CaneintheWilderness
Freshman
- Joined
- Oct 30, 2019
- Messages
- 246
I want to float an opinion on this subject.
I truly believe that, had the internet existed during Butch's time at UM, he would have gotten a lot more love from the fanbase. Back then we had no idea that Butch was building the roster he built. Had the internet been a mature thing back then (with all of the high school recruit ranking services, etc.) people would have seen the progress behind the scenes and been more patient with Butch. As well, the magnitude of the scholarship reductions would have been better understood by the fanbase.
I'm a long time lurker & short time poster, so all due respect, but this is an insane opinion. If the internet existed and was what it was now - with all the HS recruiting services, as you say - Butch wouldn't have had a f*cking prayer of recruiting the guys he was able to, in the way he was able to. Recruits have much more visibility into programs and would have had a better idea of what it actually meant to have such a scholarship deficiency, and big time national programs would have been much better primed to find "diamonds in the rough" like Ed Reed, Santana Moss, Frank Gore etc. With the negative recruiting + bags we would never have had a chance. Beyond that, name me one time since Schnellenberger that Miami fans have ever been forgiving or accepting of failure, no matter how reasonable the excuses. Exact same sh&t that happens now - inside "sources," disgruntled players, angry fans - would have been calling for his head at the first difficulty, just as they do now. Love what Butch did for the program, but let's not go overboard on the revisionism.