Ideally, Addazio hopes to carry a minimum of 16 offensive linemen on scholarship, enough to field a full two-deep while leaving a handful of redshirts, scout-teamers, and injured bystanders to spare.
So I checked HokieSports.com, and it turns out we have 19 offensive linemen on roster. Certainly we have our fair share of redshirts and scout teamers, but from a pure numbers game, in two seasons post-Newsome we seem to be in a situation of developing talent rather than looking for it.
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Theoretically we have 22 in the program or pledged to join it. Three of those guys are walk-ons though, and one is a gray shirt. So we'll have 18 scholarship OL this fall, which is a decent # of bodies. The main problem is lack of Tackles with experience. McLaughlin and Hansen are it. Redman was a TE 4 months ago. Nijman was a DL. Clark, Arnold and Plantin are good prospects but they're freshmen. At least we have 5 new OT to choose from.
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I still can't fathom how we "got behind in OL recruiting" in the late 2000s. Beamer should never use that excuse-he knows full well the trenches are where games are won and lost, there's just absolutely no excuse to have a poor OL, and if it repeats year after year then you have to recognize there's a problem. Blaming it all on Curt Newsome (and don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of that guy) is taking the easy way out. Our great teams of the mid and late 90s were built around the OL, I know these gimmicky spread offenses can somewhat hide deficiencies in that area, but at VT the OL is where our bread is buttered. That's true of almost every national champion over the last 30 years as well. Sorry to bring up a subject that's been beaten to death here but it still chaps my arse.
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Curt Newsome is at fault for decimating our OL, Frank is at fault for keeping Newsome around when it became obvious he was a poor fit.
Someone mentioned somewhere else in the forum the other day that if VT returns to a winning tradition, Frank should be credited with guiding the program through a rough patch. This seems disingenuous to me, as the rough patch came about specifically because Frank valued loyalty higher than performance for a stretch of too many years. Frank pulled a Mack Brown, and if the program rebounds, Frank should be credited with being able to change before it cost him his job. Frank came really close to diminishing his legacy by having it end on a sour note.
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This seems disingenuous to me, as the rough patch came about specifically because Frank valued loyalty higher than performance for a stretch of too many years.
I agree with this except I'll add that I don't think it was just loyalty. Performing at the highest of levels requires a lot out of an individual and I think Frank got complacent and was willing to accept a little less from himself and those around him. Unfortunately for him VT isn't a school where it recruits itself (like OSU, Bama, etc) and taking those few years off caused the issues that we saw/see now. For what it's worth I think he realized it and has recommitted himself and I'm optimistic that we are going to see the results of that soon.
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I do agree there was some complacency and resting upon laurels that occurred, due in large part to the culture that Jim Weaver fostered during his tenure, but there was also at noticeable "turtling" of the staff after Kevin Rodgers left VT for the Vikings. After that, hiring decisions were made with the thought in mind that we were only going to bring someone in if they planned on staying at VT. And thus was the O'Cainspring era born.
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Under Weaver it never really felt like the goal of the athletic department was to excel at athletics, it was to run a financially successful department. Whereas it definitely is good to run in the black every year, you have to have the ability to tighten the screws on your employees a bit, and that is where he failed. As long as you didn't cost him money (that is, if you didn't either get too successful to retain without a significant raise or suck bad enough we started to see paid attendance drop) all you had to do was really kiss his butt behind the scenes and you kept your job.
Not really the best way to run an athletically competitive department. Financially viable, sure, competitive? No.
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I will say, he was a terrific bean counter, and his frugality has put Whit in a position to be able to spend aggressively. However, it has also put Whit in a position to have to spend aggressively just to play catch up to other elite programs.
Weaver was the architect of the "VT isn't elite, and we can't compete with elite programs" mindset. A few more years with him at the reigns, and it would have been a self-fulfilling prophecy.
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Honestly, that mindset is already ingrained in a chunk of the fan/alumni base. Its frustrating because it really shouldn't be that case. I don't care that Virginia Tech is located in the mountains of SW Virginia a half hour outside of Roanoke... We're the flagship football program of the Commonwealth that has a rapidly growing and increasingly youth-dominated alumni base (that happens when you are graduating nearly 10x the students per year now that you were 30-40 years ago), that has grown up watching successful Virginia Tech football. We have one of the largest University systems in the Atlantic seaboard region, we play in a Power 5 conference, we've had over 2 decades of sustained success in the biggest collegiate moneymaking sport, and we have made it a habit of annually spanking our rivals to the north. Nationally, we might not be elite, but regionally, there aren't many (if any) programs that have had the kind of sustained success we have had over the last 20 years. Its time we started to flex our financial muscles and see what this program can really do.
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Absolutely there is no shortage of fans who believe we could never compete with the upper echelon, but if Weaver had been here another 3-5 years, he would have put us in a position where we never would have. Right now Whit just has to fight perception and play catch up.
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True... he had already done more than his fair share to decimate the basketball program. Lord only knows what would have happened if Jim was in charge of finding Beamer's replacement...
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to be fair recruiting wasn't done in the same manner as it is now when newsome was the coach. He was responsible for a territory not for recruiting OL. It was an awful system that has been corrected. Not going to get into whether he was a good coach or not because clearly the results on the field show that.
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You might be referring to me. I mentioned something like that, but it was in context to coaching ability. But in respect to your point of being disingenuous I don't think it would be.
He made a mistake, one he is ultimately responsible for creating, but if he does lead us out of the problem and back to our winning ways then yes he should be credited for that. Beamer works a job and I think everyone has made a mistake in their own job. If he corrects that mistake and builds something back to the level we were or even beyond then my hats off to the man. That is definitely not disingenuous. What would be disingenuous would be if he wasn't able to correct the mistake and the comment was that he should be judged on his wins alone despite his failure at the end of his career.
In regards to the loyalty, it definitely created a mess. One that was left to fester for way too long and subverted the program. But objectively look at it and you can speculate the reasoning as to why loyalty was chosen.
At the point of Stinespring hire we had just lost perhaps one of the best offensive minds to have graced VT, at least in Beamer's time, in Ricky Bustle. Coaching turnover can cause big problems for schools. If we bring in another OC with no ties to VT, or looking at it as a stepping stone, who leaves quickly that would affect recruiting, on field success, etc. OC's all come in with different playbooks and philosophies that need time to learn as well. That can create big issues. Contrast that to the real world example of Bud Foster shepherding the Defense to glory and success, a man who has been loyal to Frank for a long time, I can see the thought process of: "If I can put someone into offense that I trust to stay then it could work like Bud did." When Bud took over the defense it was from a co-DC position and it was his first true DC role. He built that defense up, so the hope would be Stinespring just needed that opportunity and time.
And then what do you know? we keep churning out 10 win seasons. year after year, 10 wins. I believe that there must have been some recognition of the problems festering in the O'Cainspring era but you're still winning 10 wins a year. AD is happy, Admin is happy, boosters are happy, fans (for the most part) are happy... why would you change that formula? You wouldn't until it became a problem. And then it all came crashing down. And what did Beamer do? He made corrections immediately on the first down year. It wasn't proactive sure, but it was immediately reactive. Precisely what happens in almost every coach's firing right?
The argument against this is, we all knew these are corrections that should have happened long before right? So Beamer should have as well. I for one think Beamer placed his trust in his friends to find the way and Stinespring, o'Cain and Newsome failed him. But we fans knew for sure! well, maybe not, because I remember in that last year of O'cainspring. I remember all year from Fall practice through the season harping on Sherman being a huge disappointment and not having control of his receivers, his inability to control Marcus Davis and idiotic reasoning as to why he should still be on the field play, why Corey Fuller wasn't being utilized more. I must have said something along those lines a hundred times between the 3 websites I used to frequent. And without fail I was told I was being over-critical. Sherman had done a lot for VT and was a great coach, etc. Then the Marcus Davis puke show video went viral and fans on all 3 sites immediately changed their tune. Now the narrative was Sherman had to go. Where was the accountability? What was Beamer doing about it? This had been happening for far too long and should have been dealt with long before.
There certainly was a strong voice of opposition against Stinespring, perhaps none larger than firestinespring himself. kudos by the way. But how many people actually believed just how bad it was? I think any average fan had no clue, and Sherman proved that to me. Once we had the down year though, it was like EVERYONE had known this for years and Beamer had shat the bed for so long, blah, blah... that was the definition of disingenuous.
So my 3 points are:
1) Everyone makes mistakes, it's correcting the mistakes before they become failures that matter. Making a mistake and fixing said mistake is something to be applauded.
2) Loyalty either works or it doesn't. It's not rocket science. Bud worked, Stinespring didn't. Yet, I can't fault Beamer for trying to find another Bud for the offense. I wish he had made changes proactively, yet I can see why changes weren't made until they HAD to be made.
3) Present company excluded, I think most fans were still drinking the kool aid right up until the end, yet afterwards presented themselves the opposite. They supported the loyalty Beamer had and then called him out for it. I for one still love the idea of our program retaining great coaches for long periods of time. No it doesn't always work. Not everyone is going to be a Bud Foster, but when it does work we get something amazing like a Bud Foster, and that's worth the risk.
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I honestly don't know if it was you or someone else, and I can't remember the context. I just remember reading it and thinking, can we give Beamer credit for guiding the program through a crisis he himself created? And I'm all for saying Beamer did make changes when he had to. What I'd take exception to is the idea that we say Frank led us through this rough patch without also acknowledging that he was under one who led us into the wilderness to begin with.
None of this is to say that Frank is a bad coach. He's a legit first ballot hall of famer. But he should have seen that changes needed to be made before the deficiencies in the offense and recruiting caught up to us.
Yeah, ten wins a year so everything must be good, I get the mindset that spurred this decline in the program., I just find fault with it. I guarantee you if Nick Saban, Urban Meyer or Jim Harbaugh saw their offense do what our offense did under Stinespring, the win total wouldn't mitigate anything. The offense was not contributing to overall program success.
Frank gets credit for making changes when he had to, and in that regard has preserved his legacy more than Bobby Bowden or Joe Paterno were capable. And he genuinely is a great coach. I just don't think it should be glossed over that he created the crisis he is now leading us through.
But like you said, the culture of loyalty trickled down into the fanbase. There was a time when questioning our coaching staff was sacrilege, even when our offense stunk on ice. In that regard, this tanking (and I use that term loosely as we have yet to post a losing season yet) has raised expectations and accountability within the staff. If Loeffler posts a third consecutive year if unacceptably bad offensive numbers, he'll be gone. As he should be.
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I wonder if Weaver didn't also play some role in sticking with the assistants too long. The whole mindset that "we aren't top tier, we can't spend top tier money to attract top tier talent", possibly Beamer felt that the guys he had were the best he could get and if they left he wouldn't have the support and resources to find upgrades. And if he did upgrade, and a year or two went by and the guy got a better offer, we weren't going to match it for someone we really wanted to keep. Who can say what all the dynamics were there and I'm sure Frank wants to win as badly or more as anyone here despite the naysayers.
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no worries. I know you're not calling me out or anything. I just remembered that it was probably my post.
I agree that ten wins a year was an excuse in many ways. I am certainly not one that thinks it is where we should limit ourselves by any means. I have been critical of that many times. But I don't believe that it was as wholesale mantra as people think it is. I personally do not believe Beamer was just ok with only winning 10 games and not the NC, and would just "oh well, we're still winning 10 games".
And i think it has to do with what i said before about stinespring's hire. IMO he was looking for Bud on offense to lift us up and stay loyal. It's extremely rare to be in that position where you have built the program like this and trying to shepherd it to greater success. And very different than the coaches you mentioned. How long have those coaches been at their current jobs? Yes, they are all great coaches and win, but they also all took over 3 of the most storied programs in the nation. As coaching jobs go the path to ultimate success is a fair deal shorter there than at Blacksburg.
So when you've done what Beamer has done and you've done it for 2 decades having ten wins is no small feat. that was an incredible run we had. It shouldn't be belittled because we have this recent mess, just as much as Beamer's success getting us out of this current mess shouldn't belittle the fact that he created it.
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Goddammit, man, you're making it hard not to turn this into a mutual admiration society.
The thing on Stinespring, his first two years as OC gave the indication he was going to be good. I would LOVE to replicate our 2003 numbers on offense. But come 2006, 2007, it was obvious he was in over his head. The tough decision came five years too late, and that delay is specifically what kept us at the 10-win level with an empty trophy case.
Also, Alabama was a mess when Nick took it over, and Stanford was the Duke of the west coast until Harbaugh arrived. Urban was really the only one who stepped into a program built for immediate success.
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Yeah, look I agree with you on the decision coming far too late. I am not saying Beamer shouldn't have been proactive about it or that the writing wasn't on the wall, I am just understanding of some reasoning why action wasn't taken until it had to.
My point wasn't that those coaches weren't great coaches, it was that they have moved around a lot. Where is Harbaugh now? Not Stanford. Saban is at Bama after failing in the NFL and took over a team that was coming off of sanctions while Shula was there, many thinking Shula got screwed over because they saw Saban coming and sanctions were gone. Everyone expected Bama to be Bama again once those sanctions were over. Though I admit Saban took the program to new heights. Urban to his credit did great things at Bowling Green, then Utah, then Florida and now OSU. But again where is he not? Bowling Green, Utah and Florida.
I'm not saying that moving around for a better job is a bad thing, just that the situation with them and Beamer is quite different.
and mutual admiration right back at you, no shame
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The "ten wins" streak became a crutch for Beamer. He could break out his "We're doing something good here"-esque lines and use that as validation for his program. Many could see the storm clouds on the horizon but Frank did not or chose not to. I have long said Frank would like to win a National Championship but doesn't have the burning desire to do what is necessary to win one. His staff decisions of the late 2000s speaks to that.
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In a perverse way, its almost like we needed these past few years to change that mindset and provide the opportunity to hire coaches and an AD that are driven to go past that plateau you describe. I think that has now happened. This year should show the benefit that this is happening (fingers and toes crossed).
Hope
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IMO, we hid deficiencies in pass blocking for years with athletic QBs and a simplistic passing game. But those OLs could move guys of the way in the running game. Then we tried to morph our OL recruiting profile a couple time and never really settled on anything...identity lost.
Nothing wrong with hiring your friends...provided they are really good. They have to want to bust ass for you, not just hang out at the clubhouse.
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This, and also, Searels is building camaraderie among his linemen. That's something Newsome never did. His lines never played as a five-headed hydra the way great lines should. The fact that all our OL players are hanging out, goofing off, just being bros together pays intangible dividends when they put their knuckles on the turf together.
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That always drove me nuts when a play would start to break down and our guys would be looking for the right guy for them to block rather than just take out the guy in front of them. At a minimum bouncing the guy off the turf and making him get up an extra 10 times a game should help tire him out.
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PS- every time I watch this, I find myself hoping he'll just stretch both arms out and clothesline the guys who end up tackling JCC. never happens though...sigh
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Comments
This is what jumped out the most at me. 4 ACC teams on that list.
Wow. I didn't realize BC had that much turnover on the OL..I'm liking our chances against them a lot more now
Yeah, they relied really heavily on graduate transfers and players.
Yes, but they seem to grow offensive linemen like weeds at BC.
OLU
...unfortunately.
I'm marrying an Eagle, so needless to say the last few years have been a bit rough.
Miami needs to play for something of importance before they can claim ACC membership... just sayin...
Miami, is safe since lol has not been relevant for over 2 decades.
And may it ever be thus!
This part jumped out at me:
So I checked HokieSports.com, and it turns out we have 19 offensive linemen on roster. Certainly we have our fair share of redshirts and scout teamers, but from a pure numbers game, in two seasons post-Newsome we seem to be in a situation of developing talent rather than looking for it.
Theoretically we have 22 in the program or pledged to join it. Three of those guys are walk-ons though, and one is a gray shirt. So we'll have 18 scholarship OL this fall, which is a decent # of bodies. The main problem is lack of Tackles with experience. McLaughlin and Hansen are it. Redman was a TE 4 months ago. Nijman was a DL. Clark, Arnold and Plantin are good prospects but they're freshmen. At least we have 5 new OT to choose from.
I still can't fathom how we "got behind in OL recruiting" in the late 2000s. Beamer should never use that excuse-he knows full well the trenches are where games are won and lost, there's just absolutely no excuse to have a poor OL, and if it repeats year after year then you have to recognize there's a problem. Blaming it all on Curt Newsome (and don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of that guy) is taking the easy way out. Our great teams of the mid and late 90s were built around the OL, I know these gimmicky spread offenses can somewhat hide deficiencies in that area, but at VT the OL is where our bread is buttered. That's true of almost every national champion over the last 30 years as well. Sorry to bring up a subject that's been beaten to death here but it still chaps my arse.
Curt Newsome is at fault for decimating our OL, Frank is at fault for keeping Newsome around when it became obvious he was a poor fit.
Someone mentioned somewhere else in the forum the other day that if VT returns to a winning tradition, Frank should be credited with guiding the program through a rough patch. This seems disingenuous to me, as the rough patch came about specifically because Frank valued loyalty higher than performance for a stretch of too many years. Frank pulled a Mack Brown, and if the program rebounds, Frank should be credited with being able to change before it cost him his job. Frank came really close to diminishing his legacy by having it end on a sour note.
I agree with this except I'll add that I don't think it was just loyalty. Performing at the highest of levels requires a lot out of an individual and I think Frank got complacent and was willing to accept a little less from himself and those around him. Unfortunately for him VT isn't a school where it recruits itself (like OSU, Bama, etc) and taking those few years off caused the issues that we saw/see now. For what it's worth I think he realized it and has recommitted himself and I'm optimistic that we are going to see the results of that soon.
I do agree there was some complacency and resting upon laurels that occurred, due in large part to the culture that Jim Weaver fostered during his tenure, but there was also at noticeable "turtling" of the staff after Kevin Rodgers left VT for the Vikings. After that, hiring decisions were made with the thought in mind that we were only going to bring someone in if they planned on staying at VT. And thus was the O'Cainspring era born.
Under Weaver it never really felt like the goal of the athletic department was to excel at athletics, it was to run a financially successful department. Whereas it definitely is good to run in the black every year, you have to have the ability to tighten the screws on your employees a bit, and that is where he failed. As long as you didn't cost him money (that is, if you didn't either get too successful to retain without a significant raise or suck bad enough we started to see paid attendance drop) all you had to do was really kiss his butt behind the scenes and you kept your job.
Not really the best way to run an athletically competitive department. Financially viable, sure, competitive? No.
I will say, he was a terrific bean counter, and his frugality has put Whit in a position to be able to spend aggressively. However, it has also put Whit in a position to have to spend aggressively just to play catch up to other elite programs.
Weaver was the architect of the "VT isn't elite, and we can't compete with elite programs" mindset. A few more years with him at the reigns, and it would have been a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Honestly, that mindset is already ingrained in a chunk of the fan/alumni base. Its frustrating because it really shouldn't be that case. I don't care that Virginia Tech is located in the mountains of SW Virginia a half hour outside of Roanoke... We're the flagship football program of the Commonwealth that has a rapidly growing and increasingly youth-dominated alumni base (that happens when you are graduating nearly 10x the students per year now that you were 30-40 years ago), that has grown up watching successful Virginia Tech football. We have one of the largest University systems in the Atlantic seaboard region, we play in a Power 5 conference, we've had over 2 decades of sustained success in the biggest collegiate moneymaking sport, and we have made it a habit of annually spanking our rivals to the north. Nationally, we might not be elite, but regionally, there aren't many (if any) programs that have had the kind of sustained success we have had over the last 20 years. Its time we started to flex our financial muscles and see what this program can really do.
Absolutely there is no shortage of fans who believe we could never compete with the upper echelon, but if Weaver had been here another 3-5 years, he would have put us in a position where we never would have. Right now Whit just has to fight perception and play catch up.
True... he had already done more than his fair share to decimate the basketball program. Lord only knows what would have happened if Jim was in charge of finding Beamer's replacement...
Based on his last basketball hire, Aaron Moorehead would be the new head coach (recent assistant who left)
to be fair recruiting wasn't done in the same manner as it is now when newsome was the coach. He was responsible for a territory not for recruiting OL. It was an awful system that has been corrected. Not going to get into whether he was a good coach or not because clearly the results on the field show that.
You might be referring to me. I mentioned something like that, but it was in context to coaching ability. But in respect to your point of being disingenuous I don't think it would be.
He made a mistake, one he is ultimately responsible for creating, but if he does lead us out of the problem and back to our winning ways then yes he should be credited for that. Beamer works a job and I think everyone has made a mistake in their own job. If he corrects that mistake and builds something back to the level we were or even beyond then my hats off to the man. That is definitely not disingenuous. What would be disingenuous would be if he wasn't able to correct the mistake and the comment was that he should be judged on his wins alone despite his failure at the end of his career.
In regards to the loyalty, it definitely created a mess. One that was left to fester for way too long and subverted the program. But objectively look at it and you can speculate the reasoning as to why loyalty was chosen.
At the point of Stinespring hire we had just lost perhaps one of the best offensive minds to have graced VT, at least in Beamer's time, in Ricky Bustle. Coaching turnover can cause big problems for schools. If we bring in another OC with no ties to VT, or looking at it as a stepping stone, who leaves quickly that would affect recruiting, on field success, etc. OC's all come in with different playbooks and philosophies that need time to learn as well. That can create big issues. Contrast that to the real world example of Bud Foster shepherding the Defense to glory and success, a man who has been loyal to Frank for a long time, I can see the thought process of: "If I can put someone into offense that I trust to stay then it could work like Bud did." When Bud took over the defense it was from a co-DC position and it was his first true DC role. He built that defense up, so the hope would be Stinespring just needed that opportunity and time.
And then what do you know? we keep churning out 10 win seasons. year after year, 10 wins. I believe that there must have been some recognition of the problems festering in the O'Cainspring era but you're still winning 10 wins a year. AD is happy, Admin is happy, boosters are happy, fans (for the most part) are happy... why would you change that formula? You wouldn't until it became a problem. And then it all came crashing down. And what did Beamer do? He made corrections immediately on the first down year. It wasn't proactive sure, but it was immediately reactive. Precisely what happens in almost every coach's firing right?
The argument against this is, we all knew these are corrections that should have happened long before right? So Beamer should have as well. I for one think Beamer placed his trust in his friends to find the way and Stinespring, o'Cain and Newsome failed him. But we fans knew for sure! well, maybe not, because I remember in that last year of O'cainspring. I remember all year from Fall practice through the season harping on Sherman being a huge disappointment and not having control of his receivers, his inability to control Marcus Davis and idiotic reasoning as to why he should still be on the field play, why Corey Fuller wasn't being utilized more. I must have said something along those lines a hundred times between the 3 websites I used to frequent. And without fail I was told I was being over-critical. Sherman had done a lot for VT and was a great coach, etc. Then the Marcus Davis puke show video went viral and fans on all 3 sites immediately changed their tune. Now the narrative was Sherman had to go. Where was the accountability? What was Beamer doing about it? This had been happening for far too long and should have been dealt with long before.
There certainly was a strong voice of opposition against Stinespring, perhaps none larger than firestinespring himself. kudos by the way. But how many people actually believed just how bad it was? I think any average fan had no clue, and Sherman proved that to me. Once we had the down year though, it was like EVERYONE had known this for years and Beamer had shat the bed for so long, blah, blah... that was the definition of disingenuous.
So my 3 points are:
1) Everyone makes mistakes, it's correcting the mistakes before they become failures that matter. Making a mistake and fixing said mistake is something to be applauded.
2) Loyalty either works or it doesn't. It's not rocket science. Bud worked, Stinespring didn't. Yet, I can't fault Beamer for trying to find another Bud for the offense. I wish he had made changes proactively, yet I can see why changes weren't made until they HAD to be made.
3) Present company excluded, I think most fans were still drinking the kool aid right up until the end, yet afterwards presented themselves the opposite. They supported the loyalty Beamer had and then called him out for it. I for one still love the idea of our program retaining great coaches for long periods of time. No it doesn't always work. Not everyone is going to be a Bud Foster, but when it does work we get something amazing like a Bud Foster, and that's worth the risk.
I honestly don't know if it was you or someone else, and I can't remember the context. I just remember reading it and thinking, can we give Beamer credit for guiding the program through a crisis he himself created? And I'm all for saying Beamer did make changes when he had to. What I'd take exception to is the idea that we say Frank led us through this rough patch without also acknowledging that he was under one who led us into the wilderness to begin with.
None of this is to say that Frank is a bad coach. He's a legit first ballot hall of famer. But he should have seen that changes needed to be made before the deficiencies in the offense and recruiting caught up to us.
Yeah, ten wins a year so everything must be good, I get the mindset that spurred this decline in the program., I just find fault with it. I guarantee you if Nick Saban, Urban Meyer or Jim Harbaugh saw their offense do what our offense did under Stinespring, the win total wouldn't mitigate anything. The offense was not contributing to overall program success.
Frank gets credit for making changes when he had to, and in that regard has preserved his legacy more than Bobby Bowden or Joe Paterno were capable. And he genuinely is a great coach. I just don't think it should be glossed over that he created the crisis he is now leading us through.
But like you said, the culture of loyalty trickled down into the fanbase. There was a time when questioning our coaching staff was sacrilege, even when our offense stunk on ice. In that regard, this tanking (and I use that term loosely as we have yet to post a losing season yet) has raised expectations and accountability within the staff. If Loeffler posts a third consecutive year if unacceptably bad offensive numbers, he'll be gone. As he should be.
I wonder if Weaver didn't also play some role in sticking with the assistants too long. The whole mindset that "we aren't top tier, we can't spend top tier money to attract top tier talent", possibly Beamer felt that the guys he had were the best he could get and if they left he wouldn't have the support and resources to find upgrades. And if he did upgrade, and a year or two went by and the guy got a better offer, we weren't going to match it for someone we really wanted to keep. Who can say what all the dynamics were there and I'm sure Frank wants to win as badly or more as anyone here despite the naysayers.
no worries. I know you're not calling me out or anything. I just remembered that it was probably my post.
I agree that ten wins a year was an excuse in many ways. I am certainly not one that thinks it is where we should limit ourselves by any means. I have been critical of that many times. But I don't believe that it was as wholesale mantra as people think it is. I personally do not believe Beamer was just ok with only winning 10 games and not the NC, and would just "oh well, we're still winning 10 games".
And i think it has to do with what i said before about stinespring's hire. IMO he was looking for Bud on offense to lift us up and stay loyal. It's extremely rare to be in that position where you have built the program like this and trying to shepherd it to greater success. And very different than the coaches you mentioned. How long have those coaches been at their current jobs? Yes, they are all great coaches and win, but they also all took over 3 of the most storied programs in the nation. As coaching jobs go the path to ultimate success is a fair deal shorter there than at Blacksburg.
So when you've done what Beamer has done and you've done it for 2 decades having ten wins is no small feat. that was an incredible run we had. It shouldn't be belittled because we have this recent mess, just as much as Beamer's success getting us out of this current mess shouldn't belittle the fact that he created it.
Goddammit, man, you're making it hard not to turn this into a mutual admiration society.
The thing on Stinespring, his first two years as OC gave the indication he was going to be good. I would LOVE to replicate our 2003 numbers on offense. But come 2006, 2007, it was obvious he was in over his head. The tough decision came five years too late, and that delay is specifically what kept us at the 10-win level with an empty trophy case.
Also, Alabama was a mess when Nick took it over, and Stanford was the Duke of the west coast until Harbaugh arrived. Urban was really the only one who stepped into a program built for immediate success.
Yeah, look I agree with you on the decision coming far too late. I am not saying Beamer shouldn't have been proactive about it or that the writing wasn't on the wall, I am just understanding of some reasoning why action wasn't taken until it had to.
My point wasn't that those coaches weren't great coaches, it was that they have moved around a lot. Where is Harbaugh now? Not Stanford. Saban is at Bama after failing in the NFL and took over a team that was coming off of sanctions while Shula was there, many thinking Shula got screwed over because they saw Saban coming and sanctions were gone. Everyone expected Bama to be Bama again once those sanctions were over. Though I admit Saban took the program to new heights. Urban to his credit did great things at Bowling Green, then Utah, then Florida and now OSU. But again where is he not? Bowling Green, Utah and Florida.
I'm not saying that moving around for a better job is a bad thing, just that the situation with them and Beamer is quite different.
and mutual admiration right back at you, no shame
The "ten wins" streak became a crutch for Beamer. He could break out his "We're doing something good here"-esque lines and use that as validation for his program. Many could see the storm clouds on the horizon but Frank did not or chose not to. I have long said Frank would like to win a National Championship but doesn't have the burning desire to do what is necessary to win one. His staff decisions of the late 2000s speaks to that.
I got so friggin tired of "We're doing good things here." And "Good things are happening, we just need the breaks to go our way."
In a perverse way, its almost like we needed these past few years to change that mindset and provide the opportunity to hire coaches and an AD that are driven to go past that plateau you describe. I think that has now happened. This year should show the benefit that this is happening (fingers and toes crossed).
Hope
IMO, we hid deficiencies in pass blocking for years with athletic QBs and a simplistic passing game. But those OLs could move guys of the way in the running game. Then we tried to morph our OL recruiting profile a couple time and never really settled on anything...identity lost.
Nothing wrong with hiring your friends...provided they are really good. They have to want to bust ass for you, not just hang out at the clubhouse.
If you hire a friend, you have to be willing to fire a friend.
Try to imagine the 2009-10 teams without Tyrod Taylor at QB. We literally had to have a mobile QB. Not good.
Imagine Tyrod behind a competent O line.
It's all about the big uglies, pancakes and taco bell...
And being mean.
I think too much emphasis was put on trying to do everything 100% technically correct and it "had their minds tying up their feet."
Whereas now we got Seales saying, "If you mess up, at least [knock the shit out of somebody]."
This, and also, Searels is building camaraderie among his linemen. That's something Newsome never did. His lines never played as a five-headed hydra the way great lines should. The fact that all our OL players are hanging out, goofing off, just being bros together pays intangible dividends when they put their knuckles on the turf together.
you mean like this?
That always drove me nuts when a play would start to break down and our guys would be looking for the right guy for them to block rather than just take out the guy in front of them. At a minimum bouncing the guy off the turf and making him get up an extra 10 times a game should help tire him out.
O-Line assisted up-downs?
So... the opposite of what wang is doing here?
PS- every time I watch this, I find myself hoping he'll just stretch both arms out and clothesline the guys who end up tackling JCC. never happens though...sigh
at least he isn't blocking another teammate like they teach down in gainesville
almost rather he would have and shown some physicality...
since it's wang and all....would that be called a cockblock? i'll see myself out....
Took me a minute, but I'm willing to invest a leg in that. C'mon back in.
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