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Post by catamountfanatic07 on Sept 30, 2018 20:40:40 GMT -5
I think that is the part that ticks me off is we hear the same thing every year of we got who we wanted and they will help us compete for a championship not they will help us make the playoffs. I feel it is alot of smoke blowing. I think going into the season Mark knew the defense was not going to be ready to play much less make the playoffs. He was talking like the playoffs were a lock and we would be completing for a Socon championship You might be right. We might not win another game but right now we are 3-1 with a chance to go to 4-1 this weekend. Mark has recruited well and I don't particularly like all of the smoke blowing either, but if you think about it, what is he going to say. Mark is not going to say, our offense will be great but our defense will be young and not good. If you read between the lines of what Mark says in his videos each week, you can tell that he is concerned about the defense. This is only Wiley's 2nd year and the 2nd year we have been running the 3-4 defensive scheme. Also, we have had 3 DCs over the past 4 years, and we have a bunch of young players. This was Wiley's first recruiting class this year. There is nothing wrong with the coaches or this team that time will not fix. Very true. Wiley needs the benefit of the doubt for a few seasons to get his system in and get a defense recruited like we have on offense the last few years. Remember when the QB position was one great player and a couple ho hum backups? Now we have a high powered offense that has backups and backups to those backups. I have faith that Wiley will get it done once he gets a couple/few recruiting classes in here. I relate it to the comments people are making about Mark Prosser and basketball....he needs 3-5 years to really get a system in place and recruit the players to make that system successful. Wiley and the defense are no different imo
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Post by wcu72 on Sept 30, 2018 20:48:41 GMT -5
You might be right. We might not win another game but right now we are 3-1 with a chance to go to 4-1 this weekend. Mark has recruited well and I don't particularly like all of the smoke blowing either, but if you think about it, what is he going to say. Mark is not going to say, our offense will be great but our defense will be young and not good. If you read between the lines of what Mark says in his videos each week, you can tell that he is concerned about the defense. This is only Wiley's 2nd year and the 2nd year we have been running the 3-4 defensive scheme. Also, we have had 3 DCs over the past 4 years, and we have a bunch of young players. This was Wiley's first recruiting class this year. There is nothing wrong with the coaches or this team that time will not fix. Very true. Wiley needs the benefit of the doubt for a few seasons to get his system in and get a defense recruited like we have on offense the last few years. Remember when the QB position was one great player and a couple ho hum backups? Now we have a high powered offense that has backups and backups to those backups. I have faith that Wiley will get it done once he gets a couple/few recruiting classes in here. I relate it to the comments people are making about Mark Prosser and basketball....he needs 3-5 years to really get a system in place and recruit the players to make that system successful. Wiley and the defense are no different imo Speir has had 7 years to get his recruits in. Surely you can't be telling everyone they NOW need 3-5 additional years to implement a new system and get in new recruits?
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Post by catamountfanatic07 on Sept 30, 2018 21:14:31 GMT -5
Do you think Speir is the one who is going out to everyones high school ball games or house? If so there should be no need for recruiting coordinator or travel by any other coach. Wiley is in year 2. Wiley needs time to get “his” recruits. If Wiley was in year 3 or 4 and we were having these kinds of problems I’d be pissed but I’m reluctant to call for his head when he has one recruiting class under his belt. In case you missed the memo for the last 50 years this isn’t a power 5 school with 25 4 and 5 star athletes dying to sign with our program who would be superstars as freshmen. We are in Cullowhee and you either love the place and want to be there or you don’t. Match that with the administration that gives 0 sh*ts about athletics and it creates the need to be patient. I’m all ears to anyone who thinks they know a better coach to go and get. Get them to come, fore Wiley, and you end up with the same issues and same grumbling from the fair weather fans.
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Post by catamountalum04 on Sept 30, 2018 22:16:38 GMT -5
I think fans, me included, are just pissed and mad because we crave so much a championship team we can brag about. We all love Western and want to be able to show off and talk about our great sports teams. So this leads us to be uber hard on any loss because we want wins so bad
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Post by catamountfanatic07 on Sept 30, 2018 22:24:54 GMT -5
I think fans, me included, are just pissed and mad because we crave so much a championship team we can brag about. We all love Western and want to be able to show off and talk about our great sports teams. So this leads us to be uber hard on any loss because we want wins so bad Yes I agree, And I hate nothing more than for us to play bad and ultimately lose. I’ve just been around for the Speir years and it’s always doom and gloom l, almost always, even when we win. I always feel like if we won 99-0 some of the folks would be mad we didn’t score 100 on them.
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Post by tenNesseeCat on Oct 1, 2018 8:15:42 GMT -5
Very true. Wiley needs the benefit of the doubt for a few seasons to get his system in and get a defense recruited like we have on offense the last few years. Remember when the QB position was one great player and a couple ho hum backups? Now we have a high powered offense that has backups and backups to those backups. I have faith that Wiley will get it done once he gets a couple/few recruiting classes in here. I relate it to the comments people are making about Mark Prosser and basketball....he needs 3-5 years to really get a system in place and recruit the players to make that system successful. Wiley and the defense are no different imo Speir has had 7 years to get his recruits in. Surely you can't be telling everyone they NOW need 3-5 additional years to implement a new system and get in new recruits? Should Wiley not be afforded the time it takes to turn a bad defense around? Are you saying we should axe him and start over? Axe Speir and start over? Who's gonna sign the checks to buy these guys out? Who's gonna sign the checks to hire someone new? Are we gonna play 3 money games a year to pay for it?
We improved last year from the year before. This year we are really young and have lost some players on top of that. (helms, palao, edwards, roach) Even White has missed some games and been limited. I think time will help this unit, and they could be really good in the future. As stated before, look at all the fr and r-fr on the two deep for the D. A lot of those guys are showing some good things, they are just really young. From my view, we have lots of talent and depth on offense. The defense needs some work, and that's what Wiley is here for. I didn't see one bad comment when we hired him. Everyone I saw thought he had the resume for the job. He DOES need time, and given that, I have no doubt he will bring in talent and depth. He just can't do it in less than 2 years. We have scolly and $ limitations.
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Post by wcugrad95 on Oct 1, 2018 8:56:13 GMT -5
The other thing is we don't have to be really good on defense - being mediocre or "middle-of-the-pack" would be good enough to win most games. We were #7 in scoring defense and #8 in yards allowed for the 2017 season and won 7 games and missed the playoffs because we couldn't close the deal on Mercer. Special teams play hurt us in that Mercer game, and clearly hurt us this past Saturday. So just get incrementally better on D and not have big special teams miscues (kick the ball in the endzone if we can, block on the punt team, etc.) and our offense will keep us in just about every game.
The defense was not great last year, and we lost 8 starters. Did anybody think we were going to immediately be better on that side of the ball? I do think the defense will get better each game as they gain experience. The question is, will that happen too late?
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Post by hampton on Oct 1, 2018 13:19:39 GMT -5
I went back and did some calculations for the past 10 years including this year. I compared points we scored on average per game and points scored against us as well. I tried to put it on a spread sheet but being technology challenged it didn't work out right so I will put it in a summary. In the three years before Spier took over in 2009 we averaged 14.1 pts per game and gave up 25.9pts. with a 2-9 record. In 2010 we averaged 16.5 pts. and gave up 34.5 pts. with a 2-9 record and a loss to Tusculum. In 2011 we averaged 22pts. and gave up 45.6pts with a 1-11 record. The only win that year was Mars Hill. Coach Spier's first 2 years wasn't much better which was a result of an empty wagon I believe. We averaged 21.5pts and gave up 39.9pts with an overall record of 3-20. Since then we have averaged 27.8pts and given up 29.3pts and a record of 23-23. That includes 2016 record of 2-9. This year we are averaging 37.8pts and giving up 32.5pts. I do believe he built the offense first given the resources he had by looking at these statistics. I do believe we will not be rebuilding the offense in the future as much as we will be reloading. I think the defense is being built now using this same model. I say that because look at last years recruiting class on defense and how many are on the 2 deep chart? Sorry this was so long.
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Post by tenNesseeCat on Oct 1, 2018 13:36:22 GMT -5
I went back and did some calculations for the past 10 years including this year. I compared points we scored on average per game and points scored against us as well. I tried to put it on a spread sheet but being technology challenged it didn't work out right so I will put it in a summary. In the three years before Spier took over in 2009 we averaged 14.1 pts per game and gave up 25.9pts. with a 2-9 record. In 2010 we averaged 16.5 pts. and gave up 34.5 pts. with a 2-9 record and a loss to Tusculum. In 2011 we averaged 22pts. and gave up 45.6pts with a 1-11 record. The only win that year was Mars Hill. Coach Spier's first 2 years wasn't much better which was a result of an empty wagon I believe. We averaged 21.5pts and gave up 39.9pts with an overall record of 3-20. Since then we have averaged 27.8pts and given up 29.3pts and a record of 23-23. That includes 2016 record of 2-9. This year we are averaging 37.8pts and giving up 32.5pts. I do believe he built the offense first given the resources he had by looking at these statistics. I do believe we will not be rebuilding the offense in the future as much as we will be reloading. I think the defense is being built now using this same model. I say that because look at last years recruiting class on defense and how many are on the 2 deep chart? Sorry this was so long. good post!
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