Thinking Andy Ludwig

Hawkman — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 23:51:24 -0000

Hi all,

I'm new here and this post could end up completely FUBAR so please bear with me.

I found Block U at the start of the season and I've enjoyed reading it and thought I might get some good feedback here. I've been dying to have an intelligent discussion about Andy Ludwig away from the flame wars on ESPN and other sites, so here goes.

I'm not a big Andy Ludwig fan and I've done more than my share of griping about him since he arrived in Utah. I've been trying to be rational this season and really evaluate his performance for the last four years and to my own surprise I'm still of the opinion that Ludwig is a lead weight around the neck of the Utes.

The final straw that solidified my position was when one of the SLC stations recently let slip that the final drives in the OSU and TCU games were called by Brian Johnson and Not Ludwig! All season I've been defending Andy a bit and pointing out the three or four fairly brilliant drives he calls every game even if the other five or six are terrible. Now I don't even know if I can give him credit for the majority of the good series this season.

So here are my thoughts on Ludwig...

As a offensive coach he seems to know his stuff, he knows how to draw up good plays and prepare his guys for the game.

The problem is that he can't make the calls during a game! Who the hell calls a reverse against TCU, the fastest best pursuit defense we will ever face. What sort of brain damage do you have to have to call 30-40 yard pass plays when Brian doesn't have the arm, you shouldn't be looking deeper than 20-30 with Brian. Direct snaps to Asiata as the sole setback are stupid, the reason that play had any traction under Myer is that they did it out of what looked like a regular set so the defense didn't know it was coming. All of his stupid personnel changes only slow things up and let the defense get set, spread option is all about keeping the defense off balance. And I could go on an on.

Unfortunately I think Ludwig does bring something to the table as a quarterbacks/receivers coach and general contributer to the offensive scheme, but come game time I don't think he can cut it as the play caller. How can Kyle go to his buddy Andy and tell him that someone else is going to call the plays come game time though, and if Kyle can't do that then is there any other choice but firing him? Then there is the added problem of telling someone who helped the Utes to a 10-12 win season that he's holding back the team.

So anyone out there have any other thoughts? comments? flames?

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Thinking Andy Ludwig