Wrangor
Go Deacs
- Joined
- Mar 24, 2011
- Messages
- 12,413
- Reaction score
- 1,376
Fair enough, I guess. There was something unpleasant about last year causing such an exodus. Very similar to what happened after the second year of BZ.
One would hope that an AD would look at this much discontent and not automatically assume the problem is not with the coach he hired. Then again, one would hope their AD were not Ron Wellman.
If Wellman would have fired Manning after last year's dissapointment and exodus it would not have shocked me, and I think you can make a clear argument for why. I come from the other side of the coin as someone who (long ago) has coached, and to me, Manning is attempting to do the right things. From the looks of things, he will end up being ineffective in his time at Wake, but he wasn't a [name redacted] kind of hire. He was a solid swing at it, and he came really close to getting us back where we need to be. A set of unfortunate circumstances and coaching deficiencies (that he has not corrected yet) has left Manning with little to show for his time here. His personality (or moreover lack of...) has cost him precious support during down times. It is tough to blame Manning for that, and that is in my opinion where a lot of the unfair criticism comes from on the boards. Some people are just boring. It sucks for them, but it isn't worth mocking the guy.
I do think our talent level in this freshman class is extremely good, and while Hoard is probably gone after this year, we still have some talent returning for the following year. Mucius, Brown, Childress, and Sarr are 4 really exciting players at their respective ages. I think Hoard ends up being a 1st round pick, and so he is likely gone, but the other 4 (if Manning does his job) should return and form the backbone of a good lineup. Manning has to come through with another good 19 recruit or much of his work on the recruiting trail will be for naught whether he is the one that coaches the team or not.
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