If one could put a finger on just one element why the Bucs were the worst team in the NFL this season. Joe thinks it is clear: the mess that was the offense.

Lovie Smith initially went bold — always a good trait — and hired college quarterbacks guru Jeff Tedford as his offensive coordinator. We all know how that turned out.

(Joe remembers the day Lovie was introduced. Joe asked him if he had any reservations on how Tedford, who had zero NFL experience, would translate to the NFL, Lovie flatly told Joe, none at all.)

What made matters worse was the quarterbacks coach, nearly always next in line to an offensive coordinator, was Marcus Arroyo, who not only had zero NFL experience, but scant college experience.

The offense quickly went up in flames.

So one would think the experiment of having college guys run an NFL offense would have scarred Lovie and turned him off on college guys. Apparently, that is not the case. Yesterday in his 2014 season postmortem, Lovie said he certainly will also look at college guys to fill the coordinator opening.

“I would like to get the best offensive coordinator,” Lovie said. “I just don’t think you put yourself in a box. You look and you talk to as many people as possible. Every guy in the NFL was once in college, so I don’t think you can close the door on that. So I’m just going to – all available guys that I think we should talk to that would give us a chance to be successful offensively, I think I owe it to our organization to talk to them.”

As former NFL quarterback and current FOX NFL analyst Brady Quinn told Joe recently, there is definitely a learning curve for guys who come from college to run an NFL offense. The main thing is, college coordinators — unless they played in the NFL themselves — have never seen the types of defenses NFL teams run. There is certainly an adjustment, Quinn said.

So after getting his hands burned once, Joe finds it odd Lovie would be willing to reach back into the fire again. After running the Bucs into the ground like he did this year, Joe’s not so sure Team Glazer is going to be very patient allowing another college guy on-the-job training.

After losing 14 games this season, it doesn’t seem practical that Lovie would have much wiggle room next year to survive the bumps in the road a college guy would encounter, much less another pathetic season.