A very special Fireside Chat with a Living Legend

[JG14]

Sabag called his 1st RD WR out for running a kickoff out of the end zone after he broke his ankle. Mandy praises soft performances.

I honestly think Mandy is still shell shocked from last year and is loving his squad is 5-1

 

[bobbydigius]

It was a bad performance. We were lucky to win.

But people use the term “average” without considering the rest of the nation. There is a lot of bad football being played outside the Top 4. We’re playing less bad football than the other teams, which is why we’re 5-1.

This is a Top 25 team to me. It’s not a Top 5 team. It probably isn’t a Top 10 team. The story of the second half will be, “Are we closer to 10 or 25?”

We are about to find if we are even a top 25 team. We haven’t played anyone but Clemson. We get to play some mediocre to slightly above average team the rest of the way. Every team we have beaten is doo doo and we struggled with the last two.

 

[bobbydigius]

I don't know what's worse, the fact that they were doing the bare minimum or the fact he felt comfortable enough to publicly admit it.

It’s 100% that he was comfortable enough to admit it. The former was something that most of us were already aware of, but the latter shows the problem is worse than we thought.

 

[Torocane]

I agree with everything , couldn’t have said it better. The only place I might have a small beef is I think we’re above average lol. We come off as an undisciplined , badly coaches team.

"We come off as an undisciplined , badly coaches team."

That's the frustrating part.

 

[theibisrules]

Now comes the report we have dropped down to #12 in the polls and Manny says we are very pleased where we are at. What a load of crap.

 

[The Franchise]

Chise, this says a lot about the (broken) culture that exists right now, bottom line. It's indefensible. Say whatever you want about our past greats - but they were grinders. Guys who had Hall-of-Fame/Pro Bowl talent but the mentality of a walk-on

And that's the job of the coach to instill that type of mindset. As Jimmy Johnson would tell his guys after bad practices -- 'You're guys scholarships are only for one year at a time, dont ever forget that.'

Also, in terms of our offense, the base (for this season) needs to be shotgun spread, 3, 4 even 5 wide, and just let King create and do stuff. I've said that from the first game vs UAB that the interior of our Oline isn't strong/good enough to do the inside read as it's foundation. As high as I am on Lashlee, that's on him, if he doesn't adjust

Somehow, he has to stay ahead of the chains on 1st down, and there is no rule that says that can only be done via the run game

But moving forward ,I dont see a lot of easy games, what we saw vs LVille and FSU is as good as it's going to get. From here on out, it's all-slog, all the time. I just want this program to do enough in 2020, to keep this recruiting class intact and then move forward. And in the off-season, I really want some changes on the defensive staff. Im alarmed by some of the stuff I see on a consistent basis there( and yeah, I know, Miami only gave up 14 last night).

Diaz gets $4M+ per year to INSTALL his culture. If you don't have full buy in two years later, then you can't lead. If you can't lead you're pretty much useless as a HC.

 

[P-Tizzle]

Haven't read everything yet but had to put a big LOL at the first paragraph?

“I hate to say I told you so, but I've seen enough of this program to know what's going on. Let's get right to it, shall we?”

I don’t get it. What’s so funny about that? Is it a inside joke?

 

[B-Cane]

I hate to say I told you so, but I've seen enough of this program to know what's going on. Let's get right to it, shall we?

I had this revelation while watching Diaz continue to flounder. Diaz reminds me of Don Jr. Looks polished. Yaps a good game. Zero substance. He's a fake manly nerd who talks about manly stuff. His idea of hunting would be to stay in a 5 star hotel in Dubai and be taken to an air conditioned shooting range where they line up a bunch of animals chained to a post 30 feet in front of him and give him a machine gun. It's the nerd life. The difference between the two is Diaz is trying to accomplish something, but he's simply clueless on how to lead.

I've harped on this fact forever, and the nerds don't get it, but you can tell everything about a football team by their focus and effort level. We are devoid of either. Of course, the dopes on here will litter my thread with "we played hard, but Lashlee sucks." We neither played hard or played focused.

We have a few players who give effort, but, overall, we're a lazy skinny jeans group. We're the guys with the tight pants that stop at the bottom of the calves with designer loafers we can't afford and a backpack that costs more than we make in a month.

Let's discuss some specifics in the pros and cons section of this incredible blog.

Pros:
This won't be popular for the guys looking for a scapegoat, but King played a great game. He was on target with some absolute darts. Yes he missed Harley to ice the game, but this game never should have come down to one pass at the end.

Harley. That's by far the best game he's played. He is a hard working kid, who took the criticism of the WRs personally. Good for him.

Chaney. He's our best RB right now. Yeah I said it. He's tough fast and runs harder than a 14 year old boy watching his mom's hot friend, Nancy, paint her toe nails in her bikini.

Pope showed some life and made a great acrobatic catch. Yeah he had another drop, but expecting Pope not to drop an easy pass every game is like expecting me not to ram my Pickett/Yellen takes from last week down your faqquit throats until your mascara runs.

And...that's it.

Cons:

Scaife set the tone early for the type of tenacity and the mental toughness that we have when he got bullrushed like the ghey fat kid whose dad forced him to play Pee Wee football even though he'd much prefer to be playing with his Barbies. This dude's been a major bummer.

Cam. He ran like he didn't want to be out there. I don't know if he's hurt or what, but I'm glad they finally yanked him. On that stretch play he looked like he was carrying a piano on his back. Weak effort last night.

Bolden on the TD to the TE gave a feeble effort. All he had to do was carry the guy out of bounds, and that stops the TD.

Carter needs to get a Target ad at this point. I can see him with the Target bullseye painted on top of his head saying "I love Target!" while running head-first into a wall like the Kool Aid pitcher dude.

Lashlee needs to realize you don't have to force balance for the sake of balance. King had a hot hand, and, in case Lashlee didn't notice, UVAG was without their best defender, Blount, and their other starting S Nelson. Run them ragged with the throw game. Throw it 80% of the time if you have to. UVAG is horrible against the pass and pretty good against the run, so what does Lashlee do? Yep. Force that ******* read option inside zone all night long.

What's with our new habit of running give up handoffs on 3rd down in our own end? We're just giving away series regularly every game with that ****.

Our pass rush was supposed to be a huge strength. It isn't. Phillips is a great effort guy, but if he's even thinking about leaving early, he needs a lobotomy.

Did you see the play where Ivey gave a huge cushion to a QB playing WR for pretty much the 1st time? Yeah, so did I. He let a QB run him off for an easy pitch and catch 1st down on 3rd and 11. That play summed us up. 3rd and 11 and he's bailing against a QB playing WR.

96 yard drive in 2:40 when we should have been icing the game. That drive speaks directly to the mindset of this team and why I have dwindling hope for Diaz. We were celebrating a win up 13 with 10 minutes left instead of bearing down and trying to open it up on them.

We let a 3 QB rotation control us for much of the 1st half. Keep in mind none of those 3 can throw the ball. Then, Diaz tells the halftime reporter "We need to make them beat us throwing it." Yeah no **** Don Jr. That should have been the idea from the beginning.

Gurvan Hall looked like he didn't even care on that coverage bust for the late TD. We were already in "we won, let's start taking pics for the gram" mode.

Tried to tell you guys last week we got lucky Yellen played. Nope. The CISpool clowns came for me claiming Yellen was just as good as Pickett. Then, they spent the whole week trying to be funny about how Pickett was a god. Flash forward to this week and look at what ND did to Yellen on his home field. That desultory performance against Pitt was what I feared for the remainder of the season and why last week's Fireside Chat wasn't all puppies and rainbows.

There are 2 or 3 L's left on this schedule if we play like we have the last 2 weeks.

I said it last week, and I'll stick with it. We're average. And we're average for the same reason we stunk last year--Don Jr. isn't a leader of men. He celebrates ****** efforts in wins against horrible teams like UVAG as if we just won a NC. He's not demanding enough, and it shows by the focus and effort level of his team. D$ tried to tell me we're in that next tier behind the greats, but we aren't unless that next tier consists of about 65 teams.

We are a little better than last year, and that's solely because of King. If we had Perry at the helm right now we'd be a 3 loss team. I don't know about you guys, but this game felt eerily similar to last year against a much better UVAG team with a much better QB and much better D.

Diaz gets $4M+ per year to INSTALL his culture. If you don't have full buy in two years later, then you can't lead. If you can't lead you're pretty much useless as a HC.

Any hope that Don, Jr. can simply out-recruit his problems? Like a poor man's Botch?

 

[3rd-43]

Diaz gets $4M+ per year to INSTALL his culture. If you don't have full buy in two years later, then you can't lead. If you can't lead you're pretty much useless as a HC.

He’s been useless, nothings changing. As pointed out before, it’s time to root for losses. Rinse and repeat, get Blake the fūck out of my face.

 

[The Franchise]

Uva **** near lost their entire team , they’re 1-4 for a reason

Dummies will never get this, so don't waste your time.

 

[BoxingRobes]

Good takes, Legend.

My only addendum...I'm absolutely convinced Cam'Ron Harris is injured. He hasn't been right since the Louisville game (and even in that game, he had a light workload). Not running as hard, not getting yards after contact (a staple of his play), they are seemingly taking him out of situational spots where he would otherwise block or go out for a pass. idk, he just didn't all of a sudden suck or play unlike himself...I think he's hurt but grinding.

 

[The Franchise]

Hurts to agree with all of that. Damnit. Thought we were taking a step forward. More of the same. My optimism fell off a cliff last night.

I was hopeful coming into the season. I even felt like maybe we were "rounding the corner" after the FSU beat down. But, alas, we seem to be rounding the corner just like Covid is.

At the end of the day, if a HC is slip sliding away after a putrid effort like that, then he just doesn't get it. If his senior leader WR just told the world they were mailing it in all year until the big "or" depth chart incident, and he didn't notice that or stop it sooner, then that's a symptom of the disease called Camp Cane.

 

[The Franchise]

With all due respect, this was me last week so I can’t get after you or lambast you about this opinion. Everyone has their distinct threshold for mediocrity and accepting reality. This was the week for me, it hit me this week.

It takes a jolt of confidence and belief in something to begin to even hold it accountable and expect greatness from it. This post is nothing near moping or not keeping things in perspective. This is a reaction to seeing flashes and expecting more from them. It’s the natural progression of a healthy supporter or advocate with perspective.

This post is the epitome of support and perspective.

And I thoroughly enjoyed it despite the reality it exposes. The humor helps.

This Fireside Chat provided a service, this was social work!

HTC gets it. When the Fireside Chat gets the endorsement of one of the most significant characters in U.S. history, you know there is therapeutic learning going on in this segment.

 

[NJshoreCane]

It was a bad performance. We were lucky to win.

But people use the term “average” without considering the rest of the nation. There is a lot of bad football being played outside the Top 4. We’re playing less bad football than the other teams, which is why we’re 5-1.

This is a Top 25 team to me. It’s not a Top 5 team. It probably isn’t a Top 10 team. The story of the second half will be, “Are we closer to 10 or 25?”

I see your point.
Someone listed Penn State last week as one of those "second tier" teams.
We played 2 of the 3 opponents in common with ND better than they have.

That said, this is tough to take, and I'm as even keeled as they come.
Thank God for Louisville and FSU over the last 2 years.

 

[The Franchise]

And I’ll ask you the same question you couldn’t answer last week: who are the best teams beyond the Top 4?

You like to tell us how much CFB you watch, so I’m not sure why you struggle to list examples. My guess is you don’t want to look bad when those teams lose.

I see an elite Top 4, a very promising Wisconsin team, and a bunch of teams with huge holes. We’ve beaten every team on our schedule within that group. That’s good.

Average does not mean “every team outside of the Top 4.” It means in the middle of everyone. We are better than that by any objective measure.

I answered you last week. There are some great teams, and there are some teams a few steps behind them. Then, there's us and about 50-60 other teams that are average as fck. You can keep spinning. I'll just give the real scoop.

If you think a team that had 2 consecutive death struggles with ****** ACC teams is anything other than average, then I'm going to have you endorse my ***** on Monday. By the time you're done, I'll be thinking I'm Johnny Depth or Danny DeMeato.

 

[Scrape into the C Gap]

It was a bad performance. We were lucky to win.

But people use the term “average” without considering the rest of the nation. There is a lot of bad football being played outside the Top 4. We’re playing less bad football than the other teams, which is why we’re 5-1.

This is a Top 25 team to me. It’s not a Top 5 team. It probably isn’t a Top 10 team. The story of the second half will be, “Are we closer to 10 or 25?”

No way man. I have to respectfully disagree. By what metric are we even an above average team based on on-field performance? We let a 1-4 UVA team hang on until the last second, we let a 3-4 Pitt team hang on almost the entire game, we decimated a terrible 2-4 FSU team and played a tough game against a 2-4 Louisville team. Our best win was a tough win over a solid UAB followed by the castration of FSU. We’ve beaten 1 team with a winning record and played back and forth football in 3 other games against teams with losing records. This is not a Top 25 team. Maybe Top 40?

 

[The Franchise]

Manny will be just like Randy Shannon was watch. Nothing but a glorified DC. We will lose 2 more games and then yall win crown 7-3 as elite and then we will lose in a bowl game. Rinse watch and repeat.

If we go 7-3 playing like we played the last 2 games, we'll have a segment of morons saying we're trending in the right direction like they did the year Folden won 9 and got humiliated by Louisville.

 

[DMoney]

By what metric are we even an above average team based on on-field performance?

Our record, the polls, the advanced rankings, scoring offense and scoring defense.

 

[AtlAtty]

Phillips was blatantly held on 70% or more of his pass attempts.

PS now do Beau Biden.

Beau Biden passed away from brain cancer.

 

[The Franchise]

It was a bad performance. We were lucky to win.

But people use the term “average” without considering the rest of the nation. There is a lot of bad football being played outside the Top 4. We’re playing less bad football than the other teams, which is why we’re 5-1.

This is a Top 25 team to me. It’s not a Top 5 team. It probably isn’t a Top 10 team. The story of the second half will be, “Are we closer to 10 or 25?”

We're playing less bad football than the 2 horrible teams we got into dog fights with the last 2 weeks. We're not playing better football than "the others." We're just playing slightly good enough to beat 1 team with a dog **** backup QB that ND just fed his own **** and a UVAG team without its best players on D and a 3 man QB rotation with no ability to throw a forward pass.