offensive coordinator does not run the football program. He works for the HC not the other way around. I know people love crapping on Manning but 100%, Manning is not doing anything that CMC has signed off on or has approved.
That's just how college football and even NFL works. The head coach has final say. This idea that somehow Tom Manning has put in a play book and system that is operating outside of CMC is just crazy to me.
Tom Manning is a crap play caller - that is on him.
The overall scheme and system of the offense though CMC. I'm sure he has input but the idea that he is the head of the snake when it comes to the offense is absurd. CMC is a former offensive line coach and offensive coordinator so his finger prints all over. Because the offense looked essentially the same scheme wise while Manning was in Indianapolis.
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Which is why ultimately the fate is up to Campbell. Will he allow someone from outside to come in and run their own offense? We saw how that played out at Nebraska where Frost clashed with Whipple from day one almost after the loss to Northwestern.
Or does he bring back a guy like Golesh who has had experiencee outside of Iowa State but knows the scheme and philosophy and thinks window dressing by changing the play caller is the answer?
Or does he trust so much in his staff and system that he changes nothing. That's the most fascinating part of the rest of the season and off-season.
But while Tom Manning deserves a fair bit of blame and criticism for the overall play calling - he's not the head of the totem pole. Some, and I'm not close to know what percentage goes where. but in no system is a coordinator 100% to blame for something.
They can be 100% for being crap - but if the HC didn't approve, he'd change it. Its just that simple. The fact that we continue to beat our head against a brick wall by running over and over again into the teeth of the defense despite the numerous examples that it won't work - that is not a Tom Manning alone decision. That's a offensive staff - including CMC - thing where that's what they decided to put into the game plan when they had meetings and during the week leading up to the game.
That's what disappoints me more than play calling. They had two weeks and thought that running inside zone after not working for the majority of the season that a bye week was magically going to allow us to do something we've rarely done all year with great success and that because we were playing a bad rush defense it was somehow going to work? That's not how football or life works