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Pac 12 Media Day (Kisima news inside)
- Thread starter Jens1893
- Start date
J-R-K
Well-Known Member
It's because we only won 3 games last year and got absolutely destroyed in most of our losses despite having enough talent to do better.
It's because he and the staff he hired have done an extremely average job of recruiting, and that's probably being kind. (This is my biggest issue)
It's because he coached to keep games close last year, not to win them.
It's because we were just picked to finish last in the Pac-12.
It's because in most of the games last year the team looked completely unprepared.
It's because every other coach in the conference has had a more successful career then he has.
It's because he made a decision before halftime of the OSU game that even my girlfriend who knows nothing about football knew was stupid.
It's because he constantly made excuses for the team's poor play last year.
And most of all it's because he's given me no reason to believe that this program is going to improve with him at the helm.
Hi.O
Well-Known Member
Can you give me a few examples of the bolded? I don't see how he tried to keep games close last year. We were blown out plenty of times, so when was he trying to keep it close? The Hawaii game is only game I can even think of making an argument for. Also, unbolded, but we have talent to do better? What makes you think that? Did our team last year have more talent than the team that lost to Toledo? How about the teams that repeatedly got it handed to them by Missouri? You really think our team was better than those teams?
Exactly!
J-R-K
Well-Known Member
I didn't say we had a ton of talent, I said we had enough talent to play better then we did. Let me give you this example: On offense last year we had two excellent receivers, an excellent RB, a solid QB and a solid O-Line and it was a veteran group (6 senior starters) and yet we were #109 (out of 120) in the country in points scored.
BlackNGold
Club Member
That makes absolutely no sense - They had to beat us to get into the Championship game - why would they look past us to the championship game. Jeez
One of those receivers was injured for most the year. The RB was injured for a few games. We lost Harris and had other injures on the line. Our QB couldn't throw an accurate deep ball. I do agree our offense needs to be better though.
I have to chime in here...you are simply wrong.
1. We had the worst talent I have ever seen on a FBS team...period. After years of poor recruiting, we incurred a multitude of injuries. We were starting a walk on, 5' 6", WR at CB in the most pass happy league in the country. You can't be serious.
2. Not sure you can make this assessment yet. Time can only tell on this one IMHO
3. see no. 1. you can't be rotating players into new and uncomfortable positions and coach aggressively....and if you do, the other teams in this league will set EPIC records against you.
4. I think this is fair. I think we have the talent to win 3 games again this year....because it is all young and inexperienced talent.
5. See 1 and 3...
6. They have more experience as a head coach...but I wouldn't call them all more successful.
7. One bad decision by a brand new head coach that is leading a team which is totally overmatched....oh noes!!!!
8. That is simply false IMHO
9. I won't even reply to this one after what I have said above
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Err sorry meant should have. I do think though with another year in the system and EB with a year under his belt it'll be much better this year. Not sure how much because that depends on PRich's status.
BlackNGold
Club Member
That makes absolutely no sense - They had to beat us to get into the Championship game - why would they look past us to the championship game. Jeez
You are thinking of the reason that they should not have looked past us. That doesnt mean that they were not more worried about their next game then the one with us.
BlackNGold
Club Member
We did not have Two excellent wide receivers at the same time - the first half of the season Clemons was missing in action, the second half Richardson was injured.
You totally overlook the fact the culture was in a massive need of an overhaul. In spite of what some may think, that takes time. This is a team where most of the players had never won a college game on the road - that gets players between the ears.
+1 DII's last team scored 290 points and Embo's first scored 257. It isn't like there was any big drop off offensively. Add in the fact the D was in shambles because of injury, suspension and thin on recruited talent, it is hard to blame Embo. If we don't see some signs of life this year and real improvement next, then there will be something to bitch about. The fact is, DII, MB,Dr. Phil and Benson pretty much corkscrewed this thing into the ground, especially by keeping the Boise idot an extra year. It will take time for Embo to uncorkscrew it. By the end of the year I thought the team was palying much better and the W's against AZ and UT were pretty encouraging.
BlackNGold
Club Member
As I will say once again - THEY WERE NOT IN THE CHAMPIONSHIP GAME! SO THEY HAD NOTHING TO LOOK PAST US FOR!
CU fans diminishing the victory over UTAH is plain idiotic. It was a solid win on the road against a team that had a lot to play for in the game. To revise history is just plain stupid.
I have to agree. You are as good as your weakest link.
We started the fall with Bell and Orms penciled in at CB, with the hope that someone would emerge so that Orms could play nickel, a more natural position. We lost Bell to ACL and Orms was hurt almost immediately.
Henderson then won Bell's spot as a TRUE frosh. This should NEVER happen in D1 football. He was pretty good, but he doesn't see the field at ANY other PAC12 school. Hell, he doesn't see the field at CSU.
When Orms went down with injury/suspension, we turned to Lockridge (a RB who had not even played defense in High School). He got hurt.
We then turned to a walk-on, 5'6" WR. He played pretty good until the competition got really good. We even enlisted a 5'6" RB (True freshman) to play some nickel/CB when things really got rough.
Remember, this whole time, an undersized true frosh is locking down the other corner!
It's deplorable that this is what is left our depth chart, but it is.... I don't see how anyone who is informed thinks we under-achieved. Ludicrous in my opinion.
We underachieved in two games. Cal and WSU, those were both games WR should have won.
Actually, we overachieved in those games and then didn't take advantage of our opportunity to steal wins.
I can buy Cal but not WSU. They're one of the few teams that have been worse than us and we were at home. That's one of my most despised loss last year. No way should a senior bite on the same route multiple times, especially with how little time was left.
A lot of that was having 3 playmakers: P-Rich, Clemons & Speedy. Clemons didn't shot up the first half of the year, while P-Rich and Speedy were mostly unhealthy all year.
A lot of that was also not having a RT we could depend on.
At TE, Deehan having a terrible senior year killed us.
Some of the was also trying to shorten games by being very conservative on offense in order to keep our defense off the field.
Not excusing it, just giving some reasons. We underperformed, but a lot contributed to that which made the on-paper talent less than the on-field performance.
Maybe, it is an 11.4% drop. Anything around 10% isn't that big of a variation IMO, but I see your point.
And I agree, the WSU loss was pathetic.
statistically it is not a huge difference, but in real life on the football field, it is huge and probably moves us a good 20 spots in the offensive rankings and most likely another win or two.
Id think Henderson would have seen the field at CSU, another Pac 12 school, I can maybe see. Mainly because most of those schools didnt have freshman rb recruits in the secondary. The offense did underachieve, no argument here.
Against WSU we would have won had we had anything resembling 4 healthy DBs. We started the game with Lockridge at CB, a guy who two weeks earlier was a third string 5'6" RB and who had never played CB at the college level or even much in HS. He got hurt early in the game and was replaced by Jason Espinoza, a very high effort guy who is 5'8" and lacks D1 speed at CB who two weeks prior was a walk-on WR.
Even then we were in position to win the game. The decisive play was a deep pass completed on Anthony Perkins, a very experienced safety who due to injury should never have been on the field but who was playing because we didn't have anyone else. Perkins had suffered multiple leg injuries in season following injuries in prior seasons and ran at best a 4.9 40 or the speed of a good O-lineman. He got beat on a good move by a much faster WR and an excellent ball fake by the QB and could never recover.
On pure talent we should never have been within 20 points of WSU who was bigger, faster, and stronger as well as more experienced at most positions. This was the case with every PAC game we played.
As to the difference in scoring statistics you are comparing a team from two years ago that was playing from behind most games and got a lot of consolation TDs in garbage time to a team that played more tight games. You are also comparing a team that played against a weaker schedule and scored some points in losses (45 in a loss to Kansas impacts the scoring average as does 35 and 24 in losses to Tech and Baylor) against a team that played one of the toughest schedules in the country.
Embree made some mistakes as you would expect from a first year coach but with the talent on this team last year and the talent that actually was on the field in the end winning three games is not a bad result.
I am expecting an improvement this year and hoping for six wins and a bowl but make no mistake, this team still has huge holes in talent compared to other schools in our conference. We are also dealing with the ongoing process of completely changing a culture of losing that permeated this program when Embree took over. That is not something that can be changed overnight. I'm not excited about the recruiting but the recruits know that we suck as well. The ones will multiple options aren't going to jump at the opportunity to play for a team in the condition our program is. At least it looks like we are recruiting PAC level athletes. If they will develop into PAC level players is still to be seen but I can't name a different coach who CU could have hired who would be doing better right now.
I hear what you are saying. From -05, GB's last year, through last year, CU averaged 268 points a season. I agree they need to put more points up, but I was just wanting to point out what I thought was a flaw in JRK's criticism that the offense was really poor. Actually it was on par with what CU has been doing for the last 7 years, so I don't think it fair to say Embo was deficient there. DII only scored 196 points with his first team FWIW. He was supposedly an Offensive genius.
The offense was only part of the problem. With all the injuries and suspensions etc. it was a track meet when the D was on the field against a lot of teams. It is awfully damn hard to score when the D you are facing has 14-17 points behind them. Being behind not only changes how you play on O, but usually makes the D more aggressive since giving up one big play doesn't hurt as much. It is a nasty position to be in and CU's O was often playing from a two or more touchdown deficit. JMO.
Dude, really?
I think what you are saying is that we were ten plays away.....