suggested Holliday wasn't all too tight with his players. With any of them, really.

I do respect that Holliday didn't play favorites, but I so far see zero evidence Cahoon does that either.

But my problem with Holliday being regarded as such a great a WR coach: I saw plenty of evidence he missed on several big things, & wasn't particularly fast in righting those misses:

(1) trying to make a deep threat outa Mitch Matthews. Mitch had some terrible habits when jockying for position on the fly--that made him a rather bad option that way. Not only did Mitch fail to improve in this regard while Holliday was over him, but we wasted too many plays in the first four games last year trying to set up Mitch on the sidelines long. It shouldn't have taken that long to establish what wasn't going to work. While Anae certainly stands to blame in this too, it's Holliday who's prime job is to identity which of his guys is best suited for that route--& ultimately, to get them ready for the task by ironing out their weaknesses & the technical specifics of what they need to do.

(2) Houk was his best interior receiver behind Juergens. And yet it took several games & an injury to Juergens before plays started to be drawn up for him. While Houk didn't give us the level of athlete that Matthews did, in just about every other way he was a superior receiver in the middle. And a lot of that was cuz he didn't fear contact like Matthews. He rather relished it, actually. Unlike Matthews, he was also a guy who was gonna make a catch even if it meant landing awkward on his back or even head. In my mind a significant portion of Matthew's catches last year shoulda gone to Houk--but reality was, after Matthews didn't work out on the long routes he came inside & was often the option before Houk. And in my opinion that was a butt-backwards decision that cost us plenty.

(3) Blackmon was a VERY raw receiver who wasted a ton of movement in all aspects of the game, yet given our available talent last season it seems to me that a good position coach woulda done everything in his power to develop the kid. Yet as far as I could tell, Blackmon learned next to nothing about route running until it became absolutely necessary for him to learn after Juergens sustained his injury against UCLA. I'm of the opinion that Juergens could do just about EVERYTHING Blackmon could do--only better. Even still, between Juergens & Blackmon I didn't see a single non-Frosh player that could make a case as a high-level slot receiver with the threat to go long. In my opinion, whether it was Blackmon or Akile--or whoever--Holliday NEEDED to have someone ready last year behind Juergens.

And he didn't. Not until we needed it, anyways. It was part of the reason after UCLA our offense looked so pathetic, imo. We missed Juergens more than we should've--& I have a hard time not blaming Holliday for that.

mutu.