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Why I'm hopeful

skibum

Thou shalt not groom Mary Jane
Club Member
A. Yeah - long time from registering to first post - deal with it.
B. Get your own damn sammich and beer.
C. Go Buffs

So, preliminaries done, why am I hopeful?

1. The coaching staff is inexperienced, but they are motivated to learn and get better. So far I have not seen a single problem in their coaching that can't be fixed with some more time on the job. Contrast with the old regime who showed no interest in becoming better coaches, but instead blamed failure on a myriad of outside factors (everything from the way the ball bounced on a "few plays" to "players from broken families are liabilities" to "academics at CU are hard").

One example (of several) of the new regime being willing to learn: they come out slow in the first quarter. First they talk to the players about it - "coach them up" so to speak. It doesn't work. They call different plays, have different player packages, change out starters where they can - still doesn't work. Ok. Change how we practice. That changing practice "from stretching/warm-up to two-minute drill" came from one of two places: an internal coaching brainstorming session or Embree and co. called some of their mentors and asked for advice. Either answer is a good one. The next game: they actually didn't come out looking like dog **** the first quarter (yeah, that one drive was seriously helped by WSU penalties - but it was WSU penalties not CU penalties!).

The important thing to me here is that while Embree is young, inexperienced and doesn't know all the answers - he's actually smart enough to know he doesn't know all the answers, and he seems to have the willingness and lack of ego to actually call up other coaches, mentors, etc and get some advice. The No Fun League does a great job in setting up mentoring relationships for young, minority coaches (there's a reason there's been more minority NFL head coaches than minority BCS head coaches) - Embree and Bieniemy didn't magically lose those relationships and go off on their own when they left the NFL.

2. The prior regime really left us in a big hole. It's been rehashed a hundred times, but DII really did not understand big boy ball. I think he actually believed (and truthfully a lot of people believe this) that Boise would be a very competitive team in a BCS conference. He ran the program, and got the recruits, just like he would have done at Boise his first couple years here. Then he found out that you can't win with that level of talent when you play real opponents every single week. The win loss total started turning the wrong way - and that makes it harder to recruit. It's a cycle that killed him. (Here's the counterfactual: what if CU had played Boise's schedule the first two years of DII's reign of ineptitude? We would have been winning 8, 9 or 10 games a year easily, and DII could have kept on recruiting at that same level - but the Big 12 wasn't the WAC.) The problem was that DII didn't change, he never actually realized that he was going to have to work harder/smarter...

3. It's going to take a bit to get this ship righted. Embree and co. are learning on the job; they're going to make some rookie mistakes. It's wrong for us to judge him like we would judge even a 5 year veteran. If his coaching gets better each game, each year - that's what we need to see. When he reaches a ceiling, then we can talk about a new coach. But he ain't there yet - he's not even close. This year they are recruiting to a 1, 2 or 3 win team - and they are still landing some solid (not great, not earth-shattering, but solid) recruits. If those recruits get them to a 3-6 win team the next two years, they'll be able to recruit even better recruits. There are benefits to being on an up-swing - and yes, I hate the fact that 3-6 win team would be an improvement. **** Danny boy.

Last week was tough. We were outclassed. It was good to see what we're trying to become. But because we were so far outclassed, it was not a good barometer for, well anything. WSU was a better measuring stick. We played better that game than we had the prior 3. There were signs of hope. We could (may) have played better last week against the tree, but there's no way we could see it. This Saturday hopefully we're not so far out of our depth that we'll be able to see some more progress. The pups are close enough to earth that we'll actually be able to perceive progress - even if we don't win.

and all of this writing so that my first post isn't in the roll-call for ASU...

Go Buffs!
 
You're no pabuff, but you'll do. Good first post. We joined at roughly the same time last year. You have more content in that post than my ~4k combined. Stick around.
 
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I have to be careful on these internet forum things. I have a tendency to become this guy:
http://xkcd.com/386/

Normally don't write so much though, but when you wait almost a year for a first post, it can't be "Derp, go buffs, DII sucks, now where's Tini's mom?"
 
More ski bums on this site can only be a good thing! I thought he was Mtn at first though :lol:.
 
This guy has been studying.

yes, he's clearly been monitoring and conducting recon and surveillance under deep cover.

can we trust him or is he a bolshevik sleeper agent, sent here to wreak havoc from within?
 
Stop trying to redirect.

meh. i have decided that "bolshevik" shall be my allbuffs go-to word for the next few weeks. so stop trying trying to deflect my redirect-- perhaps you are the secret bolshevik... that would make cunning sense.
 
I have to be careful on these internet forum things. I have a tendency to become this guy:
http://xkcd.com/386/

Normally don't write so much though, but when you wait almost a year for a first post, it can't be "Derp, go buffs, DII sucks, now where's Tini's mom?"

why not? i like the word "derp". and as far as tini's mom goes... well we all know the answer to that!
 
meh. i have decided that "bolshevik" shall be my allbuffs go-to word for the next few weeks. so stop trying trying to deflect my redirect-- perhaps you are the secret bolshevik... that would make cunning sense.
Stop instigating.
 
i like the new guy...

writes an outstanding inaugural post and summarizes what he really was saying with about ten words in his second post...

great work, dudehead...

:thumbsup:
 
In upcoming posts I recommend you make the following substitutions in order to conform to established site protocols

their -> there
there -> they're
they're -> their
your -> you're
you're > your
were -> we're
we're -> were
me -> I
I -> me
lose -> loose

But this is only the beginning; feel free to expand the list at you're whim.

All seriousness aside, me liked you're case for DII's crash and burn having to due with the increased strength of schedule at CU. Me had always assumed that his assistants we're the brians behind Boise.
 
Just have to hope Embree figures out most of the major "learning how to be a head coach" stuff in this first season, because it's pretty imperative that we start to get our **** together and proceed to make a move up out of the cellar next season -- nothing drastic, but 4-5 wins instead of 2. This is obviously a brutally tough situation in which to be learning how to be a head coach, but he's surrounded himself with a good staff (for the most part) and this youth movement is definitely a cause for optimism in terms of changing the culture as quickly as possible. Having so many kids graduating this season is a blessing, I'm confident that we'll fare better next year even with so many questions on paper heading into the season at key spots. The one reason I'm probably not as optimistic as you are overall is recruiting. I'm psyched about the kids we have coming in, and anyone wanting to be a Buff right now during these tough times has my respect, but overall we're behind where I hoped we'd be. It's hard to sugarcoat that fact that in-state recruiting, and key areas like OL recruiting have been big disappointments thus far. I wasn't expecting the staff to waltz on in and produce a top 15 class in year 1, but I was hoping for top 30 and we're obviously not even close to that at the moment. We desperately need to finish strong - and perhaps we will - but unfortunately a 2-11 season isn't going to provide much springboard for that.
 
Ok, rep delivered to ski. But, ****, no more "War and Peace" peaces, OK?! I can only take posts in small doses. :lol:
 
Cville: we're about 15 miles apart - I'm over in Alexandria. I was hoping for a 25-35 ranked class, but honestly, if we're in the middle of the pack this year (45-60), that should be good enough to get to the 3-5 win level next year (presuming coaching continues to improve). More wins next year than this year, should get us to a 25-35 class the following year. There just has to be improvement in the win column next year. If there isn't, the road back will be longer. That said, take your time table, add a year to it, and I think that's it.

3op: I thought about DII's attitude a lot. And I think he really thought what he was doing was enough to win at this level - hence the "we're 'this' close" comments - I think he truly believed them. That, and he had no clue what to do to become any better - he had peaked. The thing is, if he gets back into coaching in a non-BCS conference, I bet he will do just fine. What we saw was the Peter Principle in action.
 
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