Tracy Howard is always real in his interviews and I like that. But I've seen the team chemistry bull **** before and it's truly a last resort
My junior year of college, playing baseball our coaches tried that ****, coming off the first losing season in school history. (with arguably the most talented team we ever had).
Didn't work. Had a mediocre season at best. We all thought we were closer than ever and bought into all the coaches ****. That was just fwiw it's completely different sports but I think it will play out the same way here.
Thanks for sharing your experiences. I went through something similar during the offseason preceding my senior year in college, but the coaches didn't have much to do with it:
We knew we had a senior loaded roster that was talented. We knew the year following us was going to be a rebuilding year. We had a stud senior QB with a couple mid-major D1 offers. We knew we had experience, talent, continuity in the staff for the first time, etc. The graduating class ahead of us was very small.
On our own accord, the rising seniors set up a few mandatory team meetings. One of them lasting over 3 hours. Almost everyone said something. Some people got some stuff off their chest. We almost had a couple altercations break out, which were resolved in the meeting. We made commitments, promises. We actually followed through on many of those promises. Offseason training programs were more successful. People came into summer camp with a lot more confidence in their abilities.
We ended up having our best season in over 50 years, which was capped off with a bowl victory over a favored opponent. Since that season, our program hasn't sniffed that kind of success. It was on the players. Our coaches did a good job of organizing us, getting us into shape, running an efficient practice, etc. It was on us to make commitments to ourselves. It can't be manufactured chemistry. It needs to be organic.