While much of it ended up being wrong, it wasn’t necessarily foolish or misguided. Everyone, including me, was going off of what you could see on paper or on the surface. And given the stakes obviously emotions were high.
I signed up for Twitter/X back in Oct. 2008 and have tweeted only once which was from that same month and year. I'm pacing myself.
think it was more of combo of emotion, not a big name being thrown around and the AD bringing his boy. His offenses had always put up numbers.
That’s really what I meant, primarily the lack of big name and AD bringing his boy. And yes his offense had put up numbers but without knowing a ton about him it was easy to see negatives. Defense regressed each year at UCF, was he to blame? Yeah Drew Lock put up numbers at Missouri under Heupel but they struggled against pretty much anyone with a pulse. I’m just saying yes, emotions were high, but it’s not like everyone here was overlooking the obvious. There were kernels suggesting maybe he was special but it was no sure thing and the negatives we’ve mentioned made them hard to see. I think perhaps the most amusing/telling thing to look back on now is that quote from a UCF player, “Shit, he let our nuts hang, man. He let us be us.” I hope Heupel has only scratched the surface but as of right now that approach, that mentality and how infectious it is, that’s Heupel’s story. The truth is that fans just want to win and as long as their coach isn’t a complete POS they don’t really care about the means. But it feels better and is a helluva lot more fun when it’s a guy like Heupel.
I totally discounted his offensive track record. I can remember fixating instead on his team's overall defensive stats as a unit and thought we were screwed by hiring a a coach who had never had anywhere close to a good defense under his watch as a head coach. I also remember being pissed how we ended up hiring a c0ach who initially was going to be like the 9th or 10th highest paid coach in the SEC. My logic was "you get what you pay for" and accordingly I convinced myself we had just hired the 10th best coach in the SEC. To top it all off those pics of JH from UCF physically looking like a loaf of bread dressed as Batman didn't exactly help inspire confidence in me as well.
We're only going into year 3 now. There is still plenty of time for this whole thing to blow up into a dumpster fire. Trust the process
Yeah it’s still one year too early to be counting our chickens for sure. Win at least 9 this year and I’ll be 100% sold. On the other hand we probably will at least be avoiding any disaster seasons with JH. Still need a year or 2 for the young LB/DBs/Oline recruits to make an impact.
They way we've recruited on offense, we're going to be putting up points for the foreseeable future. Our D just needs time to catch up but they're not far behind. This staff is the anti dooley/butch/gump. We may still stumble from time to time, but we will be just fine. IMO of course.
Yea we probably don't exactly need a 98 Vols defense to win a SEC and/or Natty as long as we shore up the oline and have our likely-to-be 5* superstar QB/highly rated future WRs in place. I'd love a UGA-esque defense soon obviously, but a 30th-40ish ranked defense nationally is probably good enough with JH's offensive wizardry. Besides, as long as we have Garner molding our defensive front I have faith that our defense will be decent enough overall.
Meh, to any outside observer, it looked like a phone it in or last chance hire. Fast forward twenty years to another AD making another hire of their former head coach at their last stop, and it'll get the same reaction from me.
