BrewingFrog
Was I supposed to type something here?
We've got problems. Big ones.
We have a Head Coach who is mediocre at best, the reasons for which lie in the areas of 1.) Talent Evaluation (This applies to Coaches as well as players), 2.) Program Management, 3.) Player Management, and 4.) Game Management. Each of these shortcomings was on display to the Wide, Wide World yesterday, as we trotted out to a huge TV audience and promptly crapped the bed, after an entire off-season of New Hires, New Faces, and New Promises!
It was all gaslighting. All of it.
I don't know who it was (The Good Idea Fairy?) to suggest Mr. Harvard, but it should have been obvious that he had problems just from looking at a workout. That they stuck with him, promoted him above up-and-coming homegrown talent even though he was a stranger, even though he was going to be a one-off, all the while telling us how good he was and how he was "a potential NFL Draft pick" yet decided on one more year of College Ball. Gobs of NIL money likely helped with this decision. After months of this slobbering coverage and treacly praise, we finally saw what he could do when it really mattered...
Now, as I began this screed, I pin the blame squarely on Sonny. While Mr. Harvard has shown himself to be inept, indecisive, and unable to even execute his bad decisions once he finally makes them, I do not blame him. He can only do what he is capable of. It is the job of the Head Coach to determine what the performance envelope of a player is, and the choice of Starting QB is the most important decision a Head Coach can make, so the evaluation of that performance envelope is crucial. As we have seen in the past, Sonny is evidently incapable of this simple task. He is either playing favorites in nepo kids, or making a gut decision on based on bad judgements. I'm sure there's other elements of stupidity in there, but the result is a collapse in team morale when The Choice is shown to be less than what is needed.
It is this collapse in Team Morale that is the most worrisome. Players have to have confidence in their leadership, whether it be the Captains, Seniors, or their Coaches. We saw the fallout when Patterson tried to shoehorn in a 1-year-wonder at QB. Now we have a repeat of that debacle. About the only positive in the Delton fiasco was the rise of a freshman QB named Duggan. Whether Sonny will have the intelligence to admit that he was wrong with Mr. Harvard is an open question. My thoughts are that Sonny will stubbornly refuse to admit an error, and things will continue to swirl downhill. The money is spent, the QB Choice is made, and he isn't going to budge.
As to Gordon Sammis, he looked utterly clueless. Whatever his "New Offense" was, it was entirely ineffective. There were numerous "Ole!" moments where interior D Linemen came unblocked, which was odd for a guy whose forte was allegedly his "O-Line Whisperer" magic. That shining aura was tackled for a two-yard loss yesterday. Belichick has always been known for his tendency to try and take away your best player, and he quickly figured out that Payne was our best player. That was a reasonable and logical course of action that all could see and anticipate, given injuries to WR players. Anybody could see it coming. Well, evidently anybody but Gordon Sammis and Sonny, who had no Plan B for this obvious development. Why this was a mystery to them is a mystery to us, as they are allegedly professionals of longstanding tenure and expertise. Didn't they see this coming? Apparently not. Running Payne into a 10-man box was their answer, and it failed as spectacularly as the rest of their schemes. Perhaps Sammis will improve. Perhaps the Moon will crash into the Earth. Who knows?
I guess Buddie and the rest of the AD staff only took and examined the resumes with the "I am a moron" box checked off. Good to know.
Thanks to our new AD, Sonny has yet another year or more to continue driving TCU Football into the ground. None of the problems that have been noted here time and again since '23 have been addressed, much less solved, and we continue to stumble from one disaster to another. Again, this team was unprepared. Save for the defense, which was a little shaky to start but recovered and choked off UNC for the rest of the day, there was no strategy or execution. No Plan B, or even a Plan C. Once Belichick smothered Payne, we were screwed. Some coaches would look at the defensive schemes they were using to smother the run, and think that it was an opportunity elsewhere. Yet, due to the inability of Mr. Harvard to read defenses, make good decisions, and execute those decisions, we were doomed. That the Coaches continued to bang their heads against a concrete wall indicates that they knew Mr. Harvard's shortcomings as well, and just kept banging their heads because they knew that was all they had. But, then, that would be granting them awareness, and they haven't really shown much of that so far.
It's going to be a long, miserable season. I have never been more glad that 1.) We ended 38 years of Season Tickets, and 2.) Didn't spend $15K to fly to Dublin to watch that botched abortion.
If Sonny had any honor whatsoever, he would resign in shame. But, he doesn't. So...
We have a Head Coach who is mediocre at best, the reasons for which lie in the areas of 1.) Talent Evaluation (This applies to Coaches as well as players), 2.) Program Management, 3.) Player Management, and 4.) Game Management. Each of these shortcomings was on display to the Wide, Wide World yesterday, as we trotted out to a huge TV audience and promptly crapped the bed, after an entire off-season of New Hires, New Faces, and New Promises!
It was all gaslighting. All of it.
I don't know who it was (The Good Idea Fairy?) to suggest Mr. Harvard, but it should have been obvious that he had problems just from looking at a workout. That they stuck with him, promoted him above up-and-coming homegrown talent even though he was a stranger, even though he was going to be a one-off, all the while telling us how good he was and how he was "a potential NFL Draft pick" yet decided on one more year of College Ball. Gobs of NIL money likely helped with this decision. After months of this slobbering coverage and treacly praise, we finally saw what he could do when it really mattered...
Now, as I began this screed, I pin the blame squarely on Sonny. While Mr. Harvard has shown himself to be inept, indecisive, and unable to even execute his bad decisions once he finally makes them, I do not blame him. He can only do what he is capable of. It is the job of the Head Coach to determine what the performance envelope of a player is, and the choice of Starting QB is the most important decision a Head Coach can make, so the evaluation of that performance envelope is crucial. As we have seen in the past, Sonny is evidently incapable of this simple task. He is either playing favorites in nepo kids, or making a gut decision on based on bad judgements. I'm sure there's other elements of stupidity in there, but the result is a collapse in team morale when The Choice is shown to be less than what is needed.
It is this collapse in Team Morale that is the most worrisome. Players have to have confidence in their leadership, whether it be the Captains, Seniors, or their Coaches. We saw the fallout when Patterson tried to shoehorn in a 1-year-wonder at QB. Now we have a repeat of that debacle. About the only positive in the Delton fiasco was the rise of a freshman QB named Duggan. Whether Sonny will have the intelligence to admit that he was wrong with Mr. Harvard is an open question. My thoughts are that Sonny will stubbornly refuse to admit an error, and things will continue to swirl downhill. The money is spent, the QB Choice is made, and he isn't going to budge.
As to Gordon Sammis, he looked utterly clueless. Whatever his "New Offense" was, it was entirely ineffective. There were numerous "Ole!" moments where interior D Linemen came unblocked, which was odd for a guy whose forte was allegedly his "O-Line Whisperer" magic. That shining aura was tackled for a two-yard loss yesterday. Belichick has always been known for his tendency to try and take away your best player, and he quickly figured out that Payne was our best player. That was a reasonable and logical course of action that all could see and anticipate, given injuries to WR players. Anybody could see it coming. Well, evidently anybody but Gordon Sammis and Sonny, who had no Plan B for this obvious development. Why this was a mystery to them is a mystery to us, as they are allegedly professionals of longstanding tenure and expertise. Didn't they see this coming? Apparently not. Running Payne into a 10-man box was their answer, and it failed as spectacularly as the rest of their schemes. Perhaps Sammis will improve. Perhaps the Moon will crash into the Earth. Who knows?
I guess Buddie and the rest of the AD staff only took and examined the resumes with the "I am a moron" box checked off. Good to know.
Thanks to our new AD, Sonny has yet another year or more to continue driving TCU Football into the ground. None of the problems that have been noted here time and again since '23 have been addressed, much less solved, and we continue to stumble from one disaster to another. Again, this team was unprepared. Save for the defense, which was a little shaky to start but recovered and choked off UNC for the rest of the day, there was no strategy or execution. No Plan B, or even a Plan C. Once Belichick smothered Payne, we were screwed. Some coaches would look at the defensive schemes they were using to smother the run, and think that it was an opportunity elsewhere. Yet, due to the inability of Mr. Harvard to read defenses, make good decisions, and execute those decisions, we were doomed. That the Coaches continued to bang their heads against a concrete wall indicates that they knew Mr. Harvard's shortcomings as well, and just kept banging their heads because they knew that was all they had. But, then, that would be granting them awareness, and they haven't really shown much of that so far.
It's going to be a long, miserable season. I have never been more glad that 1.) We ended 38 years of Season Tickets, and 2.) Didn't spend $15K to fly to Dublin to watch that botched abortion.
If Sonny had any honor whatsoever, he would resign in shame. But, he doesn't. So...
