Snap Back To Reality –
ISU Fans A Little Hypocritical This Time Around
CycloneFanatic.com
Jeremy Lind
Personal Observation & Response...
I’ve noticed a huge increase in the amount and type of criticism the Cyclone faithful are leveling against the new Men’s Basketball team and coaching staff, as well as the lofty expectations for the football program next season. Here are a few comments to try and get people back to earth a little bit.
For starters, the first thing that people started saying after McDermott was hired was that we need to give him a chance, let him have his time to recruit his players and install his style of play. Well, we’re eight full games into his first season and people are already saying how he was a bad hire and a waste of money. Excuse me, a few of the so-called “die-hards” need to look in the mirror and reread some of their previous posts about mediocrity in
ISU Athletics.
Why would anybody expect a new coaching staff to have any huge amount of success when they have a group of players that for some reason or another weren’t being recruited by other programs? It’s not like McDermott walked into Hilton with a locker room full of studs that have averaged twenty-five points a game. He took over a team with very little experience and had to bring in new guys that knew nothing about
ISU or the Big XII. Guys that for some reason or another weren’t being given a chance any place else.
Greg McDermott has one of the greatest basketball minds in the country, his peers have said as much. He’s proven he can win with players that are below the level of success they achieve. And most importantly, he has proven it with the first of the two teams that beat us this season. How can anybody say UNI shouldn’t have beaten us when the team is made up of
GMAC’s players running his style of play? I sure as heck wouldn’t have expected a W but I agree it would have been nice. His experienced players that have gone to the Big Dance three straight years beat his inexperienced group of kids, what am I missing with this?
Most of those criticizing the
MBB staff and team after eight games are the same ones that wanted to give Dan McCarney another pass after twelve years of let-downs and blown leads. So it’s alright to give somebody more chances after they had the worst recruiting class of almost all BCS schools the past three years and couldn’t win with his guys and his experienced players but it’s not alright to give one of the hottest young coaches in the country time to even get his first recruiting class on campus (which by the way will be one of the top recruiting classes in the country, as well as the following year)? That is the definition of hypocrisy in my opinion.
I know McCarney was loved as a person and mentor but why was he given such a long string when McDermott can’t even get past the first year using left-over’s? Recruiting takes time, McCarney had the worst class in the Big XII the past three years and people still wanted to give him time for improvement. McDermott on the other hand already has some of the best players in the country for the next few years after jumping into the recruiting process really late in the game. Again, am I missing something with all of this?
The second problem I have with all of this revolves around those that think
ISU will magically be a nine or ten win team in football next year. As I said, McCarney has the worst group of recruits in the Big XII coming in next year and Chizik is supposed to win the Big XII with that? We have no offensive lineman of any caliber for next season, a young defense and a new coaching staff but we’re supposed to have more success next year with a tougher schedule than we had this year with more talent and a somewhat easier schedule?
Even if Chizik and his staff bring in the best of the best of the JUCO ranks, he still has to start from scratch. Not only will we have a thrown-together cast of players next season, we have to get them all playing the same kind of football. Even our returning stars have to learn something new and find a new way of interacting with each other. Am I missing something again with all of this?
Success takes time, not just a new coach and style of play.
ISU will have some extreme ups and down for the next few seasons but with two of the hottest and most fundamentally sound coaches in the country, the future is bright. The light at the end of the tunnel may be bright, but it takes a while to get to be able to reach it. Calm down, enjoy the improvement and be patient. It takes time, dedication and support. Support from all of us, not just some.
So I guess the point of this post is just to remind people that a new coach can’t walk in the door and raise his hands and have everything be cured. It takes time, dedication and support. It’s alright to hate losing; God knows we’ve had enough of it over the years. But the important thing to remember is that things don’t change overnight in anything, let alone organized sports. It’s a business and a new CEO can’t just come in and change the products or services overnight. It takes a new assembly line, a new staff and a new marketing team. Given the right amount of time, it could end up being a Fortune 500 company.
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