re: Ground Rules?

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None of what you said challenges the obvious: Just as Mike Sherman needed a minor miracle to save his job in year 3, Kennedy will need the same.

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Kennedy will be back...or so I've been told. I'm not really sure what the deal is but apparently there is something behind the scenes that we're giving him a pass this season. I think it's a mistake but whatever. I've taken a step back from following basketball for this reason. I don't want to spend my free time being frustrated by watching our team play.

I disagree on Sherman. He inherited a complete mess and Byrne knew it. It wasn't just the players but a complete overhaul of the organization which can take years to change a culture. I think often bridge coaches don't get credit for that. Sherman most definitely changed the culture but had to suffer through the effects of the sea change and it reflected itself in how the team performed early on.

To be blunt, many of the older players simply refused to buy in and unlike Sumlin, Sherm didn't really have the option of tossing them overboard as there was literally nothing beneath them. He had to play through a group of team cancers while carefully fostering the younger kids not to follow their lead. It's an almost impossible situation and he'll never get enough credit for it as far as I'm concerned. It doesn't make him a great coach, but his ability to find under the radar, good character kids and build them up has laid the groundwork for our program to be ripe for long-term success.

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None of what you said challenges the obvious: Just as Mike Sherman needed a minor miracle to save his job in year 3, Kennedy will need the same.

The "he needs his players excuse" is refusing to point out the obvious: He is in WAY over his head.

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Very valid points. Personally I don't see how BK is our long term answer with his disease and lack of momentum. Love to be wrong though. My point was more about how it's fine to be frustrated or negative but to attack others for NOT being the same is't noble. It's also clear BK is likely to get a Season 3 but certainly isn't getting fired mid season so constantly harping on it seems kind of pointless.

I disagree that he is "WAY" over his head though. He is still winning games against teams with more talent. He hasn't let the wheels fall off. It's just the attrition and losses to lesser teams are big marks against him as well. He's no Melvin Watkins or Tony Barone though. The bar certainly should be higher but we have had a lot worse than BK. He'll either get it together and that'll be great or we will move on.

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He's no Melvin Watkins or Tony Barone though

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Actually, he's a lot closer to Melvin Watkins than you might think.

If you look back through the archives, Melvin went 5-11 in his first year in the Big 12.

In his second year, he beat a top ten team (Oklahoma State) at Reed

In his third year, they had just enough conference wins to keep him employed.

In his fourth year, he beat a ranked team (Texas) on the road.

In his fifth year, he went .500 overall and stopped Bob Knight from getting his 900th win at our expense.

It took the 2003-2004 season, plus a new athletic director to get rid of him.

Kennedy has as many conference wins right now as Watkins did after year two.

The only difference is that Kennedy has played a far weaker non-conference than Watkins did and far fewer nonconference road games.

Also, Tony Barone actually made the NIT. Kennedy hasn't done that yet.

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wait who are you accusing of being Jorts? B/c he certainly aint me.

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I didn't name anyone. I suspected. I've accepted the fact that Kennedy is getting a third year, but the way that some people are moving the goalposts with a forklift to defend him is sickening.

He's closer to Watkins and Barone than he is Gillispie or Turgeon. Certainly not "one of the top three coaches in the SEC" like you keep saying.

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The problem was you can't be favored in 11 of 12 games and go 6-6 and lose so many games the way he did with big leads.

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sorry, the quote I was responding to said he needed a miracle to save his job in year 3 - aka 2010. That simply wasn't true. And honestly, had Byrne made the decision, he wouldn't have been gone after 2011.

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Really though the unforgivable sin was that Texas game. After that it was over because no matter what he did from that point on he would never overcome that with a huge section of the fan base

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Sherman was never a popular hire. There was always a rather large portion of the fanbase that didn't like him. You can go back to Texags from when he was first hired and before ever coaching a down they were posting pictures of him sleeping at the combine and calling him Sleepy Sherman. The truth is, there is a certain portion of all fanbases that hate a hire and don't give them a chance.

After we lost to Arkansas State, those fans were never going to get on board barring multiple top 10 finishes in a row***. They are the same reactionary group that seem to be constantly jumping on and off the bandwagon whenever the slightest thing went wrong or right. It's sort of the nature of the beast. As we all well know, early this season, there were quite a few Ags hating on Sumlin and Kingsbury. And even before the season it was a "good old boy" hire because Sumlin is Wilson's friend. It's only natural. But if we regress, it isn't going to be different people, it will be those same folks complaining because they never fully in their mind got on board.

Anyway, my point wasn't that Sherman should have stayed on. It was time as he had finished the portion of the job he's really best at. I was simply saying that he didn't need a miracle to stay on in year 3. The list of coaches that would have succeeded to that point given the hand he was dealt is rather short. He needed to show progress because the underlying situation was one that the AD (and regents) fully understood. Even if we had a bad 2010, he almost certainly would have come back for 2011.

*** I read a study, and I can't find it now, that showed that first year success has almost no correlation to long-term college football coaching success. Yet fanbases let that first impression linger. As an example, guys that had some real pedestrian first years:

Saban 2007 (Bama) 7-6 including loss to ULM at home
Brian Kelly 2004 (CMU) 4-7
Pete Carroll 2001 (USC) 6-6
Bob Stoops 1999 (OU) 7-5
all of these are the worst records the coaches ever had

The key is improvement the 2nd year. Virtually all long term successful coaches have shown that. In cases when a coach has a good first year (Sumlin), it's repeating that and not regressing. I can't remember exactly but I think if a coach has a successful season and then wins more than 2 fewer games the next, the long term prognosis is incredibly poor. Despite this, coaches who had good first years averaged like 4 years longer than guys with poor first years with the exact same results after the first year. In Sumlin's case that would make a record of 8-5 or worse a big red flag.

The point of the article is that (1) most coaches take over because the previous coach had failed, (2) most systems take time to implement and it usually takes most players about a year to adjust, and (3) decision makers and fanbases have a habit of letting the first impression linger. I wish I could find the article now because it was pretty enlightening.

My response was to the comment that Sherman "didn't get credit".

I agree some Ags never liked him but in the end you have to win to be liked. He was popular when he won, unfortunately that just wasn't often enough. I agree Sherm likely stays if Byrne was AD and esp if we stayed in the Big 12.

As for coaches you are correct that year 2 is the crucial one and in fact if you look at since OU in '99 with Stoops or essentially every HC who has won a NC won one in their first 3 years except for Mack with Texas in '05 (obviously some coaches repeated later).

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Rule 1: Don't bring texags bullshite over here.

Rule 2: Refer to rule 1

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2. No personal attacks or insults. I'm disgusted the Rivalries Board on TexAgs is full of people that represent my University.

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I love it when you say you don't want any Texags stuff here and then bash Texags. Almost as good as wanting to be treated as an "elder" when you are in your 20's. I was on Texags before it crashed in '99 and blew up all the old profiles, what grade were you in back then?

I don't disagree with the idea that what happens on Texags is for Texags but I really get tired of the bashing. Nothing worse than saying "keep Texags out of the Rant!" followed by lots of insults of the people there or who run the site. Either talk about it or don't but the "Only bashing of Texags is ok" rule is hilarious.

The rest of it though is all good.

I was bashing the rivalries board, and the incidents we have had when some of them come over here, but I guess I see your point. To be clear; I have no personal vendettas against any other board. I know Looch. He knows me. We follow eachother on twitter. I have gotten a few beers with the 247 mods, and Aubrey out at the bars, Aubrey has even picked up me and one of my loser friends from ng. And by all accounts tarp is a nice guy. I really truly don't care about any of that drama. They aren't random internet personalities to me, I know some of them. I don't value their hot sports opinions above my own, and I don't care about much else.

To reiterate my point; I pay for TexAgs. I may say keep their shite off this board, but that has 90% of things to do with the drama associated, not necessarily caused by, TexAgs. I like Looch, and most of his competition. I pay for their service. I still don't like the culture and threads that board attracts from a discussion standpoint. That is why I post here.

To answer your question, in 1999, depending on the time of year; I was either in Mrs. Edge's 4th grade class or Mrs. Wilson's 5th grade class at Mitchell Elementary School in Dallas, TX. I had barely ever used the internet.