Quite frankly, since the season ended I have been able to talk with candor with a few people. One thing that has always puzzled me about Brimah - Has his ineffectiveness and lack of development been due to poor work habits? Or has it been due to focus on the wrong things, poor Big coaching and an inability to process things he's taugh?
Unanimously, it appears to be the later and not the former. Everyone said Brimah did work hard. The reason his body did not develop (even a little) was due to Travis's stubbornness and academic theories about flexibility and conditioning - all of which minimized the importance of tradition strength training. Only after widespread criticism Brimah's Jr year, a new AD's more results orientated culture, and pressure from his chain of command did Travis final begrudgingly make some changes, that were coupled with better nutrition.
Meanwhile Coach Miller spent Brimah's individual workouts going over elaborate footwork and spin moves, which were based on a number of flawed premises:
1). Not enough time was spent on how to look for the pass, get your hands in position to catch the ball and finally see the ball into your hands. There was a denial that these basic fundamental things needed to be taugh.
2). There was whistling through the graveyard regarding how Brimah would end up in the perfect and precise offensive Ivy League type positions that Coach Miller would start his elaborate footwork drills. That was basically assumed. True, he was told by KO he had to hit and fight for post position - but he was never effectively taugh techniques to do so in individual workouts by an assistant coach.
3) The results were an assist to turnover ratio of 0.16, large blocks of time on the bench due to early fouls (105 fouls for season), many of which came from Brimah using his hands to fight for position. In the rare instances in which Brimah was able to get position and catch the ball in the post - often that was followed by a travel violation. He did develop an inside out pass his Senior year or at least made the attempt. However, for various mechanical reasons to technical to get into here, his passes were often high, inaccurate and rushed.
4). While the relatively complex moves Brimah was taught sometimes would work against relatively passive resistance in individual workouts - the opportunity would not happen often in games for reasons cited above and when they did they were too complex for him to pull off under pressure. While Coach Miller preached a fluid move that was basically one long phase, Chief believes Brimah should have broken the play down into stages: position, expecting and seeing the ball, visualizing it into his hands, firmly possessing the ball and finally starting his move based on the defense.
I could go on for many paragraphs for the less casual fans but I think this gives the flavor to most readers of what went wrong.
