I agree with the earlier post that Diaco is bringing up the past not as an excuse but to show where we have come from because that is all to easy to forget. That being said, the baby and coffee table thing just throws me off a bit but I THINK/hope I know what he was trying to say, it just came out a little off. The one thing I have always wondered from this and previous press conferences, is whether or not Diaco has the command presence to back up all off this positive speak/energy he conveys in previous appearances. If he is going to field the "speak softly but carry a big stick platform" thats fine but I need to see the back side from time to time. Yesterday he showed me that he was willing to go to that level when he discussed that he will throw anyone off the team that quits, and that he will personally clean out their locker! THATS what I want to hear at this point, I'm all set with hearing about "the process.."
I agree. I wrote that about him bringing all that stuff. People around here, mostly choose to see it as a negative thing he was doing bringing it all up, I don't.
His use of imagery in his press statements to convey a point, (i.e. the baby and the coffee table most recently, among, many, many others over the course of time) is really eccentric for a football coach. It indicates either that he is pretty intelligent, educated and well read and/or experienced in a wide variety of subjects, or he's faking that level of intellect damn well. I go with the former. It's also been a concern of mine, if there is substance behind all of that, and I wrote about it after the BYU game - and lots of people got angry with me. I think he's proved over time, that there is plenty of substance behind all the talk and energy and salesmanship.
The simple fact is that our approach we have taken under his direction for the 2014 season, specifically for the offense, concerning the division of reps and a offensive concepts and play calling within games, has produced a level of offensive production that is completely inconsistent in performance on the field through 9 games, and is the major contributing factor to why we have lost pretty much every game so far, and is by FAR the major reason we lost to Army, and ended our chances for reaching some major short term seasonal goals. This is entirely self inflicted, and has nothing to do with our talent level, fundamental ability to perform football tasks. I would love to hear the argument, that refutes me, and makes me change my mind, that states that our offense will develop consistency with the division of reps and game planning we've been doing. I don't think one exists. I would hope that he's had meetings with his staff, in private, exactly like Chin described.
Diaco strikes me as an effective leader, and to the point that Chin and I were discussing, an effective commanding officer is never openly going public outside the inner circle, and especially never going DOWN the chain with admission of mistakes and failures in major tasks. Not happening. What an effective leader will do, is exactly what Chin said, and it will make his organization stronger. Football coaches aren't in the habit of getting up in front a bunch of reporters and admitting mistakes. Stupid to do that. He came about as close to admitting mistakes as a head coach can get in his last press conference. Too close if you ask me.
A football team is not a company of fighting men, or a ship's crew, but it's probably the closest thing you can have in civilian life to it. I talked about this elsewhere, where.....hmmm....oh yeah - the idiot comments that supposedly were made by a receiver about a QB....not sure where that was......but you need a chain of command authority in a football team, you need leadership at various levels of jobs and responsibility, and that includes players and coaches. We had none of that kind of leadership and responsibility and level of accountability to your behavior as an individual and for the team, in the past few years, and it's an essential part of building a winning team. Diaco is clearly working to re-establish that, but when you have so few upperclassmen and are working mostly with first, second, third year players - there is nothing you can do, but guide the process, let time pass, and help them mature into roles and let the communication chains develop and the players develop. It' a long term process we have to get through to get back to sustained winning. We should be a hell of a lot closer by this time next season. There is no reason to suspect that those long term plans are not working. It's the short term, 2014 season that's gone south - because of our offensive approach to the game for this season. That needs to get corrected. There is no reason to change things now. Stay the course, and make the corrections in the offseason.
The other way to get around this and build a winning team, is to go completely off the deep end into the dirty world of college football, and simply slush fund recruit like SMU of old, fake grades like UNC of new, and recruit athletes like UMiami of the 1980s. Then you just line them up let them kick the crap out of anybody and everybody, not much thought needed to any game planning, or anything regarding player development and education, win your titles and deal with problems later after the trophy's have been put in the cases.
I'd rather not do that, I prefer doing things the right way.
