YO OLD HEADS!!!
I am a bit on the young side and its rather difficult to research online so I figured I would turn to you all. What was the buzz like around the 97 team that went 5-6? How was Butch viewed and what was the climate like with the media and among the fan base?
What do you want to know?
The year before, we went 9-3, won the Big East, and finished #14 in the country.
We started 1997 ranked #14 and we beat Baylor (and moved up to #13). We then proceeded to lose 4 straight and after falling out of the Top 25, we never re-entered during that year (it took us over a year to get back into the Top 25).
Back then, people didn't understand how badly the probation and scholarship losses would be, as far as our depth and our overall competitiveness. That was the year that Bowden intentionally ran up the score on us, since we had beaten him by the same 47-0 score in his first year at F$U.
This year, in particular, was a real "ground zero" for all of the Butch-haters, as it was his third year and we were "regressing" (we actually won the Big East in both of Butch's first 2 years).
I don't know that the media was particularly harsh on Butch, but the fans were. The media was very nice to Butch a couple of years earlier ("new sheriff in town"), and I don't recall them actually turning on him, but the fans certainly got ****y.
If you think about it, Butch's Year 1, Year 2, Year 4, and Year 5 were nearly identical in record (though we finished 2nd in the Big East in 1998 and 1999). Therefore, the 1997 season was the only "bad" one for Butch.