Falcons Lose Again...questions that should be asked
I doubt if anyone will come into the presser Monday and ask Coach Jinks if he feels vindicated. The self-congratulations from the media following the loss to Toledo was surprising at the time, and is certainly hard to fathom now, after BG lost by 2 touchdowns at home to a 1-6 Miami team...well, now a 2-6 Miami team.
In fact, however, all of the questions in the post-game presser seemed designed to offer Jinks ways out...leading questions centering around whether or not it is the team's youth that is causing the problem.
I don't understand the desire to protect Jinks. I'm not saying expectations weren't too high and I'm not saying that there haven't been a lot of injuries...but no one but the fans seems willing to entertain the idea that at least part of the problem has been the coaching staff.
I'm not sure why it is. I think it is surprising. Just to make it clear, I'm not saying he's going to fail and I'm not saying he should be fired. I'm not saying he should be written off.
I'm saying that the team is 1-7 with NO FBS WINS, the worst two losses in program history, and now an 0-4 record in the MAC and a loss to a team that had the same number of wins as us coming into the game. At home. By 14 points.
And I'm saying you have to wonder whether the coach with no collegiate head coaching experience and only 3 years as a position coach and his staff with next to no experience as actual coaches is contributing to making the year the debacle that it is.
And whether a more experienced coaching staff would have the situation more stable than it is today.
These seem to be reasonable lines of inquiry. For my money, I do believe that coaching has played a significant role in the immediate demise of this program. I wrote last week that the UT game provided hope...and we were hitting the softest part of the schedule. Apparently not soft enough.
One last thing. There's no room for the "first-year coach" excuse. Getting a first-year coach was a choice that was made. And not surrounding the first year coach with more experienced assistants to compliment him was a choice that was made. What is happening is the result of choices.
Here are the questions I would think you would ask.
1. You said earlier in the year that nothing had happened to give you any reason for self-introspection. Is that still true?
2. You said that you have seen this approach work. Has anything that has happened this year made you think that you might have to adjust--not abandon--the approach you took to build a program at Steele High School.
3. Do you think your team was the best-prepared team in any game this year?
4. Is any unit exceeding the expectations you had at the beginning of the season?
5. Is the team now closer to "turning the corner" or farther than when you said it before the Toledo game?
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Having a dog in this fight I guess I will speak my piece. My son played for Babers, as a true freshman at EIU, in the same backfield as Jimmy G. He came to BGSU and had to sit out a year and was slated to be backup (at minimum) this year but was told by this staff that they were going to go with the guys they brought with them at RB. Fred didn't get the ball because his (Jinks) focus is on grooming his talent.
Obviously, my son's welcomed to transfer again to play for the Cuse (and yes he'll play in the ACC for Babers) because he's not going to play for this coaching staff.
Say what you will about Babers recruiting skills but he was a great evaluator of talent. Babers recruited my son knowing he would have to sit out a year and left, I am not happy about it. How do you go from projected to battle (figuratively) with a coaching staff that has gone on to a P5 Conference and the staff behind him, with minimal Coaching experience at the collegiate level tell you they're not going to play you? I will leave that question open...
Even less happy about how this season has gone.
You speak to the question as to why the media seem to be steering clear of calling-out Jinks on the status of the season and program much as I have with responding to the absolute manner some have insisted the coach is safe earlier this year. All the parts of the puzzle simply don’t fit together on the table as matters stand. There are parts of the picture missing and nobody is speaking to that anymore than pushing the coach on the nearly complete implosion of a seemingly healthy program in less than six months.
I stopped watching local TV over six years ago and never looked back. I only read digital articles in the local papers when I absolutely must. With exceptions I find the local broadcast media get star-struck and have a vastly unsupportable sense of self importance. The print media have a number of highly astute and what I’ll describe as “restrained” writers who I think pull punches in part due to the very small world we live in. Combined with a similarly restrained manner the very small world of local as well as affluent BGSU fans exist in, there is a distinct tendency to not speak counter to the part line. If the AD say something, people fall into step usually. Others tend to want to be in the favor of the coaches, especially now that BG has sent a few to bigger and better things. This is made worse by those who continue to try to use BGSU sports as a local proxy connection to “big time” college sports and sometimes are grossly….I’ll say misguided though deluded is closer to the truth, as to what can be accomplished here.
In any case we don’t seem to have all the variables with which to work the equation and figure out what is happening. All I sense is a growing feeling that overall things should not have gotten as bad as they are. The only alternatives are that the coaching hire was bad, and/or things were vastly worse and for reasons simply not spoken too by BGSU.
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