Brandon year-end presser
This will drive Brandon critics crazy, as he on one hand says that the team didn't meet its goals and that its not acceptable, but at the same time seems petulant when anyone else is upset about it. There are some rationalizations, and some bravado. Here's the most introspective part:
"You can get all caught up in it and say we were terrible in this phase or that phase but we were still playing in the end for a championship. We were in double overtime and if I went for two in the first overtime maybe we would have won that game and that is beating me up right now."
"Hindsight is 20/20. There were some guys in that situation that said lets go for two because our defense was tired, we hadn't stopped them in the second half, and we had momentum. Everybody felt that we had a play that would have worked. You can kick yourself until you can't kick yourself anymore on that. If we make it we win, great, everybody loves it, if we don't it will be, "Coach, why didn't you kick it and extend the game?" When you are in a close game and you lose, you evaluate every play. There are countless plays through that game that if we won, we wouldn't even care about."
I am not going to second guess myself. I feel fortunate the program is in a position right now to compete for championships. We got bowl eligible with a huge win over Miami. We recovered late in the season from Omar's injury with a win at Kent. Say what you want, but that is a tough road win; we lost Anthony in that game, but we hung in there and our defense responded. Obviosuly we are disappointed we are not playing in a bowl game and not competing for a championship. The program is at a point now where we compete for championships and that is what we are going to continue to do."
Interesting, indeed. That would have been sweet, to go for two and win the whole thing. (PS--that's what Urban would have done!. Did I say that?)
Here's another relatively insightful look (note the phrase "recruiting holes."):
"In the grand scheme of things we had some recruiting holes. We had some depth issues that I thought were going to manifest themselves last year but Omar shows up and goes off that charts. We were able to mask some of those because we out scored everybody. Eventually the lack of depth, caught us. I think it showed up in special teams. Not to say those kids aren't good players but some of them were not ready. We finished the season the way we started the season, struggling to stop people but still outscoring people."
On the defense:
"I think we just need to keep getting better on that side of the ball; keep recruiting good players there, which I think we have done. This last class I think was solid and we redshirted a lot of good young players that can run."
I would say that the final sentence there is, indeed, the final question. I think people where underwhelmed with the last class on paper. If this is a sell job, and the next group of players is not strong, then we are in for a downturn. If we can bounce back with talent on defense--and at WR, with a full year of work for Coach Lovett, then maybe the program can still compete.
Oh--and I could care less if they can run. Can they tackle?
My biggest fear is that next year's team will be hard pressed to be as good as this year's team. We lose guys on defense and offense that were big players, and the next generation does not appear to be as strong--but no one has seen the redshirted guys. Let's hope expectations are exceeded.
Tomorrow night is going to suck. We were that close. I hope they think it sucks, too. Reading these statements, I'm just not sure.
Its phrases like this that worry me:
"Really, I think, we're 6-5, in the hunt at the end and everybody is upset. I guess that is a good thing."
More to come.
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