Rumor Position coach bad-mouthed his guys to recruit and it got back to them?

Saw this in an article on The Athletic today; not sure if this was posted in another topic already, but I hadn't seen it previously...
View attachment 231692
Any idea who this was? Someone who is no longer here, but that doesn't exactly narrow it down much.

Gattis was ****ting on the kids from the jump.

I wouldn’t be surprised if it was him, and that the subject of said messages was Romello Brinson. If that’s the case, it wouldn’t be too much of a logic jump to assume that the recipient of said message was Mr. Jean.

Im just speculating of course.
 
Advertisement
Also you walk a thin line when you recruit this way.. maybe you don't get into specific names or be as specific in the criticism if that's what happened... but Mario created that culture (I have no problem with it - it's not ideal for the current generation and their feelings) that we're selling to recruits that what we have isn't very good and we need you. That was half of their recruiting pitch this year. Seems someone took it a bit too far saying x,y,z sucked or something if it blew up within the current position group.
Right... there is a way to say it w/o SAYING it.. 'You have a real opportunity to come in and play right away', 'You can really elevate the talent at <position group>', etc
 
Gattis was ****ting on the kids from the jump.

I wouldn’t be surprised if it was him, and that the subject of said messages was Romello Brinson. If that’s the case, it wouldn’t be too much of a logic jump to assume that the recipient of said message was Mr. Jean.

Im just speculating of course.


Absolutely happened with Gattis.

Also happened with someone besides Gattis.
 
Right... there is a way to say it w/o SAYING it.. 'You have a real opportunity to come in and play right away', 'You can really elevate the talent at <position group>', etc


Plus, you really need to establish to the recruits that they won't similarly get stabbed in the back after a year or two.

It's just stupid recruiting. You can imply a lot of things, particularly now that the Portal exists. No need to talk specifics about your current roster.
 
Advertisement
Right... there is a way to say it w/o SAYING it.. 'You have a real opportunity to come in and play right away', 'You can really elevate the talent at <position group>', etc
Yep. Makes sense as to why so many left that group, why they were telling others not to come, why we didn't land anyone at WR aside from the 2 that always said they were here to play for Mario, and why we didn't get anyone from the portal.

You hire big name coaches and they walk into a **** show.. their egos are too big and this is what you get. Also shows why we were bad and couldn't get out of the rut and turn it around.. egos and guys that didn't know how to handle poor results and building a culture from the ground up.

Seems like we're addressing it with the new hires.
 
So you’re still on your shtick, huh?
77395086-F0B7-4D5A-8FA4-3C5217FF8640.gif
 
One of the players whose family I know fairly well has said it happened in the WR group - I wasn't posting or following much back then but I thought remembered a rumor that there was a kid on the team telling recruits to stay away and that's how this came up.

Wouldn't be surprised if it was Smith, Strong, etc as well.. Nothing would surprise me. But it was definitely happening with Gattis.

Also you walk a thin line when you recruit this way.. maybe you don't get into specific names or be as specific in the criticism if that's what happened... but Mario created that culture (I have no problem with it - it's not ideal for the current generation and their feelings) that we're selling to recruits that what we have isn't very good and we need you. That was half of their recruiting pitch this year. Seems someone took it a bit too far saying x,y,z sucked or something if it blew up within the current position group.
and we still had a class rank of 7. WOW!

mario did say often that we need to improve in just about every position.
 
Advertisement
What exactly does "bad mouth" mean? Need more context.

If coach ______ said his group was weak and they needed help, then I don't see an issue. Several positions on the team were weak.

If coach ______ said specific player x, y, z is rotten garbage and wouldn't pick them for a backyard game against toddlers, then that's different.
 
Wouldn't rule anything out as to who it would have been.. but I lean towards it not being Strong because he's too much of a veteran. He's done it way too long and is more of a chill guy the way he recruits... and we landed too many guys recruiting that position for it to have been toxic.

I also lean towards it not being Kevin Smith because he's a quiet guy anyway that didn't do a ton of recruiting. Hard to talk down about your group when you brought the lead guy and had 2 out for the season with injuries. We also landed 2 of our top 5 targets at the position and the others we recruited weren't really from the same area as other guys in the room to bring up those texts.

WR is the only position where all the signs were there: a lot of attrition, guys quitting mid-season, mediocre recruiting, poor play, no portal help, etc.
 
Advertisement
Advertisement
One would like to believe that a coach making almost 9 million per year and with about a decade of head coaching experience wouldn't need training wheels. Well, here's to hoping he gets it right in season 2 at UM.

Great Gatsby Movie GIF by Sony
You're not wrong. Totally botched the first staff. The only remaining guys are those that followed from Oregon and the guy that stayed from the previous staff (Field - who Mario was on staff at Oregon previously under Mario).. plus Addae - the only outlier.

Every outside/unfamiliar hire was a dud.
 
One of the players whose family I know fairly well has said it happened in the WR group - I wasn't posting or following much back then but I thought remembered a rumor that there was a kid on the team telling recruits to stay away and that's how this came up.

Wouldn't be surprised if it was Smith, Strong, etc as well.. Nothing would surprise me. But it was definitely happening with Gattis.

Also you walk a thin line when you recruit this way.. maybe you don't get into specific names or be as specific in the criticism if that's what happened... but Mario created that culture (I have no problem with it - it's not ideal for the current generation and their feelings) that we're selling to recruits that what we have isn't very good and we need you. That was half of their recruiting pitch this year. Seems someone took it a bit too far saying x,y,z sucked or something if it blew up within the current position group.


I now understand the Gattis confusion. The original post did not include all the context. The author strongly implied that it was A DIFFERENT assistant, not Gattis:

1677613182185.png
 
One of the players whose family I know fairly well has said it happened in the WR group - I wasn't posting or following much back then but I thought remembered a rumor that there was a kid on the team telling recruits to stay away and that's how this came up.

Wouldn't be surprised if it was Smith, Strong, etc as well.. Nothing would surprise me. But it was definitely happening with Gattis.

Also you walk a thin line when you recruit this way.. maybe you don't get into specific names or be as specific in the criticism if that's what happened... but Mario created that culture (I have no problem with it - it's not ideal for the current generation and their feelings) that we're selling to recruits that what we have isn't very good and we need you. That was half of their recruiting pitch this year. Seems someone took it a bit too far saying x,y,z sucked or something if it blew up within the current position group.
Mario was basically doing the same thing at post game pressers, lol.. We got blown out by MTSU at home, wtf they thought?! We ******* suck :ibis-roflmao-sm3:

I hope it did get ugly, alot of players need to take a look in mirror then bounce.. You heard about player who demanded raise for NIL after he heard about another player getting paid? The nerve of some of these jags man..
 
One of the players whose family I know fairly well has said it happened in the WR group - I wasn't posting or following much back then but I thought remembered a rumor that there was a kid on the team telling recruits to stay away and that's how this came up.

Wouldn't be surprised if it was Smith, Strong, etc as well.. Nothing would surprise me. But it was definitely happening with Gattis.

Also you walk a thin line when you recruit this way.. maybe you don't get into specific names or be as specific in the criticism if that's what happened... but Mario created that culture (I have no problem with it - it's not ideal for the current generation and their feelings) that we're selling to recruits that what we have isn't very good and we need you. That was half of their recruiting pitch this year. Seems someone took it a bit too far saying x,y,z sucked or something if it blew up within the current position group.
I thought this was obvious. When I saw the headline, I thought it was Gattis talking about the WR group...it wasn't even a secret.
 
Advertisement
Back
Top