Help is on the Way?
I could find neither a suitable picture for Mr. Uecker here, nor a picture of High Street’s rapping sentinel. Still, this headline and post is necessary. Duane Long published a post about the new hire of Keith Uecker from Wayne State. Uecker, a former offensive lineman for the Auburn WarTigerEagles and longtime guard for the Green Bay Packers, is expected to fill the vacancy of Offensive Quality Control Coach. That position was previously held by Nick Siciliano, who has moved up to QB coach with Joe Daniels taking an advisory role due to his unfortunate illness.
Why would this be important? Long provides the grounds for optimism:
I speak to coaches all the time. Some have their little kingdoms and that is all they are interested in but most love the game and you can learn so much from them. My coach network could not be more excited about this hire. This is a guy highly thought of in the fraternity of coaches. He is a tough guy who believes in a physical approach to the game. He is a technician too. If JT uses him like he used Siciliano, it could have a major impact on our offensive line. Maybe Bollman trying to coach the offensive line and run the offense is part of the problem. Either way I like what I am hearing.
Assuming there’s no hyperbole in that post — and I doubt there is — why not share in the optimism? The first comment on the post from a guy identifying himself as a former player at Akron under Uecker bodes well too. The offensive line has been the weakest position at Ohio State in my view, and the view of a lot of you as well. Proper form and technique has been absent in Bollman’s blocking scheme. The hire of a former NFLer with 10 years experience, and a highly respected coach of the position, should only be helpful moving forward. This should be more obviously so if Bollman relinquishes his role as OL coach in favor of managing the offense, an idea that Long touches on but never quite suggests affirmatively. Doubts still linger from the lot of Buckeye fans about Bollman altogether, but delegating responsibilities for that unit is a more than adequate program change if Bollman is to remain on staff.
Either way, this is certainly good news for fans of Ohio State football and we welcome Keith Uecker to the staff. May death come swiftly to his enemies.
Well, this certainly appears to be good news. I feel a lot better after working my way past your 1st sentence; “I could find neither a suitable picture for Mr. Uecker…”, I thought ‘WTF, why would we hire Bob Uecker?!’. Good thing I read the entire article.
I hope to God Mr. Uecker (Keith not Bob) is given responsibility to teach and develop the o-linemen. Just by looking at the guy (Mr. Uecker to you) I don’t think I’d want to f#ck with him, looks like he can still take care of himself.
I came ( ) <– that close to putting a picture of Harry Doyle as the designated image of the post.
It looks like a good deal for us. Though he doesn’t have a Masters degree, that’ll likely be required of him when he gets here. Besides, nobody offers a degree in football anyways (what’s the size of that industry, and you can’t get a degree in it?? For shame!!).
HELP IS ON THE WAAAAY!!!
WestNinth – one hundred cocktails to you, sir. I actually haven’t walked on High Street between 15th and 8th in about a year and a half – is that guy still around?
Sweet! Hopefully the O line stops impersonating swiss cheese or a French defensive line. btw the link for Long’s post takes you to Uecker’s profile.
O-H!
And you should have done the Harry Doyle pic, Vico – just because a joke is so obvious doesn’t mean it’s not funny.
Maybe somebody can help me out with something: isn’t the primary responsibility of an Offensive Coordinator to game-plan and call plays? Leaving aside his OL coaching duties, what exactly has Bollman been doing all this time? Everything I’ve ever heard from Tressel on the subject is basically meaningless Senator-speak. But Tressel calls the plays, right? As in, makes the final decision about which play gets called? So even if Bollman is presenting Tress with options, is that necessarily a task that’s commensurate with his title? I really don’t know the answers to these questions, so can anybody with any knowledge, or even just third-hand “inside info”, tell me: aside from coaching the offensive line, what exactly does Bollman do?
@ El Caballo de Sangre, re: what Bollman does exactly
Give mustache rides?
Finally, someone with non-Big10 experience and perspective. I’ve been saying that I thought we had a little nepotism problem with the staff. This could be huge IMO. I hope the first thing he does is body slam Bryant Browning and threaten death if he misses another assignment. If Pryor has a break-out year EVERYONE will be dry humping Siciliano in the media. His stock will rocket up.
Uecker just sounds bad-ass.
Its a misnomer to say JT calls the plays. JT has veto power overtheplay call, but I remember reading somewhere that that happens maybe once a game. Lets face it. If your game plan is done right, there should be a very small opportunity to deviate from it. The play is clled upstairs and JT sends the play in.
This sounds really good , I hope this hire does light a fire / spark into our Offense. A former NFLer with 10 yrs experience………..should be good mojo for the players to take it and run with it.
Oh and Seth4Bucks…………..
I-O……..
So, does “upstairs” = Bollman? Plus you always see Tressel jawing with the people upstairs between plays; I’m pretty sure he’s not just saying “What’s the play?”, or “hurry up and gimme a play”, or counting down the play clock – he’s CONFERRING with “upstairs” about what play is right for the down/distance/personnel (both teams’)/game situation/etc., with a little coach’s instinct thrown in about when it’s time to call “Fifty Yard Touchdown”.
Tress is an honorable man, but I don’t believe FOR ONE SECOND his passive formulation that the play simply comes down from upstairs and he simply passes it along, having nothing to do with the play-CALLING other than a veto every once in a while – that’s the kind of Senator-speak I was referring to before. One of the reasons I don’t believe it is that the last couple years, most of what we hear from him about the process has come in the context of being asked about what the hell is WRONG with the offense, play-calling, etc. – he’s a loyal guy and he’s not about to throw Bollman (or anybody else, including himself, of course) under the bus in public. Whatever the nuts and bolts of the process are, Tressel is definitely running it, which is to say COORDINATING it (contrast this with the defense, where he pretty much totally leaves Heacock alone to do as he will).
This is all as you would expect, given his playing/assistant coaching career. And everybody knows that as long as Tressel’s around, Ohio State is going to have a BASICALLY conservative, ball-control-and-field-position-based overall offensive approach (with flexibility; see 2006). But that doesn’t have to mean plodding, boring, and totally conventional – there’s room for attitude and aggressiveness. I don’t think anybody wants Tress to turn into Steve “IN THE 2ND QUARTER, I WILL CALL A TRICK PLAY” Spurrier; what most of us are hoping/asking for is something, ANYTHING to break up the vanilla, self-defeatingly risk-averse Tressel-Bollman feedback loop. Hopefully Uecker can provide that, and – more importantly – maybe it’s a sign that Tressel understands the problem ITSELF rather than just liking Uecker in particular.
(ed. note – “Fifty Yard Touchdown” and “Steve ‘IN THE 2ND QUARTER, I WILL CALL A TRICK PLAY’ Spurrier” shamelessly stolen from EDSBS)