Bob Shoop and Brian Jean-Mary: CliffsNotes version
A couple of commenters said my post on Bob Shoop and Brian Jean-Mary could have been abbreviated. So here's the CliffsNotes version.
Bob Shoop
Vanderbuilt, DC/S, 2011 to 2013
Year: Defensive Rank
BEFORE
2006: #74
2007: #17
2008: #30
2009: #56
2010: #93
WHILE THERE
2011: #18
2012: #19
2013: #23
AFTER
2014: #69
2015: #27
2016: #64
2017: #66
2018: #99
Penn St., DC/S, 2014 to 2015
Year: Defensive Rank
BEFORE
2009: #9
2010: #35
2011: #20
2012: #29
2013: #47
WHILE THERE
2014: #2
2015: #14
AFTER
2016: #37
2017: #7
2018: #34
2019: #33
Tennessee, DC, 2016 to 2017
Year: Defensive Rank
BEFORE
2011: # 28
2012: #110
2013: #84
2014: #37
2015: #36
WHILE THERE
2016: #95
2017: #82
AFTER
2018: #49
2019: #23
A sports radio station in Tennessee tried to find reasons why Tennessee's defense dropped off with Bob Shoop when it was expected there would be clear improvement, like had happened at Vanderbilt and Penn St:
For a man that took a Vanderbilt defense ranked 94th in the nation in 2010 and turned them into a top 20 defense in just a year, and then took a beaten, sanctioned Penn State defense ranked 49th in the nation and turned them into the second ranked defense in the nation, you think Shoop would just absolutely kill it his first year as defensive coordinator....
....But during that game against Virginia Tech, linebacker Darrin Kirkland Jr. and defensive end LaTroy Lewis both got injured in what marked the beginning for an awful trend of injuries that would plague the Vols defense for the entire season....
Mississippi St., DC/S, 2018 to 2019
Year: Defensive Rank
BEFORE
2013: #18
2014: #86
2015: #57
2016: #110
2017: #10
WHILE THERE
2018: #1
2019: #72
AFTER
2020: No stats yet
Brian Jean-Mary
USF, DC/LB, 2017 to 2019
Year: Defensive Rank
BEFORE
2012: #67
2013: #22
2014: #72
2015: #53
2016: #120
WHILE THERE
2017: #36
2018: #104
2019: #71
AFTER
2020: No stats yet
January 19th, 2020 at 1:00 PM ^
Nice! Thanks for posting that. +1
January 19th, 2020 at 1:05 PM ^
This is great and thanks for putting in the time and effort to capture this intel.
Im not trying to thread jack - and I apologize if I missed this in the week’s embattled threads about possible hires- but what is the status of Tank? Is he still being promoted and / or supporting recruiting? While I didn’t necessarily want to elevate him to lofty levels, I was really hoping he’d get a shot. By all accounts, he sounds like a great guy who has earned a chance to prove himself.
January 19th, 2020 at 1:05 PM ^
What would this same comparison look like for one Don Brown?
Im assuming his haters would not want that context. ?
January 19th, 2020 at 1:29 PM ^
Here are the only Don Brown numbers that matter.
30
31
62
56
January 19th, 2020 at 1:33 PM ^
Uh oh
January 19th, 2020 at 1:38 PM ^
That 62 is 55.
January 19th, 2020 at 2:05 PM ^
It's probably less than that. Michigan turned it over twice in + territory.
January 19th, 2020 at 2:50 PM ^
I agree. A short field certainly doesn't help the defense.
January 19th, 2020 at 2:19 PM ^
January 19th, 2020 at 3:33 PM ^
It’s one of my favorite pastimes
January 19th, 2020 at 8:03 PM ^
Schrodinger's DC
Look at him one way and you see a top 5 DC
Look at him another way and you see a guy who looks like he can't slow down OSU's 2nd team offense
January 20th, 2020 at 5:35 PM ^
I’m shocked th it s guy upvoted for saying only the osu game matters for brown. If maizen said that he would be downvoted.
January 19th, 2020 at 1:50 PM ^
Before Don Brown at Boston College:
2010: 13
2011: 70
2012: 102
During Don Brown at Boston College: Before Don Brown at UM:
2013: 93 2013: 40
2014: 11 2014: 7
2015: 1 2015: 4
After Don Brown at Boston College: During Don Brown at UM:
2016: 9 2016: 1
2017: 57 2017: 3
2018: 70 2018: 2
2019: 125 2019: 11
January 19th, 2020 at 2:21 PM ^
Thanks,
I remember Michigan 67 Illinois 65...
January 19th, 2020 at 3:47 PM ^
That ain’t nothin. At least we won the game.
I remember getting shut out byNotre Dame in 2014 while basically being walked on all over by them on both sides of the ball.
January 19th, 2020 at 5:06 PM ^
Bruh, in 2010 Michigan was 3-5 in the Conference and 7-6 overall
Sadly 4-4 at home (saved .500 by that 67-65 triple overtime win) bullied in losses to MSU, PSU, Wiscy and tOSU. Absolutely rolled in the bowl by Mississippi State?
Yeah, they won tho...
FFS
January 20th, 2020 at 3:53 PM ^
Did you forget we were even worse in 2014?
I’ll give you a hint: it wasn’t 7-6, and had gone down every year.
As bad as Rich Rod was (and I’m glad he’s gone, let that be stipulated) at least his wins went up every year. Hoke was fool’s gold, and the wins went DOWN every year with hom.
January 19th, 2020 at 2:23 PM ^
Here's the visual version for everyone with SP+ rankings:
Brown:
Shoop:
Jean-Mary:
January 19th, 2020 at 3:28 PM ^
Given the reply below where he left Penn St on less than ideal terms, it seems as though his teams improve dramatically at first, then there is a fall off. I wonder if he is the one who is difficult to work with and after some time on task, he grates on people and they tune him out.
January 19th, 2020 at 3:31 PM ^
Yeah, that's a good observation. I suppose Don Brown would be someone to know. Shoop worked for him as a graduate assistant and as a position coach at different stops.
January 19th, 2020 at 5:09 PM ^
Thing is, it's Browns' show and Shoop is probably a short term guest star.
January 19th, 2020 at 6:57 PM ^
If he is, he'll fit in nicely with Harbaugh.
January 19th, 2020 at 1:22 PM ^
Shoop is legitimately a top 10 DC in college football.
BJM is an excellent recruiter with extensive ties to Florida and Texas. He’s also been a coordinator, and his position groups have performed well.
To hire both of these men as position is coaches is really a coup. Once again, Jim seems to have taken a rocky staff turnover situation and made absolutely outstanding hires.
January 19th, 2020 at 8:24 PM ^
Agreed. I love both these hires, and probably couldn't have done better so late.
At first I didnt understand why Partridge would shackle his career with Kiffin, who it seems has a bad reputation. Then thinking about it, its a DC position in the SEC at a program that will do whatever it takes to get recruits, and the program might be a sleeping giant.
January 20th, 2020 at 12:49 PM ^
I think Ole Miss is a program with a pretty hard ceiling, but at the same time, like you said, it’s an SEC Coordinator job. It’s a really big promotion from Safeties and Special Teams Coach. Career trajectory wise it makes sense, even if the coach he’s working for now doesn’t have a great history it lasting employment.
January 19th, 2020 at 1:26 PM ^
Any ideas why Shoop left PSU? Tennessee is definitely a lateral at best move. Two years with a top 15 defense after 4 years of being in the twenties (and frequently worse) argues he was doing really well.
January 19th, 2020 at 1:28 PM ^
He got remarried, and Frames thought his former wife was hotter.
January 19th, 2020 at 1:44 PM ^
This is probably the truth. That's the first think I thought when I saw he left.
January 19th, 2020 at 1:50 PM ^
You never know with these things who he wasn’t getting along with or if he wanted to move back south or whatever. We tend to view these guys as just coaches making pure career moves but in reality they’re just guys doing a job.
January 19th, 2020 at 2:06 PM ^
It was a messy departure and UT only offered a little more money. There were lawsuits and a settlement between PSU and Shoops. Not talking about it is surely one of the conditions.
January 19th, 2020 at 3:29 PM ^
Thanks for the info!
January 19th, 2020 at 6:31 PM ^
What I heard:
Something - I don't know what - created an irreparable situation in 2015 between Shoop's wife and the PSU football program. And she told her husband she was leaving town one way or another. He left with her.
Happy wife, happy life.
January 19th, 2020 at 8:27 PM ^
Whoa ... wonder if this is related to the attitude toward the Sandusky pedophilia events. wonder if is was a woman with steadfast morals who didn't take it lightly to staffers who scoffed at the events. Maybe my timeline is off, but I've never heard of this before.
But I would bank on the wife being pissed that they expected him to travel so much for recruiting and never be home.
January 19th, 2020 at 1:46 PM ^
Bob Shoops is overqualified to be a position coach and will definitely bring good insight to the coaches room. I think it’s a clearly better hire than McElwain even though I would still prefer a young recruiter with a track record.
Jean-Mary is definitely a good hire. Probably a step down from Partridge who was an absolute ace but the fact that he has been recruiting coordinator at several places is invaluable considering how disorganized it seems like our recruiting has been. Not the same track record as a coach but there’s enough X’s and O’s Guys On this staff.
Overall, pretty good. Hope Tank stays around as the staff clearly sees him as an up and comer I just hope he’s not pissed at his promotion being pulled out from under him a bit.
January 19th, 2020 at 2:29 PM ^
You think Jean-Mary is a step down from Partridge as an X's and O's guy? It sounds like he has a strong coaching background beyond recruiting.
I'm kind of confused why people think Tank had a promotion pulled out from under him.
1) That would have been a shocking hire.
2) It hardly seems likely that Harbaugh would promise the job and then say nevermind.
3) Didn't we just have members of the media misinterpreting what it meant for Tank to help out in recruiting? I'll bet no one had solid info that Tank was offered the job. Harbaugh's had staffers step into a recruiting role every year after a coaching departure. He has to use someone on staff until he makes a new hire. Partridge got the promotion, others didn't. It's good experience for them either way.
January 19th, 2020 at 1:47 PM ^
Are these S&P+ adjusted defensive ranks? Didn't see it stated what ranks these are. Thanks.
January 19th, 2020 at 1:52 PM ^
From earlier post, ranking appears to be based on total yards allowed.
January 19th, 2020 at 2:40 PM ^
I made some line graphs in a post above that use SP+.
January 19th, 2020 at 2:54 PM ^
SP+ is definitely better than ypg unadjusted. Great graphs. I didn't realize how consistently good PSU's defense has been. Yikes-last few years 3 of the top 10 defenses in CFB have been in the B1G East.
January 19th, 2020 at 2:40 PM ^
I don't really pay attention to S&P.
Here's real numbers:
https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/years/2019-team-defense.html
January 19th, 2020 at 2:44 PM ^
Out of curiosity, why? Raw stats don't account for teams playing slow ball control offenses and for teams with weak schedules.
January 19th, 2020 at 2:14 PM ^
Shoop, Shoop...That's where it is
January 19th, 2020 at 3:45 PM ^
+1 for Cliff Notes!
January 19th, 2020 at 3:48 PM ^
Harbaugh is simply the best in the business at pulling together a coaching staff. These new hires are a prime example. Excellent coaches leave, better coaches are hired.
The depth of knowledge on the defensive staff has now increased significantly. There will be a lot more solutions available to solve the major problems that face us next year.
January 19th, 2020 at 4:46 PM ^
Good stuff, and thanks for capturing it in one place. As for Shoop's second year at Miss St., they had one of the youngest defenses in the country and lost at least one starter to injury, maybe more (I don't follow their depth chart in detail). But he's really a good hire and even a year or two of him (if he doesn't wins up taking over for Brown) will be beneficial.
January 19th, 2020 at 5:01 PM ^
Nice job summarizing. Thanks.
January 19th, 2020 at 6:05 PM ^
Much better! ?
January 19th, 2020 at 6:58 PM ^
So expect exactly 2 years of Shoop being here.