I Love This Coaching Staff

[mildone]

Just watched the post game interviews w/the coach and coordinators. And yeah, I love this staff.

They are young and they made some mistakes today. But they also owned up to those mistakes and didn't make excuses or mince words. Mehringer, in particular, was totally gutted after the game (in his words, he wanted to vomit after all the missed opportunties).

All through Spring camp, summer workouts, and finally training camp, I saw the staff doing some things that sounded right. It was hard not to be excited. But I'm a skeptic and while I was liking what I was seeing, I wanted to see how the staff operated in actual games and, more importantly, see how this really young staff improved week to week. Well I'm sold.

Sure, there are tons of things to work on in all phases of the game. And sure, it sucks to lose games, especially ones where we had a real shot at winning until the last few minutes of the game. But there has been obvious improvement in every facet of the game since game one this season.

The team is visibly improving and we just went toe to toe for four quarters with a team that won 12 games last season and is/was considered a serious contender to win a Big Ten championship this season.

Anyway, I felt like posting some positive thoughts. Hope I didn't disrupt all the negativity too much. :)

 

[RUSK97]

Just watched the post game interviews w/the coach and coordinators. And yeah, I love this staff.

They are young and they made some mistakes today. But they also owned up to those mistakes and didn't make excuses or mince words. Mehringer, in particular, was totally gutted after the game (in his words, he wanted to vomit after all the missed opportunties).

All through Spring camp, summer workouts, and finally training camp, I saw the staff doing some things that sounded right. It was hard not to be excited. But I'm a skeptic and while I was liking what I was seeing, I wanted to see how the staff operated in actual games and, more importantly, see how this really young staff improved week to week. Well I'm sold.

Sure, there are tons of things to work on in all phases of the game. And sure, it sucks to lose games, especially ones where we had a real shot at winning until the last few minutes of the game. But there has been obvious improvement in every facet of the game since game one this season.

The team is visibly improving and we just went toe to toe for four quarters with a team that won 12 games last season and is/was considered a serious contender to win a Big Ten championship this season.

Anyway, I felt like posting some positive thoughts. Hope I didn't disrupt all the negativity too much. :)

Just false euphoria brought on by hookers and blow. Now, get with the program and back to negativity because I'm wallowing in it.

 

[mildone]

Just false euphoria brought on by hookers and blow. Now, get with the program and back to negativity because I'm wallowing in it.

I was a little worried about how bad I'm going to get beat up for being positive tonight, but that was pretty funny. Kudos. :)

 

[Ole Cabbagehead]

I was annoyed with Mehringer at the game today. That said, I really like this coaching staff. THe situation is less than ideal, but we were significantly better in all phases of the game today. I am not sure why there is so much negativity this evening. There were a lot of positives to this game

 

[AreYouNUTS]

I was annoyed with Mehringer at the game today. That said, I really like this coaching staff. THe situation is less than ideal, but we were significantly better in all phases of the game today. I am not sure why there is so much negativity this evening. There were a lot of positives to this game

I think he's the coach we have to be most patient with and, due to our QB situation, even more so. I got frustrated as well today, a couple of times, but "a couple of times" really isn't all that bad at this point. Shit, even 10-year OC's have a bad call or two a game, right?

 

[RU848789]

Good post. A lot to like about the new coaching staff: better discipline, better strength and conditioning, and better schemes, and I love how "real" they seem with the media. Still making some bad decisions (4th and 3 and playing the deep safety on the last play), but making tons of good ones, too, and having us in a position to beat a top 25 team (especially if Laviano hits either of the two misfires on TD passes) is a great sign. I hate losing but I can live with competitive losses against very good teams (for now)

 

[theRU]

i fully support this staff. They have things pointing in the right direction. D is vastly improved. Secondary looks completely different than under rossi.
I still expect growing pains next year, but i think Year 3 will be a good one.

 

[mildone]

I think he's the coach we have to be most patient with and, due to our QB situation, even more so. I got frustrated as well today, a couple of times, but "a couple of times" really isn't all that bad at this point. Shit, even 10-year OC's have a bad call or two a game, right?

Yup. And you and I both know these coaches are not working with a fully stocked kitchen. If they can continue to improve with this group of kids they didn't recruit, playing in a system they weren't reruited to play in, imagine what they could do as they (the coaching staff) gain more and more experience and they get some better recruiting classes recruited with our schemes in mind, coming in for a few years in a row.

Sucks that we lost this one when it was within reach. I bet the players are pretty crushed right now. But I'm more enthused than ever. We're on the right path again, IMO.

 

[AreYouNUTS]

They - Ash included - have no problem letting kids "have it," either, as they come off the field after making a mistake. Love it!

 

[mildone]

I was annoyed with Mehringer at the game today. That said, I really like this coaching staff. THe situation is less than ideal, but we were significantly better in all phases of the game today. I am not sure why there is so much negativity this evening. There were a lot of positives to this game

I was a little surprised at the negativity too. But I thought about it some and I guess we have a very passionate fan base and this game was within reach so it really hurt - pretty understandable. There are worse things than having a passionate fan base (even a whiny one like we can be sometimes :)).

If the team starts winning regularly, which I think could require a couple more recruiting years, then I think all that passion will translate into a really good thing with more frequent sellouts and fans excited enough to get into the stadium early and to stay late.

 

[rufeelinit]

I was more impressed by the Iowa staff. Seemed to be in the right formations on both sides of the ball at key junctures to make key plays.

 

[RU from Jersey]

As long as these coaches learn from their mistakes I am good with how things are shaping up.

 

[mildone]

I was more impressed by the Iowa staff. Seemed to be in the right formations on both sides of the ball at key junctures to make key plays.

Maybe. But that staff is much more experienced. And that staff didn't manage to cover the spread. Ours is very young and inexperienced and beat the spread. That staff with players back from a 12 win season could only win by a TD against our staff with players back from a 4 win season.

So if you want to just look at this one game alone, which staff appears to have more upside?

 

[RUfromSoCal?]

Jay Niemann has shown he can coach 'em up.

I haven't yet seen that DM can design a gameplan around his talent.......

 

[AreYouNUTS]

I was more impressed by the Iowa staff. Seemed to be in the right formations on both sides of the ball at key junctures to make key plays.

17-year HC. Probably a couple of guys been with him for a while as well. To be expected IMHO.

 

[AreYouNUTS]

Jay Niemann has shown he can coach 'em up.

I haven't yet seen that DM can design a gameplan around his talent.......

Like I alluded to in another thread I think it's safe to say that, other than Ash, our OC's job is the one we've got to allow some slack for right now. We just don't have the right guys on that side of the ball and I'm on the side of "don't install one O just to change it in a year or 2" argument.

 

[ru66]

this young staff has a great upside--as for Iowa--heck their coach probably is one of the MOST respected in US and makes , what , 6 times what ash makes

 

[RUSK97]

this young staff has a great upside--as for Iowa--heck their coach probably is one of the MOST respected in US and makes , what , 6 times what ash makes

Agree that this staff has a great upside. But not sure Ferentz (last year being an exception) has the greatest reputation. His teams tend to play down to the competition.

 

[Caliknight]

Ash's pressers are great. Straight talker with little fluff. Who was the chick asking all the dumb questions?

You can see he is starting to get perturbed with the negative NJ press.

 

[ruready4somefootball]

The fact that we can pretty much narrow down to just a couple of plays what caused the loss, shows how far this team has come.If we can hang with the Big Boys for 3 quarters THIS season, then most of the fan base should be energized for next year. Expect games where one phase we thought was fixed screws up to cost us only to find a weaker unit played well that day. It will happen when so many units are undermanned. Plug a finger in the hole in a dike, only to see another leak somewhere else.We'll get there with this staff. They are a D1 staff, learning and playing with a slightly short deck.

 

[rutgers4life11]

Love the staff, but still have a lot to prove. I'm incredibly impressed with how the defense has improved each week, but I don't think you could say offense has.

Running 4 straight QB runs at 1st and goal at the 3 is a head scratcher to say the least.

Also no verdict on whether Iowa is even good. As we all know, a team can do a full 180 year after year. But keeping up defensively with B1G royalty when they're on full tilt from previous week is still impressive.

 

[mildone]

Love the staff, but still have a lot to prove. I'm incredibly impressed with how the defense has improved each week, but I don't think you could say offense has.

Running 4 straight QB runs at 1st and goal at the 3 is a head scratcher to say the least.

Also no verdict on whether Iowa is even good. As we all know, a team can do a full 180 year after year. But keeping up defensively with B1G royalty when they're on full tilt from previous week is still impressive.

That's fair. But I'm not so much looking at this game, because any one game can be deceptive (particularly next week's game). I'm looking at the first four games as a whole. The OL has improved each week and looked pretty good at times today. Even in the second half, our OL was creating some gaping holes.

Laviano wasn't great again. But he was improved over last week. Goodwin came in for a bit and was awesome. Our RBs in general are doing a good job against teams that are trying very hard to stop the run.

So yeah, the offense didn't have as good a game as the defense, but there has been steady improvement.

 

[rufeelinit]

I didn't realize this was a thread about upside and potential. Iowa doesn't care if you know how they are going to play they just play their game and are very successful. In some ways they were ripe for the taking despite playing a pretty clean game. While they won 12 games last year, I am not sure they are more than a 9 win team this year. Its great that Ash and staff show promise but having been heavily invested in this since Dick Anderson, I find it hard to be excited about what we might be in three years. When you have clear opportunities like yesterday to get yourself some positive press and vibe you need to grab it. While a 14-7 loss might be overachieving to some, I like Duke's style of overachieving better.

 

[Jim_from_RU]

Some guy sitting next to me in 218 was being a d*ckhead in the first half, yelling that Ash should be fired. I told him off, which I've always refrained from doing. He shut up.

 

[rufeelinit]

Some guy sitting next to me in 218 was being a d*ckhead in the first half, yelling that Ash should be fired. I told him off, which I've always refrained from doing. He shut up.

I may resort to that with a guy who sits in front of me. The guy seems absolutely miserable the entire game. Laviano is an easy target but enough is enough!

 

[jakeknight]

Cleary If a play doesn't work then you should always have called a different play. DM called two plays both for Harris that were touchdowns if the QB makes the throw, they didn't work, were they bad calls? if you need to call plays that "fit your talent" then yes they were because the QB did not make the play. 4th and three you call an option play, One defender to cover two, the QB and the pitch man, if the QB makes the pitch the option man walks in to the end zone QB doesn't pitch gets tackled, bad play call right? there is huge difference between failing to execute and a bad call some here need to understand the difference.

 

[RUshore99]

@Caliknight : I believe Tara Sullivan of the Record was the female asking the multiple questions in sequence. Not sure she realized that other reporters also attended the presser and might want to ask questions. Not a fan of her style at all.

 

[RU-05]

The fact that we can pretty much narrow down to just a couple of plays what caused the loss, shows how far this team has come.If we can hang with the Big Boys for 3 quarters THIS season, then most of the fan base should be energized for next year. Expect games where one phase we thought was fixed screws up to cost us only to find a weaker unit played well that day. It will happen when so many units are undermanned. Plug a finger in the hole in a dike, only to see another leak somewhere else.We'll get there with this staff. They are a D1 staff, learning and playing with a slightly short deck.

Just trying to keep it real here, but Flood did hang with a much better MSU team through a full 4 qtr's.

I did think yesterday was a positive, but it like the washington game is still just one game, and it was still a loss.

Need to keep moving fwd.

 

[ru75]

Just watched the post game interviews w/the coach and coordinators. And yeah, I love this staff.

They are young and they made some mistakes today. But they also owned up to those mistakes and didn't make excuses or mince words. Mehringer, in particular, was totally gutted after the game (in his words, he wanted to vomit after all the missed opportunties).

All through Spring camp, summer workouts, and finally training camp, I saw the staff doing some things that sounded right. It was hard not to be excited. But I'm a skeptic and while I was liking what I was seeing, I wanted to see how the staff operated in actual games and, more importantly, see how this really young staff improved week to week. Well I'm sold.

Sure, there are tons of things to work on in all phases of the game. And sure, it sucks to lose games, especially ones where we had a real shot at winning until the last few minutes of the game. But there has been obvious improvement in every facet of the game since game one this season.

The team is visibly improving and we just went toe to toe for four quarters with a team that won 12 games last season and is/was considered a serious contender to win a Big Ten championship this season.

Anyway, I felt like posting some positive thoughts. Hope I didn't disrupt all the negativity too much. :)

agree, we have much to be excited about

 

[graystork]

The offensive and defensive schemes show promise. We now just need the players to fit them. Just keep improving.

 

[KevH]

Just watched the post game interviews w/the coach and coordinators. And yeah, I love this staff.

They are young and they made some mistakes today. But they also owned up to those mistakes and didn't make excuses or mince words. Mehringer, in particular, was totally gutted after the game (in his words, he wanted to vomit after all the missed opportunties).

All through Spring camp, summer workouts, and finally training camp, I saw the staff doing some things that sounded right. It was hard not to be excited. But I'm a skeptic and while I was liking what I was seeing, I wanted to see how the staff operated in actual games and, more importantly, see how this really young staff improved week to week. Well I'm sold.

Sure, there are tons of things to work on in all phases of the game. And sure, it sucks to lose games, especially ones where we had a real shot at winning until the last few minutes of the game. But there has been obvious improvement in every facet of the game since game one this season.

The team is visibly improving and we just went toe to toe for four quarters with a team that won 12 games last season and is/was considered a serious contender to win a Big Ten championship this season.

Anyway, I felt like posting some positive thoughts. Hope I didn't disrupt all the negativity too much. :)

Excellent post. I woke up feeling the same way this morning. The problem most negatoids have is a failure to understand that no serious conclusions can be drawn until you have enough of a sample size. The best we can expect at this point (only 4 games into the Ash era) is to see where we're trending, mistakes and growing pains notwithstanding, I think we're headed in the right direction.

I really like this staff so far. I'm excited and hopeful about what they're "trying" to do, even if they're (staff and players) not quite able to do it all yet. Lots of upside here.

 

[KevH]

I think he's the coach we have to be most patient with and, due to our QB situation, even more so. I got frustrated as well today, a couple of times, but "a couple of times" really isn't all that bad at this point. Shit, even 10-year OC's have a bad call or two a game, right?

Hey mods, you've got to do a better job of filtering out these clear-headed, reasonable posts. We've got a reputation to uphold around here. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

 

[KevH]

Like I alluded to in another thread I think it's safe to say that, other than Ash, our OC's job is the one we've got to allow some slack for right now. We just don't have the right guys on that side of the ball and I'm on the side of "don't install one O just to change it in a year or 2" argument.

It's the need for instant gratification that's causing so much angst for some on this board. They'd rather the staff go with band-aid solutions with little or no regard for the state of things 2 or 3 years from now. Put your system in place, recruit for your system and coach your recruits up. I think we'll see more and more youth (especially Oden) as the season goes on and the pups progress both mentally and with execution in practice.

 

[KevH]

I didn't realize this was a thread about upside and potential... Its great that Ash and staff show promise but having been heavily invested in this since Dick Anderson, I find it hard to be excited about what we might be in three years.

That's part of the price we pay for change. Every coaching change is a push of the reset button and, in this case, we're not resetting with a veteran FBS head coach. Upside and potential is exactly what this is about at the moment.

Sorry you're a long suffering fan (as I am), but that suffering doesn't entitle us to any guarantees. We just have to hope that university leadership is finally competent and making the right decisions to position us for long term success. I feel positive about what I'm seeing so far.

 

[koleszar]

Just trying to keep it real here, but Flood did hang with a much better MSU team through a full 4 qtr's.

I did think yesterday was a positive, but it like the washington game is still just one game, and it was still a loss.

Need to keep moving fwd.

Only problem is Flood didn't coach that game.:confused: Norries Wilson did. Can't give the man credit if he wasn't even in the stadium.

 

[RUBand]

Just watched the post game interviews w/the coach and coordinators. And yeah, I love this staff.

They are young and they made some mistakes today. But they also owned up to those mistakes and didn't make excuses or mince words. Mehringer, in particular, was totally gutted after the game (in his words, he wanted to vomit after all the missed opportunties).

All through Spring camp, summer workouts, and finally training camp, I saw the staff doing some things that sounded right. It was hard not to be excited. But I'm a skeptic and while I was liking what I was seeing, I wanted to see how the staff operated in actual games and, more importantly, see how this really young staff improved week to week. Well I'm sold.

Sure, there are tons of things to work on in all phases of the game. And sure, it sucks to lose games, especially ones where we had a real shot at winning until the last few minutes of the game. But there has been obvious improvement in every facet of the game since game one this season.

The team is visibly improving and we just went toe to toe for four quarters with a team that won 12 games last season and is/was considered a serious contender to win a Big Ten championship this season.

Anyway, I felt like posting some positive thoughts. Hope I didn't disrupt all the negativity too much. :)

I could not agree more...I, too, love this staff

 

[Scarlet16E]

I was more impressed by the Iowa staff. Seemed to be in the right formations on both sides of the ball at key junctures to make key plays.

So the team full of veterans, that won 12 games last year impressed you. Good to know.

 

[RUaMoose]

Urban, Jim and Lovie coming up against our rook HC and staff. Its going to be ugly. MN a winnable game but that's on the road.

 

[Blitz Pakage]

Everything has been put in place! From the AD to our young Head Coach. The competitiveness and the improvement we are showing after only 4 games stands out tremendously for those who are watching. This time the administration did it right. Cleaned house and redirected our football program to be relevant in the BIG! And it will be in a few years!

 

[OriginalKnight]

Just watched the post game interviews w/the coach and coordinators. And yeah, I love this staff.

They are young and they made some mistakes today. But they also owned up to those mistakes and didn't make excuses or mince words. Mehringer, in particular, was totally gutted after the game (in his words, he wanted to vomit after all the missed opportunties).

All through Spring camp, summer workouts, and finally training camp, I saw the staff doing some things that sounded right. It was hard not to be excited. But I'm a skeptic and while I was liking what I was seeing, I wanted to see how the staff operated in actual games and, more importantly, see how this really young staff improved week to week. Well I'm sold.

Sure, there are tons of things to work on in all phases of the game. And sure, it sucks to lose games, especially ones where we had a real shot at winning until the last few minutes of the game. But there has been obvious improvement in every facet of the game since game one this season.

The team is visibly improving and we just went toe to toe for four quarters with a team that won 12 games last season and is/was considered a serious contender to win a Big Ten championship this season.

Anyway, I felt like posting some positive thoughts. Hope I didn't disrupt all the negativity too much. :)

Your post was good but you ended it like an ahole.