I'm not defending it. I'm just saying that is the track record. And the way his offense is intentionally built to lessen the need to be physically superior to your opponent.
Printable View
Here's the deal guys
We operate on such a thin margin in football where you have to win the games your supposed to like Memphis to get to a bowl. Mullen made a mint out of beating those teams then beating UK and OM and ARK as well. Then every 3 or 4 years we would have a team with older players and would beat not only those teams but maybe best an LSU or AU and AM. In other words we shouldn't have hired a coach that's going to lose games every year to the La Tech and Memphis of the world.
I get the idea of what Cohen wanted to do with moving us into more of the passing offense. There are and have been others we could have gotten that would have "fit" better here than what has been hired. But he failed on the Moorehead hire and now looks like he has on leach as well. We had been to 10 straight bowl games playing that physical (ok, not so much SloMo)down hill running spread so why did Cohen blow this thing up. We found a formula that fit our DNA and Cohen blows it up and now where are? Fitghting for one point wins at home and 2 point losses on the road to Memphis and la tech.
I would love to have much more balanced attack with some big play potential but the air raid is done with ML at the helm
I could go on and on but you get the idea
I see you trying to be positive but look at the philosophy a little closer.
So we win one we aint' supposed to and lose one we shouldn't. 500 ball. Oh, and we still lose the rest we are supposed to, well that means failure at the end of the season. I'm not feeling any better about forecast.
I'm just waiting on Leach's "some people around here think I inherited the 85 Bears" moment that's coming later on this season
It?s always going to be a roller coaster with Leach. For the most part when the season came out with Mullen you knew what games he would win and what he would lose. Generally this was around 85-90 percent accuracy. I feel like with Leach it?s a big wild card. Yes, Mullen lost to USA and bad Ole Miss teams when he was job shopping, but he didn?t really have many ? Mark losses. Leach already has 2 now in year 2. I feel like we will get at least 1 but most likely 2 every year. He needs to figure something out though or this team is 5-7 and not bowling
Mullen did the same thing. We always had an expectation for him to struggle every year in games where we shouldn't.
09: lost to Houston
10: struggled with UAB
11: went into OT vs LA Tech
12: Struggled with Troy, Lost to a 5-6 OM and Lost the bowl game with NW
13: beat Bowling Green by one point, nearly lost to a 1-5 Kentucky
14: Ended in disaster after throwing our playoff chances in the trash losing to an OM team that was 1-3 their last 4 games including a loss to Ark the weak before 30-0 and then losing to GT by multiple scores.
15: The only year we didn't struggle with lesser teams
16: lost to South Alabama, lost to BYU in double OT, had a slugfest with Samford, and nearly lost to Miami (OH)
17: Was losing to Umass at halftime, barely beat a sub .500 Ark and lost to a 5-6 OM again
This isn't anything new. We had the same thing with Croom losing to Tulane, Maine, UAB, Vandy, LA Tech. Sherrill had his share as well even during his good years (seemed he struggled with Memphis every year). It's easier to zoom in on Leach's shortcomings because it's present time and a lot of people already hated him before he got here, but I remember these same discussions going on when Mullen was here. People wanted him gone almost every year.
I'm not sure our fanbase appreciates how Washington and their public shaming of Leach's offense and their 3-8 solution to his offense is gamechanger for Leach. I have not seen him solve this defense consistently, and until he does - its a problem.