"Hall of fame coach"

"Coaching icon"

And yet - he trashed a successful program in 4 years and completely lost th fan base. What went wrong

Somebody once posted that perhaps Tuberville thought he could run this program like a CEO and let the assistant coaches do the work.

That only works if you have good assistant coaches, which for the most part UC has not had under Tuberville.

I also never liked the QB and RB by committee approach Tuberville tried to do.

Perhaps Tubs biggest strength as a head coach had been bringing in talented coordinators and working with them to build a good program. He wasn't able to find guys that could recruit Ohio, didn't have great coordinators (though I think Gran was better than others) and didn't understand the expectations at UC.

He did not realize the energy it takes to run a g5 program. He did not have the resources to hire coordinators and the ceo type of management was not going to work. I think that he still likes the recruiting end.

3 replies within two minutes essentially saying the same thing.

The original plan was for Tubs to fatten his bank account while grooming Eddie Gran to take over as HC. There have been rumors from Clifton all along that Tubs wasn't putting in the hours at practice, in the film room, or on the recruiting trail; for three years, we'd been watching the Eddy Gran show. When Gran left for UK, there was nobody who could carry the ball for an absentee HC.

(12-04-2016 01:14 PM)Bcatbog Wrote:  "Hall of fame coach"

"Coaching icon"

And yet - he trashed a successful program in 4 years and completely lost th fan base. What went wrong

Easy. He wasn't very good at this anymore and was only good at it two schools ago before they ran him off when he was able to hire national stars as assistants. It was an awful hiring process for NitWhit's old buddy in December 2012 and didn't age any better in the time since.

It's thankfully finally over let's close the book let's move on.

Obviously, Tuberville did not succeed here, but Whit Babcock's two hires at Virginia Tech, Buzz Williams and Justin Fuentes, have been outstanding hires. Babcock can be criticized for the Tuberville hire, but he's clearly not a "nitwit".

I see two things.

First, is management of expectations (Management 101). If we were going to have a down year there should have been some indication of that given - at least as to what the challenges of the year would be. That said, we saw a number of good performances that went to hell in the 2nd halfs of games. Someone much closer to the locker room would have to unwrap that.

Second, I sense a complete failure of the Zach Taylor experiment. The offense was horrible and the entire Gunner thing was essentially dumped on Taylor by Tubbs. Again, the locker room has been tight - but Tubbs told us the seniors had to go to Tubbs to get Gunner in the games. I do not know if Gunner pissed off Taylor - or Tubbs and Taylor both. For Tubbs to dump any of the blame on Taylor is pitiful. Additionally the decision to go to a run game without an decent O line is inexplainable. What idiot thought Trail was a better option than Gunner after Moore got hurt?

The above lead to failure on the field. With that failure the other aspects of the program - eg lack of home town players - make it onto the stage. When failure occurred we were feed a bunch of BS like the program is better than it was four years ago. Perhaps by that time Tubbs new he was gone and was giving the fans the middle finger. I personally do not think he put on a "class act" this year. I think he was arrogant and in our faces.

He deserves to be welcomed to the exit door - albeit with grace.

Bob

(12-04-2016 01:45 PM)vabearcat Wrote:  Obviously, Tuberville did not succeed here, but Whit Babcock's two hires at Virginia Tech, Buzz Williams and Justin Fuentes, have been outstanding hires. Babcock can be criticized for the Tuberville hire, but he's clearly not a "nitwit".

Whit Babcock was about as bad an AD here as tubs was as a coach.

I'll never forget his interview with Lance after Louisville got acc spot. Sounded liked a kid whose dog died.

Horrible hire of Tubs.

Funny how at Va tech he hired the up and comers and didn't call his old friend.

IMO there is some perspective to this. It was an "impulse" buy to get a "name P5 coach" after getting spurned by Kelly and Jones. Not that we should've expected either to stay longer than they did, it still hurt when they left us for a P5 program. We wanted a seat at the big boy table and losing coaches reminded us that despite our recent success we weren't there yet (we still aren't but hang with me.) Many of us (yes, my hand is raised), were excited at the time of the TT hire despite Whit's lack of a bona fide search/selection process. We were excited because for the first time someone left a P5 (albeit Texas Tech) to come to our house in the modest neighborhood. In hindsight, it was a disaster waiting to happen. It was a bad fit and everything came to a head this year. I don't believe TT came here to win at all costs. By costs I mean coaching was his daily eating and breathing - his passion for living. It didn't consume him to win. His passion for selling our brand and his recruiting efforts were less than desirable as well. He was a good guy but we needed a hands on, hard working coach more. I don't wish him any ill will but it's time to go out and get a coach who can get our program back on track and make us proud again. I think you can also admit that bad hires happen in all programs. Remember John Cooper and Mike Shula at Alabama just to name a few? The key is you can't make back-to-back or consistently bad hires. That will kill your program.

I also think Tuberville was part of the get into the B12 plan and that is a big part why he was hired. I think Babcock and / or the board thought the B12 connection would help.

Not a Midwest guy.

Poor assistants.

Trying to do it like at a P5. CEO model.

No local assistants.

What went wrong?

I think the better question is: what went right?

(12-04-2016 02:53 PM)UCGrad1992 Wrote:  IMO there is some perspective to this. It was an "impulse" buy to get a "name P5 coach" after getting spurned by Kelly and Jones. Not that we should've expected either to stay longer than they did, it still hurt when they left us for a P5 program. We wanted a seat at the big boy table and losing coaches reminded us that despite our recent success we weren't there yet (we still aren't but hang with me.) Many of us (yes, my hand is raised), were excited at the time of the TT hire despite Whit's lack of a bona fide search/selection process. We were excited because for the first time someone left a P5 (albeit Texas Tech) to come to our house in the modest neighborhood. In hindsight, it was a disaster waiting to happen. It was a bad fit and everything came to a head this year. I don't believe TT came here to win at all costs. By costs I mean coaching was his daily eating and breathing - his passion for living. It didn't consume him to win. His passion for selling our brand and his recruiting efforts were less than desirable as well. He was a good guy but we needed a hands on, hard working coach more. I don't wish him any ill will but it's time to go out and get a coach who can get our program back on track and make us proud again. I think you can also admit that bad hires happen in all programs. Remember John Cooper and Mike Shula at Alabama just to name a few? The key is you can't make back-to-back or consistently bad hires. That will kill your program.

Great summary of events. Hindsight is 20/20 as they say. The guy had legitimate, big-time credentials at a time when UC was reeling from the collapse of the Big East and no welcome mat was out for the P5. It turned out horribly but most of us felt at the time it was a potential game changer.

So what went wrong, very simply, in year four Miami of Ohio is going to a bowl game and UC is not, enough said.

(12-04-2016 04:40 PM)CincyBro Wrote:  So what went wrong, very simply, in year four Miami of Ohio is going to a bowl game and UC is not, enough said.

Yep, that's good context and really says it all, bottom line. Miami-from dumpster fire to bowl for the Redhawks; UC-from back-to-back bowl wins against SEC and ACC opponents to a four win season.

(12-04-2016 03:38 PM)OKIcat Wrote:  

(12-04-2016 02:53 PM)UCGrad1992 Wrote:  IMO there is some perspective to this. It was an "impulse" buy to get a "name P5 coach" after getting spurned by Kelly and Jones. Not that we should've expected either to stay longer than they did, it still hurt when they left us for a P5 program. We wanted a seat at the big boy table and losing coaches reminded us that despite our recent success we weren't there yet (we still aren't but hang with me.) Many of us (yes, my hand is raised), were excited at the time of the TT hire despite Whit's lack of a bona fide search/selection process. We were excited because for the first time someone left a P5 (albeit Texas Tech) to come to our house in the modest neighborhood. In hindsight, it was a disaster waiting to happen. It was a bad fit and everything came to a head this year. I don't believe TT came here to win at all costs. By costs I mean coaching was his daily eating and breathing - his passion for living. It didn't consume him to win. His passion for selling our brand and his recruiting efforts were less than desirable as well. He was a good guy but we needed a hands on, hard working coach more. I don't wish him any ill will but it's time to go out and get a coach who can get our program back on track and make us proud again. I think you can also admit that bad hires happen in all programs. Remember John Cooper and Mike Shula at Alabama just to name a few? The key is you can't make back-to-back or consistently bad hires. That will kill your program.

Great summary of events. Hindsight is 20/20 as they say. The guy had legitimate, big-time credentials at a time when UC was reeling from the collapse of the Big East and no welcome mat was out for the P5. It turned out horribly but most of us felt at the time it was a potential game changer.

I don't fault Babcock at all for the hire; it looked like a no-brainer at time. The only thing I fault Bohn for is keeping Tubs around for a fourth year, but that's not a big deal, as long as he makes a good hire now.

(12-04-2016 01:45 PM)vabearcat Wrote:  Obviously, Tuberville did not succeed here, but Whit Babcock's two hires at Virginia Tech, Buzz Williams and Justin Fuentes, have been outstanding hires. Babcock can be criticized for the Tuberville hire, but he's clearly not a "nitwit".

Dive into nepotism by giving a friend a job over the phone with no interview and without looking at any other candidates, he earns NitWhit.

I mean, who could have ever seen that this was never going to work? Oh yeah...

(12-04-2016 04:40 PM)CincyBro Wrote:  So what went wrong, very simply, in year four Miami of Ohio is going to a bowl game and UC is not, enough said.

Do we have to tear it down to fix it? My sense is new leadership can win with these players right away. I think something went wrong internally mid season that we do not know about. Perhaps it was the injuries - but I think the key is in what drove the decision to start Trail over Gunner when Moore got hurt. Up until then it was possible that Moore had won the job. It was NEVER plausible that Trail had won the job.

Ultimately I think it was the horrible Taylor offense that broke the team - complicated by whatever issues existed between Gunner and Taylor. If it was that bad Gunner should have been dismissed. But then how does one explain RDAIV up the middle.

All the bitching above aside - can we fix the Special Teams and learn how to run back kickoffs?