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Grading Mel Tucker - First Season

What grade do you give Mel in his first season?

  • A

    Votes: 5 2.4%
  • A-

    Votes: 7 3.4%
  • B+

    Votes: 38 18.5%
  • B

    Votes: 72 35.1%
  • B-

    Votes: 35 17.1%
  • C+

    Votes: 26 12.7%
  • C

    Votes: 14 6.8%
  • C-

    Votes: 3 1.5%
  • D

    Votes: 3 1.5%
  • F

    Votes: 2 1.0%

  • Total voters
    205
  • Poll closed .

BatBuff

Well-Known Member
What grade would you give Mel for his first season as head coach (not including recruiting)?
 
Last edited:
An A would have been beating AFA, AZ, and USC en route to an 8-4 record, mid tier bowl game and solid recruiting class.

Losing those three games and not making a bowl drops a full letter grade, but recruiting is still solid, he did beat Nebraska and Washington, and I saw improvement on defense, along with zero quit from the players.

That earns him a B in my book.
 
Season was a disappointment. Same record as last year. Lost to a dog **** UA team, couldnt close out USC and Air Force, played mediocre at times, very poorly at others. All that said, was still an improvement over last year. He gets a “C” from me but I expect better.
 
B+ from me. Even though we wound up with the same below average record from the past two years, I think several of our wins were much higher quality than any wins from either of those seasons. The defense also clearly improved as the year went on.
 
I gave it a “D”.

Losing record and missed a bowl. It’s a testament to how much I like him, appreciate some of the successes and believe in his vision that I didn’t give the season an “F”.
 
I look for improvement throughout the season and versus the previous year. The loss to AFA hurt as did the performance in the second half yesterday. Stanford and Washington games did show improvement, particularly defensively. Overall, I was hoping for an improvement in record.
So, B- If I included recruiting that would be higher.
 
I have it a "C" with on field results a "D" and recruiting a "B".

On field the defense was piss poor most of the year and our offense as a whole under achieved. Going 6-6 would have moved it to a "C" grade.

As for recruiting, if we crack the top 25 that will bump to a B+. As it stands around 30 and 4th in the PAC, that's a solid "B". If we want to win the south and compeat for PAC titles a class like this needs to be our floor.
 
Since the thread title was “season” I didn’t think recruiting had anything to do with this.

I’d give a different grade for “first year as HC”. Maybe even a “B”.
 
Since the thread title was “season” I didn’t think recruiting had anything to do with this.

I’d give a different grade for “first year as HC”. Maybe even a “B”.
Yeah I guess I introduced recruiting to this thread, but I figured it’s all part of judgement on a coach. In year one, the W/L record can’t be all that’s being judged. Each year that passes, though, the W/L record becomes far more heavily weighted.
 
For all of you who are critical of our record, don’t forget that this year’s 5-7 was much better than last year’s 5-7. 2019 had no FCS teams, no first year coaches and no Oregon State.

2019 had 9 new starters on defense, and at first glance, had far more key injuries than 2018.

I think every aspect of our team, other than SM, was better in 2019 than in 2018 and that is largely due to HCMT.
 
For all of you who are critical of our record, don’t forget that this year’s 5-7 was much better than last year’s 5-7. 2019 had no FCS teams, no first year coaches and no Oregon State.

2019 had 9 new starters on defense, and at first glance, had far more key injuries than 2018.

I think every aspect of our team, other than SM, was better in 2019 than in 2018 and that is largely due to HCMT.

And we still won more games than the “experts” and Vegas thought we would win.
Most thought we were in the 2-3 win category and would be last place in the south.
 
We won one more than i expected and beat a couple programs i didn't expect to beat. B. Recruiting exceeded my expectations so far, but what the hell do i know?
 
5-7 matches my pre-season prediction and is about right for this team talent wise, so he didn't really outperform nor underperform in my opinion. There are still quite a few positives though. The team looked much more physical than I expected. Winning the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball against Washington, as well as our D-Line holding up against Utah was a nice surprise. This absolutely would not have happened under the last staff. Beating Nebraska was big as well (even if they ended up being terrible). The defensive improvements throughout the year leave me optimistic about that unit going into next year, even if the back end needs some talent upgrades.

A few disappointments though. The long stretches of our offense doing absolutely nothing against Air Force was pretty disappointing. Choking the game away against USC by being overly conservative was really disappointing, but it seems like Tucker learned from this which is good. Several people on here refer to Arizona as our worst loss, which from a talent differential standpoint is probably true, but I'm not going to be too harsh on the staff here due to the injuries. You can repeat the "no excuses" mantra as much as you want, but the fact is the defense is going to give up a lot of points when Sam Noyer is back there.

Recruiting has been mildly better than I expected, and Alfano was a nice surprise.

Overall I give it a B-
 
C+. He was one ****ty quarter against usc away from getting a B+ however. A bowl game to go along with the recruiting momentum would have been huge but margins are thin in college football between being successful on the field and not.
 
B is bowl territory?!?!? Did he have to win a national title to get an A-????
There’s a lot of middle ground between 6-6 and 14 wins. C is a fair grade based on results. Exceeded Vegas expectations, won several games as an underdog, but also lost a couple home games as a favorite and were pretty embarrassing in a couple road games against bad teams. Season was headed towards a dumpster before getting those Stanford and UW wins, so props for pulling those out. Still can’t call it a highly successful season.
 
Gave him a B-. The ultimate result on the field is an F...the season is a failure if we don't make a bowl. However, there are things to bring up the grade. Recruiting...he is competing with top flight programs and winning some recruiting battles. He has had to change the culture, which he is doing but takes time. I look at how physical we were against UW and the trees as evidence Tuck is changing the culture. He inherited a decent starting lineup, particularly on O, but overall lack of depth made a 6+ win season doubtful. Considering what he inherited and what he is trying to build, overall a B- for me. I am really hopeful for the future!!!!!
 
I will give him a B+ this year. We didn't achieve what I hoped we would, but I think he has us pointed and moving in the right direction.
 
B+. As mentioned above, previous staff only wins 2 with the players we had.

Positives: Noticeable improvement on both lines as season wore on. Running game that was able to close out a couple of games with long drives. Culture shift- this team didn't give up, previous teams would have. Did miracles with a defense that was pieced together scraps.

Negatives: A few play calling gaffes, and strategies (see USC Q4). Not pulling Montez at least once when it was obvious he wasn't getting it done - I'm not convinced the backups are as bad as people keep saying here, need more data. Didn't really develop player leadership. I wasn't too crazy about the weekly captains thing, but maybe it was because nobody was stepping up.
 
C+ for me.

Positives:
- First win ever in Tempe
- First win over UW since joining the Pac12
- Didn't tank mid-season and won last 2 of 3

Negatives:
- Horrible losses to UA and ucla

In general, about what most of us expected out of this season.
 
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