So do we see Nico soon? This loss pretty much sealed our ceiling for the season. Surely we will get Nico some experience this year so he isn’t coming in completely new next season?
The really telling years with Heupel will be years 4 and 5, IMO. As much as I want to hype up expectations this season was by and large always a bridge year. Yesterday made me want to vomit and still sucks the morning after, but realistically I think 5-2 is a reasonable record for this point in the season given the outlook most were giving in the pre-season. It just sucks that the two losses on the schedule have been the games that have mattered most. I have no idea how the rest of the year plays out. We have to win next week if we are going to salvage anything, though.
The second option he ran where he had gained a few yards but chest passed it backwards to Wright was awful
Just another example in a long line of awareness problems. It's as big an issue, if not bigger, than the accuracy problems he tends to exhibit.
yeah that was a a scared move. Don’t really like option left call to short side of the field. Not sure I’ve seen us run it all year. If we can call that, we should be able to sneak
How the 5 currently active national championship coaches did in year 2/3 at their schools(plus a couple more): Saban @ LSU: 10-3 SEC champ 8-5 division champ Mack Brown @ Texas: 9-5 won division 9-3 2nd in division Saban @ Bama: 12-2 division champ 14-0 SEC, national champ Chizik @ [uck fay] Auburn: 8-5 4th in division 14-0 SEC, national champ Jimbo @ FSU: 9-4 2nd in division 12-2 ACC champ Dabo @ Clemson: 9-5 division champ 6-7 4th in division Urban @ OSU: 12-2 division champ 14-1 B1G, national champ Orgeron @ LSU: 9-4 3rd in division 10-3 2nd in division Kirby @ UGA: 13-2 SEC champ 11-3 division champ "year 2 or 3" seems pretty important if your coach is going to be one of the greats and win multiple national titles but then again the list of guys with any titles in the last 15 years could fit on a post-it note so I don't know that I'd be blowing it up and starting over in year 3 every time if my guy isnt a champ by then. Would be interesting to see all the guys who won division/conferences in year 2-3 but never went any farther. Just on the extremely small amount of unique national champs I'd imagine that list is much, much longer but idk
Last year's offense + this year's defense = 14-0, IMO. Maybe even just last year's team. Michigan and Washington are my two potential remaining non-frauds based on last year's level of college football, and we don't know anything about Michigan other than they feel like they need to cheat.
I think we can safely rule out that Heupel will have a Kirby Smart or Saban-like run. This is similar to me ruling out that I will be 6'5. I don't know how it helps us to dwell on it. This was also a worse situation than most of these coaches walked into.
We just lost too many from year 2 for me to judge him off of whatever year 3 rule there is. There’s still some big gaps in the roster. Year 4 could be an issue as well if we don’t hit on the right transfer portal guys. If we had retained Golesh another year and had anyone other than Milton we might be looking at back to back 11 win seasons.
I think I have come to the POV that Milton's in-game decision making inability and lack of awareness would not have mattered if Golesh were here. Maybe it would. Maybe it wouldn't. I don't know. But I tend to appreciate a HC that will support upward mobility of his staff at the expense of his own challenges.
The year 2/3 rule only applies to finding out if you've certainly hired the wrong coach. I think the only thing that we know about Heupel is that he's not gonna lead us onto dynastic success. But that's not a reason to even have him on the hot seat for next year, even if we end up 7-5(we won't). I hope he is here a long time, and that Rodney Garner is here with him a long time.
Once the roster levels out and we don't have to replace so many on one side or the other, then I think we get to see what CH and staff are all about. We've definetly have gotten a glimse but I want to see what his teams look like with some depth on both sides of the ball. We're close. If anyone is clammoring to get rid of CH now or anytime soon, they're stupid. IMO of course.
And the SEC as a whole was pretty marginal at best at the time. Tennessee was on it's way out. Spurrier was in his last year at Florida. Georgia was what they would always be under Richt. And the West wasn't great either. Tuberville, outside of an odd 11-win season was an 8/9-win coach. That was a much easier situation to go into.
