November/Post Bye Woes

[myDeaconmyhand]

It could be Clawson, Jim Grobe, Nick Saban, Jesus Christ, if the coach can’t recruit better than the 60th ranked class then we aren’t going to consistently compete for conference championships, or win conference games in November, even if all those players stay for 6 years.

 

[BeachBumDeac]

It could be Clawson, Jim Grobe, Nick Saban, Jesus Christ, if the coach can’t recruit better than the 60th ranked class then we aren’t going to consistently compete for conference championships, or win conference games in November, even if all those players stay for 6 years.

It’s not crazy that an excellent developmental program could recruit like that and have a floor of 6-8 wins with a ceiling of 10-11 wins (and competing for conference championships) if the stars aligned. With a fifth year record setting QB, a stacked group of wideouts, a new coordinator to address the biggest weakness from last year’s 11 win team, and a Clemson team that looked vulnerable, a lot of people thought this would be a ceiling year.

 

[PhDeac]

It’s so weird to call some people’s opinions about 16-17 year old kids recruiting “data.”

 

[myDeaconmyhand]

It’s a matter of perspective. I’m frustrated that this program only seems to be excelling at passing offense, and is demonstrating on the field that we are in the same place, recruiting and result wise, as we were before COVID, despite vastly improved facilities and consistent bowl eligibility. Clawson is outperforming his recruiting class rankings by about 20-25? Which means we consistently finish about the same as a team that recruits top 40 classes. That’s great, but is it more realistic to expect his developmental program and on field coaching to improve even more than it has already (guy has coached for 30 years and won championships at multiple levels) or to expect his recruiting to improve just incrementally over a decade?

 

[myDeaconmyhand]

It’s so weird to call some people’s opinions about 16-17 year old kids recruiting “data.”

RJ level contrarianism. As it correlates with college sports winning, recruiting is the rule and on field coaching ability is the exception.

 

[PhDeac]

It’s weird for the one guy who disagrees with everyone to accuse someone else of “RJ level contrarianism.”

 

[skinnydeac]

I mean, I kinda get what you're saying. After 7 straight bowl games and a division title. It is time to stop recruiting classes that finish 60th and land a couple that are 40th. That is easier said than done and I fully believe that the talent evaluation at certain positions (WR) is above the rank.

 

[PhDeac]

If he was only saying that recruiting should improve, everyone would agree with him. But he’s saying that we shouldn’t expect the smart, disciplined football from these players to beat teams like Louisville, State, and UNC. He’s saying recruiting lost these games not interceptions, holding penalties, and time management. It’s LOWF.

 

[myDeaconmyhand]

If he was only saying that recruiting should improve, everyone would agree with him. But he’s saying that we shouldn’t expect the smart, disciplined football from these players to beat teams like Louisville, State, and UNC. He’s saying recruiting lost these games not interceptions, holding penalties, and time management. It’s LOWF.

We consistently win 8 games a year and go .400 in conference play under this regime, yet it’s always some coincidental circumstance of bad luck, coach/player mistakes, and injuries that keep us from winning these darned conference games, and definitely not that level of class recruiting rankings that have been just as consistent as our season win/loss records.

 

[thatguy2016]

We consistently win 7.5 games a year and go .400 in conference play under this regime, yet it’s always some coincidental circumstance of bad luck, coach/player mistakes, and injuries that keep us from winning these darned conference games, and definitely not that level of class recruiting rankings that have been just as consistent as our season win/loss records.

So what is your solution?

 

[RedSoxFaithful]

i don't know how you could watch the end of the clemson game and the game on saturday and not think that coaching mistakes cost us otherwise winnable games

 

[IAppreciateIt]

You all are ridiculous. The recruiting data is right there, and yet you attribute every fucking loss to individual coaching errors, as if every other coach is perfect and are never the victim of blown calls or injuries. It’s talent. None of the other programs that recruit in the level we do are as successful as us. Your expectations of our coaching are insane. If coaches had to be mistake free to win a football game then no one would ever win anything.

I think MDMH is mostly on point here in terms of the overanalysis of coaching moves and their impact.

There is a huge amount of randomness when it comes to winning football games, it’s not like playing chess.

When a basketball player goes 8-8 from the FT line one game, then 4-8 the next, people generally don’t go super deep trying to figure out what happened.

Obviously we still want to recruit better, develop better and scheme better and coach better over time. But no matter what, there is always going to be a huge range of outcomes. For us to be great, we need to hope to be good and lucky. Last year we were good and pretty lucky. This year we are good but pretty unlucky.

 

[myDeaconmyhand]

i don't know how you could watch the end of the clemson game and the game on saturday and not think that coaching mistakes cost us otherwise winnable games

Coaching mistakes even out. You don’t think there were any Carolina coaching mistakes that allowed us to score, or prevented Carolina from scoring? They aren’t playing Chess our there, the players have to win the games

 

[IAppreciateIt]

i don't know how you could watch the end of the clemson game and the game on saturday and not think that coaching mistakes cost us otherwise winnable games

every fanbase blames their coaches after close losses.

(they also blame the refs and usually complain about the announcers.)

i think coaches are not perfect and certainly losing coaches are probably making more mistakes than winning coaches over a large sample size, but we vastly overestimate the impact of the decisions (eg. dropping win probability from 40% to 38%)

 

[Biff Tannen]

It’s not rocket science that the best teams in the country every year are the ones with all the four and five star recruits. Seems like those recruiting experts opinions are borne out. A sophomore 5-star is going to outperform your sixth year senior almost all the time.

 

[rawarr]

you really see the difference in recruiting late in the year against the best teams. we just aren't as big and aren't as fast and it's obvious. we've proven we can win a lot of games with that talent level, but you can't make mistakes and you can't get outcoached -- and it helps to get lucky last year.

smaller and slower guys are always smaller and slower, even if they're 5th year seniors

 

[thatguy2016]

We need to improve the recruiting

Clawson is improving the recruiting

You need to demonstrate momentum to improve recruiting which is one reason why last Saturday was a big game, and why people are frustrated we lost to UNC in excruciating fashion for the third year in a row

 

[myDeaconmyhand]

It’s not rocket science that the best teams in the country every year are the ones with all the four and five star recruits. Seems like those recruiting experts opinions are borne out. A sophomore 5-star is going to outperform your sixth year senior almost all the time.

That’s true, but I know it’s unreasonable to expect any Wake Football coach to recruit at that elite level. I’m just saying that with our recruiting at the same 60th ranked class-level every year it basically puts a ceiling on our program, and it’s not realistic for us fans to expect us to keep improving on the field if our recruiting classes aren’t improving.

 

[BeachBumDeac]

That’s true, but I know it’s unreasonable to expect any Wake Football coach to recruit at that elite level. I’m just saying that with our recruiting at the same 60th ranked class-level every year it basically puts a ceiling on our program, and it’s not realistic for us fans to expect us to keep improving on the field if our recruiting classes aren’t improving.

Yeah geez why won’t these sports fans just be rational. Just look at these spreadsheets and take all the emotion out

 

[ddeacs98]

Who was it, Prosser or Grobe, with the play like your hair’s on fire quote? Doesn’t matter, because that’s what opposing DL’s are doing. As long as they do that, opposing secondaries can be mediocre, yet still be effective.