Originally Posted by
PhiAlpha
He still would’ve been running for his life while the line pulled it together (even if they were healthy) but he was able to get rid of the ball much quicker and was better at eluding pressure and sliding up into any semblance of a pocket to make throws so that would’ve helped a ton. But SL still would’ve been the OC and while he’s been a good OC elsewhere, this clearly wasn’t a good fit for whatever he liked to do and I’m not sure how much DG improves that. I have to think he saw some of the things that happened this season coming to an extent and that probably made his decision easier. That said, he is excellent from a ball security standpoint and if we just limited QB turnovers and play average offense, we probably win at least 2-3 more games out of Mizzou, SC, Ole miss, and Tennessee and are in both the Texas and LSU games through the 4th quarter.
At the time, I think they made the right decision but in hindsight obviously you would rather have had DG. I’m also not sure he necessarily wanted to come back. The OC that he followed left, he likely saw some of the issues coming, Oregon had a much easier path to the playoff, he grew up a fan of Oregon and his sport idol growing up was Marcus Mariota and he was going to get more money at Oregon even if we tried to outspend them. We pay him as much as we can and we likely would’ve lost Arnold which at the time was something they absolutely wanted to avoid. JA just ended up being a bust for us. Unfortunately we called heads and the coin landed on tails.
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