Oh, it was quantified alright. 5 wins in 2 years and some of the worst defense imaginable. But our offense did nothing to help the defense. Nothing.
Lay off Pollard
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Oh, it was quantified alright. 5 wins in 2 years and some of the worst defense imaginable. But our offense did nothing to help the defense. Nothing.
Good post Bobby. I agree with all of it but #4. IF we win, and win consistently, I don't care who is standing on the sidelines, people will come back. We are so starved for a good season people will come. Its all about winning games.
Take Wayne for example. Horrible coach but we won alot of ballgames and the people showed up. Simple as that.
Good Luck getting rid of Pollard.
He just hired the Best Football Coach in America and I just joined the Cardinal Club. Who cares about MBB, I don't and I don't go to any of the MBB games. I admire the fans that do, I think ISU has the best MBB fans in the country and GMac has been a HUGE disappointment, but you can't blame Pollard.
He just hired the Best Football Coach in America and I just joined the Cardinal Club. Who cares about MBB, I don't and I don't go to any of the MBB games. I admire the fans that do, I think ISU has the best MBB fans in the country and GMac has been a HUGE disappointment, but you can't blame Pollard.
Yeah, it is familiar. Only now people are saying that you have to have good guards to win in the NCAA (which I agree with). We had them that year and still didn't get it done. Given that and the other issues with the team, I still don't think the WM firing was necessarily a bad idea. It is just the next move we mad didn't pan out as well as we would have hoped. We aren't in a good place right now for MBB no matter what we decide to do, and I don't envy Pollard's position on this one at all.
+1
Great hire for fb after Chiz...
My gameday experience gets better and better with JT improvements...
Just needs to hit the homer with MBB
I disagree with lumping wrestling in with women's basketball and football. How many wrestling conference championships did we have in the 19 years before JP and how many after he hired Cael? The answers are 0 and 3. Heck, as recently as 2003 we were dead last.
How can you possibly not blame Pollard for Greg Mcdermott.
Just the facts here. JP:
1. Fired Wayne Morgan (a fairly successful coach in his 3 seasons, but definitely no Bill Self)
2. Hired Greg in 2 days
3. Gave him a 9-yr contract
I like JP overall but he definitely screwed the pooch with our MBB program.
To those who say that having contract clauses for potential minor violations:
Perhaps the program was expecting to have violations pop up in the short term future. Violations look bad for the coach and are a detriment to the team and the program. If a coach is aware that the hammer is about to come down in terms of punishments for violations, why would he want to coach here while it all come down on his head while not being able to reap the "success" from the violations? Perhaps those types of incentives were the only way to even get a DI coach to look at the position.
Perhaps the program was expecting to have violations pop up in the short term future. Violations look bad for the coach and are a detriment to the team and the program. If a coach is aware that the hammer is about to come down in terms of punishments for violations, why would he want to coach here while it all come down on his head while not being able to reap the "success" from the violations? Perhaps those types of incentives were the only way to even get a DI coach to look at the position.
I think JP has done a great job at ISU. The only two major issues he has had IMO has been the contract extension he offered Eugene and the contract he signed GMAC to initially. It is easy to say that he made a couple of awful hires in hindsight but when the hires were made nobody thought they would turn out as bad as they did. IMO again I think giving extensions to a guy that was obviously doing a terrible job (Chizik) and to offer auto extensions that were not based on some sort of performance basis (GMAC) is just poor.
If what I heard was correct.... it was Greg that contacted JP about the job.... Not the other way around. Based on that it appears that GMAC saw a great meal ticket at ISU and wanted to cash it in. Now whether it actually went down like that only GMAC and JP know.
So what? In what other place do we judge by anything other than the results?
Before this season we loved this team, looked great.
No one anticipated...
- Brackins would have a terrible year
- The injury to JVB
- Lucca leaving
- Christopherson getting sick, etc.
How is this situation different than the hiring of Chizik? I judge on results, not how things look at some preliminary stage.
This. I will never understand contract extensions that are not performance based. People talk about getting rid of GMAC as taking a huge risk but I think extending the contract of a coach based on anything but performance is taking an even bigger risk. If he was successful it is great but if he fails then it becomes concrete shoes on the feet of the program. As it stands now.... the program is sleeping with the fish.
I don't envy his predicament either, but what ever decision he makes, it must be successful and the right thing, or IMO, it should cost him his job this time,
It's a fair point. The difference for me is Pollard didn't have any control over Gene regretting that he was in Ames, IA.
Greg has control over Brackins and player defections. The injuries are certainly there, but this train wreck was headed off the track before that.
The fact is, no one in Ames is blameless - each (AD, coach, players) share in this.
Both Greg and Chizik were good hires AT THE TIME. Both very succesful, highly regarded. All you can ask is that the AD goes out and gets someone that by all accounts looks to be a good hire. He can't predict the future. Sometimes it just doesn't work out, nobody bats 1000. Too many variables to predict what would happen with any coach. He could hire Coach K and there is no guarantee he would be great here. There was absolutely nothing in Greg's backround to suggest AT THE TIME that he would not be able to turn it around.
The 29-year old Sanderson comes to Penn State after three extremely successful years as the head coach at his alma mater. Sanderson's teams did not finish any lower than fifth at the NCAA Championships and never had a wrestler not qualify for nationals, getting 30 of 30 grapplers through to the championship tournament.
In 2007, Sanderson's rookie campaign, he led ISU to a 13-3 dual meet record and the first of three straight Big 12 Championships. An NCAA Runner-Up finish in Detroit capped off a wildly successful year as the Cyclones crowned one national champion and Sanderson was honored as Big 12 Coach of the Year, National Rookie Coach of the Year and National Coach of the Year. The next year, Sanderson led ISU to a 16-4 dual meet mark, another Big 12 title and a fifth place finish at nationals. Iowa State's seven All-Americans in 2008 were the most at the school since 1993.
This past season, Sanderson's team went 15-3 in duals, won its third straight Big 12 title and took third place at the NCAA Championships in St. Louis (just 12 points out of first place). The Cyclones also crowned another national champion. In three years, Sanderson's teams went 44-10, won three conference crowns, qualified all 30 wrestlers for nationals, and earned 15 All-America awards and two individual national titles. As a wrestler, Sanderson established himself as the most dominant collegiate competitor in NCAA history. In four years, Sanderson never lost. From 1999-2002, Sanderson posted a 159-0 career record (going 39-0, 40-0, 40-0 and 40-0); won four individual National Championships; won four Most Outstanding Wrestler awards at the NCAA Championships (the only wrestler in NCAA history to do so); became the first freshman in NCAA history to win the O.W. honor and won three Dan Hodge Trophies as the nation's best collegiate wrestler (also a collegiate first). He wrestled his first three years at 184 and then moved to 197 as a senior. The four-time All-American's four-year streak of perfection was called the No. 2 most outstanding achievement in collegiate sports history by Sports Illustrated and the NCAA called his final win (in the 2002 NCAA 197-pound championship) one of the NCAA's "25 Defining Moments" for its Centennial celebration. His wrestling career culminated in 2004 when the Heber City, Utah, native won the 84 kg Olympic Gold Medal in Athens, Greece. After graduating in 2002, he spent 2003 and 2004 as a special assistant in the athletic department at Iowa State before joining the ISU coaching staff as an assistant coach in 2004-05. He was promoted to the assistant head coach position the next year and then became the Cyclones' head coach for the 2006-07 season.
Above is Cael's bio, I would not call hiring someone with this history a failure. Did he leave the program, yes. Was his time here a failure, no. ISU wrestling was very successful while Cael was here, and another program saw that success and offered him a job that he could not/did not want to resist. Were there behind the scenes issues between Cael and Pollard or others at ISU I do not know. JP did go out and find another great coach who has led our wrestling program to a #2 ranking and our only losses are to the top program in the history of the sport.
I will not argue that the Chizz and Gmac hirings were great, however at the time they did seem pretty good. Chizz had a strong background and everyone expected him to leave if/when he had success here but he did screw ISU over. Gmac had a pretty good track record at a mid-major school and had the Iowa ties. Hindsight is 20/20 and these did not work out but at the time they did look pretty good
I didnt even bother reading all the posts as I am sure there are some bashing him. IN my opinion Pollard has been the best things that has happened to ISU and if we run him off it will be a travesty. I agree with the initial poster, the only team that we really cant be proud of is the mens basketball team. And at the time we all liked the hire of Coach MCd. And I still am pulling for the guy because hes caught a bunch of terrible breaks. maybe partially self inflicted..... do any of us really know.
Pollard came here trying to change the mentality of Cyclone fans..... BEcause we do have a mentality of "we will only play second fiddle to Iowa and other bigger named schools". he doesnt accept that... and if he has to ruffle some feathers to bring in more money I am game and have been. The day he leaves for a better oppurtunity those of you have bashed him will regret it.
Pollard came here trying to change the mentality of Cyclone fans..... BEcause we do have a mentality of "we will only play second fiddle to Iowa and other bigger named schools". he doesnt accept that... and if he has to ruffle some feathers to bring in more money I am game and have been. The day he leaves for a better oppurtunity those of you have bashed him will regret it.
