(10-23-2019 09:59 AM)odufansam Wrote: Is it just me or would people be willing to let Wilder have one more season if he would stop the BS and just own his mistakes? It's clear ODU needs to go into rebuilding mode like they did when they kicked the program off. Just own it and say you took the team in the wrong direction. Instead of saying "we are a championship team next year". It's delusional and really frustrating to hear. The average fan can clearly see we are not even close.
The problem I have is that there are disturbing patterns.
It took years to finally fix the defense. The Bill Dee promotion was bizarre. The retention of Nagy for so long was irresponsible.
There is the pattern of he alone picking the QB and then having to react in crisis mode during the season to fix that. Bentley/Washington, Williams/LaRussa, and now Smartt/DeWeaver (sans injury to DeWeaver).
Maybe the most disturbing of all is at the OL. The OL is the most difficult position to recruit and develop. I get that.
However, it has been clear to me, and many on here, that we needed to have an FBS level OL coach since at least 2015. The re promotion of Scott to OL coach while retaining the OC duties was akin to the Bill Dee fiasco. The justification was that Scott was OL coach when we had a great OL. The Born, Mewborne, Morrell line was so good talent wise that almost any coach could have handled that, kind of like being the QB coach with Taylor Heinicke.
Championship team? Cretainly we will be better, but there will need to be a lot of young unknowns (to us) on the offense to rise to that level. BW compared this team to 2015 and the transition to the 10-3 2016 team. We had a lot of "knowns" then, Duhart, Pascal, Lawry, Cox, Washington. If we have current unknowns on the roster that can rise to that level, then great, but in 2015 we knew our offense was going to be good the next year.
Something not touched on as much lately is recruiting. The size of our University and it's location and market make it very visible. We should be recruiting at least middle of the pack in CUSA. We are not. Except for 2014 we have been near the bottom of CUSA every season.
Although some have touted our 2019 class as an example of progress, our recruiting is NOT getting better as some have optimistically concluded. JUCOS and transfers created some skew but as some of them were three stars, the overall impact was not as great as it might have been.
So, the expected to be excellent 2019 class (Hayden Wolff class) ended up ranked 13 of 14 in CUSA and 116 of 128 in the nation. Additionally, 2020 has us currently 11 of 14 in CUSA and 113 in the nation.
Given our University size and location, that is, imo, unacceptable.
https://247sports.com/Season/2020-Footba...ence=C-USA
If I thought that BW would clean house on the offense, and then step back and let them do their jobs, then great. My guess (I don't know this to actually be true) is that BW is a micro manager who has "all the answers" and if something goes wrong it is always going to be someone else's fault.
I am just not sure a zebra can change his stripes.