SCRooster - have you met Roper?

Lol what are your concerns?

#lurkersunite

Very positive report on Roper. I said before the year all coaches got a pass (except Elliott) because of what the inherited. I stand by it today, I wasn't one of those guys blasting Roper all year. He had zero to work with and showed gradual improvement IMO. Our schedule was very weak, and our lack of talent really showed against Clemson. Spurrier in his prime, Mike Leach, Tom Herman, and Urban Meyer couldn't have coached our group to do much better against them that night. Thanks Spurrier jr.

Any insight on the OL coach we're going to hire, rooster?

I appreciate the response. To reply to the other poster and why I said I have concerns, these are issues that really concern me....

First, there are plenty of examples every year where a new OC takes over a previously very bad offense and there is a dramatic improvement in year 1. We can look at Mizzou this year as an example....they have a new coaching staff and a new OC and went from 268 ypg last year to 482 ypg this year, an improvement from an offense ranked 125 last year nationally to 21 this year (FBS game stats). VT had a new coaching staff this year with a new OC (their HC) and their offense improved from 85th nationally last year to 35th this year.

The offensive side of the ball is historically easier than the defense to turn around quickly and when an offense was really bad the previous year, a good OC can often show dramatic improvement in his first year. Our offense was really bad in 2015, we ranked 101 nationally. Our head coach quit mid-season, our best qb was a 5'10" walkon and we played and extra road game after our city got flooded. Having a better offense in 2016 than we had in 2015 is not setting the bar too high in my opinion, yet we not only didn't get better we got worse. Our 2016 offense is ranked 122 nationally in ypg. There are only 6 teams ranked lower.

Some may point to offensive improvement as the season went along, but I don't think we did improve. UMass and WCU were obviously the weakest teams we played and those games were in the last half of the year, which helped the stats. Some will point to the UT game as proof of offensive improvement and the highlight of the season, but UT's defense is simply awful. We got 325 yards of offense against UT, which was UT's best defensive performance of the season against a Power 5 school....only App State, UT-Chat and Ohio U had less yards against UT than we did. After holding us to only 325 yards of offense, UT's following games included giving up 600+ yards to UK, 700+ yards to Mizzou and 600+ yards to Vandy. Even in our best game of the year, the overall stats show our offense was bad. Then of course, our offense looked absolutely horrid against the good defenses of UF and Clem.

I thought in our early games that we needed a qb and the offense would get better. Bentley was inserted and the offense improved some but those better offensive performances were home games against our weakest opponents. Maybe BMac got a bit of a bad rap for his struggles in early games....could our problems have been more about the offensive itself and less a qb issue?

I hear you and many other say the playbook will be "opened up" next year. I have read that Roper has said the players needed to execute better before more of the playbook was installed....I don't know if Roper said it but I've also read "only 50% of the playbook" is being used. These comments by Roper, if true, sound very Whammy-ish to me and that is very concerning. Why can't the players "execute" the plays by games 10, 11 and 12 of the season? I see Hayden Hurst, who we all agree is a great athlete and many say will play in the NFL, look lost trying to find his block in game 10 and 11 of the season....if an athlete of his caliber is still not executing by game 10, that's not on Hayden that's on the coaching, or the offensive scheme or whatever one wants to call it, but that's not on the player. If the players are having trouble executing Roper's offense by game 10, maybe this is an offense that isn't "executable" at SC or at UF. Maybe it can executed at Duke and the NFL but not with SEC student-athletes.

I mention UF because some point to Roper's one year at UF as proof he can turn around an offense. UF ranked 113 nationally the year before Roper arrived and averaged 320 ypg. Roper improved the offense to a 97 national ranking and 362 ypg in 2014. But here's the thing, in 2013 UF's OC had to deal with the season ending injury losses to his top two qb's, his starting RB and THREE starting offensive tackles. Those injuries would devastate most any offense, and yet Roper barely improved the offense the following year.

Jeff Driskel, a highly rated qb, was one of those UF qb's who was lost to season ending injury in 2013. He was available for Roper in 2014. Driskel started the first 6 games before being benched due to lack of production and interceptions. Driskel graduated and then transferred to La Tech for the 2015 season. In his one season at La Tech he threw for 4,000+ yards for third best in school history. He was drafted in the 6th round by the 49ers.

I wrote all the above because it is these things and many others that make me wonder what kind of OC we actually have. Is he really any good? What's on his resume that says he is? Muschamp hired him from Duke but is any offensive success at Duke gonna be solely attributed to the OC with qb master David Cutcliff as the HC? Even if we did attribute Duke's offense to Roper, his last two years at Duke the Duke offense only ranked 50 and 53 nationally, so he wasn't exactly setting the world on fire.

So is our OC any good, or are we just hoping he will be because there is really nothing that says he is? I look at his resume and I don't know what there is that says he will be a good OC. In fact, based on the stats, it looks like the best we can expect is Roper will be an average OC, and how long will it take to get to average? We went backwards in 2016 so now were hoping for a major improvement in the offense in 2017 that gets us to what....95 nationally? That is still awful.

Does Muschamp have the time to wait for Roper to become average here. Due to Muschamp's reputation about his offenses and his UF baggage, I don't think Muschamp has the luxury to be patient with his offense. We should have seen significant improvement in the offense this year over 2015 simply because our offense was so bad in 2015, yet somehow Roper made it worse....which is all the more shocking given how important it was for Muschamp to show he can field at least an average offense.

I'm looking for reasons why other Gamecocks believe Roper will be a good OC. I don't think we have anything to go on except hope.

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I appreciate the response. To reply to the other poster and why I said I have concerns, these are issues that really concern me....

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Have a TL;DR version?

TL;DR is that Roper's numbers coming in as a new OC were not that good anywhere he went really, it's easier to recreate offense than defense, worried that Roper isn't coaching them up on execution so they can learn the other 50% of the playbook.

Roper can't be fired after one year and I'm not calling for that. I don't know what his history of successes are you refer to, that's actually my question....what are those successes?

The alternative is to give a guy who does have a long resume of offensive success more influence in the offense. Give a guy with a similar resume as Gus Malzahn, Art Briles and Chad Morris more a opportunties at calling the plays.

Because of where we are offensively after one year with Roper and because Muschamp has the reputation he has regarding his offense, it's not like Roper can be given a long leash. Muschamp won't last here that long because the mood will change from patience to "he's repeating his UF failure" real quick.

I would like to see what Bobby Bentley can do sooner rather than later. I think we're heading there by game 6 or 7 next year anyway.

IDK if Roper can't be fired after 1 year. Roper has $700K left on his 2yr contract. We aren't paying any other old/former coaches at this time.

USF's defense is awful, very very awful. We should be able to run the ball on them all day, even though our rushing offense isn't as good as theirs. Also, their pass defense might just be even worse than their rush defense. This is a game where Bentley should complete 65%+ of his passes. USF got to 10 wins this year b/c their offense is awesome and they can just outpace/outscore almost everyone they play. It's like a Big12 Offense from a few years ago.

Roper should be able to put together a gameplan that gets us north of 35 points, b/c that's what it's going to take. If he gets held to jack shite (10 pts or less) by a bad USF defense... even with a new OL Coach... but they had 3 weeks to prepare for this game, I think he could/should be let go. If we end up losing 42-38, then it is what it is and we just got beat by a better team, and we should give Roper some more rope. If Roper wins this game 45-35, then we know we'll really have taken a step in the right direction with him.

Well, I don't think Roper should be fired even if we only get 10 points against USF....just wouldn't look good to only give him one season.

But, we only average 10 points a game away from home and every team we played late in the year...Mizzou, UT, etc. held us to fewer points than they gave up on average (i.e., we were one of their better defensive games). USF allows 32 points a game. If trends hold, we won't score 30 in the bowl game.

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But Bobby is already heavily involved with the offense, the strategy, the game planning and the play calling.

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You're comment is the first I've heard that he is anything other than a RB coach. Bentley, for me, is what I place more hope in right now for the near future....so if he can't help us more than what we've seen then you're right, there is no other alternative right now.

As to your other comments about Roper's successes, all those you listed were times working directly under David Cutcliff. But like I said, even excluding Cutcliff from the situation, Roper's last two years at Duke the offenses were merely average and ranked 50 and 52 nationally.

I don't know Roper and have no personal bias. I just really, really did not expect our offense to get worse in 2016 from 2015. There are so many examples every year where a new offensive system is inserted and a team makes significant improvement in year 1. I don't know if there is a way to quickly search the stats, but I would bet that anytime a new OC doesn't improve a previously very bad offense that OC turns out not to be successful.

Some say Roper will need 3 years because of our lack of talent. I just can't see that being reasonable. Any OC considered "good" has proven his mettle in 2-3 years and by the end of year 3 is often hired away to a better program or a HC job. It just doesn't take good OC's 3 years to prove themselves.

I was fine with the Roper hire though some questioned it. I assumed, given how important the offense would be to Muschamp's success that Muschamp would hire the best possible OC he could. It wasn't until the end of this season and I looked at our stats that I began to question what kind of OC we've got.

Honestly, that Clem game pushed me over the edge. SCRooster, I know by reading your posts your very involved and a longtime Gamecock....for me, that Clem game is something I will have a hard time forgiving our coaching staff. It will take me a long time to get past that performance and I lay most of that blame on the offense. Most haven't taken the time to look it up, but I did, and there was a point in the game when Clem had 42 points and we had 43 yards of total offense. I've seen a lot of bad SC football in my life but that was the lowest and I'm convinced the old staff would have put on a better performance.

So it was in the last few weeks I started really looking at Roper's resume. I'm not impressed and I'm not excited for the future of our offense. Roper was never more than an average OC even after year's in the job at Duke. I remember when Roper took the job at UF and wondered what kind of quality coordinator would take a job with such an uncertain future....everyone knew Muschamp was on a white-hot seat. I went back and read about that coaching search...Roper wasn't one of the top candidates. Then, after the Muschamp's UF staff was fired, Roper was considered by Richt for the Georgia OC but Richt passed on him. Then Roper takes what I imagine was at least a $500K paycut to work with the worst franchise in the NFL.

At this point I'm just hoping Roper will get us an average offense. Spurrier proved we can win with a dominant defense and only an average offense. If Roper can be an average OC that will be ok, but like I said, we went backwards this year so if we consider progress moving our offensive ranking up 30 spots nationally then that only gets us to 92 next year. Will a 92 national ranking be enough to retain Roper?