GasE1 said:
When we hired Jimbo, I cringed that we would hire another "also ran" coach from some other team. To me, I saw Jimbo as a one trick pony who achieved a national championship with someone else's recruits. The FSU team declined after that championship year and when Jimbo left, the team did not have a depth of talent and FSU's program was in shambles. Unfortunately, I think that this is what we are looking at.
Unfortunately, this has been the track record of coaches since RC Slocum, either recruit well or coach well, but not both. Franchione did well with RC's recruits, but could not really recruit the best talent to continue building. Mike Sherman did well in recruiting, but his offense and defense schemes were apparently too difficult to work at the college level as they were difficult to learn. Sumlin had a one-year wonder as he benefited from the talent left by Sherman. I would say Kingsbury was the magic behind Sumlin. Sumlin's poor management drove off more talent than he could recruit and backfill the holes. His poor coaching performance after the Kingsbury/Manziel year put him to pasture and A&M paying a hefty sum.
Jimbo has NO excuse. These are all his recruits and he should have some depth to fill in roles vacated by graduation, injury and the like based on the talent A&M has been able to secure during his tenure. Jimbo is an awesome recruiter at the moment, but if he does not get this team to play better, top recruits are going to look elsewhere. What I foresee is A&M will have a mediocre year this year and the recruiting for this year's class will be a big drop-off unless Jimbo can get this ship righted...and that doesn't look likely. Jimbo will get one or two more years to show he can coach to a 10 win season, after that he will be out and A&M will be looking for a head coach and paying off another big contract ...AGAIN. Jimbo has plenty of talent, but they are not playing as a team, but rather as a bunch of individuals and that is a coaching problem.
We need to stop looking at the older coaches who are showing they can turn around a program with existing talent and look for a young, upcoming coach. Take a gamble instead of trying to buy your way to success like we have done with the last number of coaches. Find someone who can take 3 and 4 star talent and coach them as a team to play like 5 star talent...that's coaching!
So much wrong with this post.
Fran won 4 games his first season, and the team completely quit in a few games. 77-0, remember? They completely laid down and quit. Too many more to mention, but Fran certainly did not win with RC's recruits. Many of RC's guys he ran off in the first year or two.
Sherman was a great recruiter, but he was a horrible game day coach. Knew how to start games, couldn't finish. A blind man could see that JJ wasn't right in 2010, balls thrown up like wounded ducks and the guy catching passes is still starting in the NFL.
BTW, Fran had several great recruiting classes, including signing Tannehill and Von Miller among others. Lots didn't pan out, and some they failed to develop.
Sumlin, really not a bad coach. He will never be able to shake the label that Manziel made him, and not vice versa. He's dead even with Jimbo in job performance after 5 years. Good, sometimes great, sometimes bad.
We hired the man to do a job,a job he had done well at the highest level, at a top flight program. We're not top flight, and other than a few years of excellence we have a long, long way to go. Ask yourself when the last time this program has strung together a few great seasons in a row? Sure, we've won 11 games a few times here and there, but never twice in a row. For decades. Since the early 90's at least. And those programs were something of a fraud, playing in the SWC.
I believe one of the reasons why we paid so much to Jimbo for so long is so we can't do what we've done in the past and interfere with the program. We gave him a job, accepted his terms. We need to let it play out, however that happens. If he wants a OC, he needs to decide that for himself.
