I'm off. I'm off the Gene Chizik wagon. I was last week too, but this is official. Overtime to beat LA Monroe?
Overtime? I don't care how good they are. Even if they're the best team in their conference, they're still the best Sun Belt team. We're in the SEC. The bottom of the barrel, perennial losers of the SEC struggle with Sun Belt teams.
Alabama, crippled by sanctions and a lack of team discipline and a new head coach with a vastly different system, struggles with Sun Belt teams.
Arkansas, dismantled by their former head coach's love affair and plagued by injuries and suffocated by an ignorant boob for a current head coach, struggles with Sun Belt teams.
An SEC coach in his fourth tenure year with multiple top recruiting classes should NOT FUCKING MOTHERFUCKING FUCK EVER STRUGGLE WITH SUN BELT TEAMS.
Let alone a week after losing to Miss State, one of the few teams in the SEC that is embarrassing to lose to.
So I'm off. We can beat LSU this week, and I won't praise Chizik.
I'm the scrooge that will point out everything that's wrong. I'm the thorn in your optimism's side.
Why was LA Monroe able to come into Jordan Hare and take us to the wire? It's easy to say, "Well, LA Monroe has a good football team." So, why do they have a good football team? Are their players talented? Are they traditionally a good football team?
How does Boise State recruit lower tier talent and year after year produce good football teams? Why, even in their conference, do they consistently win 10+ games a year?
Why was it that after 6 years (or 15) of suckage, Nick Saban could come to Tuscaloosa and in two years produce a consistently dominant football team?
Why was Jim Tressel's Ohio State teams called overrated due to their conference opponents, yet once he left, Ohio State's dominance dwindled?
How is it possible for a team like Oklahoma, which resides in the dusty, boring midwest, able to produce an annually ranked top ten team? Why are they scoffed at when they only lose two games a year?
How did West Virginia go from being a great program under Rich Rodriguez to being a mediocre program under Bill Stewart and back to being an upper level program under Dana Holgerson?
You know the answer to ALL of those questions?
Leadership and coaching stemmed from the head coach. The programs that succeed on a regular basis have a system implemented by the head coach that consistently produces a competitive football team.
Those teams I listed have nothing in common. Nothing. Some are bottom tier schools in subpar conferences. Some are new kids on the block who have only recently experienced success. Some are traditional powerhouses that knew of championships long ago. Some went from top of the world to down in the dumps to back to top of the world.
It's coaching. And we don't have it. Our coach's system does not produce a competitive football on a regular basis.
That is why we fired Tuberville. We weren't going to accept a program that failed to live up to expectations. There's no need whatsoever to suddenly not have expectations. We expect to have a competitive football team. We shouldn't have to care about how young they are. We shouldn't have to care about attrition. We shouldn't have to wonder about player development and everything else.
I'm off the wagon.
/rant