Blade's Briggs Kills It

So this one is a must read. 

David Briggs is the sports columnist at The Blade, and he's a good one.  Young man can write and he can make a point and he can be entertaining.  He makes his point and his opinions but he isn't an asshole about it.

Today the subject was the BG football program.  I'm not going to reprise it here because you should read it the way he wrote it.

Just going to make two little excerpts.

First, he refers to the Jinks statements last year that the team was close and that everything would be fine as a "Baghdad Bob routine" and if that doesn't make you laugh out loud, you need to have your sense of humor checked.

Second, he has this quote which I would like to comment on:

“This is a different game than high school,” he said. “You’re not allowed time to grow and learn from your mistakes. If I could do it over again, maybe I would have made some different choices because it is a different game. Looking at our situation when we did take this thing over, there were a lot of challenges, and maybe having that stability would have helped with that transition. There’s some validity there. There’s great validity there.”

Which is nice to read.  It is something I (and others) have been saying since the day of the hire and the day the assistants were announced.  Coaching high school is not the same as coaching college...NOT EVEN IN TEXAS.  And, as Briggs points out, the assistants were the wrong way to go giving what the program is facing.

In contrast, you see Nate Oats on the Buffalo MBB sideline.  He was similar to Jinks, just a couple years out of HS.  What did he do?  Hire two coaches with 25+ years of college coaching experience.

Anyway, the column is excellent.  Let me make a couple points.

First, I admire Jinks for holding himself accountable for those failings.  He has done it before.  He is a good person, something I say with 100% confidence.  He is willing to admit when he could have done better and he is willing to learn from his mistakes.

Not everyone is.  Don't minimize it.

Second, and most importantly, where do we stand today, coming off the worst two seasons in our history?  Well, to begin with, he has kept the team and the recruits and the program together and that's to his credit.  More importantly, the defensive coaching--which we should all be able to now admit was insufficient--is now completely turned over with experienced coaches with strong track records. 

I think the offense is on an upward trajectory and with even moderate defensive improvement BG is back on the road to being competitive again as the defensive players gain experience and those Jinks recruits filter into the mix.

Even with the abject disaster of the first two seasons, it is entirely possible that this thing could be turned around.  I will always contend that better coaches were available when Jinks was picked, but that's not relevant right now.  Unless we want to live through 2-3 more years of failure followed by another rebuild, the current arrangement needs to work.

It is not done, for sure.  Jinks has yet to prove himself.  He's done some things right but he hasn't gotten any kind of results yet.  He may never.  But the program has not looked better since he got here.