This falls on both coaching and the talent we have.
Given that Hawk lost his players last year it should have been easier for Embree to come in and take over the team. He didn't do that. IMO, that's why hiring a guy like Mac would have done wonders. He had been around during the Hawk years and the players knew him and respected him. The politicos made sure that never happened, but the transition year has been harder than it should have been. That falls on leadership. I'm concerned because Embree may not have "it." You see guys like Rhoads and Grobe and Synder and you see what they are doing with talent about equal to ours and you have to wonder. Their guys love their coach. Our coach has a lot of dissenters on our team.
They are also very stubborn. It's good to have a vision for the team, but too many teams have tried to make a team full of lackluster talent into something they are not. We are not a power running team. They tried to make Hansen a pocket passer and tried to have our OL be dominant in the run game. That's the vision, but we didn't have that. The vision is for the future. We live in the present. If we would have played to our strengths better this year than we would have probably won a few more games. Instead we saw a lot of man coverage with a defensive backfield that Cody would have thrown for 500 yards against. On offense they tried to make Hansen a pocket passer and Speedy a bruiser. Show flashes of the future and tell recruits what the end goal is going to be, not what it currently is. RichRod failed at Michigan not because they had crappy talent, but because he tried to make them something they weren't. When you inherit a team, you take on the sins of the father. Some guys can overcome it (Hoke at UM in a weak B1G), but most will fail if they don't adapt.
If we would have finished 2-11, but didn't get blown out in the first quarter or two of nearly game that'd be fine with me or if we did but the young guys still played with intensity I could sleep better at night; guys like Washington @UDub. Instead, we are seeing subpar coaching and scheming given our current talent level versus our competition. That falls on the coaches and it makes it tougher for the new guys to really believe in the coach.
Now, with that said we do have a lot of underperforming seniors. Embree had no choice but to play seniors that half-assed it because we had no depth. Imagine playing walkons at OL or DL or <insert position> where there's at least someone with experience. We already suck, it would have been worse. Was it a wise decision? Well, judging by his comments it would have been better to let more guys go in the offseason if they don't want to the BnG. He played to win this year with some players that should have been told to go if there wasn't a chance they'd buy into him. Perhaps he thought he had let go of everyone that would never buy in. Again, a leadership issue.
Even so, when down at UCLA 21 pts in the first he should have benched them. This is an internal issue, not one for us to see, unless he talks about players leaving the program. Even then he should just say they've parted ways.
When you have walkons that play with more heart and passion than some of our more talented players, you have to know he did inherit a mess. But instead of calling players out he should praise those that work their butts off and bench those that don't. And he shouldn't talk about those guys. Doesn't matter if its their last game ever as a college player.
If we started @Utah without all of the guys he's calling out then I'd be fine with that. It's not like we are going to win anyway. At least play with pride and passion though. They don't have to travel with the team. That wouldn't bother me. His the HC. We need to trust him, but he needs to start trusting himself and his players.
