Interesting read

Discussion in 'On The Field' started by LousianaHorn, Mar 5, 2015.

  1. LousianaHorn

    LousianaHorn Kabong

  2. shaggy refuge

    shaggy refuge 500+ Posts

    I agree, but the record speaks for itself. Jury is still out.
     
  3. OrangeClad

    OrangeClad 250+ Posts

    I am a big CS fan and I truly believe the future looks bright in Austin. However, I think it is absurd to say the 2014 team was better than it's 6-7 record and I would even go so far as to say, it very possibly was worse. I understand why CS would say such a thing, even beyond the necessary positive spin rah rah that he must emanate to keep everybody hopeful, working hard, etc. He probably feels this way because so many spots on the team were, indeed, so much better than the record and the team actually only had a relative few holes needing to be filled satisfactorily to compete for a better record.

    Unfortunately, those few spots ranged from terrible all the time at the worst to horribly inconsistent at the best and they were in back-breaking positions such as QB and OL which could not be overcome or quickly coached up.

    Teams that play competitively and consistently lose to strong national contenders by only a couple points each week are deserving of the "we are much better than our record shows" statement. Because the UT OL was consistently bad all deason and the QB play was so bad so often, UT does not deserve that statement for the 2014 season.
     
  4. blonthang

    blonthang 2,500+ Posts

    My take is this, considering his comment in the article:

    “We were probably better than what our record showed,” Strong said. “I tell our coaching staff that all the time. I just didn’t think we did a (good enough) job with what he had. A lot of times it goes back to where you have to fit your personnel to the system. We came in here and I think a lot of times coaches expect more because this is the University of Texas and you’re thinking, ‘Hey, we got all this.’ But still, at the end of the day, we had to come in and coach them, and we have to do a better job of coaching.”

    Basically, he's taking responsibility for not COACHING a team to it's abilities. No excuses, but saying the team is better than the record says that the talent is there, the coaching staff just didn't do a good enough job.

    He manned up.

    Me likey.
     
    • Like Like x 2
  5. Htown77

    Htown77 5,000+ Posts

    Honestly, I care if the coaches wins or loses the game, not whether they win or lose the interview. Hopefully this year is better than last year.
     
  6. OrangeClad

    OrangeClad 250+ Posts

    I don't disagree Thang on CS taking responsibility and it is nice to have a coach who does, and one who can actually make development changes in the ranks. However, my point was only that I believe the statement to be factually incorrect. With the injuries to Ash and Espinosa, the cupboard was bare at QB and made bare at OL with the departures/suspensions of Estelle and Harrison. I personally do not think there was much more coaching up they could have done in the short period they had with the personnel they had left on hand at their respective stages of development.
    Now the team was probably better than their record ended up being before the start of the season, but once Ash, Espinosa, Estelle and Harrison were gone (and frankly, Sanders) and even Daje Johnson limited with no quality/proven backups, they were probably very lucky to make it to a bowl game. They were not a really solid team who kept getting bad breaks during the course of ball games that resulted in their losses and several of the wins and even a couple of close losses came with lucky breaks and miracle/unusual performances on the upside of an inconsistency curve.
    One place where I agree that the staff could/should have done better, however, was that they should have brought in an upper classman QB last summer. There were many, many choices at smaller schools all across America and knowing from the spring game that Swoopes was not close to being ready, they banked on Ash staying healthy and not needing a backup. They then suspended the 2 starting OTs (which needed to be done) which almost assured Ash would take a pounding all season and he lasted one game. They gambled very big and lost, lost the entire season. Let's hope they learned a valuable lesson from that and don't make that same gamble again this year.
     
  7. Texas Taps

    Texas Taps 5,000+ Posts

    Strong has said that more than once
     

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