I know this is bait because we've been over this plenty of times and I post too damn much to have to repeat myself.
1. Grobe was a good coach who brought a great philosophy to Wake. Redshirt and win with experience and execution. Play a conservative ball control strategy to minimize turnovers and focus on defense. Wake isn't an easy place to win, but that is the way to do it. Grobe had early success with Caldwell's players who were stronger on offense by using Calhoun's style. Adding two of his greatest players as true freshmen in Barclay and Plack helped. He did a good job recruiting from the Seattle Bowl. Whether on purpose or just going with the best players possible, he went heavy on defense. By going heavy on defense, we had depth and could overcome attrition (Drumgoole, Causey). Having Sam Swank helped, of course. He got the perfect players for his system, albeit in a different era of recruiting and it worked out well.
(find a post I made last week about how the best recruiting period was before YouTube went on line and made it tougher to find sleeper players like Curry)
Grobe has had the same rise and fall Odom and Prosser had. Just like Odom got Duncan by being the school with the best weather and Prosser was lucky to have CP3 in his backyard, Grobe managed to get a good mix of underrated, lightly recruited players in the right point in time in the FRESH DEACS. Each coach had the perfect fit for his style and peaked. Odom and Grobe managed to get good players on paper but couldn't get the same success. Prosser's recruiting just fell off after big misses like OCC. All three couldn't get back to where they were without perfect recruits and failed to adapt to what they could get.
Grobe's philosophy is so conservative to the point of being risky. His safe play isn't the high percentage play. Things like settling for 40+ yard FGs, punting inside the opponent's 35, and not being aggressive in late game situations when a few 1st downs will win the game are conservative to a fault. He gets scared of a low percentage negative event like a turnover and baits himself into high percentage negative events like missed FGs that give up field position, 15 yard net punts, and his poor defenses allowing TD drives.
2. He deserves a chance to get back to where he was, but the last 4 years have worn out his welcome. I don't know how you can argue against those poor finishes. That's just not a sign of good coaching. If we can only beat the dregs in late Oct and November, we're not a competitive program. He'll finish out his contract or get an extension, but he should be gone if we can't tread water with 6 wins next year.
3. I don't know. That's a bullshit question AD plants like you ask critical fans like me in order to feel superior. I don't know the coaching landscape or who would be interested or what. I'm sure there are plenty of talented coaching minds out there who would love to get a shot at an ACC and we shouldn't be scared that they might leave because of what Mackovic did 30 years ago. Believe it or not, Wake has been a destination job for winning coaches across all sports.
4. We haven't seen it happen yet. I think the best players should play. If the best players aren't the more experienced players, that's a problem. I think what Grobe has been doing with redshirting is fine. It's not a strict policy. Everybody doesn't automatically redshirt. For a long stretch, the only players that played as true frosh were the best players on the team for four years. Guys like Barclay, Plack, Thompson, DeGeare, rightfully didn't redshirt.
I think he could have been looser with some redshirts for guys who probably could have contributed as true frosh like Abbate. We've also seen the downside of redshirting by missing a year due to unforeseen issues from Abbate, Givens, Boldin, and Brandon Ghee. If DeGeare had redshirted, it would have happened to him, too.
If Grobe just plays all the true frosh just to play them, I'll be disappointed, but not too surprised. He has four years left on his contract. No point in holding them out for a 5th year he may not coach them.
5. Honestly, I don't think we're all that talented and that's Grobe's fault. A decent Wake team should win at least 6-8 games a year given the weak schedules we play.
6. It won't really matter as long as Lobo is designing the offense and calling the plays. I don't think Tanner is a good fit for the option and he'll get killed. I think they need to pick something and do it well rather than rely on trickery with a new scheme every week. The reason Grobe's early offenses worked wasn't because they fooled people. They worked because they were very well executed by a disciplined and well-conditioned offense that could wear teams down throughout the game. We're not going to be the most talented team on the field every week, but we damn sure can be the smartest team, that works the hardest, is technically sound, and gives a 110% on every play. That team can win games. That high level of execution been missing for several years now and that's the biggest indictment of Grobe.
