My hope is that Valid you are correct. If we go by history of what occurred at Temple, they made the jump to being a good defense in year 4, as it is for us.
Couple of things, some of which is from my own conclusion based on my experiences and understanding and historical perspective, as well as from people who actually played the game, people who actually played it for some time at the highest level, not fools like myself and the rest here included who are wannabe gm's and coaches and don't have the actual experience of the variables and knowledge of schemes or playing or coaching at the highest level,
First off, I preface this by saying all college coaches are used car salesmen, all college coaches BS, college recruiting is dirty, I know for a fact of college recruiting is dirty, and no I will not name names, due to the fact that it potentially hurts the players I know of and more importantly, shine the light on one school and the others, including ones we love or like can get caught up. It's a dirty game and money flies around. Secondly after hearing from so many great coaches, yes put me in the corner of talent makes great coaches first, talent trumps all, 9 times out of 10 the more talented team wins.
Finally, yes I do believe we have a good coach in Golden, I do believe he can restock this team with talent and produce a consistent top level program, and I did give him plenty of "slack" these last 3 years for a variety of factual and logical reasons. But those facts and logic gave him until this year, now those things are gone, this roster is totally his for the most part now, and now is when my demand of improved quality of play and judgement on the philosophy on defense is valid and fair.
Their is room for fair critique of the defense, the philosophy and bend don't break style, first, I believe Golden to be a good not great coach, great coaches adjust their scheme to the talent at their disposal, whereas Golden does not. Doesn't make him bad, doesn't make him great either. But what he is attempting to do is to turnover this team until the roster is built and fostered so that the players develop into his scheme. It is a long process, and yes I get how tiring it is to hear it, but this aspect is true. In the meantime what you get is 3 years of the crap we have seen, that has only been exacerbated by the fact of the NCAA fiasco and the horrific recruiting of Radio. It is why we have also played this bend don't break style, which I have seen other of the so called "genius" coaches play when the talent is not up to par. I am not a fan of it, but I understand, but if this what we will continue to see next year, then this is not an issue of play calling just to play it safe because the talent is not there, this is then the Tom Olivadotti mentality, for those who remember, where regardless of the talent, like a lot of coaches who know and understand the game, but when the heat is on coaches "scared not to lose" instead of "trying to win" mentality, and if that is the case, WHICH NOBODY HERE KNOWS, then yes dump them all.
As for this the develop players into this scheme, I have heard from former players, that this system Golden is implementing works, but it takes years for it to work in the college game, it's an upperclassmen defense, because of the mental and experience aspect once they grasp that is when they play faster and less thinking, due to mental recognition being faster. No this is not from Golden slurping, this I have heard from former NFL players who played defense, including former gayturd Channing Crowder here locally, say the same thing.
So now it is year 4, the underclassmen, who we all have seen are better and more talented than what was here before, have been groomed and have gained experience, we have two full classes that are sophomores and Juniors, sprinkled in with some solid to good Seniors on defense in DP, Chick, Pierre & Gunter from the first class which was a cluster frick to get together his first year, and yes I know Gunter was part of his 2nd class. This year there is no excuses, this year there should be improvement, and more importantly a change in philosophy as far as aggression in the playcalling and scheme. If not, I will be very disappointed, sadly eat crow, and ride shotgun on the bandwagon to dump them. Hopefully history repeats itself statistically as it did for him in Temple, if it does here we can expect very good things
