Stitt-alicious

Submitted by alum96 on

Brian has unleashed the Bob Stitt genie - so off to google I went to research the man.   Here is an interesting USA Today story from 2 years ago.  File for use if there is a house cleaning at end of the year.  Or for those more risk averse - just marry Kevin Wilson with Stitt as his OC with Greg Mattison as his DC in 2015 and let's call it a day.  (asterisk this with "we have all the wrong players for such a system blah blah"  counterpoint: "begin recruiting petroleum engineers immediately")

LINK.

Takeaway quotes:

The best offensive mind you've never heard of was home Jan. 4, watching football way past his 7-year old son's bedtime. The Orange Bowl kept going later and later, the outcome long since decided, but Bob Stitt didn't want his family to miss a single snap. West Virginia just kept scoring and scoring, but even from 2,000 miles away in suburban Denver, Stitt couldn't help but feel a connection to one of the most important games of the season.

The Mountaineers eventually put up 70 points that night, running one play over and over that Clemson just couldn't stop. Stitt recognized the play immediately. He had invented it.

But we're gonna be Alabama and stuff...?  

Alabama's traditional, straightforward approach may be the gold-standard formula for winning national championships, but there is undoubtedly a philosophical shift taking place in college football. More and more coaches are ascending the ranks from nontraditional backgrounds, bringing unique ideas and changing the fabric of the sport.

Clemson offensive coordinator Chad Morris, the nation's highest-paid assistant, was a high school coach in Texas as recently as three years ago. It took more than a decade of setting high school records in Arkansas before Gus Malzahn got a shot on the college level, where his wide-open offense almost instantly became the toast of the SEC. Chip Kelly spent 13 years toiling in anonymity at New Hampshire, honing an up-tempo system that has produced a 42-6 career record at Oregon. Hugh Freeze, a longtime high school coach in Memphis, blazed a trail of touchdowns from Lambuth, an NAIA school, to Arkansas State to a head coaching job at Ole Miss all in the span of four years.

Zoom zoom

And if you set out to discover who that next innovator might be, you'll invariably be led to a tiny engineering school nestled in the Rocky Mountain foothills where Stitt, 48, has built a consistent winner and done things offensively that programs like West Virginia, Texas A&M, Louisiana Tech and Cincinnati have borrowed.

Oh really? 

Stitt says he'd be willing to move up as an offensive coordinator, but only if the head coach would give him total offensive control. It's not difficult to see why he's so well-regarded in coaching circles, especially by those who run wide-open offenses. At 6-3, Stitt is closing in on his 11th winning season in 13 years. In all but a few of those years, the Orediggers, who play in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, have ranked among the top-10 in Div. II in passing offense. This season, his sophomore quarterback Matt Brown is the nation's leading passer, throwing for 3,424 yards and averaging 34.5 completions per game.

Yes but Colorado School of Mines is full of big time athletes...

And all of this is happening at a school of 5,200 of engineering majors where the average ACT score is 29. His recruiting strategy is largely built around the school's petroleum engineering program, which plays well in Texas high schools.

Just like Borges...

At a place like Mines, which has almost no recruiting advantages, offensive creativity would be paramount. He didn't have receivers who could beat press coverage, so he became an expert on the back-shoulder fade pass. His offensive line couldn't block a quick nose tackle one on one, so he ran the option out of the shotgun, and it took a year for defensive coordinators to figure it out. He put in blocking schemes intended to give defenses false reads. He saved his best plays for red zone packages, figuring that his conversion percentage in those situations would be the difference between winning and losing games.

JohnnyBlue

September 26th, 2014 at 8:58 PM ^

So Devils advocate here.... I loved either creativeness. But so cell 2004 he hasn't repeated the success. Great coach at d2. Maybe someone to take a flyer on as a oc but not a head coach for Michigan .... But honestly his resume is less impressive than Hoke

alum96

September 26th, 2014 at 9:01 PM ^

Taking a guy like this on as a HC would be a massive risk ala Tressel.  But he said he is willing to be an OC at a major team rather than HC. 

Hell I am at the point I wish some grad assistant had called him for some ideas in the past 7 years.  Forget hiring him.

p.s. here is the play that WVA ran in the bowl that is Stitt's.  Obviously it is not so much the idea of any 1 play (which eventually would be stopped) but someone forced to be innovative - and constantly doing so just to succeed - that is intriguing I suppose.

 

 

alum96

September 26th, 2014 at 9:36 PM ^

Brian is one wild and crazy guy - I don't dare to speak for him or be inside his mind.

But my inference is Brian is going to drop a load of Stitt on us all ... for HC... if things don't turn around.

 

Loss will cause me to... publish that post I'm drafting about coaches to keep an eye on, probably advocate Bob Stitt way too much, but seriously Bob Stitt is football Beilein you like Beilein don't you LET'S GO BOB STITT.

Win will cause me to... seriously you should consider Bob Stitt but I guess it can wait

Note - Brian is so excited about the Stitt-wagon he didn't even have time to put a period after the word wait.

CalifExile

September 27th, 2014 at 2:40 PM ^

That's Brian mocking the banal offerings of "journalists." His revision lets you know the subject of the link so you can go there if you want to do so, but he's warning you that you won't actually learn anything if you do so.

(Apparently those became the 2nd and 6th articles since you posted).

alum96

September 26th, 2014 at 9:14 PM ^

Brian will be released a Ken Burns style 14 segment Bob Stitt series in a few weeks for the masses.

In the interim, I am simply throwing some spaghetti against the wall on a Friday night as I prepare mentally for a series of offensive LOL moments in 18 hrs.  Then in about 22 hrs I can watch football teams do cool offensive things at fast speeds and say oh cool.

There is some rich irony here that his concepts seem to apply way more to a RR type offense than a Nuss offense, and he helped West Virginia's coach put up zilly numbers in a bowl game.   After RR was gone of course.

SFBlue

September 26th, 2014 at 9:10 PM ^

Well this is a refreshing break from the steady drumming of yearning for Harbaugh.  But a major programming mining (no pun intended) from a D-II program for an HC is unprecedented, and Michigan's new AD is going to feel pressure to ink a known name. 

a2_electricboogaloo

September 26th, 2014 at 9:33 PM ^

I agree, especially after taking Hoke, who was a relatively unknown guy for most Michigan fans at the time of his hire, and having that not work out great.  People will want Michigan to get a huge name (like Urban Meyer @OSU).  That being said, if we could get this guy in as an OC, that'd be phenomenal  (mind you, I still haven't thrown in the towel on Nussmeier yet, but so far things haven't looked promising with him).

MGoStrength

September 26th, 2014 at 9:11 PM ^

If and I mean if Hoke is gone next year, almost the opposite of what RR went through, almost any new coach should be able to come in and be pretty good right away.  There will be a pretty loaded defense and finally mostly rising juniors all over the offensive side of the ball who are mostly highly rated recruits with quite a bit of experience.  Most coaches of the pedigree that UM would hire should be fairly successful fairly quickly.  The term rebuilding should really be over in 2015.

reshp1

September 26th, 2014 at 10:58 PM ^

Depends on attrition and recruiting impact, as well as how much the new guy's systems can use the guys we have.

It's certainly possible to have instant success, but definitely not guaranteed. And then we might have a Hoke in 2011 situation were the guys getting older have a great season, but a hole in 2015 recruiting and attrition hits us a couple years later.

ThadMattasagoblin

September 26th, 2014 at 9:29 PM ^

The problem isn't in the style of offense. It's the fact that we can't block for anyone and our personnel. Remember when Nussmeier was suppose to come in and change the scheme and we'd be vastly better.

a2_electricboogaloo

September 26th, 2014 at 9:37 PM ^

He didn't have receivers who could beat press coverage, so he became an expert on the back-shoulder fade pass. His offensive line couldn't block a quick nose tackle one on one, so he ran the option out of the shotgun, and it took a year for defensive coordinators to figure it out. He put in blocking schemes intended to give defenses false reads. He saved his best plays for red zone packages, figuring that his conversion percentage in those situations would be the difference between winning and losing games.

It's about how he creatively compensates his offenses in order to minimize his teams weaknesses (and does so in an very good way), rather than continues to shoehorn an offense that doesn't fit his personnel.

Gulogulo37

September 27th, 2014 at 5:31 AM ^

If Hoke is fired and we're seriously not over the fact that there are other good coaches out there, Michigan will be doomed again unless we get extremely lucky with the Harbaughs or Miles.

Hire Ron English!