Sunday, October 28, 2007

Navy lost. So what? (part 2)

As a followup to my post below and a certain anonymous poster that ridiculously says in Johnson's 6th season, Navy should be established and not rebuilding. Well son, I guess you don't spend too much time around the Navy football offices to see what kind of players the Naval academy can actually get to compete for them. So lets look at some other established and high profile coaches that aren't struggling for talent and cherrypick some notable losses:

-Greg Schiano from Rutgers inherited a better team than Johnson did at Navy (go back and look and you'll see in 2001 when Schiano arrived his team beat Navy). So if Greg Schiano is such a hot coach, why is his team losing to 1st year Cincinnati coach Brian Kelly in his 7th season at Rutgers? That same Cincinnati team that lost to Pitt, which lost to Navy a week earlier. Why is Schiano losing 30-3 and looking hapless against West Virginia? Shouldn't his team be putting up more of a fight 7 years into his coaching tenure? Why in his 6th year is his team getting 33 hung up on them by a 2-9 Illinois team?

-Why is the once invincible Jim Leavitt from South Florida now skidding out of control with two straight losses to Rutgers and UConn? Those appear to be good, but not great teams with similar talent levels. Shouldn't the mighty Leavitt, who has been at South Florida since 1995, be winning against these programs? Wouldn't it be easier to look at the entire body of work of each of Leavitt and Schiano, along with Paul Johnson?

-In Bob Stoops sixth season, he lost 45-12 to a Texas team with no more talent than his own. And in his seventh season last year, he lost to Boise State and their first year coach Chris Peterson-and Boise State doesn't have a player on their roster that could crack the two deeps at OU.

-And what about Bo Pelini. His defense gives up more yards and points to Kentucky in a loss, than lowly Mississippi State did when they beat Kentucky yesterday. Maybe just a bad game for Jesus H. Pelini?

-And what in holy hell is Pete Carroll doing at USC?? Every player on his two-deeps will eventually play in the NFL and the team he's manned for 8 years is losing to Stanford?? Fire him now!

So what's it all mean Einstein? It means that you need to look at the entire body of work for a coach over the course of his tenure/career and put wins and losses into context. Trying to cherrypick a loss or even a season for negatives, without looking closer at the details, just means you're pushing an agenda.

PJ will not be brought here to run the defense. He will hire the best possible DC he can get at the University of Nebraska. He will be brought here for his leadership, proven head coaching ability and offensive wizardry. And if you have questions about what he's done over the entire course of his career at Ga Southern and Navy, please feel free to read this entire blog from top to bottom. There's a ceiling to what can be done at the US Naval Academy. And PJ reached that ceiling about two years ago when his team won 10 games.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your comparisons, "son," are absolutely laughable.

This isn't about cherrypicking, this is about philosophy. Paul Johnson is an offensive coordinator getting paid to be a head coach. He has nothing to do with his defense. He puts his best players on offense; you are the one saying that he has "Division III" talent on D. Why such a talent disparity on the other side of the ball? History is littered with "offensive geniuses" that find success at smaller schools only to find that defense actually matters when you play the big boys. Johnson doesn't have the defensive players that he inherited from the previous staff anymore, and now it's biting him in the ass. To assume that he'll just go out and find some great D-coordinator is a pretty lousy plan. What's the old saying? Hope isn't a plan?

Oh by the way, Johnson said that he had as much defensive talent as ever on defense: "We are going to have some new faces out there, but I really think we have a chance to be better athletically than we have been on defense." If you say that he only has D-III talent, then maybe Johnson's own evaluation ability should be brought into question.

http://navysports.cstv.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/073107aaa.html

Husker_RH said...

If Johnson is an offensive coordinator getting paid to be a head coach, how did he take Georgia Southern to two national titles and take Navy to 4 straight bowl games? And what would you call Tom Osborne when he was the "head coach" at Nebraska? There's poor talent on both sides of the ball at Navy. His defense this year is replacing 9 starters and has its three best players out due to injury.

Also curious-where did Jim Tressell coach before he was at Ohio State? How about Brian Kelly before he coached at Central Michigan and Cincy? Urban Meyer before Florida?

Your comment regarding former defensive players from Navy being graduated is laughable. Navy was the worst program in the country when PJ took over! He immediately brought in one of the best recruiting classes in Navy history and those players are now graduated. Insert screwed in the head icon.

Navy's defense was a "concern" going into spring practice because not only was Navy replacing 9 starters from the 2006 season, ... but the majority of the experianced back-ups were also seniors (class of '07), ... so projected starters were guys who hadn't even played a varsity down!

Anonymous said...

You aren't refuting my points, you're just repeating the same thing over & over.

Navy was the worst team in I-A in 2001. Six years later, their defense is right back where it started. You talk about these amazing recruiting classes, then at the same time talk about poor talent on both sides of the ball. Which is it?

I don't want a coach that we have to make excuses for. Johnson would be the option version of Mike Leach. We can do better.

Husker_RH said...

Lets get this straight. An amazing recruiting class at Navy is basically the same thing as an amazing recruiting class at Nebraska-Omaha. Why is that such a difficult concept for you to grasp. You're the one that continues to ignore facts presented to you. You act as if Navy has the same personnel that Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas and LSU have. Why??

Second, why are you spending so much time on a site devoted to a coach you don't think should be hired at Nebraska.

And having a Mike Leach offense that is dedicated to running the ball is bad, how??

Anonymous said...

I don't act like Navy should have the same personnel as Nebraska. I think Navy should have the same personnel as the I-AA teams they lose to. They should NOT have D-III talent.

I'm not worried about having a Mike Leach offense. I'm worried about having a Mike Leach TEAM.