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Tom Herman Is Pressing His Buttcheeks Against Your Mirror & Forcing You To Stare At It


closetojumping

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8 hours ago, closetojumping said:

If it is any consolation, credit to you for writing the best neg rep comment I ever received on Shaggy. I remember it now, paraphrasing with: "I'm going to murder you and fuck your wife." That was poetry, sir.

Not my finest hour.  

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Well I hopped on surly about an hour ago to hit the gun owners thread and post about my new sig 226 but after reading the recruiting thread and the football board while watching the 7th inning, I think I’ll skip the gun owners thread and just stick the sig in my mouth

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10 hours ago, texifornia said:

I think his reaction to this early season slog will show us whether Herman is a run-of-the-mill P5 level coach (aka still lightyears better than Charlie) or one that can actually take us to the promised land.

The fan side of my brain really wants to hold on to the possibility that maybe Herman will get things right and make the proper decisions in year 3 that he should have made in year 1.  Maybe he can still be “the guy.”  I imagine 95% of the fan base stills holds on to this hope. 

The more cynical or arguably realistic side, which I’ve come to embrace more more and more after the last years of Mack and the Strong disaster, says that his “type” has already been revealed. He’s not “the guy.”  If he were he would have assembled an elite staff from the get go. He would anticipate problems before they arise. He would be forward thinking and adaptive. He would delegate effectively and monitor appropriately as any great executive must do. If so, we would never find ourselves in the situations we are in now in year 3.

It’s looking more and more like he’s an ok to good coach, but not a great one. 9-3. 8-4. Kinda like he was at UH. 

Maybe he’ll get things right though . . . 

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1 hour ago, bschoolprof said:

The fan side of my brain really wants to hold on to the possibility that maybe Herman will get things right and make the proper decisions in year 3 that he should have made in year 1.  Maybe he can still be “the guy.”  I imagine 95% of the fan base stills holds on to this hope. 

The more cynical or arguably realistic side, which I’ve come to embrace more more and more after the last years of Mack and the Strong disaster, says that his “type” has already been revealed. He’s not “the guy.”  If he were he would have assembled an elite staff from the get go. He would anticipate problems before they arise. He would be forward thinking and adaptive. He would delegate effectively and monitor appropriately as any great executive must do. If so, we would never find ourselves in the situations we are in now in year 3.

It’s looking more and more like he’s an ok to good coach, but not a great one. 9-3. 8-4. Kinda like he was at UH. 

Maybe he’ll get things right though . . . 

I battle with similar thoughts. His lack of maturity and self reflection are bothersome. He's allowed the defense to waste 3 offseason without an identity. Being a scattered blitz team is not  a solid foundation. Being allowed to be fooled by Georgia is not excusable for "the guy". Wasting the last 8 months on defense when we have a great qb makes me rage...

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14 hours ago, hookem17 said:

Are there problems with Herman’s tendencies and coaching staff? Clearly. But the team is 5-2 and competing for the Big 12. It may not be pretty, but it sure as hell beats the Charlie Strong years. 

Awesome.  We have a head coach better than Strong.  What kind of fucking standard is that?  If that’s the bar, then there about 100 other coaches that clear that bar.  Fuck out of here with that “argument”,

 

ETA:  None of what I just typed should be construed as me not thinking that TH can be the guy to achieve everything we expect.

Edited by scottsins
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Tom is what the other thread says a second place coach.  He will never win anything big here but he will win enough to stay for years I think...   Anyone wonder why we don’t blow teams out under Tom (well minus this year and the horrible defense on top of it)?  Watch any game where we have a lead and he feels is comfortable.  1st and 2nd down is a run up the middle, 3rd pass.    Every fing Time!   How can you not stop us with a lead?   His binder he goes by needs to be burnt.  Let’s be glad he’s not Charlie 2.0 and be glad with hopefully 10 win seasons again???  

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Just now, Hook1997 said:

Tom is what the other thread says a second place coach.  He will never win anything big here but he will win enough to stay for years I think...   Anyone wonder why we don’t blow teams out under Tom (well minus this year and the horrible defense on top of it)?  Watch any game where we have a lead and he feels is comfortable.  1st and 2nd down is a run up the middle, 3rd pass.    Every fing Time!   How can you not stop us with a lead?   His binder he goes by needs to be burnt.  Let’s be glad he’s not Charlie 2.0 and be glad with hopefully 10 win seasons again???  

 

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19 minutes ago, Hook1997 said:

Tom is what the other thread says a second place coach.  He will never win anything big here but he will win enough to stay for years I think...   Anyone wonder why we don’t blow teams out under Tom (well minus this year and the horrible defense on top of it)?  Watch any game where we have a lead and he feels is comfortable.  1st and 2nd down is a run up the middle, 3rd pass.    Every fing Time!   How can you not stop us with a lead?   His binder he goes by needs to be burnt.  Let’s be glad he’s not Charlie 2.0 and be glad with hopefully 10 win seasons again???  

I'd absolutely LOVE to be wrong, but I think you're absolutely correct. He showed us who he is with the staff he brought in. Obviously, I could be 100% wrong - and I hope I am. But I think the writing has been on the wall ever since he justified keeping Horny with "I'm smart and you aren't."  If there isn't a substantial overhaul of the coaching staff after the season (Orlando, Mehringer, Washington, and Warehime at absolute minimum), I feel like it will basically prove that he is who I think he is. 

 

 

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3 hours ago, scottsins said:

Awesome.  We have a head coach better than Strong.  What kind of fucking standard is that?  If that’s the bar, then there about 100 other coaches that clear that bar.  Fuck out of here with that “argument”,

 

ETA:  None of what I just typed should be construed as me not thinking that TH can be the guy to achieve everything we expect.

I’m not saying it is the “standard.” Herman’s problems are well documented in this thread and all over this board. But to act like this program isn’t in a drastically better position than it was a couple of years ago is ignoring the reality of the situation. From that perspective, I don’t think Herman is forcing anyone to stare at his ass. 
 

 If the defense continues to be incompetent or the team falls apart over the second half of the season and Herman doesn’t make the necessary coaching personnel and strategic changes, then I can agree that he’s got his butt against the mirror or whatever the fuck this thread is supposed to be about. 

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7 hours ago, bschoolprof said:

his “type” has already been revealed. He’s not “the guy.”  If he were he would have assembled an elite staff from the get go. He would anticipate problems before they arise. He would be forward thinking and adaptive. He would delegate effectively and monitor appropriately as any great executive must do. If so, we would never find ourselves in the situations we are in now in year 3.

Thus, the underlying source of my frustrations. If our program and university's track record said "well don't worry, we'll shove this shithead out the door post haste when it becomes clear he's not the guy", that would be one thing, but my concern is that the tolerance Mack Brown was shown was culturally driven, not individually driven. People make a lot of excuses for why Mack Brown was allowed to stay around as long as he was and one of those excuses is, "Well, Deloss Dodds". 

Well, maybe. Maybe everyone around the program wanted Mack fired and Deloss just held them at bay. Or, maybe, culturally the people that influence how the University is run think that being willing to settle for "good enough" is what sets us apart from distasteful football factories like Oklahoma, Alabama, or Ohio State. And maybe the slow burn that is Tom Herman Texas Football is going to culminate in the same kind of unsatisfying, second-rate achievement that represents the absolute peak of our program post Royal. 

Do people start to see the problem? Mack Brown wasn't good enough, but he was the best Texas managed in the past 40 years. All of this talk about how CDC is going to push Herman out the door in another two years if we're not competing at the highest level of the sport-- I certainly would hope so but I am skeptical until I see it.

This University has coddled nice-guy pussy coaches for decades. It's what we are. Weak and timid despite the famous quote. I will believe we're willing to make tough hiring and firing choices when I see it, which will hopefully be over the next six months on Herman's staff, men's basketball, and baseball if we suffer another pathetic season like the last. 

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The Horny debacle ceded the moral superiority that certain portions of the fan base have used to justify the incredible mediocrity of the program since the 1984 Cotton Bowl.  

An elite program would be nice to have but it is far from the top priority of the athletic department and administration.  Herman isn't going anywhere until the net income of the program becomes a concern to the decision makers.    

 

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22 hours ago, closetojumping said:

It's been a grim few weeks. It's hard to know where to even start regarding the Hermantics we're witnessing within the program and on the field right now. Still, there are few things that have struck me as more infuriating or absurd than the rest, and it's kind brimming to the top in my head, so you fellow shitheads will get the brunt of my mental Longhorn vomit.

  1. Personnel Selection on offense, 2017-Present: From Herman’s first game against Maryland to now, we continue to witness absolutely baffling personnel choices on offense that are completely fucking indefensible.
    • The empty set with a mediocre-to-shitty TE and any ol’TB lined up wide makes no sense. Every defense we play knows that that look is going to be flashed. Only someone as weak as KU could allow for even a smidgeon of getting taken advantage of beyond a play or two by either position. It’s fucking absurd watching teams mostly ignore both players routinely and then bracketing one or more of the WRs.  Meanwhile, Washington and Jake Smith are on the sidelines, witnessing this, and wondering why the fuck they came here.
    • Picking apparent favorites at various spots and continuing to trot them out in order to watch them completely disappear and/or underperform. This season, Malcolm Epps and Cade Brewer both cover this issue. Brewer is a pure mediocrity at TE. It’s worth the program’s time to rotate in either another WR or get looks for other TEs. Fuck it, put two TBs out there at once (remember this fantasy of ours from the summer?). Epps is the smallest 6’6”+ guy I’ve ever seen on a football field. His ability to shrink to any occasion is trending towards phenomenal. There are other WRs worth the look on the roster, and yet he continues to show up and disappoint on multiple snaps. In the past, Kyle Porter, the Marble Falls buffoon at TE whose name I can’t recall and isn’t worth my time to look up, Lorenzo Joe, and sundry other WRs who brought nothing to the table over clearly better alternatives behind them. Naashon Hughes. Goldilocks legacy dildo from Westlake. Right.
  2. Attempting to use, or claiming to use, complex analytics for decision-making on certain down and distance throughout the games:

    • Football is not baseball. Football has a sample-size issue that baseball does not. Applying algorithmic logic for decision-making in certain situations and “letting the math do the thinking” sounds great, but the same players against the same types of opponents only get so many reps on 4th and whatever, or goal-line and whatever. Interpreting results of 1000s of other “similar” situations historically and therefore having the dominating results from those situations be the executed solution doesn’t make any sense when your team, with its 11 variables per snap, haven’t faced the opponents’ 11 variables hardly ever.

    • Tom Herman's teams are 40% on 4th down this year, whereas they were at 80% success on 4th last year? You don't say. Maybe our opponents fucking adjusted to the fact that we're going for it on 4th and short on our side of the 50 pretty much always unless a kick to win or tie the game is pertinent. Maybe they also figured out that when we do it, we tend to run for it, and quite often in a delayed push with Sam Ehlinger from the shotgun. Did I need a fucking data scientist to show me that insight? No. It's not 1000 points of data that informs me or DCs for shit on this. It's Tom Herman's fucking tendencies established over his 5 years as a HC that show me this. A sample size of less than 100 instances. Also, kick a field goal early and take the points, asshole.

    • Part of Moneyball theory is arbitraging the fucking trends and tendencies within the industry, even as those things shift. It's not about gathering an insight once and determining all of your future outcomes around that one premise. This is what happens when moderately intelligent dickfaces coaching a children's game decide to masquerade as highly intelligent smartest guys in the room. 

  3. If you feel good about guys like David Beaty and Chris Ash skulking around the program and providing advice to Herman, you might want to consider some uncomfortable commonalities.

    • It can be argued that the 3 worst staffs assembled for P5 programs in the past 5 years are:

      • Chris Ash's Rutgers' staff is probably one of the worst P5 staffs ever established. Here's a write-up at the time: https://www.nj.com/rutgersfootball/2016/01/meet_the_new_rutgers_coaching_staff.html . He basically hired his buddies and cronies and a couple of avuncular influences from his playing days. He cried at his opening press conference, also. This is the fucking guy Herman is whispering about as a replacement for Todd Orlandno? Fuck you, motherfucker. Also: Drew Mehringer as OC is one of the funniest piece of shit moves I can recall. What a fucking disaster.

      • David Beaty's staff at KU when he arrived in 2015 is arguably better than either Herman's Texas staff, and is certainly better than Ash's at Rutgers. However, it still sucks fucking elephant balls. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Kansas_Jayhawks_football_team A few of these guys have gone on to at least get decent work elsewhere. Kubiak continues to leverage his father's name as a coach with the Vikings. Thibodeaux is a decent recruiter at OU. Kane is the DC for a middling defense at SMU. Generally speaking though, this staff is a bunch nobodies that did nothing and will mostly continue to do nothing. 

      • Tom Herman's staff upon arrival at Texas in 2017, mostly still intact, is the frothing toilet water being served up to the fanbase for sustenance by the head football genius in charge. Stan Drayton is the only guy on the staff that had any legitimate and untarnished bonafides before joining the staff. Beck had coached in major P5 programs as an OC, and he'd been fired unceremoniously at every stop. Todd Orlandno was the DC equivalent of a butt plug, mostly showing up to haphazardly stop shit at a number of non-P5 backwaters. Oscar Giles was at Texas as an underperforming alum on Mack Brown's staff and otherwise meh. LOL Drew Mehringer. Most of the staff is so inconsequential to the fooball landscape that they don't even have a fucking wikipedia page. Herman could have gone out and hired anyone. He hired a bunch of fucking bros and Not Ready For Prime Time mouthbreathers. Half the staff has been demoted since starting on the staff or at least actively shopped at coaching conferences. Bleh. There is no excuse for this kind of stupidfuckery at a blue blood, much less ours. 

    • It can also be argued that Ash's Rutgers program and Beaty's KU program were the worst performing P5 programs over the past 5 years. These are lead guys that are lately in Tom Herman's ear about game prep and program dynamics. Sweet.

  4. Finally, Casey Horny being employed at Texas and shadow-coaching and leading the special teams agenda. This rape-enabling, victim-shaming cunt of a man is actively drawing a paycheck from Texas and in doing so, taking a giant hogger shit all over the game day performance of the program's special teams.

    • Why is this guy here and why is he getting to do this shit? Because he and Tom Herman were GAs together at Texas and Tom Herman knows better than you, motherfucker. Nevermind anything else, that's what this is about.

    • This piece of shit needs to have his office cleaned out and be handed a one-way bus ticket to Mt. Vernon, where he can help Art Briles fuck up another group of young females' lives and cheat to win games in 3A football.

Anywho. Thoughts? 

Enjoyed the read. Why did you not title the thread, "Tom Herman is Pressing His Buttcheeks Against My Windshield and I'm Close to Slamming the Brakes to the Floor".

 I know. It's a little dark. Forgive me.

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14 hours ago, Dr. Beeper said:

My thoughts are you called Sam, “I Am Sam” and “Mehlinger” and I’m not reading a damn thing you write ever again. 

RexKramer - you’re posting on a thread I wrote, which implies that you read something. It’s pretty simple - put me on ignore and you won’t have to worry about a thing, and then I will keep not giving one fuck about the thread vomit you bring to this site. 

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8 hours ago, Hook1997 said:

Tom is what the other thread says a second place coach.  He will never win anything big here but he will win enough to stay for years I think...   Anyone wonder why we don’t blow teams out under Tom (well minus this year and the horrible defense on top of it)?  Watch any game where we have a lead and he feels is comfortable.  1st and 2nd down is a run up the middle, 3rd pass.    Every fing Time!   How can you not stop us with a lead?   His binder he goes by needs to be burnt.  Let’s be glad he’s not Charlie 2.0 and be glad with hopefully 10 win seasons again???  

So Herman is Kirk Ferentz? When's the last time Iowa blew people out consistently? Their games are always 1-2 scores no matter how tough or easy the opponent.  They have 8-9 win seasons every year with the occasion 10-12 every 4-5 years. Yay. 

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9 minutes ago, UTEX_ME said:

So Herman is Kirk Ferentz? When's the last time Iowa blew people out consistently? Their games are always 1-2 scores no matter how tough or easy the opponent.  They have 8-9 win seasons every year with the occasion 10-12 every 4-5 years. Yay. 

That does sound like what we have unless we do hire an actual OC and let him run a real offense with full control. 

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28 minutes ago, Js1 said:

That does sound like what we have unless we do hire an actual OC and let him run a real offense with full control. 

The problem is Herman would have to be the one to hire and oversee him, and hiring and oversight are the two parts of his job he sucks the most at.  He's good at being an OC and recruiting.  

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11 minutes ago, bschoolprof said:

The problem is Herman would have to be the one to hire and oversee him, and hiring and oversight are the two parts of his job he sucks the most at.  He's good at being an OC and recruiting.  

I just want to go on record that I think the two things he's good at are the most important traits to having success in our league. That being said, he needs to show he can evaluate his staff and make some good hires. It shouldn't be hard with our resources. We'll see.

Edited by Ricky Butler
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6 minutes ago, Ricky Butler said:

I just want to go on record that I think the two things he's good at are the most important traits to having success in our league. That being said, he needs to show he can evaluate his staff and make some good hires. It shouldn't be hard with our resources. We'll see.

I used to think this way, but 20 years of Texas football and saying "we'd be great if our coach just hired a better [insert coaching position here]!!" has changed my mind.  Hiring an excellent staff, properly delegating so you can focus on all aspects of the program, proactively monitoring subordinates, and managing change to stay ahead of the competition are as important as Johnny and Joes and X's and O's.  It really is like being a top executive, and few people have this skillset.  Saban does.  Herman does not.  Maybe he can learn?

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50 minutes ago, bschoolprof said:

I used to think this way, but 20 years of Texas football and saying "we'd be great if our coach just hired a better [insert coaching position here]!!" has changed my mind.  Hiring an excellent staff, properly delegating so you can focus on all aspects of the program, proactively monitoring subordinates, and managing change to stay ahead of the competition are as important as Johnny and Joes and X's and O's.  It really is like being a top executive, and few people have this skillset.  Saban does.  Herman does not.  Maybe he can learn?

So you're saying Mack was right, basically. Not to say that he didn't run his course or that he stayed ahead of the curve after 2005, but that he approached his job with a clear understanding of how to do the job right. Are we ready to admit that? I am. 

I don't want Nick Saban or any other retread. I want the next Mack Brown. I hope that's Tom Herman but I don't think so. I don't think he has the humility or the organizational chops. 

Edited by Bozo_Casanova
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1 minute ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

So you're saying Mack was right, basically. Not to say that he didn't run his course or that he stayed ahead of the curve after 2005, but that he approached his job with a clear understanding of how to do the job right. Are we ready to admit that? I am. 

I don't want Nick Saban or any other retread. I want the next Mack Brown. 

No. Fuck no, man.  Mack never hired an excellent staff, especially on the offensive side of the ball, and he was far from proactive.  He was great at delegating and making sure all of the programs' trains ran on time.  

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1 hour ago, bschoolprof said:

I used to think this way, but 20 years of Texas football and saying "we'd be great if our coach just hired a better [insert coaching position here]!!" has changed my mind.  Hiring an excellent staff, properly delegating so you can focus on all aspects of the program, proactively monitoring subordinates, and managing change to stay ahead of the competition are as important as Johnny and Joes and X's and O's.  It really is like being a top executive, and few people have this skillset.  Saban does.  Herman does not.  Maybe he can learn?

Him learning is the best bet because I think Saban is a complete outlier. It's like wanting Belichik as your coach. It's a great idea if he's available, but there is only one. And guess what, they don't changed jobs. It's really too early to lose faith in Herman, and I think it's a little silly and reactionary based on some of the positives so far.

Dabo fired coordinators. Orgeron fired a coordinator. Riley fired a coordinator. The list goes on, and we see one year turnarounds all the time when new coordinators come in. Were they all idiots for not making the right hires initially? Did Orgeron and Riley waste a year of elite defenses and offenses, respectively, by failing to recognize deficient units on their team? I'll quit rambling now.

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20 minutes ago, Walden Ponderer said:

This is absolutely where I am. We hired a guy with precious little CEO experience; what did we expect him to look like? Right or wrong, we hired somebody from a group where the vast majority of those who will be successful still have several years of "not successful" in front of them.

Is Herman in the category of "those who will be successful"? Who the fuck knows? 

Whether we should be patient through the shitshow part of his maturation process is really the question, and I don't particularly feel like answering it, because it makes me want to throw up. So there's that. But the simple reality is, you have to learn how to not do stupid shit like hire Casey Horny, or put all your eggs in the Todd Orlando basket, and Herman is right now learning those lessons.

This is a great post. 

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49 minutes ago, Walden Ponderer said:

Whether we should be patient through the shitshow part of his maturation process is really the question, and I don't particularly feel like answering it, because it makes me want to throw up. So there's that. But the simple reality is, you have to learn how to not do stupid shit like hire Casey Horny, or put all your eggs in the Todd Orlando basket, and Herman is right now learning those lessons.

I don't know how to answer it either. I just get annoyed with the portion of the fanbase that runs around with a saber and insists on drawing a line in the sand after every loss. Weekly referendums are fucking exhausting.

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I think Herman has a better set of assistant coaches being paid as analysts than on the field coaching.

OC/QB - Fedora

WR - Coleman

TE - Beaty

Keep

OL - Hand best assistant on the staff

RB - Drayton, what he has done with Robinson is amazing. Plus his room is going to be full next year with Ingram, Whittington, Johnson, Robinson, and Jordan.

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27 minutes ago, HtownHorn said:

I think Herman has a better set of assistant coaches being paid as analysts than on the field coaching.

OC/QB - Fedora

WR - Coleman

TE - Beaty

Keep

OL - Hand best assistant on the staff

RB - Drayton, what he has done with Robinson is amazing. Plus his room is going to be full next year with Ingram, Whittington, Johnson, Robinson, and Jordan.

After Herman was hired a friend of mine who walked on at Rice went on a long rant about how bad Warehime is. He and Merhringer need to be done ASAP if Tom is serious about making this thing work.

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1 hour ago, Ricky Butler said:

I don't know how to answer it either. I just get annoyed with the portion of the fanbase that runs around with a saber and insists on drawing a line in the sand after every loss. Weekly referendums are fucking exhausting.

Yep.

Considering that only 16% of our seasons since the SWC was formed in 1914 have seen only 1 loss or zero, you'd think we could have a little more sense of perspective. I'm as disappointed as anyone by our performance since The Fall of the House of Mack way back in 2010, but life goes on.

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59 minutes ago, HtownHorn said:

I think Herman has a better set of assistant coaches being paid as analysts than on the field coaching.

OC/QB - Fedora

WR - Coleman

TE - Beaty

Keep

OL - Hand best assistant on the staff

RB - Drayton, what he has done with Robinson is amazing. Plus his room is going to be full next year with Ingram, Whittington, Johnson, Robinson, and Jordan.

I’d like to think there’s a strategy behind how this is setting up.  

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Just now, ClubWhatever said:

I’d like to think there’s a strategy behind how this is setting up.  

I don't care whether it's done on purpose or not, just so long as the end result you are imagining actually happens. Lucky? Good? I don't retrospectively give a shit, when it works. Don't really give a shit when it doesn't, either.

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