I don’t like Tom Herman, but he brought a culture theme to the Coogs. Likewise, win or lose, I know the men’s basketball team will play with intensity and passion. I don’t see that in the football team. Two years ago, in the Armed Forces bowl, the team was a no-show. On Thursday, the score was closer, but effort and identity seemed lacking. Recall that a P-12 invitation several years ago required a level of season tickets ( 20K?). Think that will happen now? The erratic schedule hasn’t helped. Teams need to play week to week to stay sharp. But this team appears to lack heart. That’s what’s disappointing. Todd Graham had his team ready. Why couldn’t CDH?
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You can’t look at this bowl game with 20 players missing and starting walk-ons as an indictment of our culture. I think this team over the past 2 years has shown a lot more heart than any of the Applewhite years. People need to step away from the ledge and look at 2020 in its proper lens.
If you could sum up this season in 1 word, it would be inconsistent. I’m not just talking about the play on the field. It’s not playing a game every week. It’s not having everybody at every practice, There is no way to have consistency in a game when you don’t know what is going to happen from one day to the next.
When you think about those things, I think Holgerson did a good job of navigating his kids through all of this. We can hope that there will be no more of a challenging year than this one was.
There were some positives this year. Don’t lose sight of that. Please keep things in perspective.
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Your post was spot on.
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I agree completely. Herman brought culture, personality, and some swag and enthusiasm! I was a big fan of the Holgerson hire, but very disappointed now. There is no media hype, no buzz, no personality, and no enthusiasm for this program. The only definition is slow starts, undisciplined play, stupid mistakes, lack of energy resulting in a losing record - a few wins, but NO signature wins in the last two years!
I am having a hard time being optimistic about next Fall. Sure wish I felt different.
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And loosing to The Toad (Graham) was especially humiliating!
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Love your post Traveling!! LOGIC!!!
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How you doing Twinmom? Merry Christmas!!
Are you and your husband hanging in there with all of us D1 college footbal coaches on this board? 
Is your blood boiling or your head shaking more these days? Or something else?
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It’s all of the above, but we are good, thank you. We just take it as it comes. It comes with the territory of being a player parent, I guess. I am disappointed in the personal bashing. I thought that was not allowed in this forum. I can only imagine how I would feel if Derek was attacked in this way. He is not perfect by any means and makes mistakes. They are only human. I agree with you, too many wanna be coaches on here who have no clue about this program and what goes on behind the scenes. It’s far from what they all think, but I can’t convince anyone of anything.
Hope your Christmas was wonderful!
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I hope your son and the rest of the team doesn’t read this garbage.
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Unfortunately, they do
People, including the school admins, looked at the army game that way, even though we were missing a lot of key personnel.
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That’s too bad. I have a friend that works in the athletic department. She told me years ago she wasn’t allowed to get on fan message boards.
I wish I had never found these actually. Derek says social media is lit up all the time about them. He just a ignores it. But I imagine that’s hard to do and it can weigh on them after awhile.
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I am proud of you hanging in there. Not sure its worth it however, and especially during the holiday season. Mainly emotional and frustrated fans just letting it flow and possibly feeling better over it.
As a collegiate athlete parent myself I feel your pain and frustration. Glad I don’t have to deal with that with not much interest in womens collegitate golf programs unless they are in regionals or above and even then its short lived.
As bad as we are, it could be worse if Derek had signed with the Whorns.
Does Derek or his teammates ever check out this nonsense?
Eitther way, it will get better next year as we continue to improve up the AAC ladder and trying to close the delta on UC.
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They do see all of this. Social media of any kind is good about letting you know when you choke. It’s their mantra unfortunately.
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I am sure different players handle it differently. Some probably realize it comes with the terroritory, some may be hurt by it, others probably think the old farts are nuts and clueless, some get mad as hell, etc. They have better insights into the truth since they live it versus just watching.
At least Derek got to live the glory of it with the scoop and score for 90 some odd yards.
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If you don’t mind me asking, which coach recruited your son back in 2016-2017? Was it Orlando?
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Yes, it was Orlando. He committed in 2015, the summer before his junior year.
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I understand that the students, and most likely, staff, read these message boards. It cannot possibly help their mindset, but even worse, potential recruits can also read these posts, and IMHO, the negative posts really do impact their thinking about where to get an education while enjoying the hard work involved in playing a sport they love . . . . .
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I am more concerned about recruits and what their parents read all the negatism and nonsense on these boards. Because they don’t know for sure and it can impact their decision to pick the uniiversity. At least most of the players and their parents know the real story and probably just get mad at the posts.
Twinmom is probably a good example with how she interprets some of the posts. The only difference is she is one of the few parents of athletes willing to mix it up and counter real time what she is reading. The same was true of Case’s aunt who participated on our boards for years.
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