Guess we’ll lose every game from here then.
Question. How good did you guys think we would be? Did anyone think this roster equaled 12-0? For those of you that say we suck, what is the ceiling for this team? Are we a title contender with Saban or Dabo at the helm? I’m just trying to figure out why people are so ****ed.
I'll bite Jonnyblaze. Fair questions. But first let me be transparent and say, I agree almost point for point with what @Franchise said. We're an average team with an average coach beating below average teams because we have an above average QB. Having said that this is just Bennu's take on the questions you raise because there are other issues as well.
How good did you guys think we would be?
I felt before and feel now we'll be as good as this staff prepares us to be. They recruited these players who at almost every position are better than what Pitt or UVA trotted out against us. Because we have more highly touted rosters most years compared to our opponents, Canes on CIS wrongly assume each year that we are going to be better than we actually are. The logic is sound - more talented players than your opponents should mean victories over those opponents. I'd argue almost every coach in the ACC would trade their roster for ours based on talent/potential coming out of high school. And to your implied point, I think, we are 5-1. But clearly we're not anywhere close to being where we want to be in terms of our execution AND we don't appear to be getting better each week as good teams do.
Did anyone think this roster equaled 12-0?
Sure. Even though that's a high bar. You know some of us here thought playing in the pathetic ACC and having recruiting classes annually ranked higher than almost every team in the conference not named Clemson and perhaps FSU that we'd have a chance to run the table sans Clemson. But
our major issue is not the roster. It's the culture Manny has created. It's amazing that he can't see this himself.
I'll give an example of it, obviously as I see it. Manny preaches competition, but then he undermines it by playing everyone no matter how they play including if their play hurts the team. That's self defeating and, I believe, it undermines him in the young minds that make up his locker room. I'm obviously not in the locker room, but how could it not? We're just talking here, but if you've played sports - even in Jr. High or High School - you must have a sense of this. I'll elaborate a little further.
Manny's idea of competition is whether you start or not, not whether you play or not. The one thing that coaches have that players want is playing time. That's what they have over the players. Yelling, up downs, etc. only go so far. What all real players want is to be on the field. But you MUST EARN the right to play, not just to start. We have in a literal sense become a soccer mom football program where everyone plays, gets a trophy, and celebrates average performance. When we win in spite of this it is reinforced, which is happening now. Of course, when we play teams that are above average we are exposed.
The point is our players know that know matter how they play they're going to play. Think about that. How careful would you be with your money if you had an infinite supply? How careful would you be if every dollar lost forced you to give up something you coveted?
Amari Carter is the poster child of this. Manny has named him or allowed him to be named a Captain. Who does that? Who takes a player who repeatedly hurts the TEAM and makes him a Captain? In society, we call that being an enabler. For their own benefit, if you're their supervisor, you must take them out, otherwise you are complicit in the harm they bring to the company/team. There are other players CIS members point to as well, but I'm not going to do that here. Harley's comment implicitly confirms what is evident in our play and that's that players are not being forced to be accountable.
What is the ceiling for this team?
Unless the culture of rewarding mediocrity is entirely torn down and discarded, we will continue to be who we've been the past 15 years. No need to elaborate any further.
Are we a title contender with Saban or Dabo at the helm?
I get what you're driving at Cane. Yes. We know we need better talent to compete with Clemson, Bama, o$u, etc. For sure. But it wouldn't take coaches of that caliber to take our current roster and embarrass a wounded Pitt team or punish the pedestrian UVA team we faced last night. Again, what running back on UVA's team compares to any of ours? What defensive linemen to any of ours? Etc. etc. Again, I realize we still have holes to fill on the roster.
If you want us to really become a football team that competes for championships then we've got to hire a championship caliber staff. As it is now, we've got to pray really hard that Manny comes to the realization that he's created a culture at UM that lacks real accountability, enables, celebrates, and makes excuses for mediocre performances and that he fixes that. That would be, as I see it, the most important first step in a series of necessary steps to get us where we really want to be.