As Tiller entered his secret retirement phase in 2005, and as Hope took the reigns and then Hazell, was the problem:
1) talent
OR
2) guys not playing hard, not knowing where to be, not executing football basics and fundamentals, blowing assignments and on and on.
The guys I remember who had all of #2 but were missing number one were very few... Dan Bick, Landon Feichter, joey Elliott, Jaycee Taylor... all may have been good players .. and all would thrive with these coaches... but sure you could say players like that lacked big ten measurable.
Now, for every Boiler who, for whatever reason failed to be Niko Koutivides or Matt light or chris Daniels who fell into the category of Bick or Elliott, I can remember a lot more Stanford Keglars where you’re sitting there like “man, if that guy had the mental game down, his measurables are pretty good”... and we are talking about everything from guys who just chronically blew assignments to guys like Garrett Bushong and Selwyn Lymon who had mental issues...
I have faith that this staff will have players like Smart, Cason, Watts, Higgins etc etc ready to play hard and be where they are supposed to be ... and if that’s the case, you can be pretty good without being Bernard Pollard...
I mean this team just played so impressively for who they were... you’d see so many times a receiver for an opponent catch a ball where he had one guy to beat and it was either a 2 yard gain or 20+ yards and our guy makes the open field tackle like its second nature... THAT and the ability to teach that is a way bigger deal right now.. in terms of getting younger and still being 7-6 or better...
I’m kinda optimistic
1) talent
OR
2) guys not playing hard, not knowing where to be, not executing football basics and fundamentals, blowing assignments and on and on.
The guys I remember who had all of #2 but were missing number one were very few... Dan Bick, Landon Feichter, joey Elliott, Jaycee Taylor... all may have been good players .. and all would thrive with these coaches... but sure you could say players like that lacked big ten measurable.
Now, for every Boiler who, for whatever reason failed to be Niko Koutivides or Matt light or chris Daniels who fell into the category of Bick or Elliott, I can remember a lot more Stanford Keglars where you’re sitting there like “man, if that guy had the mental game down, his measurables are pretty good”... and we are talking about everything from guys who just chronically blew assignments to guys like Garrett Bushong and Selwyn Lymon who had mental issues...
I have faith that this staff will have players like Smart, Cason, Watts, Higgins etc etc ready to play hard and be where they are supposed to be ... and if that’s the case, you can be pretty good without being Bernard Pollard...
I mean this team just played so impressively for who they were... you’d see so many times a receiver for an opponent catch a ball where he had one guy to beat and it was either a 2 yard gain or 20+ yards and our guy makes the open field tackle like its second nature... THAT and the ability to teach that is a way bigger deal right now.. in terms of getting younger and still being 7-6 or better...
I’m kinda optimistic
