The Blue Board

I live within a stones throw from Bloomington. Attend a few smack downs a year and keep up on the program.. My opinion is talent 3.5 and coaching will go with 5. Have decided all new coaching staffs will start out as a 5.

2010 class largely irrelevant? Not a fan of the Sooner's, but I do believe they had Jefferson starting in the secondary and WR named Stills starting from the 1st game. So I don't think you could call them irrelevant.

nvm

I am talking about 5 star talent, not 5 star recruits.

your squad really has no true identity. seriously... the defense is strong, but are they blackshirts? no. they are not...

your offense is completely confused. a lot of the problems reflect on the coaches. so they basically gave up on the passing game last year and ended up in a read option, which is effective, in doses... you want more points for that? or you want more coaching points because you have a new offensive coordinator, one who was under mangino, which, in essense, is not much of a coordinator job at all, but he could have learned a lot. preseason-wise, and spring game wise, they have not looked much better, but it is early... so they lose a bunch of coaching points.

in reality, though, i am not sure pelini could climb past a 7.5 anyway, as he is only defense, and he just doesn't appear to have what it takes to get to that next level... he is too swayed by this and that, and his flip-outs and near mutiny at nebbish don't help his ratings, man...

talent-wise, you have good, solid, talent, but who stands out besides Crick and Dennard on defense and Martinez on offense... lost helu and what's-his-name... everything is just unproven...

so yeah, just really, waaaay too low for a new OC, a new conference, and the problems listed

baylor is returning 19 starters on their best year ever.

and they had a hell of a coup with getting bennett, a hell of a good defensive coordinator...

look. i am saying, also, that right now, on paper, Ok State is better than we are. they don't have a bunch of stupid committees for their coordinators, and they have blackmon, weeden, and a host of others coming back. now, losing holgerson is bad, but they got it down, and their secondary is 1 year better.

Quick update here:

Well, I went and posted a link to this on every single 247 site since I started this thread. Response has been pretty good so far, but now I have to check 30+ boards every day because not everyone came to this thread. There's good discussion going on in the Auburn, Miami (Fl), Ga Tech and Ohio State groups.

I've got a hectic work day and have to travel this weekend, so I'll update the top page on Sunday. I really appreciate everyone's contributions, and this thread, other than the Big XII fight on page 8-9, has been a lot of fun so far. As a Big 10 guy, it's great to see how other conferences and fanbases interact. Our home site was independent for a long time, so I was a little apprehensive about 247. As you can see by my (excessive) post count, I've really come to appreciate what this place has to offer. It's really cool to be able to jump over and get an Ohio State perspective on something, then check in on Penn State, Iowa and Wisconsin. The Auburn and Bama sites are pretty entertaining, as is Maryland and South Carolina.

Anyone else ready for football?

But see, you act like this is a Mack Brown problem (and you have but 3 examples in 10 years for your B12-North scenario).

Check out Pete Carroll. Probably more talent than Texas, yet he lost to Oregon St (in 06 and 08), UCLA, and what is the biggest upset in football history (by line), Stanford. If Mack Brown did less with more, then so did Pete Carroll.

Take Stoops. In his tenure he's lost to Colorado, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, West Virginia, Boise St, etc. By your standards he should only have, at most, ever, a single loss, to Texas. Every other loss he has is to a team with less talent. So doesn't he also do "less with more"?

Tom Osborne had three undefeated seasons, but all at the very end of his career. The first 21 years he went 206-47-3 yet never had an undefeated season. I haven't looked at every year, but the fact is he lost games. He either lost to teams that were less talented (so he "did less with more"), or he loss to teams that were as good as him (so you could say "he can't win the big game").

Seeing a trend here? EVERY great coach with top notch talent does "less with more" for at least one or two games in MOST years. That's why someone like Osborne has three undefeated seasons in 25 years. Or Spurrier has ZERO undefeated seasons in 12 years. Bob Devaney had one in 11 years. Darrell Royal had 2 in 20 years. John McKay had 2 in 16 years. Nick Saban has 1 in 9 years (AL and LSU combined).

Again, the fact is, it's just really, really hard to win it all. I'm not sure why Mack Brown is held to a higher standard than other legendary coaches who ALSO only won or played for a couple championships in 12+ years (some in 20+ years).

The top programs in the history of the sport only have a handful of undefeated seasons (out of 100+ seasons). Why is that? Again, they either "did less with more" or they "couldn't win the big one". Otherwise programs like USC, Florida, Texas, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Nebraska, etc would have undefeated seasons at least one out of every three.

Maryland:
Talent: 7.0 O'Brien and Tate are flat out studs and theres a strong collection of talent elsewhere, lots of youth though

Coaching: 7.5 I think Edsall is a good head coach, and Crowton has put up gaudy numbers as an oc early in each of his stops and with a QB as talented as O'Brien. Bradford at the moment really drags down the staff as DC. Hull, Gattuso, Brattan are really strong position coaches and the rest are a solid mix of experienced coaches and a couple youngsters. A good group for sure.

Mack is held to a higher standard because he is able to pick the 20-25 best players out of Texas and have his class almost filled right after junior day.

Either he is recruiting wrong and not waiting till senior seasons to evaluate players or he is doing "less with more" than any other coach in the Big XII. The best players in the Big XII are normally players that Texas passed on. Oklahoma is the only occasionally exception to that rule. With that kind of recruiting advantage he shouldn't be losing as often as he does.

It is really really hard to win it all. But Texas should be in the thick of it more often than they are with the advantages they have right now.

I know they have talent. I was in the front row to see them dominate Nebraska last year. The only excuse to that team getting rolled by UCLA and missing a bowl is poor coaching. They had 85 of the best players in Texas from the previous five years.

I understand all that, but that doesn't change any of my comparisons and examples of all the other coaches that have won no more than Mack has. Maybe UT has an easier time getting their talent, but in the end, USC, LSU, Alabama, etc all still end up with just as much talent. Yet, they also lose games every year.

Getting the talent locally and with ease doesn't make the talent BETTER, it just makes it local and easier to get. So that doesn't really change my comparisons to other programs and coaches like USC and Pete Carroll, or LSU and Les Miles. LSU gets just as much talent, yet Miles has one title on a 2-loss season (which is almost the same thing as not winning a title).

I'm just saying that I think he's evaluated unfairly just because he gets lots of talent with relative ease. That doesn't make winning any easier. It just makes recruiting easier. Winning it all for Mack Brown is still just as difficult as it is for Pete Carroll, Les Miles, Nick Saban, Bob Stoops, or any of the other dozens of extremely successful coaches through the years that also only won 1 title in 12 years (Spurrier comes to mind).

I understand this site is primarily (at least in the past) a recruiting based site.

Someone pointed out in regards to talent the difference between 5 star recruits and 5 star talents.

Take for instant Sam Bradford, I don't even recall what he was as a recruit but even living in the OKC metro area he wasn't a highly visible recruit. Someone might be able to pull it up but I'm betting he was at best a 3 star recruit. I think the last 4-5 years is pretty solid evidence that he is a 5 star talent.

I bring this up to point out how funny it is to me when people throughout that Texas has its pickings of the top players in Texas every year. Maybe in recruiting circles there is some credence to this but all that shows is just how much of an in exact science it is.

I'm not saying this to bash UT at all, I'm in agreement with one of their fans in this thread, saying they get whoever they want from the state is just not correct!!!

Many have the view that Mack Brown in fact by signing so many top recruits early he is hurting the program because so many kids develope later. Just look at what the 2 Oregon schools mined for in Texas and came away with OSU the Rogers brothers, and Oregon with James and their QB.

I went off on this not just due to this thread but on a more broad perspective.

Oklahoma

Talent: 9.0
Coaching: 8.5