Topic: Thielen Smith

[Thundering In MD]

No matter what the Mullet says, there was a clear case for dismissing Kueck.  Smith on the other hand, looks like an archetypal scapegoat.   I'm interested to see how many people think Smith was to blame for the D-Line play.

[dshoe]

No matter what the Mullet says, there was a clear case for dismissing Kueck.  Smith on the other hand, looks like an archetypal scapegoat.   I'm interested to see how many people think Smith was to blame for the D-Line play.

what was the clear case?

[marshall fanatic]

maybe Dunlap and Smith did  not see eye to eye about their philosophy. And that Dunlap is going to take over the coaching of the D line.

[Herd-nficent]

I really don't know if he should be fired or not.  

The D line certainly had injury problems but were there also coaching mistakes?  His past history was respectable so I gave him a pass for this year.

[_sturt_]

what was the clear case?

C'mon shoe... how can you even ask such a silly question?

(*sarcastic smirk*)

[HERD93]

The thing that stands out to me about Kueck was his game management skills.  Too many times this season we were forced to call timeouts because of not having the play sent down to the sidelines in time.  In the Houston game alone this occurred three times and in critical situations.  If you watched Snyder you could tell this particularly bothered him.

As many have stated in the past, Kueck had questionable play calls during various times throughout the season.  Not only this but his personnel groupings were not advantageous at key times.  On several occassions we would be in third down situations or long yardage situations and you wouldn't see Cody Slate or Darius Passmore on the field.  To me it brought back memories of Dwight Freeman substitution patterns!

All in all, I think the Kueck/Snyder relationship had ran its course.  The time was right and I think Snyder may have been concerned with grooming a new QB with the Larry Kueck system that addmitedly takes years to grasp.  As for the Smith firing, I understand it was more of a mutual departure and I'm sure he will land on his feet somewhere.

[Thundering In MD]

After posting the poll, I read Smith's bio on Herdzone.  One of his attributes is listed as his recruiting ability.   The question is still valid from a coaching perspective.  My vote no was based on the fact that I think the poor play on the DL (primarily DT) was based on the lack of quality personell.  If you can tag Smith for failing to recruit sufficient DTs (since 2005), then maybe the Ax was justified.  However, if Snyder shortens the timeframe for results for Smith, shouldn't the same test be used for him?  Which leads me back to:  Scapegoat.