dew1679666265
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Everything posted by dew1679666265
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Have there been serious reports that the front office has looked into trading Starlin or have they just been Kaplan and Rogers blowing smoke? I could be forgetting, but I don't recall any serious smoke concerning a Starlin trade.
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Tennessee hired Zach Azzanni as wr coach, completing Butch's staff. And man, is it an underwhelming staff.
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The 2012 Offseason Thread
dew1679666265 replied to ctcf's topic in MLB Draft, International Signings, Amateur Baseball
If Smyly were in his late 20s, early 30s, I'd agree with you that it's not their MO. However, Smyly is only 23 and has shown some level of success at the ML level. Swapping prospects for him would be very similar to the Rizzo/Cashner trade they made a year ago, which fits perfectly with their current MO. -
Considering Sanchez was the #1 pitcher I wanted this offseason, I'm really glad I didn't see this thread until tonight when it was already announced that he turned us down. I'd have been really mad had I believed that Sanchez was going to be a Cub and then had the rug pulled out. While it's not devastating to our future (I still have faith in the Theo regime), it's still really frustrating that we either were unable to or disinterested in signing Upton and Sanchez. Two good players on the right side of 30 whose skillset matches what the FO values and neither signed a silly deal. If it weren't for the track record of Theo, I'd be really pissed right now.
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Maybe Burch Jones and his staff will do well and make life easier on you then.
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sigh. I'll be honest - I'm happy about this since I'd rather face them once every few years rather than every year.
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Jim Chaney and Sam Pittman to Arkansas (figured I'd mention this since some on here were talking about them). Really good hires by Bielema.
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It's kind of weird to me. Hiestand came in very well respected and when he left (mutually), Brian Kelly just glowed about him. But the running game was just utterly inept while he was here and while it's not all on him, he's a big part of it. I'm thinking it had to simply be that the players and he weren't meshing or something like that. I know the current players loved Pittman (2 threatened to go pro if he didn't come back) and nobody batted an eye when Hiestand left.
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Less high on him than the other 2, but he's a really good hire for UK. By all accounts he's a terrific recruiter, not as sure about his coaching ability though. He was responsible for getting Cordarrelle Patterson and other top players to UT though. Once Tee turned us down, I was hoping Butch would bring Hinshaw back.
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I hated that loss too. We had a ridiculous amount of talent on the offensive line when Harry Heistand was here - I honestly believe the entire 5 starting o-linemen will play in the NFL - but it underperformed dramatically in run blocking. When Pittman came in a year ago, the running game went from 90 yds/gm in 2011 to 160 yds/gm. We also went from 2.8 yds/rush in 2011 to 4.7 yds/rush in 2012. Part of that was adding Jay Graham to the staff, but a lot of that was Pittman as well. Butch runs a zone blocking scheme and there's some question how well Pittman can coach that scheme, but unless that was the case I struggle to see the o-line coach as anything but a downgrade.
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I absolutely love Chaney. Reports are he's a relentless recruiter and I know 1 or 2 really good offensive linemen (Zac Fulton being one) who threatened to decommit if Dooley didn't retain Chaney when Lane left. He's primarily an offensive line and QB guy, able to work with both quite well. Most people around here believe he was the primary guy who turned Jonathan Crompton from a complete trainwreck in 2008 to a good SEC QB in 2009. The players love him as well, as he got a Gatorade bath as the interim HC when we beat Kentucky this year. He likes to run the spread with a lot of pistol mixed in and does have a tendency to get a little pass happy, but that could simply be because we had Bray/Hunter/CP/Rivera/Rogers on offense. I was typically really happy with his playcalling, though. He's also been a coach in the NFL, so he's got the extra credibility from that in recruiting. I think he'd be a great hire for Missouri. He's the coach I'm most unhappy with Butch Jones for letting go - I think it's really going to hurt our offense going forward.
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Yeah, Erik Ainge said he talked to Tee personally and Tee said he was staying. Extremely disappointing, but I can understand not wanting to travel across the country and uproot his family after 1 year for a lateral move. That said, I'm really concerned about this team's recruiting ability. Jay Graham and Tommy Thigpen can both really recruit, but there's a lot of unproven coaches (at a major level at least) and coaches who failed in the SEC already (Jon Jancek and Willie Martinez) on the staff.
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I'd have preferred Butch Davis, but yeah, I'd trade head coaches with Western Kentucky in a heartbeat.
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Any chance the Raiders actually do fire Dennis Allen?
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Titans are now 4-9 and tied for the #4 pick in the draft with Philly, Carolina, Arizona and, if they lose, Detroit. The remaining schedule is NYJ, GB, Jax. I like our chances of a top-5 pick, but the Lions winning tonight would help the odds quite a bit. Losing out might piss Bud off enough to clean house of the coaching staff, so let's go ahead and do that.
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No way in hell the players would ever allow it to happen. Probably not, that's true. Not sure I'd be surprised if the owners tried hard, though.
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I'm not advocating this, but any chance the Dodgers' wacky spending ways push the rest of the MLB owners to instate a hard salary cap next CBA? It'd be a reactionary move to be sure, but it'd be kind of like NCAA administrators finally being prompted to back a playoff because 2 SEC teams played in the BCS title game.
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Butch Jones is letting Chaney and Pittman go, but at least he's keeping Jay Graham. Also sounds like Tee Martin to Tennessee is becoming somewhat unlikely. He's bringing his OC (Mike Bajakian), DC (John Jancek), OL coach (Mike Mahoney), and possibly his WR/Recruiting coordinator as well. I didn't like this hire at the time it was made and I like it less now since he's dumped two really, really good coaches from the staff. I'm guessing it's a near certainty now that Bray, Hunter, CP, JaWaun James, and Zac Fulton are all NFL-bound now. So much for that really good offense we had last year.
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Not sure how I feel about Fassel. My first thought is I doubt he'd make a great college coach, but he can definitely coach. I'd probably prefer Butch Jones to him. Thankfully the buyout is pretty minimal after the 3rd year, which is the soonest we'd be firing him (if we do). 6 years, $18 mil is a pretty ridiculous contract to a questionable hire who, at best, was the 3rd or 4th candidate on the list.
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I've heard that too and adding Tee to the 3 I mentioned would help my mood as well.
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As critical as I've been of this hire, if Jones comes in and starts well by keeping Jim Chaney, Jay Graham, and Sam Pittman and putting together a good staff around them with national ties, I'll start to feel a bit encouraged. The staff is probably going to be critical with this hire - every coach has to be able to recruit exceptionally well and be able to develop talent extremely well.
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Nobody was winning 10 games next year, I don't dispute that at all. However, I truly believe the talent level was considerably better on this team than the record indicated. We were held back this year because the switch to a 3-4 completely befuddled our defense and we couldn't win a close game to save our lives (except Troy). With that in mind, I think guys like Butch Davis, Mike Leach, June Jones, Phil Fulmer, Gary Patterson could have come in here and within 2-3 years had us seriously competing for an SEC East title. And that's not even mentioning a guy like Petrino or NFL coaches like Hue Jackson and Greg Roman who reportedly expressed interest in the job and would have been intriguing hires.
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He did improve his resources and prestige going from Central Michigan to Cincinnati, but his record got worse (9 win avg at CMU, 7 win avg at Cincy). It's hard to believe he'll deviate considerably from his 6-year track record when his resources improve considerably, but his level of competition does so as well. I don't think he's a bad coach by any means. He's proven he's a pretty good coach that can keep a program stabilized. After the mess that has been the post-Fulmer era, though, we needed more than that. That's my real problem with this hire. I'm hoping Jones proves me wrong and over the next 6 years, leads us to an SEC title or two. But I just don't see from his track record and from watching a few Cincy games in his era that he's capable of doing that.
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Dave Hart is announcing at 2:30 today that he's happy with Tennessee being nationally irrelevant for 3-5 more years. Hard to be nationally relevant when you're getting turned down left and right (including by one guy who would rather coach at Louisville). Right, we're clearly not nationally relevant now but it should be the goal of the program to reach national relevance. I don't see how hiring a pretty good Big East/MAC coach does that. Even after getting turned down by Gundy and Strong, there were still better options ou there. But we chose the safe route over the route that likely has us winning at a very high level again.
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Dave Hart is announcing at 2:30 today that he's happy with Tennessee being nationally irrelevant for 3-5 more years. Seems a bit premature to pan the hiring. There's nothing about Jones' resume to give me any reason to believe he's any more than a placeholder type coach. He won 8 games a year in the MAC and Big East with a couple blips up to 10 and 11 and one down to 4. And that's after taking over programs that Brian Kelly built and stocked for him. The most likely scenario with Jones is that we win 8-9 games a year and never truly compete for a division title. If he'd been the only option left, fine. But there were better options out there that would have given more risk, but far more upside. I'd love to be proven wrong on this, but I just don't see any evidence that he's a good enough coach to make us a nationally relevant program again.