Ketch's 10 Thoughts From the Weekend (Addressing the cesspool...)
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Agreed. Point was their is no one really available I'd take before I gambled on Hernan.
I used both polls.
You've nit-picked me on calling a team very good that almost all of the nation has in the same category as the teams you call very good.
So I think you're spot on. The "can't miss" group of coaches are where they are and there's no relocating them to Austin.
I think we can all agree we can't get Saban, Meyer, or Harbaugh. Also, I think we can rule out Les Miles as a guy we wouldn't target as well as any current Big 12 coach.
Given those assumptions, if Herman went to LSU or USC, who are the main candidates that you think we would go after?
What I'm wondering is, if we couldn't get Herman, but we could get a Will Muschamp-type DC, do you think we would be better off keeping Strong, Gilbert and a badass DC, than hitting the reset button and starting over with a Peterson or Malzahn who may or may not be who we really wanted and who may take 1-3 years to make the inroads necessary to recruit the state of Texas?
I just have a legitimate fear of falling into the trap that ND, Alabama, Michigan fell into (and where USC currently is) where they went through several coaches before hitting their homerun. Those are also blueblood schools with vast resources that had huge strings of subpar seasons in a row.
Can't play scared.
If it were truly just as simple as fixing the defense, maybe that would be one thing, but there's more to it than that, no?
If I'm in a position to lead the Texas search, these would be my calls
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Dabo Swinney
Gary Patterson
Jimbo Fisher (he wanted to hear from UT and didn't in 2013)
Chris Peterson
The defense is not the only problem. Special teams have been pretty bad in spots and time clock/timeout mgmt have been terrible at times too. But fixing blocking assignments on a PAT attempt is MUCH easier to do than bring in blue chip athletes that won't show up on a police blotter.
If we can get Jimbo Fisher, and I'm not sure why he'd leave Florida State now, then yes pull the trigger. But this needs to be locked up before we fire Strong. Because if we can't get one of these guys, I don't want to be scrambling around with plan C and plan D.
It's gonna mean dancing with the devil again...er... JImmy Sexton.
Not sure how you get to a troll if someone doesn't post frequently. Maybe he/she is more analytical and not as conversational as you. You probably made the comment in jest.
From one of the longest members on the board.
From one of the longest members on the board.
For sure...there is clearly an organized effort going on by some group for some reason...both Sun Tzu and Nuu have alluded to it happening.
Isn't Sexton the agent for several top HCs? Doesn't have to be Fisher (though that would be nice), let's keep dancing, unless it's Herman.
If it's Herman, stop dancing and grab a chair.
That would be a nice Christmas present for Texas football.
If Herman and the top targets say no, give Gilbert a chance. He has totally revamped a terrible O into an explosive O in one spring and 5 games, or less than one year.
Retain Mattox and Traylor and hire the best defensive staff money can buy.
Texas could do much worse, and may, if Herman and other top targets say no.
We have solved our O, got to find the best DC to do the same with the D.
With so many coordinators becoming fine HCs so quickly recently, I think long term HC experience is somewhat overrated as the style of top college football has changed so much. Just check the programs and top former coordinators turned HCs in the last 5-6 years.
I would be happy with several of them, but Gilbert has shown me a lot since he was hired. My gosh, he took a horrible O and made it a dangerous one. I love Shane, but he gives so much credit to Gilbert...I think much of it is deserved.
Just get us a great DC against the Big 12 spread and Texas will be fine.
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Wasn't saying it did at all. Meant Sexton is a well liked agent who I believe has a slew of top college HCs. Not sure how many...haven't Googled.
Strong's inability to coach his defense, and game management screw ups is what has left even his most loyal followers pulling their freakin hair out and not wanting The University to miss out on some very viable replacements. It's a fairly simple concept...
Oh good grief. Strong won a national championship as a DC. He has consistently put out excellent defenses. Perhaps, just perhaps, we might be expecting a little much from a pile of freshman and sophomores all over the 2 deep.
Clearly we need to greatly improve. Like we greatly improved on offense this year. But saying Strong cant coach defense is one of the silliest things being said all over this board.
I know its fashionable now to be hyper negative on every single thing about Charlie. But I expect a few people understand small sample sizes, and can look at a career versus a few games. Strongs defense his first year here was solid, and not surprisingly was filled with experienced guys. Last year, it wasn't, and it wasn't.
And lets just look at the OU game for game management screw ups. If Charlie had wasted 4-5 timeouts like OU did, we would have dozens of threads on what an idiot he is. If our kick returner let a ball bounce off his chest like OU did, we would have hundreds of posts on how Charlies special teams are unprepared and how he doesn't pay attention to details. If we had given up 4 turnovers, and almost 3 more, another few hundred posts on lack of organization and detail management.
I don't have any idea why posters keep bringing up our O as if Charlie fixed it. He allowed Watson to stay on to begin 2nd season and swore to recruits we had a brand new spread O...just watch. Then he was totally blindsided and pissed when Watson rolled out the same crap against ND.
Charles obviously has nothing to do with the O, as last year proved. Shane and other O starters rave about Gilbert...have yet to hear an O player rave about Charlie, as much as they like him personally, because Charlie never did anything with the O, nor does he now with Gilbert.
Our turnaround on O is b/c of Sterlin Gilbert, period, along with Shane, who heaps praise on Gilbert constantly.
And Charlie was forced to hire a Texas HS spread style of OC.
Love Charlie as a person, and what he stands for...but it's about winning and this year's D won't allow much winning in Charlie's tenure, which will end in December.
This year's D had 7 starters returning and several players who were not starters but got a ton of playing time last year.
The D has regressed. Our top players on D have actually regressed. Who is accountable for that? Only Bedford? I don't think so.
Charlie came as a D specialist. Think about that. There is no magic bullet for our D this year. We actually seem to be getting worse, if that's possible.
Manny Diaz got fired after 2 games for giving up less yardage to BYU than Charlie's gave up to Okie. 6 years later he is coaching well with a good D. Same thing could happen to Charlie over the next 4-5 years as HC somewhere else. He may finally get the game time insights and instincts he so badly lacks currently.
But it won't be at Texas...nor should it be.
Much as I like him, our D is a laughing stock with many of the same players he had last year. Regression instead of development.
That's unacceptable after 2 years and 5 games.
Everyone, including Charlie, knew this was a critical year for him. He is failing terribly, and with his best players on D regressing this year, there are no excuses left.
Just an awful, embarrassing D this year.
I'm just hoping we get to 6 wins so we can get extra practices with a new coach.
Love Charlie, but it's over at Texas. The rest of the season will prove it to anyone in denial. Praying for at least 6-6, which is far from odds on likely at this point.
Herman and Peterson's agents should have already been contacted. May well have been, along with a couple of others.
Sorry Charlie...and I mean that.
Charles obviously has nothing to do with the O, as last year proved. Shane and other O starters rave about Gilbert...have yet to hear an O player rave about Charlie, as much as they like him personally, because Charlie never did anything with the O, nor does he now with Gilbert.
Our turnaround on O is b/c of Sterlin Gilbert, period, along with Shane, who heaps praise on Gilbert constantly.
And Charlie was forced to hire a Texas HS spread style of OC.
Love Charlie as a person, and what he stands for...but it's about winning and this year's D won't allow much winning in Charlie's tenure, which will end in December.
This year's D had 7 starters returning and several players who were not starters but got a ton of playing time last year.
The D has regressed. Our top players on D have actually regressed. Who is accountable for that? Only Bedford? I don't think so.
Charlie came as a D specialist. Think about that. There is no magic bullet for our D this year. We actually seem to be getting worse, if that's possible.
Manny Diaz got fired after 2 games for giving up less yardage to BYU than Charlie's gave up to Okie. 6 years later he is coaching well with a good D. Same thing could happen to Charlie over the next 4-5 years as HC somewhere else. He may finally get the game time insights and instincts he so badly lacks currently.
But it won't be at Texas...nor should it be.
Much as I like him, our D is a laughing stock with many of the same players he had last year. Regression instead of development.
That's unacceptable after 2 years and 5 games.
Everyone, including Charlie, knew this was a critical year for him. He is failing terribly, and with his best players on D regressing this year, there are no excuses left.
Just an awful, embarrassing D this year.
I'm just hoping we get to 6 wins so we can get extra practices with a new coach.
Love Charlie, but it's over at Texas. The rest of the season will prove it to anyone in denial. Praying for at least 6-6, which is far from odds on likely at this point.
Herman and Peterson's agents should have already been contacted. May well have been, along with a couple of others.
Sorry Charlie...and I mean that.
Good point. Charlie should get all the blame for Watson, and none of the credit for Giblet.
Good god.
Good god.
what about his game management? Special teams? general preparedness? Crispness of his team?
He actually did have one bad time out and the constant sloppiness of his product led to four likely points never going up on the board.
Charlie brought in his own guys from Louisville. It was a mistake. He should have looked at where he was going and found coaches more familiar with B12. Funny thing is Herman is likely to bring in his coaches as well, like the DC who gave up 50 points to a team that basically doesn't use a QB. Most guys would have done what Charlie did. I have no problem with jumping on Charlie for sticking way too long with what wasn't working. But lets not act like his coordinator hires were some kind of crazy outlier.
Charlie has made so many questionable game decisions I cant count them. But I just counting half a dozen from Stoops in one game. When you win, no one cares. When you lose, everything gets magnified.
Have his teams been wildly inconsistent, hell yes. Is it him, yes I think he deserves some of the blame. Partly because he went the complete rebuild route. He punted on the win now JC route, and played Freshman and Sophomores before they were ready. That results in inconsistent play, bad mistakes on the field, eye popping errors, etc.
My prediction is that going the route Charlie took is going to pay off for him, or another coach, the next couple of years. He will have a young, but extremely experienced team. And a very talented team. The lineman will be Sophs and Juniors, but will have a lot of games under their belts, and a couple of years in the weight room. That's going to matter a lot. He already has the skill players, two deep, to compete with any team, and now they will be experienced. I still think the OU game difference was in experience, QB alone. Beuchele did great for a true Fresh. But he didn't play at Mayfields level, especially when we could have buried OU in the first half.
Again, my central theme here is play the season out and grade the coach based on progress. We have made great progress from last year on O. The D has gone sideways, at best. That's not good enough. But we have more than half the season to go. And you and everyone else knew the first five games of this year were likely to be the toughest on the W/L record.
I am just not going to dump the coach based on the past few games anymore than I was going to extend him based on the first two games. I want to see substantial progress that leads me to believe Charlie is going to be a big winner the next two years. He isn't there in my mind. But its way too early to decide. I am fine with differing opinions. I am entitled to mine as well.
PS. I know Charlie is not a perfect coach. That's not the issue, no coach is perfect. The question is can he win big at Texas. That's the standard.
I remember this being said before Strong was hired but cannot remember the reason for it.
A few thoughts...
a. Most guys would do what Charlie did, but most guys aren't elite, which this job requires.
b. He's either the Texas' Will Muschamp or Texas' John Blake.
c. Charlie Strong's overall grade is a failure and it's not based on a small sample size.
Differences of opinion is not only what makes this board great, it makes me a great living.
By the end of the season I may be agreeing with you. But I hope not.Come see me at the ISU game. I am driving 1000 miles again, to watch my team play. And play better I hope. You can find me around the 47 in the 3d row (don't be jelly). I will be wearing burnt orange.
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