The most disturbing thing to me is that

[CougEd]

Wulffui.....i don't mean for you to take this the wrong way, but personally

you thinking I or anyone else on this board wanted a coach to fail is f-in nuts. While I had certain disagreements regarding Wulff I would never ever accuse someone of wanting he or the staff to fail. While I think their negativity wasn't helpful in some respects, I never took that as they wanted him or his staff to fail.

Maybe you just have different feelings about our alma mater, where a message board ego with a bunch of nameless faces.

While I am intrigued by who is the leading candidate for the DC job, I am not sure I think he is a perfect fit despite a great resume, But I would never cloud my personal feelings ever cross the line of wanting a coach to fail. jg

 

[CougEd]

YEs...and I would be Pac 12 honors candidate if I was one of three freshman

oline that year. Alfred rolled snaps? I remember Williams doing it but not Alfred. They had to play Reintour because of numbers. It is like saying Leach ruined Hameeds chance of being successful because he played him as a true freshman. Truth is they needed all of those players.

Well, the book might have to take a stop in Pullman and interview Breske as well, don't you think. We could play that dumba$$ game all day long.

GA State has never won, have they ?

 

[wulffui]

Re: Wulffui.....i don't mean for you to take this the wrong way, but personally

You're not reading what I actually said, which is that it's natural to have different feelings when different people fail at a similar task. That's fairly human. You can't also see I didn't advocate that anyone specifically WANTED any of the coaches to fail.

And Etheridge-coached teams win 1 in 10 games at an FBS level, and, in the only games I've seen- pretty sure you're not an avid GSU or Army follower, either- were comically overmatched, against any foe. If you want to treat as a standard of good coaching, that says more about you than me. It's pretty irrelevant to bring up Gateway Conference awards when they're specifically at the lower level I acknowledge he's moderately equipped for, as opposed to the higher level we're generally discussing here on a PXII football board, where, again, at almost every stop, he's been a dreadful, unmitigated failure.

Georgia State also is literally a five year old program, so ascribing their draftee to Etheridge, rather then the far more accomplished Curry, when he was with the kid one year is also wrong.

This post was edited on 12/3 5:40 PM by wulffui

 

[CougEd]

I read what you said..and will say I disagree

when it comes to a failure of any WSU coach. If they fail it means my team struggled.

I tend to agree with Leach that when ot comes to on field coaching, level doesn't matter. Coaches can coach. Where I have found the difference is in selling a program. I agree with a client of mone who coached at an OC level at the Pac 10 level, and he said he actually found lower level coaches are probably better evaluators of talent, as they have to do a lot of projecting., It takes three plays to see Leonard Williams is a major major talent. I would suspect it takes a lot more film work to see where Rien Long could develop.

But where I think level hurts is credibility getting recruits to a campus. But sure seems like Chip Kelly was pretty successful. He just had to meet the correct people.

 

[wulffui]

Re: I read what you said..and will say I disagree

No, Chip Kelly WAS the right person, and isn't salient to an Etheridge discussion unless you can't point to the decade long stretches where teams he coached on won one game out of ten.

Levels unquestionably matter, otherwise you'd see every college just pay 20K to hire a good high school coach in the county who'd be excited to coach so they could save money.

 

[dgibbons]

McGuire was your first Consistency Crusade

You railed on the guy for 9 months before he even coached a game.

McGuire is an example of a guy working out. Not that tough to figure out....

 

[spongebob11]

Re: I read what you said..and will say I disagree

Well 3 of the top 10 coaches in the country went straight from high school to the collegiate levels.

Guz Malzahn, Hugh Freeze, and Art Briles aren't buying what you are selling.

 

[wulffui]

Re: I read what you said..and will say I disagree

For every one of those guys, there's ten guys whose names we don't remember because they had two uninspiring years as a RB coach in the Big Sky.

 

[CougEd]

So you are saying Leach is full of it?

He would respectfully disagree with you? How many years was Kelly buried at his level because he didn't know the right people.

 

[CougEd]

Good coach or bad coach??? An assistant with a ten year stretch

of coaching for a team with close to a .400 winning percentage? Which by the way is higher than what McGuire is coaching....is the coach who coaches for a team that has a .400 record a good coach or bad?

 

[CougEd]

Tough to "rail" on a guy who has never coached

But I understand your point. Those who were pissing and moaning about resume and experience were full of it. I agree.

 

[wulffui]

Re: So you are saying Leach is full of it?

He could, and I'm sure it wouldn't be the first time he was wrong. Which level? It seemed like, based on the little article at Grantland, that, once he took three years to turn around UNH, it only took three years of actual winning to propel him upward.

It's also been a linear ascent for Kelly, no high school or D# gigs littering the resume since he started at UNH. Same for the Freeze and Briles examples.

 

[wulffui]

Re: So you are saying Leach is full of it?

Also, re: your subject line. No, I wouldn't say Leach was full of it. That would be overdone and unnecessarily antagonistic- but if I had him sitting down after watching the St. Ambrose Bees offense try to perform on the PX level, I'd explain why I disagreed.

 

[chinookpirate]

Re: I never once said McGuire was the wrong guy...All I said by the criteria


are you aware of some magic secret budget Wulff was given to hire coaches higher than FCS?

 

[wulffui]

Re: I never once said McGuire was the wrong guy...All I said by the criteria

You mean coaches weren't lined up around the corner to work with schematic genius Paul Wulff? C'est impossible!

 

[dgibbons]

Re: Tough to "rail" on a guy who has never coached

Originally posted by CougEd:
But I understand your point. Those who were pissing and moaning about resume and experience were full of it. I agree.

Thanks for admitting you were full of it. And yes, you railed on the guy for months before he coached a game.

 

[chinookpirate]

Re: I never once said McGuire was the wrong guy...All I said by the criteria

Not what I meant at all. Don't go twisting.

I find it stunning a man of your intellect can't see vividly, why it was, coaches were *not* lined up willing to take a demolition job...where they are going in to battle specifically as sacrificial lamb being one of their responsibilities... for $70,000 year. High school coaches, D1-aa, D-2 and D-3 is what you have to choose from... if we're going to be honest about it.

Now layer on the fact your mission is to fumigate the roster first, then rebuild in a difficult environment, Moos knew what he was doing... all along. Don't kid yourself. What Wulff needed was loyalty as he embarked on the crappy part of what he was hired to do.

 

[wulffui]

Re: I never once said McGuire was the wrong guy...All I said by the criteria

Actually, WE were never going to have anything to choose from- Wulff was. And HE chose all his E-Woo guys, most of whom were awful at this level- why couldn't he find his own Malzahn or Briles? Surely, that type isn't cost prohibitive?

If you have some smoking gun where Wulff had a list of Norm Chow's and Justin Wilcox's he want real bad, but couldn't pay, do present it- it would help lend credence to what you're saying. But I'm pretty sure Wulff had his mind set all along.

 

[CougEd]

Then why did our offense struggle against good teams? Basically

they were shut out against UW, they scored seven against Arizona, 13 against USC, 17 ish against Reno, 24 against ASU, and less than 17 against Stanford. Points not in garbage time.

Why did they struggle out of the gate so much? Was it coaching? WAs it level of coaching?

I would bet if you caught Leach in that moment he would tell you they struggled because of talent.

 

[CougEd]

I can tell you why...he didn't have time. He had zero commits, WSU

didn't have a list of recruit to choose from. They had to immediately get on the road and recruit. He took who he thought were the best recruiters. As it turned out Mailk Roberson and Broussard weren't very good where they needed to be good...in southern California.

 

[CougPatrol]

Originally posted by How_did_this_happen?:
Leach was responsible for hiring the three guys he fired this season, and rightfully so.

This is not a good display of judgment. If I'm Moos, this is the most distressing thing. How can I be confident that the replacements will be better?

You pay a guy that kind of money to make sound decisions.

Back to the OP's comments, this type of situation happens in management every now and again. You hire someone to turn things around. After a couple of years, you determine that some departments are heading down the right path, but in others, the managers aren't getting it done.

Yes, it's concerning that several of Leach's hires didn't work out. It's also not terribly surprising given the autonomy that Leach affords his defensive and special teams coaches, and the reality that the WSU job is significantly more challenging than those at Montana and Wyoming.

I remain confident that Leach has what it takes to make WSU a top notch offense. He transformed Connor Halliday into one of the better QB's out there, and in Spring ball, he'll have 3 of "his guys" battling it out for the vacant QB job. As the offensive line continues to evolve, something Leach really emphasizes, I think our offense will be one of the better units in the Pac-12. And yes, we will run the ball more effectively as things progress. Leach is an offensive minded coach, and I have few doubts that he is getting the job done at WSU on this side of the ball.

I also feel confident that Leach knows how to recruit and manage the program behind the scenes. Weight room discipline, off the field conduct, and commitment to the program are things that I feel Leach is going a good job with.

Yup, there was a swing and miss on defense and special teams. So what do we do? Fire Leach and the entire staff and start over, or correct the problem areas by attempting to upgrade them?

I'm as critical as anyone on here, and I have no loyalties towards any of our coaches, including Leach. I want them all to succeed, but if they don't and I feel they won't, it's time to move on. In this case, I still believe that Leach can be effective in Pullman. I want to see how these staff adjustments impact the program. If we still suck after the 2016 season, we can fire Leach and start over. For now, I don't think this is a major rebuild. We should have won at least 3 more games this year had our special teams not been an unmitigated disaster. Winning 3 more games would have put us right where I thought we'd be this season, and for that, I'm not panicking.

UW was a better team than us, and their defense in those freezing temps gave them (not us) a huge advantage. No coach was going to alter that result.

 

[CougEd]

I can tell you why...he didn't have time. He had zero commits, WSU

didn't have a list of recruit to choose from. They had to immediately get on the road and recruit. He took who he thought were the best recruiters. As it turned out Mailk Roberson and Broussard weren't very good where they needed to be good...in southern California.

He made the change when it was apparent they needed something else. Just like Leach

 

[wulffui]

Re: Then why did our offense struggle against good teams? Basically

If I tell you that the parts of this you treat as fact are riddled with misinformation, then what?

(Hint: your memory of the Stanford game is foggy, along with, as we've demonstrated in the recent past, the Nevada game.)

And we struggled for different reasons in different games- in the UA and UNR games, it looked like their defense baited Halliday into a lot of low-risk throws which they attacked quickly. In the USC and UW games, our receivers couldn't catch passes right in their hands. There's not a single catch all answer- I'd say the first issue falls more on coaching- if the presented "safer path" is actually a trap, that's part of learning (and teaching) the offense. When wide open receivers drop gimmes, that's on the players- we were down seven for most of the first half against UW, and until the Mayle fumble, had really outplayed the Huskies and should have been ahead- except for the drops.

 

[CougEd]

Sure...how many points against Stanford?

And yes it was a previous play to the TD against Reno. Doesn't change the fats, does it.

Yes, there are all kinds of reasons. But in the end, where does that fall? They simply didn't score like people thought they did.

Are you saying we played well against ASU, Arizona, UW, USC, and Stanford?

I thought we did well against Oregon, OSU, Rutgers and Cal. But everyone did well against Cal.

 

[wulffui]

Re: Sure...how many points against Stanford?

Originally posted by CougEd:
And yes it was a previous play to the TD against Reno. Doesn't change the fats, does it.

Since you said it was a TD. and it wasn't, yes, it is literally the definition of you "changing the fats", to paraphrase you.

 

[CougPatrol]

Re: Sure...how many points against Stanford?

If the barometer for success, particularly in year 3, is fielding an offense that lights up the top teams in the pac-12, then we should probably pull up the tent stakes and fold the football program altogether.

Why did we struggle to score points against Stanford, ASU, USC, etc? Because they're better teams than us, and in some of those games, we were going with a first year freshmen QB and no running game to speak of. We also surrendered 36 sacks this year. Leach's best teams at TT gave up 1/2 that many.

The reason we struggled against good teams is because we were at best a .500 team this season. WIth special teams coverage blunders, the horrific kicking/punting game, and the defensive issues, we were a 3 win team. Too many turnovers, too one dimensional, and still overmatched at key positions.

 

[CougEd]

Actually it would only change the facts

if there was a long run and Brown actually caught the QB like white did. The discussion was about top end speed, the fact I missed the play by one play doesn't change the fact Brown was out run by the QB.

 

[Coug1990]

Originally posted by CougPatrol:

Originally posted by How_did_this_happen?:
Leach was responsible for hiring the three guys he fired this season, and rightfully so.

This is not a good display of judgment. If I'm Moos, this is the most distressing thing. How can I be confident that the replacements will be better?

You pay a guy that kind of money to make sound decisions.

Back to the OP's comments, this type of situation happens in management every now and again. You hire someone to turn things around. After a couple of years, you determine that some departments are heading down the right path, but in others, the managers aren't getting it done.

Yes, it's concerning that several of Leach's hires didn't work out. It's also not terribly surprising given the autonomy that Leach affords his defensive and special teams coaches, and the reality that the WSU job is significantly more challenging than those at Montana and Wyoming.

I remain confident that Leach has what it takes to make WSU a top notch offense. He transformed Connor Halliday into one of the better QB's out there, and in Spring ball, he'll have 3 of "his guys" battling it out for the vacant QB job. As the offensive line continues to evolve, something Leach really emphasizes, I think our offense will be one of the better units in the Pac-12. And yes, we will run the ball more effectively as things progress. Leach is an offensive minded coach, and I have few doubts that he is getting the job done at WSU on this side of the ball.

I also feel confident that Leach knows how to recruit and manage the program behind the scenes. Weight room discipline, off the field conduct, and commitment to the program are things that I feel Leach is going a good job with.

Yup, there was a swing and miss on defense and special teams. So what do we do? Fire Leach and the entire staff and start over, or correct the problem areas by attempting to upgrade them?

I'm as critical as anyone on here, and I have no loyalties towards any of our coaches, including Leach. I want them all to succeed, but if they don't and I feel they won't, it's time to move on. In this case, I still believe that Leach can be effective in Pullman. I want to see how these staff adjustments impact the program. If we still suck after the 2016 season, we can fire Leach and start over. For now, I don't think this is a major rebuild. We should have won at least 3 more games this year had our special teams not been an unmitigated disaster. Winning 3 more games would have put us right where I thought we'd be this season, and for that, I'm not panicking.

UW was a better team than us, and their defense in those freezing temps gave them (not us) a huge advantage. No coach was going to alter that result.

I agree CP. More than anyone on this board, I believe in Leach. It is not because I have any particular affinity for him, I just see things in the program that I like. He is building a foundation that once it is in place, will have WSU in a bowl more years than not. I don't think people realize the complete and utter mess that he inherited. As I wrote somewhere on here, there is a good analysis on Brand Y about the rebuilding process.

 

[chinookpirate]

Re: I never once said McGuire was the wrong guy...All I said by the criteria


because Malhzan and Briles weren't ever going to work at a high risk job for D-1aa pay?

really? You really can't grasp this? Not joking here, I'm seriously concerned for you.

Originally posted by wulffui:
Actually, WE were never going to have anything to choose from- Wulff was. And HE chose all his E-Woo guys, most of whom were awful at this level- why couldn't he find his own Malzahn or Briles? Surely, that type isn't cost prohibitive?

If you have some smoking gun where Wulff had a list of Norm Chow's and Justin Wilcox's he want real bad, but couldn't pay, do present it- it would help lend credence to what you're saying. But I'm pretty sure Wulff had his mind set all along.

 

[wulffui]

Re: I never once said McGuire was the wrong guy...All I said by the criteria

Oh no, high school coaches turn down major college conference jobs all the time. You're totally right.

 

[cr8zyncalif]

Come on, '90. You believe more in CML than anyone else on this board? You can speak for yourself. You can't speak for others. I have absolutely no idea how you measure that.

I think there are a lot of people on this board that think that CML is the right choice and doing fine. Results are not consistent and never will be; there are too many other variables. And CML is not perfect, and would never claim to be. He is, however, a very good fit for Pullman. And a very good coach, who we are fortunate to have hired. It was a combination of location, culture and management that made it possible. Kudos to Moos.

Unless you polish Leach's shoes every day, don't make a silly statement like that. I think most of us believe in Leach (a few notable exceptions, but they are the exceptions that prove the rule).

 

[Coug1990]

Originally posted by cr8zyncalif:
Come on, '90. You believe more in CML than anyone else on this board? You can speak for yourself. You can't speak for others. I have absolutely no idea how you measure that.

I think there are a lot of people on this board that think that CML is the right choice and doing fine. Results are not consistent and never will be; there are too many other variables. And CML is not perfect, and would never claim to be. He is, however, a very good fit for Pullman. And a very good coach, who we are fortunate to have hired. It was a combination of location, culture and management that made it possible. Kudos to Moos.

Unless you polish Leach's shoes every day, don't make a silly statement like that. I think most of us believe in Leach (a few notable exceptions, but they are the exceptions that prove the rule).

Lighten up Francis. Seriously? You are criticizing me for that? What if it is something that I truly believe? Should I not write something I believe? Or, maybe I should have used "perhaps" as a qualifier. I don't know. What I do know is that more than 'probably" anyone else on this board, I have not gotten so emotional and jumped ship or even once thought about it. Happy now?

I never thought you were one of "those" type of people. Now I know.