It is what it is folks....

Redux

Redux

Donor
I'll keep this short. I see a lot of opinions flying around here and elsewhere. Two of the big opinions are the staff sucks and that we need to be more patient. Here is my take on those opinions.

1- The staff doesn't suck. They are just consumed by all those years of experience. We hadn't hired a coach with head coaching experience at the collegiate level since Bob Devaney. That gave me hope. Instead, thus far it has seemed to be their undoing. Things that plagued them before are continuing to plague them. I can't honestly tell you how we fix that. They are trying though. They are doing the best they know how with what they have. I guess that's all we can really ask at this point.

2- We need to be patient? Folks, we have been more than patient since Tom retired. His protege flubbed out and is still at Ohio. His successor was a guy who had almost no experience managing a college program. Bo comes in and serves us 2 years shining hope then completely falls flat when we move to the Big Ten, it just continually got worse and he wouldn't be much better than 3-3 right now honestly. Now we have Riley. How much more patient do we have to be? We are 2-4 for the first time since the 50's. We have only beaten 2 lackluster glorified FCS schools. All four losses have come in the waning moments of the game. Keep your "We are only 11 points from being undefeated" BS to yourself. Good coaches find a way to win. So far in those situations we are inept at finding that way.

I'll be honest, 4-8 seems like our chosen path this season. Maybe this is the last helping of karma before we are allowed to return to the adult table and next season will be special. I sure hope so. Something has to give, just not sure what it will be.

 
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1995 Redux said:
I'll keep this short. I see a lot of opinions flying around here and elsewhere. Two of the big opinions are the staff sucks and that we need to be more patient. Here is my take on those opinions.

1- The staff doesn't suck. They are just consumed by all those years of experience. We hadn't hired a coach with head coaching experience at the collegiate level since Bob Devaney. That gave me hope. Instead, thus far it has seemed to be their undoing. Things that plagued them before are continuing to plague them. I can't honestly tell you how we fix that. They are trying though. They are doing the best they know how with what they have. I guess that's all we can really ask at this point.

2- We need to be patient? Folks, we have been more than patient since Tom retired. His protege flubbed out and is still at Ohio. His successor was a guy who had almost no experience managing a college program. Bo comes in and serves us 2 years shining hope then completely falls flat when we move to the Big Ten, it just continually got worse and he wouldn't be much better than 3-3 right now honestly. Now we have Riley. How much more patient do we have to be? We are 2-4 for the first time since the 50's. We have only beaten 2 lackluster glorified FCS schools. All four losses have come in the waning moments of the game. Keep your "We are only 11 points from being undefeated" BS to yourself. Good coaches find a way to win. So far in those situations we are inept at finding that way.

I'll be honest, 4-8 seems like our chosen path this season. Maybe this is the last helping of karma before we are allowed to return to the adult table and next season will be special. I sure hope so. Something has to give, just not sure what it will be.
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So which is it? Is this coaching staff bad or good?

As someone who has coached I know they are trying everything they can to get things corrected. MR mild mannerness may be his undoing. His staff knows football but they are all maybe a little too mild. They aren't building any toughness, they aren't mentally tough. BP teams weren't either.

 
1995 Redux said:
I'll keep this short. I see a lot of opinions flying around here and elsewhere. Two of the big opinions are the staff sucks and that we need to be more patient. Here is my take on those opinions.

1- The staff doesn't suck. They are just consumed by all those years of experience. We hadn't hired a coach with head coaching experience at the collegiate level since Bob Devaney. That gave me hope. Instead, thus far it has seemed to be their undoing. Things that plagued them before are continuing to plague them. I can't honestly tell you how we fix that. They are trying though. They are doing the best they know how with what they have. I guess that's all we can really ask at this point.

2- We need to be patient? Folks, we have been more than patient since Tom retired. His protege flubbed out and is still at Ohio. His successor was a guy who had almost no experience managing a college program. Bo comes in and serves us 2 years shining hope then completely falls flat when we move to the Big Ten, it just continually got worse and he wouldn't be much better than 3-3 right now honestly. Now we have Riley. How much more patient do we have to be? We are 2-4 for the first time since the 50's. We have only beaten 2 lackluster glorified FCS schools. All four losses have come in the waning moments of the game. Keep your "We are only 11 points from being undefeated" BS to yourself. Good coaches find a way to win. So far in those situations we are inept at finding that way.

I'll be honest, 4-8 seems like our chosen path this season. Maybe this is the last helping of karma before we are allowed to return to the adult table and next season will be special. I sure hope so. Something has to give, just not sure what it will be.
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Actually, Riley and staff have proven very, VERY good at finding ways to lose. I'm not sure any coaches have ever done it better. They had a 1.5% chance of losing one game and 0.5% chance of losing another. That's pretty long odds to pull off either one, but to do both? That's about an 0.0075% chance of losing both games.

And I fear they have even more creative ways to lose up their sleeves.

 
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Is he a good coach? Yeah, he is.

Is he a great coach? No, not yet. And I don't know that he ever gains that status.

What an awful start to a new era. I anticipate us being much improved next season. I'm just really tired of saying that, I would like it to be true for once when it's all said and done.

 
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Patience, is not waiting through 3 coaching regimes, and then expecting the next one to be an instant success.

Personally, I think we should have given Solich and Callahan more time, and Pelini should have been canned for his behavior alone. The first two firings, were the result of the unrealistic expectations which we are just now, hopefully, beginning to rid ourselves of, from decades of very unusual success.

 
I am willing to bet, since hindsight is always better than foresight, most would say we shouldn't have fired Solich. Especially since he did go and find Bo for Defense and if we had given them a few more seasons together, who knows, but I think a Big 12 crown would have happened.

Someone mentioned of a curse since firing Solich. Karma is a real b!tch. Take a look back at programs with tradition that have replaced a legend. Oklahoma, USC, Alabama, Miami, and Nebraska are taking similiar roads to this point. Notre Dame and Michigan are along the same lines. Alabama during the 80's fired coaches right and left. OU did thru out the 90's. Notre Dame has had issues since running Holtz out of town. Michigan hasn't faired well either. USC until Carrol had nothing, and now since Carrol has left, they appear average. Miami hasn't been really good since the 90's, even though they could have won back to backs in 01 and 02, they cheated like hell to get those two, but that was under Coker who inherited talent from previous coach.

Moral of story is we are going to have to be patient, and not saying that Riley is the next one, but firing another coach right now isn't the answer. Patience maybe won't fix things, but entitlement sure can ruin things.

 
stargazer said:
Patience, is not waiting through 3 coaching regimes, and then expecting the next one to be an instant success.

Personally, I think we should have given Solich and Callahan more time, and Pelini should have been canned for his behavior alone. The first two firings, were the result of the unrealistic expectations which we are just now, hopefully, beginning to rid ourselves of, from decades of very unusual success.
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I think the whole "instant success" argument is nonsense. Nobody was calling for a national championship. Most thought our ceiling this year was a division title at best.

We wanted to be competetive every week, and we have been. Problem is being competetive means winning some of those games. Close losses aren't bad until you start stock piling them.

 
No Ameer, no DPE until yesterday, and hes not 100% yet, no Gregory. Seems to me that this team is looking at replacing alot right there. Expectatoins were high for DPE to have break out season. He is one player who is just now starting to play. Gregory, even though had moments of ineptness, was a difference maker.

Its not like we didn't see this in the last 7 years under Bo as well. He lost games to lesser talent, if you will, and lost games to Ranked opponents. His recruiting was awful the last two years, and this is why you see a team with a 2-4 record. This is why they lost down the stretch last season. This is why they have lost 7 of there last 10 games.

It is on Riley some, if not 50%. Its also on the players 50%.

 
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