Has the clock struck midnight for Andy Kotelnicki

I'm not a fan of "calling for someone's job" but the regression of UB's offense over the past two seasons begs the question. "How much of the dumpster fire which we call an offense falls on Andy Kotelnicki"?

First let's quantify things.

Buffalo's scoring offence is in the bottom two percent of all  FBS college football teams. In terms of yardage the Bulls are in the bottom five percent of teams.

More damning is our first quarter offense which averages just one point per game. Only UConn, at 0.9 points per game, is worse. That speaks to game planning and preparation.

The only thing that seemed to work for Buffalo this year is the run game. Despite struggling at times, UB's ball carriers averaged 4.5 yards per carry, putting UB in the middle of the pack. Inexplicably we only carry the ball 34 times per game.

Meanwhile our yards per passing attempt, 5.8, puts us near the bottom of the pile and despite that, we are throwing at a rate which is in the top half of the Bowl Subdivision.

All of this falls at the feet of two people, Lance Leipold and Andy Kotelnicki. It would be pure speculation at this point to fault one more or less than the other.

The "Reasons"

The mitigating factor, of course, is the fact UB has a new QB and very thin line. But there has been very little improvement in the season and Tyree's age is not to blame for the play calling.

UB's offense too quickly abandons the run, too often chucks the ball deep to covered men, and too rarely makes use of middle distance passing routes. That has nothing to do with Tyree being young or our line being new.

Part of the problem with leaning on "this is a young team" is that so many of the new faces are JUCO's who are not going to get four years of development.

The Solution

I can't imagine a scenario on Black Friday where Andy Kotelnicki wipes away this season's struggles.

Lance Leipold has shown a tremendous amount of loyalty to the men who coached with him at Wisconsin-Whitewater. So much of this staff never held position coaching jobs at the FBS level but they had done something amazing in DIII. Some of these coaches, like Defensive Coordinator Brian Borland, have worked out. But this team is simply showing zero progress under Kotelnicki.

What UB needs is a new offensive coordinator and to shuffle the deck so that Tyree develops to his full potential.

We had a chat around the Bull Run water cooler and one of the editors threw the name Mike Hart out for consideration. Hart is from Central New York and has deep roots in Michigan. Two areas where UB needs to recruit well. He has experience in the MAC as a coach and played in the NFL.

The same learned editor suggested bringing in Jim Zebrowski who coached at UWW with Leipold before stints at NIU and Minnesota. The new offensive staff would be:

OC - Hart
QB- Zebrowksi
RB - Simon
WR - Ianello
TE/OL - Hensell

In addition to Kotelnicki this means that Daryl Agpalsa would be let go.

So what do you think? do you give Kotelnicki another season because of this young team? or do you cut your losses?