Let's talk about Lebby's preseason quote...

[RiverCityDawg]

If you look at our talent, I think we're actually only one game behind where we should be. ASU and Arkansas are much better than all of us thought. We absolutely should not have lost to Toledo and we should have been more competitive against Florida and Arkansas for sure. I'm not sure how we could have expected much more against all the top 25 teams we played, we just aren't there as a program with all that happened the last 2 years.

I'm in the "I don't know camp" with Lebby, but need to see a lot in the next 60 days when it comes to fixing the DC mistake and upgrading talent in the portal. Next year is going to be tough again with the schedule, but we have to take steps in the right direction with at least 4 or 5 wins.

 

[Dawgbite]

This year is the culmination of a series of mistakes and unfortunate events that culminated into the current mess we have. The first domino was hiring Leach, this wasn’t a mistake but Leach gutted the roster of the type of players that 99% of other coaches need to be successful. This was fine as long as Leach was here and coaching. Leach’s death was very unfortunate in that he had completely changed the the roster and the timing of his death was doubly unfortunate. At the time of his death we had no AD, we really had no choice but to name Arnett head coach. What we should have done was name him interim for a year and kept all of Leach’s staff that we could and performed a real coaching search this past year. Allowing Arnett to completely replace the staff and change the team’s philosophy was a major mistake. Swapping Arnett for Lebby initially has not been an improvement, it may turn out to be the correct move but only time will tell. We needed stability and that comes from an experienced head coach not an assistant. We couldnt afford to experiment with an assistant coach and fail which exactly what year one has been. We have two options, keep Lebby and give him time to learn how to be a head coach and become successful or start over again with an experienced head coach. Neither option has a high probability of success in the short term with inferior talent which we currently have. We’re in an era of buying players when we’re are the poorest school in the poorest state. The deck is stacked against us. There isn’t a perfect solution.

 

[85Bears]

This year is the culmination of a series of mistakes and unfortunate events that culminated into the current mess we have. The first domino was hiring Leach, this wasn’t a mistake but Leach gutted the roster of the type of players that 99% of other coaches need to be successful. This was fine as long as Leach was here and coaching. Leach’s death was very unfortunate in that he had completely changed the the roster and the timing of his death was doubly unfortunate. At the time of his death we had no AD, we really had no choice but to name Arnett head coach. What we should have done was name him interim for a year and kept all of Leach’s staff that we could and performed a real coaching search this past year. Allowing Arnett to completely replace the staff and change the team’s philosophy was a major mistake. Swapping Arnett for Lebby initially has not been an improvement, it may turn out to be the correct move but only time will tell. We needed stability and that comes from an experienced head coach not an assistant. We couldnt afford to experiment with an assistant coach and fail which exactly what year one has been. We have two options, keep Lebby and give him time to learn how to be a head coach and become successful or start over again with an experienced head coach. Neither option has a high probability of success in the short term with inferior talent which we currently have. We’re in an era of buying players when we’re are the poorest school in the poorest state. The deck is stacked against us. There isn’t a perfect solution.

What players did Leach “gut” ?

I remember a major culture problem stemming from Sloppy Joe and Leach had to purge some bad apples who were too good to go to practice.

The mistakes were obvious and they started when Arnett was named permanent, the staff was fired and replaced with bums and
retreads, the offense was round peg-square holed to some primitive monstrosity, and a veteran 9-4 roster was wasted.