The more I think about it, the more I disagree. I think you can make a strong argument that a crappy bowl game is very important to a school like UH, which is spending $30,000,000 in the red each year trying desperately to get into a power five conference. Consecutive years of beating a FSU level team in a New Years day bowl would be a major statement. Instead Herman chaos takes away that chance and drops us into a crappy game. Another trophy (championship or not) in the case probably has less impact on the future of Ohio State than a move to power five conference has on UH. As to being a coordinator. I have to think that one's first head coach job is career defining. Charlie Strong comes UT from a successful HC position at Louisville and sucks, but lands another HC position right away. If he came to UT from an assistant position, and had the same results he would be looking for an OC position right now. And it would be a long time til somebody handed him the reins again.
This is some serious sour grapes. Y'all didn't give a crap about Sumlin leaving because he never did what Herman was able to do. He helped lead UH's senior class to its best overall record in school history. He led an early-season victory over OU, and a breakthrough BCS win against Florida State in the Peach Bowl. He got your facilities upgraded when they had been complete crap before he got there. He even gave you an amazing talent in Ed Oliver. If you actually believed that Herman would stay at UH permanently, then you're crazy. It was never going to happen.
Yeah? So UH fans are always this annoying? I guess the universality of their mannerisms shouldn't be surprising. If they want to talk about Herman specifically, then they should start a Tom Herman thread. This is supposed to be the UT thread. Let's have them spew their crap somewhere else.
Just like with football, acting like an arrogant prick to get your message across can be unsuccessful.
UT fans trolled the living s--t out of Coogs ever since the news broke and now they're like "Why y'all here? Sour grapes." Oblivious. Also generations of stealing and injustice and the recent Big 12 smoke show led by UT. I have my popcorn ready. Looking forward to both the UT-caused Big 12 dumpster fire and UT football dumpster fire each respectfully. And I'll get out of y'all's UT thread now. Don't take it so personally or seriously. Just some good ol' fashioned interstate rivalry.
Connor Williams is solid but is probably getting desperate. Two bad penalties. It's like politics. I'm a leftist who is annoyed by liberals. I'm a Longhorn annoyed by UT fans. I want to start by pointing out the absurdity that I have been the one to be encouraged by this game after spending the off season being the one to temper everyone elses expectations. I don't think you guys realize how little full pad practice there is in college football in the spring and summer. There are months of training camp in pro football, scrimmages against other teams and 4 pre-season games. You can make a big culture and attitude change in a college football off season but you can’t improve the quality of play dramatically. Also, I don't think you guys realize how bad the players were last year. Charlie’s staff did a very poor job of developing talent beyond what they could do in high school. The players Herman inherited might have more "potential" but the players Charlie inherited from Mack were better and the team was deeper. AGAIN, Charlie might have left players with more stars in high school but they would lose a game against the “less talented” team that Mack left. A plus is that Chris Warren looked really good. Unfortunately, Herman had to abandon the running game because of how far down they got which then made passing even harder because of the flood of DBs. The offensive line play should have been expected and it is understandable. Your line is a unit that works as one. They learn how to communicate with each other without having so say a word. The problem is there has been a lot of change in guys since last year which is why you see completely missed coverage. They also have their 3rd OL coach in 3 years and are learning new ways of doing things again. Your right tackle goes down for the year and you replace him with a guy who is physically too big for the position and move the guy who was working as guard in the spring to center. Okafor is the future at RT and hopefully they’ll transition him in sooner than later. The WRs are still good bunch but (like the OL) they don’t know how to gel yet. There isn’t a rhythm and seamlessness to their routes with respect to one another. I think that is why you saw a lot of offensive pass interference along with the fact that Maryland was dropping more guys back because there was no running threat from UT after the 1st quarter. The O line will lget better and Shane will learn how to work with them. Believe it or not, the defense has improved. They are making better decisions and look more like college players. They just aren’t good enough yet but that ship looks like it is getting righted. I think the D-line was a concern going into the season and is obviously still a big concern now. You had two guys (IIRC) leave the program and moved an OLman over to help with a lack of depth. The part of the team I don’t feel to comfortable with is Tim Beck (OC) and Shane. Part of it was not being sure how solid Beck was with his role at Ohio St. However, let’s not rush to blame the OC for everything yet. I think the concerns about Shane from last year are the same this year as last. His accuracy throwing it long isn’t great and his arm strength throwing it up the middle is worse. He is also still not big enough to run the ball effectively. He picked up a couple 1st downs and a TD on short yardage but he rushed almost twice as much as any RB (15att) and averaged 1.4 yards. You don’t want to say that you have to have a QB that runs but it doesn’t do you any favors when the LBs don’t need to spy or at least keep an eye on your QB. One of the clearest problems is his reliance of the TE which is by far the weakest part of the team. The problem with trying to isolate the biggest problem is that all of these components affect each other. Was Shane bad because they had to abandon the run game and were in obvious throws? Was he bad because the OL? Was the OL bad because shane had to hold onto the ball too long? Could Shane not complete passes because the WRs weren’t getting open and he was forced to run into a front that was waiting for him? One thing is crystal clear: This team has a problem with penalties which all have a cause that is not easy to isolate. I think dismissing penalties as a lack of focus or concentration is silly. Why do the WRs need to push off to get open? Is it because Maryland is dropping so many guys back because the running game isn’t a threat? Are the OLman holding because they are out of position and trying to recover or just not good? Is Shane holding the ball too long? Are our defenders getting a facemark and horse collar desperate or still have bad technique? The good news is that there are a lot of things for each group to work on which will improve the play of everyone else. TLDR: No one should be surprised 5 win team with a new coaching staff to loses their first game. Which UT fans have been in the UH thread trolling?
......And Shane is out with an injury. That didn't take long. He might play this Saturday but Sam is running 1st team reps and Heard is running 2nd team and WR. I was really surprised that Herman didn't give Heard a look at QB when he got here. I thought he would be back as the UT QB this year for a variety of reasons. I think we'll be pleasantly surprised by Sam. Dude was a beast in high school. As a junior, he threw 50 TDs (5 INTS) and ran for 20TDs. He was injured for most of his senior year.
I think coaches like Harbaugh and Meyer and Stoops have shown that to not really be true. You can make improvements, and you can do it fast. The number of teams that have gone from junk to National Titles in 2 years is pretty extensive over the last couple of decades. That said, Herman isn't those guys and that's fine. But I'm not sure why you would be encouraged from that game. I agree with your premise that it can take some time and that it might be a rough season overall. But Maryland was as bad as we were last year and were expected to be far worse this year (O/U of 3 wins). Even if you assume *zero* improvement from either team from last year, we should beat Maryland at home. So what we're saying is that crappy Maryland improved far, far more than the crappy Longhorns did - that would reflect poorly on the coaching staff.
The original statement was: If you actually believed that Herman would stay at UH permanently, then you're crazy. It was never going to happen. The problem is no one ever claimed that Herman would stay at UH permanently. The OP simply made that up, and then argued it was crazy. That's the definition of arguing against a strawman.
And Harbaugh lost his first game at Michigan : ) I don't really think Urban Myer is a very good comparison here. Ohio St was a year removed from a 13 win season with a great coach who resided over one of their best periods in school history. Yes, the previous year's team only won 6 wins but the factors behind that season was vastly different from UT and Michigan. IIRC, they would have had 5 of their best players out for the first 4 games of the year which is why some of them left anyway. The cloud of sanctions and scandal can also contribute to it. I don't think it's crazy to say that the 6 win Ohio St team in the previous year of Myer's arrival would have won a lot more if not for the sanctions. Myer inherited a very good program. I understand your overall point however I don't think there is enough data to make it. It remains to be seen what Herman will be able to do within his 1st year. I never said that the team will be awful. I said to manage expectations and previously said that 9 wins (With the Bowl) is reasonable and I still think that. That would be close to Michigan's 10 win season in Harbaugh's first year.
I agree with that - one game isn't really useful in terms of us giving us a read on Herman. My primary disagreement is just about the Maryland game and whether it was encouraging. I don't think there was anything in there that resembled progress or improvement from last year, and looking at the two teams and how they did last year, I think you could argue that UT regressed in that game. But that said, I don't think it means anything as far as looking at next week or 6 weeks from now, etc.
Thought the overall passing game was an improvement. Should be expected with Buechele in his 2nd year but he was accurate and spread the ball around to 10 different receivers. All other facets of the game were the same, at the very best, like you said. But big news this morning is that Buechele had a bruised throwing shoulder and not practicing today. Ehlinger will get work with the ones and Heard more work at QB as well.
