Ted Roof Comments

[Appstate88]

I say put Roof up in the press box and let Gasparato call the Defense plays on the field... Roof is like Biden...can’t hit a fast ball anymore.

[Mjohn1988]

Alabama lost to UL-Monroe in Saban’s first year. App lost to Liberty in Satterfield’s first year. There are countless other examples of teams losing games they should’ve won after they had a coaching change. Coaches bring new schemes and culture to a team, and that can cause some growing pains that result in losses. I was one of the people on this board calling for Satt’s head after the Liberty game. Then I coached high school for a while and learned what coaching takes. Roof may very well need to be fired. There’s no doubt our defense looked like trash today, but to say that a guy should be fired after two games is asinine. Florida State and Tennessee are garbage programs now because they have been so quick to fire guys. When you fire someone, typically you have to pay out the rest of their contract. Then you don’t have the money in the budget to get someone better, so you end up with someone worse, and the downward spiral continues. Roof gets this season. If the defense remains soft as wet tissue, he needs to go. But if he improves over the course of the season, you will all seem very silly.

I honestly think a lot of folks would have more patience if we didn’t have a shot at UNC this year. For a large portion of our fan base if we won just that game it would be one of the best seasons ever.

[mountaineerman]

Alabama lost to UL-Monroe in Saban’s first year. App lost to Liberty in Satterfield’s first year. There are countless other examples of teams losing games they should’ve won after they had a coaching change. Coaches bring new schemes and culture to a team, and that can cause some growing pains that result in losses. I was one of the people on this board calling for Satt’s head after the Liberty game. Then I coached high school for a while and learned what coaching takes. Roof may very well need to be fired. There’s no doubt our defense looked like trash today, but to say that a guy should be fired after two games is asinine. Florida State and Tennessee are garbage programs now because they have been so quick to fire guys. When you fire someone, typically you have to pay out the rest of their contract. Then you don’t have the money in the budget to get someone better, so you end up with someone worse, and the downward spiral continues. Roof gets this season. If the defense remains soft as wet tissue, he needs to go. But if he improves over the course of the season, you will all seem very silly.

I honestly think a lot of folks would have more patience if we didn’t have a shot at UNC this year. For a large portion of our fan base if we won just that game it would be one of the best seasons ever.

You are right MJ. This is the year..! talent ,schedule and shot to work the tarhells . It’s a shame that it will be tainted by a whole new coaching scheme.

[mountaineerman]

Alabama lost to UL-Monroe in Saban’s first year. App lost to Liberty in Satterfield’s first year. There are countless other examples of teams losing games they should’ve won after they had a coaching change. Coaches bring new schemes and culture to a team, and that can cause some growing pains that result in losses. I was one of the people on this board calling for Satt’s head after the Liberty game. Then I coached high school for a while and learned what coaching takes. Roof may very well need to be fired. There’s no doubt our defense looked like trash today, but to say that a guy should be fired after two games is asinine. Florida State and Tennessee are garbage programs now because they have been so quick to fire guys. When you fire someone, typically you have to pay out the rest of their contract. Then you don’t have the money in the budget to get someone better, so you end up with someone worse, and the downward spiral continues. Roof gets this season. If the defense remains soft as wet tissue, he needs to go. But if he improves over the course of the season, you will all seem very silly.

I honestly think a lot of folks would have more patience if we didn’t have a shot at UNC this year. For a large portion of our fan base if we won just that game it would be one of the best seasons ever.

You are right MJ. This is the year..! talent ,schedule and shot to work the tarhells . It’s a shame that it will be tainted by a whole new coaching scheme.

[appstatealum]

So let’s look at the numbers. Charlotte rushed for 240 yards on 41 carries. If you take away Lemays 58 yard run and Fingers 68 yard run, we held them to under 3 yards a carry. I infer from this that we don’t have a scheme problem but missed assignments. To the point made on the lack of adjustments on the slants, fair point, but you can only do so much. The game plan was probably stop the run and see if Reynolds could beat them. He played well enough to do it, with some nice dimes and he took advantage of our inexperienced corners. As a coach, you pick your poison and hope it doesn’t kill you.

Good observation, but you are wrong. This is a scheme problem. When you play your linebackers that shallow., you are allowing the opposing team to engage the linebackers too early. Our strength is speed and now you are negating it. Second issue is, our defenders were getting into the backfield too early and the patience of a Benny Lemay gave them the opportunity to suck our defense in and then hit the gap with nothing in the middle. This is scheme, and it is a bad scheme because it plays Against our strengths.

I was trying to be optimistic about Roof, but a two game aggregate is showing me that this is a disastrous hire. We shouldn't be rebuilding, we should be retooling. Offense looks solid, not sure about the negativity towards that.... Defense was nationally ranked last season.....

So let me ask you this. And I respect your opinion and observation on matters of strategy and execution, so it isn’t meant to be argumentative; those weren’t the only times that we pressed the line with our linebackers. They were just the two that killed us with long runs. It seemed to work more often than not.

I get that the Roof hire wasn’t well received, but who were we going to get to come in and run the defense the way we were accustomed? Woody wasn’t going to come back. Ivey wasn’t an option.

I get why Drink hired him and I’m sure that he is being evaluated like the other coaches. The players love him and he has seen a lot. I know the players took the onerous on them for today’s play. Let’s see how they respond.

I'll answer the scheme part here, I'll address some other things in the Moose Lodge.

Roof's base package was a three man front with Gaither, most of time, as a 4th on the line. The reason why Roof is running this hybrid 4-3 is because he knows that our LB Corp is a strength of this team. He is definitely not dumb enough to not have all 4 of those LBs out there. But he wants to run a 4-3. The problems this creates are in multiple areas.
1. The big runs- as I noted earlier, when your LBs are playing on or that shallow to the line, two things happen: Our speed gets us in the backfield quickly when blitzing, but a patient runner or zone scheme can negate that perceived advantage. Benny Lemay exploited that today with patient running. Second thing is, you are allowing for offensive lineman to engage your linebackers before they can read and react. Our linebackers aren't built to shed blocks, they are built to have space and read and react with speed. Flory and Gaither put on a clinic with this last year in a true 3-4. Having Stout clog the middle helps make this style look even better.

2. The short slants in space- again, your linebackers are playing too shallow and with playaction or a dual threat QB, our linebackers are having to remain shallow, or are being sucked inside. This scheme is putting a lot of pressure on our Safeties and outside DBs, which aren't exactly our strengths. Typically, our safeties were stretching out to provide help outside, and or one would come down to fill a gap when we blitzed. ETSU and Charlotte kept reading this and would slant over the middle where the safety wasn't at or pull receivers across the field and create opportunities for wheel routes or WR screens.

The only times we were making this look good is when our guys were getting to the QB (we blitzed alot) or when our DBs/LBs made great individual plays. But more often than not, this hybrid scheme was putti g our guys in bad spots creating large gaps in coverage. With a 3-4 like we played last few seasons, we played a lot of zone/cover 2 where we forced teams to throw over the top or in between coverage. It's a tough scheme to play with our personnel.

[Appstate88]

So let’s look at the numbers. Charlotte rushed for 240 yards on 41 carries. If you take away Lemays 58 yard run and Fingers 68 yard run, we held them to under 3 yards a carry. I infer from this that we don’t have a scheme problem but missed assignments. To the point made on the lack of adjustments on the slants, fair point, but you can only do so much. The game plan was probably stop the run and see if Reynolds could beat them. He played well enough to do it, with some nice dimes and he took advantage of our inexperienced corners. As a coach, you pick your poison and hope it doesn’t kill you.

Good observation, but you are wrong. This is a scheme problem. When you play your linebackers that shallow., you are allowing the opposing team to engage the linebackers too early. Our strength is speed and now you are negating it. Second issue is, our defenders were getting into the backfield too early and the patience of a Benny Lemay gave them the opportunity to suck our defense in and then hit the gap with nothing in the middle. This is scheme, and it is a bad scheme because it plays Against our strengths.

I was trying to be optimistic about Roof, but a two game aggregate is showing me that this is a disastrous hire. We shouldn't be rebuilding, we should be retooling. Offense looks solid, not sure about the negativity towards that.... Defense was nationally ranked last season.....

So let me ask you this. And I respect your opinion and observation on matters of strategy and execution, so it isn’t meant to be argumentative; those weren’t the only times that we pressed the line with our linebackers. They were just the two that killed us with long runs. It seemed to work more often than not.

I get that the Roof hire wasn’t well received, but who were we going to get to come in and run the defense the way we were accustomed? Woody wasn’t going to come back. Ivey wasn’t an option.

I get why Drink hired him and I’m sure that he is being evaluated like the other coaches. The players love him and he has seen a lot. I know the players took the onerous on them for today’s play. Let’s see how they respond.

I'll answer the scheme part here, I'll address some other things in the Moose Lodge.

Roof's base package was a three man front with Gaither, most of time, as a 4th on the line. The reason why Roof is running this hybrid 4-3 is because he knows that our LB Corp is a strength of this team. He is definitely not dumb enough to not have all 4 of those LBs out there. But he wants to run a 4-3. The problems this creates are in multiple areas.
1. The big runs- as I noted earlier, when your LBs are playing on or that shallow to the line, two things happen: Our speed gets us in the backfield quickly when blitzing, but a patient runner or zone scheme can negate that perceived advantage. Benny Lemay exploited that today with patient running. Second thing is, you are allowing for offensive lineman to engage your linebackers before they can read and react. Our linebackers aren't built to shed blocks, they are built to have space and read and react with speed. Flory and Gaither put on a clinic with this last year in a true 3-4. Having Stout clog the middle helps make this style look even better.

2. The short slants in space- again, your linebackers are playing too shallow and with playaction or a dual threat QB, our linebackers are having to remain shallow, or are being sucked inside. This scheme is putting a lot of pressure on our Safeties and outside DBs, which aren't exactly our strengths. Typically, our safeties were stretching out to provide help outside, and or one would come down to fill a gap when we blitzed. ETSU and Charlotte kept reading this and would slant over the middle where the safety wasn't at or pull receivers across the field and create opportunities for wheel routes or WR screens.

The only times we were making this look good is when our guys were getting to the QB (we blitzed alot) or when our DBs/LBs made great individual plays. But more often than not, this hybrid scheme was putti g our guys in bad spots creating large gaps in coverage. With a 3-4 like we played last few seasons, we played a lot of zone/cover 2 where we forced teams to throw over the top or in between coverage. It's a tough scheme to play with our personnel.

Nailed it. Spot on. Good Job.

[asu7]

I hate to say I told y’all so but the D is bad. We got two weeks to fix it and I am not sure it can be. Hoping for a miracle.

[BeauFoster]

I'll answer the scheme part here, I'll address some other things in the Moose Lodge.

Roof's base package was a three man front with Gaither, most of time, as a 4th on the line. The reason why Roof is running this hybrid 4-3 is because he knows that our LB Corp is a strength of this team. He is definitely not dumb enough to not have all 4 of those LBs out there. But he wants to run a 4-3. The problems this creates are in multiple areas.
1. The big runs- as I noted earlier, when your LBs are playing on or that shallow to the line, two things happen: Our speed gets us in the backfield quickly when blitzing, but a patient runner or zone scheme can negate that perceived advantage. Benny Lemay exploited that today with patient running. Second thing is, you are allowing for offensive lineman to engage your linebackers before they can read and react. Our linebackers aren't built to shed blocks, they are built to have space and read and react with speed. Flory and Gaither put on a clinic with this last year in a true 3-4. Having Stout clog the middle helps make this style look even better.

2. The short slants in space- again, your linebackers are playing too shallow and with playaction or a dual threat QB, our linebackers are having to remain shallow, or are being sucked inside. This scheme is putting a lot of pressure on our Safeties and outside DBs, which aren't exactly our strengths. Typically, our safeties were stretching out to provide help outside, and or one would come down to fill a gap when we blitzed. ETSU and Charlotte kept reading this and would slant over the middle where the safety wasn't at or pull receivers across the field and create opportunities for wheel routes or WR screens.

The only times we were making this look good is when our guys were getting to the QB (we blitzed alot) or when our DBs/LBs made great individual plays. But more often than not, this hybrid scheme was putti g our guys in bad spots creating large gaps in coverage. With a 3-4 like we played last few seasons, we played a lot of zone/cover 2 where we forced teams to throw over the top or in between coverage. It's a tough scheme to play with our personnel.

Appreciate the analysis (please don’t take this the wrong way), but if someone on the fricking MMB can figure this out, then an experienced coach darn sure better be able to.

Problem is, Roof is attached to the 4-3 and obviously has no idea what to do with a team that has been built (successfully) for 3-4. It’s going to end up costing us.

[AppUSMC]

UNC will shred our secondary if they play like they did today. We gave up almost 300 yards passing to UNCC. 533 total yards given up with almost 150 penalty yards on top of that! There has got to big a big jump in performance if we plan on just keeping up with the Heels.

[AppUSMC]

UNC will shred our secondary if they play like they did today. We gave up almost 300 yards passing to UNCC. 533 total yards given up with almost 150 penalty yards on top of that! There has got to big a big jump in performance if we plan on just keeping up with the Heels.

[AppSt12]

So let’s look at the numbers. Charlotte rushed for 240 yards on 41 carries. If you take away Lemays 58 yard run and Fingers 68 yard run, we held them to under 3 yards a carry. I infer from this that we don’t have a scheme problem but missed assignments. To the point made on the lack of adjustments on the slants, fair point, but you can only do so much. The game plan was probably stop the run and see if Reynolds could beat them. He played well enough to do it, with some nice dimes and he took advantage of our inexperienced corners. As a coach, you pick your poison and hope it doesn’t kill you.

Good observation, but you are wrong. This is a scheme problem. When you play your linebackers that shallow., you are allowing the opposing team to engage the linebackers too early. Our strength is speed and now you are negating it. Second issue is, our defenders were getting into the backfield too early and the patience of a Benny Lemay gave them the opportunity to suck our defense in and then hit the gap with nothing in the middle. This is scheme, and it is a bad scheme because it plays Against our strengths.

I was trying to be optimistic about Roof, but a two game aggregate is showing me that this is a disastrous hire. We shouldn't be rebuilding, we should be retooling. Offense looks solid, not sure about the negativity towards that.... Defense was nationally ranked last season.....

So let me ask you this. And I respect your opinion and observation on matters of strategy and execution, so it isn’t meant to be argumentative; those weren’t the only times that we pressed the line with our linebackers. They were just the two that killed us with long runs. It seemed to work more often than not.

I get that the Roof hire wasn’t well received, but who were we going to get to come in and run the defense the way we were accustomed? Woody wasn’t going to come back. Ivey wasn’t an option.

I get why Drink hired him and I’m sure that he is being evaluated like the other coaches. The players love him and he has seen a lot. I know the players took the onerous on them for today’s play. Let’s see how they respond.

I'll answer the scheme part here, I'll address some other things in the Moose Lodge.

Roof's base package was a three man front with Gaither, most of time, as a 4th on the line. The reason why Roof is running this hybrid 4-3 is because he knows that our LB Corp is a strength of this team. He is definitely not dumb enough to not have all 4 of those LBs out there. But he wants to run a 4-3. The problems this creates are in multiple areas.
1. The big runs- as I noted earlier, when your LBs are playing on or that shallow to the line, two things happen: Our speed gets us in the backfield quickly when blitzing, but a patient runner or zone scheme can negate that perceived advantage. Benny Lemay exploited that today with patient running. Second thing is, you are allowing for offensive lineman to engage your linebackers before they can read and react. Our linebackers aren't built to shed blocks, they are built to have space and read and react with speed. Flory and Gaither put on a clinic with this last year in a true 3-4. Having Stout clog the middle helps make this style look even better.

2. The short slants in space- again, your linebackers are playing too shallow and with playaction or a dual threat QB, our linebackers are having to remain shallow, or are being sucked inside. This scheme is putting a lot of pressure on our Safeties and outside DBs, which aren't exactly our strengths. Typically, our safeties were stretching out to provide help outside, and or one would come down to fill a gap when we blitzed. ETSU and Charlotte kept reading this and would slant over the middle where the safety wasn't at or pull receivers across the field and create opportunities for wheel routes or WR screens.

The only times we were making this look good is when our guys were getting to the QB (we blitzed alot) or when our DBs/LBs made great individual plays. But more often than not, this hybrid scheme was putti g our guys in bad spots creating large gaps in coverage. With a 3-4 like we played last few seasons, we played a lot of zone/cover 2 where we forced teams to throw over the top or in between coverage. It's a tough scheme to play with our personnel.

1. I have no idea who you are.

2. Everything you said is exactly right.

3. I would dare say all of our hardcore fans already know (maybe in more simplistic terms) what the problem is and the necessity to run a 3-4 as to not leave coverage gaps.

4. Why would any defensive coordinator take over such a successful defense and try to change it period? Especially when so much of the personnel is returning?

5. Some posters here are heavy contributing alumni and therefore very friendly with leadership in our program. They refuse to place any blame on coaches or leadership. Same with Satterfield....I love sat but I also recognize his shortcomings and his part in our inability to beat top 15 programs. You cant give up 41 points (the 3rd most points weve given up in FBS) to Charlotte and pretend its okay.

6. We have 1 senior dl, 3 senior linebackers, 2 senior dbs, return 7 starters on defense, and 4 of last years 5 leading tacklers. There is 0 excuse for our defense to not be violently good.

7. A win is a win, offense scored 42 in both games and special teams has been excellent except stations missed fg. Get healthy, refocused, beat the damn Tar Heels.

[CheckYosef94]

Alabama lost to UL-Monroe in Saban’s first year. App lost to Liberty in Satterfield’s first year. There are countless other examples of teams losing games they should’ve won after they had a coaching change. Coaches bring new schemes and culture to a team, and that can cause some growing pains that result in losses. I was one of the people on this board calling for Satt’s head after the Liberty game. Then I coached high school for a while and learned what coaching takes. Roof may very well need to be fired. There’s no doubt our defense looked like trash today, but to say that a guy should be fired after two games is asinine. Florida State and Tennessee are garbage programs now because they have been so quick to fire guys. When you fire someone, typically you have to pay out the rest of their contract. Then you don’t have the money in the budget to get someone better, so you end up with someone worse, and the downward spiral continues. Roof gets this season. If the defense remains soft as wet tissue, he needs to go. But if he improves over the course of the season, you will all seem very silly.

I honestly think a lot of folks would have more patience if we didn’t have a shot at UNC this year. For a large portion of our fan base if we won just that game it would be one of the best seasons ever.

I have family that went to UNCC, UNC, and USC. I just want to be able to be obnoxious at Christmas.

[AppUSMC]

A South Carolina guy was sitting next to me scouting our team today. I didn’t know they did that. He said they were very worried about App during the pre season. He said he’s not worried anymore and saw everything he needed to see today.

[asu7]

All they have to do is pass the ball and we are toast. Glad GASO runs the ball but if our LBs are playing up front they may not be able to help if the runner breaks through. We had no safety valve today.

[mountaineerman]

A South Carolina guy was sitting next to me scouting our team today. I didn’t know they did that. He said they were very worried about App during the pre season. He said he’s not worried anymore and saw everything he needed to see today.

Haha lol dumb

[bigdaddyg]

Two long runs surely skewed the perception - on both sides ---
526 yards by Charlotte is awfully hard to write off as missed assignments - it could have also been because of being in the wrong alignment signaled in ---

Those who know me, know I am not in panic mode - As many have said before me, I will take an ugly win over a pretty loss every day of the week - I am SURE the players are not happy with their performance and I clearly believe this defense will bounce back - As someone mentioned earlier, maybe this is a serious wake-up call while still remaining undefeated ---

I agree. Those runs were gashes. The backs hit the holes and were gone. It was like we had no linebackers or DB’s. That QB is fast, shifty and threw some nice passes but damn a shootout with UNCC? Wow

[Apple@chin1]

My theory:

Coach Drink is intelligent enough to understand the importance of this season to the Appalachian fan base. There are so many things that would elevate our program by beating both Carolina’s. I’m not overlooking any of our other goals (conference, bowl, etc.). But both games being against P5 teams is a true test of our program and where we stand in today’s college football landscape (among many other things). I don’t believe he has any intention of showing his hand to any future opponent. Especially considering that the most important part of our schedule is right in front of us. We just get the added benefit of resting up for a week and fixing our Roof. Why give the enemy anything to game-plan against. We just needed to play good enough to win two fairly easy weeks (although, Charlotte is MUCH better under Will Healy. Wow, what a difference). I’m hopeful that today’s questionable defensive performance was more of a test and tune for future opponents than an actual display of what we have to look forward to in future performances. I hopeful that we will see a completely different team in two weeks! I still have faith in this team and staff. I’m trying to stay positive. I think the best days are ahead of us! How can you really complain about being 2-0? It’s always great to be a Mountaineer!

[appstatealum]

I’m scared....not of UNC or USC....I’m scared of our defense looking this bad this season. UNC and USC will be the least of our problems. Take a look around at our conference.

[Appster99]

My theory:

Coach Drink is intelligent enough to understand the importance of this season to the Appalachian fan base. There are so many things that would elevate our program by beating both Carolina’s. I’m not overlooking any of our other goals (conference, bowl, etc.). But both games being against P5 teams is a true test of our program and where we stand in today’s college football landscape (among many other things). I don’t believe he has any intention of showing his hand to any future opponent. Especially considering that the most important part of our schedule is right in front of us. We just get the added benefit of resting up for a week and fixing our Roof. Why give the enemy anything to game-plan against. We just needed to play good enough to win two fairly easy weeks (although, Charlotte is MUCH better under Will Healy. Wow, what a difference). I’m hopeful that today’s questionable defensive performance was more of a test and tune for future opponents than an actual display of what we have to look forward to in future performances. I hopeful that we will see a completely different team in two weeks! I still have faith in this team and staff. I’m trying to stay positive. I think the best days are ahead of us! How can you really complain about being 2-0? It’s always great to be a Mountaineer!

I agree with respect to the offense. Brought a friend today who went to LSU and had never seen App play. His observations were that the play calling was vanilla. There is still a lot of playbook never called as yet. But the D? It was painful to watch the missed/ broken tackles and missed assignments. Coach spoke frequently of eye violations this past week. Will be another week of that for sure. Impossible to view that as not showing your hand.

[Apptrain]

For those that know more than I do, why was Roof hired? Was there a specific reason we targeted him? Looking at his coaching history, I don’t understand why. Genuinely curious.

Not claiming to know more than you. My hunch from the beginning was that Drink hired him as sort of a security blanket. Drink is young with no head coaching experience.Roof is older with head coaching experience. If things get hairy for Drink he has someone on staff with head coaching experience to ask opinions of. Just my thoughts.