Big Ten Coaches Talk Anonymously About 2022
As the title says, Big Ten coaches interviewed anonymously but Athlon
I noticed this yesterday and the publish date on the article shows August 2...but I swear this was posted and made the rounds 2-3 weeks ago. Maybe I messed up the controls on my time-machine, I don't know.
Might have been last week or the week before, but some of the B1G coaches were asked their opinion of Michigan during the B1G Media Days event. That's probably what you're thinking about...
August 3rd, 2022 at 10:12 AM ^
Well, I found this, posted at On3 at the beginning of June. Had all the same quotes for Michigan. Maybe they updated the article with some additional quotes.
I may still be crazy, but this episode is not proof of it.
IMO this reads like the same dude's opinion on the entire B1G, not a bunch of coaches dishing insider opinions
Yeah. Agree and disappointed. It's like tv announcers reviewing last season and asking questions about this season.
More bitching would be nice
A lot of us thought last year, Leo Chenal was the best defensive player in the league.
He was good, but better than Hutchinson? Come on now...
He wasn't good enough to help them beat future big 12 7th place, Minnesota, at home, with a title on the line.
What a stupid comment. "Most of us..." You, your ass and Scott's mom?
A lot of Leo Chenal's family thought last year, Leo Chenal was the best defensive player in the league.
Yeah... I'm not sure anyone outside of Madison thought Chenal was the best defensive player in the league last year.
Chanel was the probably the fifth best defensive player in the B1G. Chanel number 5, is what I say.
""In their division, Nebraska still has the best-looking roster. We call it the all-bus team because they look better than anyone else in the West in pregame. Long, tall dudes, really athletic, and then after a quarter or so, you stop worrying because they're usually hurting themselves. They struggle with turnovers, they struggle with technique. I think it's a culture issue.""
LMAO! Scott and his mom proudly point to the first quarter! And they hit hard... At some point, Nebraska footballers are going to have to come to grips with Frost - he's not that good of a coach. He peaked at UCF and will likely not ever see that lofty summit again.
Didn't he hire a real OC this year? Sometimes it takes guys a few years to figure out what worked at Cincinnati Stanford or UCF doesn't work against the best coaches the B1G can buy.
Well, that would be fine if Nebraska's problems were isolated to offensive scheme. But they're not. They are unlimited in scope! They have issues with scheme, tempo, execution, mental stability, and general football IQ - on all three sides of the ball (offense, defense, special teams). If they can fix all of that with a decent OC, good on them. But I won't be holding my breath...
Some of my favorites
Maryland
"They're going to be must-see, because you never know if they're going score 60 and win or give up that much."
MSU
"This is Transfer U. Does that work every season? What's your culture like? It seems like these guys don't set limits like other staffs. Normally, you're working the portal out of extreme need for a position group or to complement a roster. These guys shop the whole store, it seems."
Northwestern
"Looking at this team from year to year, it's pretty much a broken record now: You know exactly what you're getting on defense, and you respect the hell out of it, and you have no idea what's coming on offense, but chances are it will be pretty bad."
I hate to see this last one:
"When we broke down their roster last season, it was like editing your NCAA video game on dynasty mode and you put everyone at 99."
Fuck OSU
Hey OP a couple of notes:
1. Thank you for the post, nice article you found albeit a bit light in content
2. When making a post like this it's helpful to post a few highlight quotes that you found particularly interesting as Blue@LSU did above. Just posting the link with nothing else is a bit thin if you know what I mean.
I like to say this same thing, but I've done it so often it feels like a broken record. A little bit of effort goes a long way...
August 3rd, 2022 at 11:35 AM ^
With MSU—luck is not a strategy.
Call me crazy, but isn't the MSU strategy really just a contemporary (NIL-era) update of what Bill Snyder did at Kansas St for all those years? If true, that could work so long as the coaches keep a handle on potential culture issues.
Favorite quote (on Northwestern of all places!):
"Looking at this team from year to year, it's pretty much a broken record now: You know exactly what you're getting on defense, and you respect the hell out of it, and you have no idea what's coming on offense, but chances are it will be pretty bad."
August 3rd, 2022 at 12:03 PM ^
Here's my favorite:
You saw a different energy here; they had more speed than in recent years, and they were still just as physical. They were violent on film. It was Michigan football.
Go Blue indeed!
There is absolutely no way in hell Sean Clifford still has eligibility.
He's eligible for Medicare, Social Security, and PSU football.
August 3rd, 2022 at 10:20 AM ^
Clifford just signed an NIL deal with Bill Knapps.
August 3rd, 2022 at 10:53 AM ^
Yup. And they gave him an Edsel.
August 3rd, 2022 at 11:35 AM ^
I'd fight someone for those little sugar coated donuts right now.
August 3rd, 2022 at 12:37 PM ^
Sorry to burst your bubble, but EVERYONE gets that deal on their birthday....
Is he also negotiating with Belk?
August 3rd, 2022 at 10:02 AM ^
wonder if they let the wrong qb get away last year.
side note: i was looking at UK's roster and it has a column for previous school. It would be neat if all schools did this so you could quickly scan to see the ratio of transfers in. cough cough MSU.
August 3rd, 2022 at 10:22 AM ^
By the way things are going they're going to need up to 3 previous school columns:
Previous school. Previous-previous school. Previous-previous-previous school. etc.
i welcome this development because in Aidan's case it would say "Our Lady of Good Counsel Grade School"
"[DC Jesse] Minter will transition right in; I don't think you're going to see any kind of departure in terms of scheme."
Not a surprise but glad to hear it is a sentiment shared by others. Feels like they'll struggle (relatively speaking) early on with the defensive replacements but should be hitting their stride after a while.
This was a surprising quote regarding MSU's recruiting and portal:
This is Transfer U. Does that work every season? What's your culture like? It seems like these guys don't set limits like other staffs. Normally, you're working the portal out of extreme need for a position group or to complement a roster. These guys shop the whole store, it seems. They haven't recruited in Michigan high schools as much as you'd expect.
I know they've picked up a couple of local kids but I looked at their 2022 class and they have more kids from Georgia than Michigan, and Michigan is the only Midwest state they take more than 1 recruit from. Usually MSU makes a killing from the overlooked Ohio/Illinois/Indiana/Michigan set of players. I assume UK and Cincy have been eating into those players and that's part of the reason they've relied so heavily on the portal.
Regarding PSU, this cracked me up:
They've been really ineffective since [Joe] Moorhead left. They've got to fix the offensive line; they couldn't run and they could pass protect.
James Franklin's entire tenure at PSU has been marked by a complete inability to field an above-average offensive line. You'd think by dumb luck he'd have pieced together a better line.
I think Schiano is a creep and I wouldn't trust him, but he's done yeoman's work at Rutgers and this quote is what you'd like to see for them:
They're playing with a lot of energy and physicality, and they're not afraid. The biggest compliment you can give them is that they're not acting like they're rebuilding or a doormat.
The West stuff was about what I expected but this take about Iowa cracks me up:
This program is the definition of overachieving in this sport. Yes, they probably need to be more creative on offense, but they're not listening to the outside, trust me.
I don't disagree but Iowa is paying Ferentz a ton of money to be okay while seemingly also pissing off a lot of former players. I assume at some point that'll end.
And this quote about Nebraska is basically my entire view of Scott Frost's coaching career:
In their division, Nebraska still has the best-looking roster. We call it the all-bus team because they look better than anyone else in the West in pregame. Long, tall dudes, really athletic, and then after a quarter or so, you stop worrying because they're usually hurting themselves. They struggle with turnovers, they struggle with technique. I think it's a culture issue.
One great year at UCF but dig even a bit in and it's all just junk.
August 3rd, 2022 at 10:14 AM ^
I think there are three reasons (possibly four) for why the Spartans aren’t recruiting Ohio very well. First, Cincy with Fickell. Second, Stoops at Kentucky. Three - Dantonio’s gone. And, four - Tucker loves the portal and is trying to figure out what MSU’s culture is.
August 3rd, 2022 at 10:59 AM ^
Yeah, Dantonio had deep connections in Ohio which likely helped there. I also don't really get what culture Tucker is trying to build there - it feels like last year he got a fantastic player in Walker and that swung 2-3 games in their favor, along with TO luck. Maybe he can keep it going but that defense was really bad last year against competent offenses and it doesn't seem to have gotten demonstrably more talented. I guess we'll see.
August 3rd, 2022 at 11:32 AM ^
It is 100% "fake it until you make it." He talks a big game and hopes that if he can get the same level of luck for another year, then the recruiting will pick up enough to bring the team up to the level he claims they already are. Hopefully those bounces end up more even this year, and they crash back to earth, and have a $95M coach that goes 6-6. If that is the case, then some of those 4* recruits are going to look elsewhere, and the whole house of cards collapses.
Do coaches believe in 'turn over luck'? Or do they think that the preparation and commitment their team shows in practice results in forced errors that come up roses for them? You make your own luck, kind of thing?
I'm thinking that Tucker believes in himself as a top tier coach and his team as a top tier contender. I would be surprised if he thought otherwise.
Believing in yourself and your team is basically a prerequisite of coaching at any level.
Great points brought up on MSU's raiding of the portal every year for talent.
An 11-2 season is an 11-2 season, but what does that do as far as building/sustaining any kind of culture?
As for the points on Nebraska, that all-bus team is a thing of beauty, couldn't be truer. and man that just cuts right to the core of you. They probably have the most pure talent in that division, plenty of solid athletes that look good once they hop off the bus, but you stop worrying about them once the game settles in because you know they're going to panic and beat themselves.
Eh, I have to be the devil's advocate. Transfer is one of the big factors in today's collegiate athletics. As long as the coach is winning and keeping the kids focused, that whole "culture" crap is going to be so overblown.
Our basketball program is now like 40 percent transfer. Do we talk about "culture issues" with them? No.
August 3rd, 2022 at 10:07 AM ^
As long as the coach is winning and keeping the kids focused, that whole "culture" crap is going to be so overblown.
But that's the rub, right? You need to keep winning. Culture is what helps through the tough times. I think the culture was the biggest piece of the turnaround from 2020 to 2021, and that was built on the camaraderie from practicing together for 2, 3, even 4 years. Freshman come in and pick up on that culture. That's not something that is easily replicated from raiding the portal.
Just my .02.
August 3rd, 2022 at 12:43 PM ^
Our basketball program is now like 40 percent transfer. Do we talk about "culture issues" with them? No.
Michigan's basketball team is nowhere close to 40% comprised of transfers. Of the 13 scholarships in use this season, two are from transfers (Baker and Llewellyn).
August 3rd, 2022 at 10:00 AM ^
If MSU’s 11-2 season turns into another 11-2 season, the copycats will come out of the woodwork and declare them a genius.
August 3rd, 2022 at 10:31 AM ^
Looking for a MSU return to:
August 3rd, 2022 at 10:56 AM ^
Absolutely. I'm not saying that what Tucker is doing with the transfer portal is definitively wrong or harmful to the program. But its definitely a question to ask. Can you build a sustainable, year-to-year culture when a sizable majority of your starters / depth chart are coming in on 1-2 year rentals? Maybe he can, and again, if they keep winning, no one external to the program is going to care.
But if they start losing, drop a couple in a row to Michigan, then it is a question Tucker is going to have to answer.
I personally think its part of a long game for Tucker. He saw that even in Dantonio's heyday, MSU couldn't recruit the caliber of player necessary to win a national title, and right now, they still can't. MSU football can't recruit at the same level its basketball team can, and for the same reasons. MSU basketball is still a destination program, despite recent downturn, and the football program isn't.
So maybe Tucker is trying to go after guys who were highly rated coming out of HS, would never have considered MSU then, but they couldn't get on the field at their previous stop. So Tucker recruits them to MSU through the portal, gets them on the field, hopes they are the caliber of player their recruiting profile said they were, but only left their previous stop because they couldn't get on the field for reasons like a crowded depth chart or some other extenuating circumstance.
Play that game with the transfer portal long enough, score enough hits in the portal, win enough games, slowly start to raise the profile of the MSU football brand to make it more appealing to guys who are otherwise only considering OSU, Clemson, Alabama or Georgia, and eventually you can recruit with those guys. Or at least enough of them to get to the CFP and just see what happens.
August 3rd, 2022 at 10:57 AM ^
If Sparty goes 11-2 again, then we need to give Tucker some respect. Before they play us, they will have played @UWash, OSU and Wisconsin, not to mention a sneaky tough game @Maryland. If they somehow get through all of that and are 6-1 when they play us, all they have to do is split between us and PSU and clean up on the bottom of the B1G to finish the regular season 10-2.
I don't see it happening, but 10-2 with their schedule and without KWIII would be more impressive than their dumb luck 2021.
August 3rd, 2022 at 11:38 AM ^
It is just so hard to say because luck was demonstrably in their favor last year. Taking a TD off of the board against us, having the NEB punter kick away from his coverage, etc. Those are not anything that he did as a coach, but they were the difference in those games. Those games were gifted to him. 9-4 isn't quite as shiny. So yeah, if he can repeat the record, then at that point we may have to tip the cap and admit that their desperation hire was a good one.
I expected more schadenfreude. I want to read bitterness and envy between the lines. I do not want to say the words out loud but to win in Columbus.
August 3rd, 2022 at 11:27 AM ^
Yeah, what I want is "Big Ten Coaches Talk Shit About Other Programs." Encourage vicious sniping...