I agree, but I do think that atleast at the start of this thread was more instant reaction and venting more than anything. Playoff/NY6 dreams getting dashed after such a high to start the season can be crushing. But, it’s part of sports. I look at so much college football that I’ve seen this happen over and over to schools. They lick their wounds and come back. It tests the team and the fanbase alike. Do they self destruct, start calling out each other, make a bad situation worse or look forward to next week and next year?
We will see, but the fans who jumped on the bandwagon this season only because of the hype probably are gone until next season.
So, after taking the weekend to cool down and get all the frustration out, I’m going to give CTH the benefit of the doubt. Not only does 8 straight weeks of games (with 2 of those being on short weeks) take its toll mentally and physically on players, it also does on coaches. Somewhere in the fatigue, this team has taken its eye off the ball culturally. I don’t think it’s because CTH or the staff is distracted with the allure of other jobs. I genuinely think it’s because they’re worn out and in survival mode. Of course, I could be wrong and we’ll all find out after the Memphis game. But for now, I’m going to chalk the last 3 weeks up to fatigue and lack of depth.
As much as we would all love it for CTH to call a press conference and announce he’s here for life, we all know it doesn’t work that way. What he said in the Seth Davis interview about no coach being able to commit for 5 years is absolutely true. Tony Levine probably would have stayed here for life if given the chance, but he didn’t cut it. Good coaches lose their mojo and get run out of town (see George O’Leary). Other good coaches get presented with the opportunity of a lifetime and should pursue it. College football is completely unpredictable and no coach with an ounce of intelligence would blindly commit to something in this business. I do hope HY, RK and TF are able to blow his socks off and get a deal done over the bye week. That would allow our guys to completely refocus for Tulane, UL and Memphis and finish this season strong.
That said, if we can’t figure things out pretty quickly and pull ourselves back together, I don’t know that we’ll win any of our remaining games. If we show up to play Louisville on 11/17 and play like we did against SMU, we’ll lose by 40. We need to figure out how to push through and get a W against UCF then enjoy that bye week to the fullest extent possible. Get guys healthy and go into the Tulane game with an actual game plan and smoke them like we know we’re capable of. If this team can find the swagger it lost after getting beat by Navy, I like our chances to compete with and pull one out against UL.
No matter what happens, whether we lose out and lose CTH, or win out and sign CTH to a lifetime non-cancellable contract, the last 2 years of watching this team sure beats watching UH in the Helton/Dimel and Levine eras. Trying to keep some perspective here.
Look, the stuff about him leaving has been present since the beginning. It can be distracting and an excuse. So can not getting into the Little 10. Those are excuses. Yet, when you’re tired you don’t always have rational thoughts. Parents squawking comes with the territory. Heck, they squawk at little league games. I pay no attention to what a parent has to say. Notice, it didn’t come out when they were winning?
What I see is a team running on fumes. Hopefully, Herman gave the kids extra time to recover this week.
I have my issues with the offensive playcalling but it doesn’t matter when the team is tired and lost the motivation that drove them re: conference championship.
The season started with great expectations but as the saying goes “the greater your expectations, the greater your disappointments”.
This is Herman’s first bout of adversity as the head guy. I’ll be interested to see how he handles it.
Coaches leaving a school for better opportunities is a part of the game and everyone should just accept the fact. In my opinion, the NCAA should install a rule that prevents the recruitment of coaches from the beginning of fall practice until the targeted coach’s team has completed their season, including bowl games. No comments, no interviews, no contact of any kind. If you want to fire your coach in week 3 fine, but leave mine alone. As unintentional as it may appear, the kids are very perceptive and any distraction is too much distraction. Coaches need to 100% commit to their team/school/city for the entire year. The offseason is available for new coach recruitment.
1000% agree with this, but honestly have no idea how you would enforce it. Since coaches have agents, it would be virtually impossible to discover violations of this rule. But it should be the rule in fairness to the schools these coaches are currently under contract with.
Also, by the letter of the law, enticing a coach to breach his current contract is tortious interference with a contract. IMO, the best way to stop this behavior is to not allow contract buyout provisions, but instead include very large liquidated damages clauses. Calling it a “buyout” is conceding that the coach is not breaching the contract when he leaves early. With no buyout clause, when another school lures your coach away, you sue for tortious interference and seek your liquidated damages plus attorney fees. I would also include separate liquidated damages for the loss of any recruit following a coach leaving early. I think the result would be fewer coach poaches, but also shorter term contracts. We certainly wouldn’t see 4-5 year contracts anymore. Of course, the down side would be schools stuck with bad coaches until the contract expires. However, I guess that’s the case anyway since we’re still paying Tony Levine.
After the loss, I was so frustrated that I stayed up and watched my DVR recordings of the first 5 wins.
The answer is simple. It’s about the DEFENSE stupid. You know, the defense that shut down FSU last year, and OU this year.
After the 4th game, we lost a senior leader on Defense… #81, OLB Tyus Bowser.
And the circumstances of the way we lost him affected the team. Plain & simple. It was a freak thing that happened during non-football activities. Unfortunate, but it is what it is.
I would have preferred to have an earlier bye week, but we aren’t the only team in the nation that played 8 games straight to start the season. 41 teams had their schedules look like that before the season started
I am the original poster, and like everyone else, I was pretty negatively affected by what was happening and posted what most were thinking. I’m more calm today but still, all of us know, we have been down this road too many times so, yeah, pretty sensitive to it all.
And Tom is not helping matters by being coy. I think it’s a perfect storm brewing: constant media speculation about his departure, the BIG12 utter nonsense, locker room rift, player exhaustion, injuries, being everyone’s super bowl, and maybe, just maybe we are seeing some Herman inexperience now.
I love the Urban Meyer model, except for the fact that Meyer galavanted from job to job, I hope Herman doesn’t emulate that part.
I agree the defense is the difference. Everyone likes the QB when we are winning but Ward isn’t the primary reason we had the year we had last year and started this year. He was a great contributor but many of the defensive players have had just as many big plays.
I don’t think it’s the depth though. I don’t think it’s missing Bowser either although that is a symptom of the problem. It’s the substitutions. When the whole defense is healthy, the team has plenty of experience with different defensive sets. When you are missing two to three starters, the basic defensive sets are no problem but the nickel and dime sets don’t get as much experience with the new lineup. I bet the last 3 games, that our first down, second down and even our third and short defense has played just as well as the last year and as they did against OU (in the second half). Third and long though, I see a lot of confused players. Not only the newcomers but the veterans. It doesn’t take much for a receiver to get wide open on 3rd and long and if the QB gets more than 2 seconds, it’s a first down unless the receiver drops the ball.
If we want to allow less than 30 points Saturday, we need to surprise them with leaving the same defense out there in 3rd and long as we have used on 1st and 10 and 2nd and long. Of course you want to rotate players in and out to keep them fresh but 3rd and long defense has to be among the worst in the nation the last 3 weeks.
After being #1, #22 and #2 over the last three years in Turnover Margin, this year’s team is #94 through 8 games. I do not recall a huge Turnover created by the defense since the back-to-back pick-6 plays against Cincy.
Last season, UH averaged 1 fumble recovery and 1.5 interceptions per game. This year it is 0.625 each per game. What is interesting is that this season’s team is #13 in Total Defense yielding 4.9 yards per play which is better than last season’s #53 (5.5 yards/play).
I am trying not complain about the 6-2 record. I understood a loss at Navy and could have accepted losing to Tulsa given their QB and WRs.
Losing to SMU stung though – they have one of the worst defenses and, if nothing else, UH should be able to outscore them. They had only beaten North Texas and Liberty (and not by a lot). I have to wonder what could have been if UH does not fumble and scores on the first series to give the SMU players little hope that Saturday was going to be any different than their other games.
Oh well. SMU might get past Tulane this weekend but they may not win another game this season (pretty tough schedule the rest of the way) and that will make it even worse at the end of the season.