What are the "ugly truths" about the football program?

[AtlAppMan]

We all have to understand that due to where App stands in the overall pecking order we really don’t want a coach that sees us as their ultimate job (destination). Once you get your dream there is not much incentive to challenge yourself anymore. Just think about that for a moment.

[ASUTodd]

Drink elevated our program. He is a good coach. If this guy is good he will leave soon too. The days of keeping a coach if you are good are over. We have to accept that. It’s gonna have to be next man up. ADs are gonna earn their paychecks. If you make it to year 5 of a coaches contract something is wrong.

I hope our guy is successful. Marsha just hired Gibson.

And So Miss hired Huff.... Didn't see that coming.

[Pikapp79]

I didn't read the whole thread, but I took the "ugly truths" more so about G5 college football as a whole than our program. I think the cold hard truths are the G5s are essentially the minor leagues now and how to attack it. Doug Middleton had a good tweet.



Apologies is this has already been discussed...

All college fb and bb programs are now minor league. Better hope they don’t kill the golden goose and attendance follow the same path as minor leagues.

[Seattleapp]

Loggains only knows NFL & SEC football as a staff member or player. I would expect the expectations & "care" factor to be increased by this staff. Even if he retains some, I believe we'll see a lot of the things fans want; spring game, more media availability, uptick in recruiting.

The only difference between Drinkwitz & Loggains is the fact that Drinkwitz seemed hungrier initially. He came in with a plan and kicked this place into high gear immediately. With Drinkwitz you could tell he was not planning on staying here for long.

Loggains has been hired only for about 48 hours so still early to tell how fast he wants to get started but with the portal situation we're not exactly in the same scenario as when Drink was hired. You may see Loggains retain some staff simply because he needs positions filled to help with recruiting starting tomorrow.

Recruiting & Development carry your program. You can be a an average recruiter if you are a phenomenal developer. You can still win. You can do the same vice versa & win. You just can't be average at both. The great teams are phenomenal at both.

Drinkwitz set Clark up for failure really. Drink handed the keys to a Ferrari to Clark but in reality that Ferrari was out of gas & needed an oil change. Drinkwitz got the keys during a time where the roster was loaded. His strength program was about maintaining & not developing. He wanted to go to the NY6 that year & it worked aside from "Love Week" which cost us.

Clark was given a roster still competitive but lacked a year of development really. Then he tried to fix it & he just did not do a good enough job. He tried to fix it again & ran out of time. I believe Matt Greenhalgh was the best hire he made here. Given more time I think he could have fixed the development piece quicker & potentially still have a job.

This is probably what he argued as well, but ultimately that doesn't factor in the on-field performance or decisions, which cannot be ignored. He didn't have a huge network. His staff hires seemed lazy. So he put all his eggs in just recruiting bigger & more highly touted recruits & not enough in developing them or making the required staff adjustments to fix issues before they were exposed. We were complacent & simply not hungry enough. He was, I believe, but not everyone around him. At the end of the day while Clark could have been a great face & leader of this program, he didn't live up to the standard.

Seems like a very reasonable take.

It’s actually pretty ridiculous. Clark had a loaded roster in 2020. Didn’t win anything with it. Was lucky enough to have those guys granted Covid years, most came back. Didn’t win anything again. In 2022 he had two years of guys in his program, and the transfer portal available. The team was considerably worse.

We haven’t had a HS QB recruited and developed since Zac Thomas. That is one persons huge error to own - Shawn Clark. And is emblematic of his recruiting and development as a whole.

Come on. You are being a bit extreme. Clark I didn’t excel to the level we wanted but he wasn’t some dumpster fire either

Meh. Our 2 bowl misses in 3 years could be considered a small dumpster fire.

Hard to say beating a$m and college gameday as a dumpster fire. Come on? You can not like Clark but still appreciate that

[Yosef10]

Loggains only knows NFL & SEC football as a staff member or player. I would expect the expectations & "care" factor to be increased by this staff. Even if he retains some, I believe we'll see a lot of the things fans want; spring game, more media availability, uptick in recruiting.

The only difference between Drinkwitz & Loggains is the fact that Drinkwitz seemed hungrier initially. He came in with a plan and kicked this place into high gear immediately. With Drinkwitz you could tell he was not planning on staying here for long.

Loggains has been hired only for about 48 hours so still early to tell how fast he wants to get started but with the portal situation we're not exactly in the same scenario as when Drink was hired. You may see Loggains retain some staff simply because he needs positions filled to help with recruiting starting tomorrow.

Recruiting & Development carry your program. You can be a an average recruiter if you are a phenomenal developer. You can still win. You can do the same vice versa & win. You just can't be average at both. The great teams are phenomenal at both.

Drinkwitz set Clark up for failure really. Drink handed the keys to a Ferrari to Clark but in reality that Ferrari was out of gas & needed an oil change. Drinkwitz got the keys during a time where the roster was loaded. His strength program was about maintaining & not developing. He wanted to go to the NY6 that year & it worked aside from "Love Week" which cost us.

Clark was given a roster still competitive but lacked a year of development really. Then he tried to fix it & he just did not do a good enough job. He tried to fix it again & ran out of time. I believe Matt Greenhalgh was the best hire he made here. Given more time I think he could have fixed the development piece quicker & potentially still have a job.

This is probably what he argued as well, but ultimately that doesn't factor in the on-field performance or decisions, which cannot be ignored. He didn't have a huge network. His staff hires seemed lazy. So he put all his eggs in just recruiting bigger & more highly touted recruits & not enough in developing them or making the required staff adjustments to fix issues before they were exposed. We were complacent & simply not hungry enough. He was, I believe, but not everyone around him. At the end of the day while Clark could have been a great face & leader of this program, he didn't live up to the standard.

Seems like a very reasonable take.

It’s actually pretty ridiculous. Clark had a loaded roster in 2020. Didn’t win anything with it. Was lucky enough to have those guys granted Covid years, most came back. Didn’t win anything again. In 2022 he had two years of guys in his program, and the transfer portal available. The team was considerably worse.

We haven’t had a HS QB recruited and developed since Zac Thomas. That is one persons huge error to own - Shawn Clark. And is emblematic of his recruiting and development as a whole.

Come on. You are being a bit extreme. Clark I didn’t excel to the level we wanted but he wasn’t some dumpster fire either

What did I say that was extreme? I never called him a dumpster fire.

[Seattleapp]

Loggains only knows NFL & SEC football as a staff member or player. I would expect the expectations & "care" factor to be increased by this staff. Even if he retains some, I believe we'll see a lot of the things fans want; spring game, more media availability, uptick in recruiting.

The only difference between Drinkwitz & Loggains is the fact that Drinkwitz seemed hungrier initially. He came in with a plan and kicked this place into high gear immediately. With Drinkwitz you could tell he was not planning on staying here for long.

Loggains has been hired only for about 48 hours so still early to tell how fast he wants to get started but with the portal situation we're not exactly in the same scenario as when Drink was hired. You may see Loggains retain some staff simply because he needs positions filled to help with recruiting starting tomorrow.

Recruiting & Development carry your program. You can be a an average recruiter if you are a phenomenal developer. You can still win. You can do the same vice versa & win. You just can't be average at both. The great teams are phenomenal at both.

Drinkwitz set Clark up for failure really. Drink handed the keys to a Ferrari to Clark but in reality that Ferrari was out of gas & needed an oil change. Drinkwitz got the keys during a time where the roster was loaded. His strength program was about maintaining & not developing. He wanted to go to the NY6 that year & it worked aside from "Love Week" which cost us.

Clark was given a roster still competitive but lacked a year of development really. Then he tried to fix it & he just did not do a good enough job. He tried to fix it again & ran out of time. I believe Matt Greenhalgh was the best hire he made here. Given more time I think he could have fixed the development piece quicker & potentially still have a job.

This is probably what he argued as well, but ultimately that doesn't factor in the on-field performance or decisions, which cannot be ignored. He didn't have a huge network. His staff hires seemed lazy. So he put all his eggs in just recruiting bigger & more highly touted recruits & not enough in developing them or making the required staff adjustments to fix issues before they were exposed. We were complacent & simply not hungry enough. He was, I believe, but not everyone around him. At the end of the day while Clark could have been a great face & leader of this program, he didn't live up to the standard.

Seems like a very reasonable take.

It’s actually pretty ridiculous. Clark had a loaded roster in 2020. Didn’t win anything with it. Was lucky enough to have those guys granted Covid years, most came back. Didn’t win anything again. In 2022 he had two years of guys in his program, and the transfer portal available. The team was considerably worse.

We haven’t had a HS QB recruited and developed since Zac Thomas. That is one persons huge error to own - Shawn Clark. And is emblematic of his recruiting and development as a whole.

Come on. You are being a bit extreme. Clark I didn’t excel to the level we wanted but he wasn’t some dumpster fire either

What did I say that was extreme? I never called him a dumpster fire.

Didn’t Win anything is untrue

[BambooRdApp]

Someone posted on the Today I Give My All Facebook page that our football program is lacking a good nutrition program. Specifically that our program is not equivalent to a D III program. That players are scraping to find food and/or eating unhealthy.
If true, it would appear that could have a direct impact on performance on the field... stronger, faster, longer stints on field, etc.
I believe it was the parent of a recent former player.
Just curious if this is an accurate perception.

[Yosef10]

Seems like a very reasonable take.

It’s actually pretty ridiculous. Clark had a loaded roster in 2020. Didn’t win anything with it. Was lucky enough to have those guys granted Covid years, most came back. Didn’t win anything again. In 2022 he had two years of guys in his program, and the transfer portal available. The team was considerably worse.

We haven’t had a HS QB recruited and developed since Zac Thomas. That is one persons huge error to own - Shawn Clark. And is emblematic of his recruiting and development as a whole.

Come on. You are being a bit extreme. Clark I didn’t excel to the level we wanted but he wasn’t some dumpster fire either

What did I say that was extreme? I never called him a dumpster fire.

Didn’t Win anything is untrue

His stated goal was always winning the conference. Did he do so? Stating what’s fact isn’t extreme.

[Bigdaddyg1]

If a reasonable person with real knowledge and experience were to go back this season and truly assess our roster, taking into account the key players lost and factoring in the true depth chart did we honestly have a 5-6 team, a worse record type team (assumes the staff coached the team to unexpected wins) or say, an 8-3 type team (assumes we had the players to have won 3 games we lost).

I’d be interested to see how many junior (or even redshirt sophomore) year starting quarterbacks there were this season at schools who recruited them. I’m betting that number is small. What this would mean is that a school recruited a kid out of high and he worked hard the old way and waited 2-3 years to start..and won the job.

It does sting to see what appeared to be an awful ECU team get NC State in a bowl game.

[yosef69]

Someone posted on the Today I Give My All Facebook page that our football program is lacking a good nutrition program. Specifically that our program is not equivalent to a D III program. That players are scraping to find food and/or eating unhealthy.
If true, it would appear that could have a direct impact on performance on the field... stronger, faster, longer stints on field, etc.
I believe it was the parent of a recent former player.
Just curious if this is an accurate perception.

Absolutely, unequivocally false statement.

[teller]

The ugly truth is that after Drink used us as a spring board for a bigger, higher paying gig, is that we went with the safe option instead of what was best for App State to remain competitive with a qualified HC. And not only that, we kept the "safer" option for longer than we should have and now look where we are as a program. Now here we are with a questionable new HC with no proven QB. Complete lack of any succession planning whatsoever. The powers that be have failed App Nation.

[BallantyneApp]

Someone posted on the Today I Give My All Facebook page that our football program is lacking a good nutrition program. Specifically that our program is not equivalent to a D III program. That players are scraping to find food and/or eating unhealthy.
If true, it would appear that could have a direct impact on performance on the field... stronger, faster, longer stints on field, etc.
I believe it was the parent of a recent former player.
Just curious if this is an accurate perception.

Absolutely, unequivocally false statement.

I was going to say they did a long segment a few years ago on “App Fuel” and they’ve had a full time nutritionist for a while

[JTApps1]

Loggains only knows NFL & SEC football as a staff member or player. I would expect the expectations & "care" factor to be increased by this staff. Even if he retains some, I believe we'll see a lot of the things fans want; spring game, more media availability, uptick in recruiting.

The only difference between Drinkwitz & Loggains is the fact that Drinkwitz seemed hungrier initially. He came in with a plan and kicked this place into high gear immediately. With Drinkwitz you could tell he was not planning on staying here for long.

Loggains has been hired only for about 48 hours so still early to tell how fast he wants to get started but with the portal situation we're not exactly in the same scenario as when Drink was hired. You may see Loggains retain some staff simply because he needs positions filled to help with recruiting starting tomorrow.

Recruiting & Development carry your program. You can be a an average recruiter if you are a phenomenal developer. You can still win. You can do the same vice versa & win. You just can't be average at both. The great teams are phenomenal at both.

Drinkwitz set Clark up for failure really. Drink handed the keys to a Ferrari to Clark but in reality that Ferrari was out of gas & needed an oil change. Drinkwitz got the keys during a time where the roster was loaded. His strength program was about maintaining & not developing. He wanted to go to the NY6 that year & it worked aside from "Love Week" which cost us.

Clark was given a roster still competitive but lacked a year of development really. Then he tried to fix it & he just did not do a good enough job. He tried to fix it again & ran out of time. I believe Matt Greenhalgh was the best hire he made here. Given more time I think he could have fixed the development piece quicker & potentially still have a job.

This is probably what he argued as well, but ultimately that doesn't factor in the on-field performance or decisions, which cannot be ignored. He didn't have a huge network. His staff hires seemed lazy. So he put all his eggs in just recruiting bigger & more highly touted recruits & not enough in developing them or making the required staff adjustments to fix issues before they were exposed. We were complacent & simply not hungry enough. He was, I believe, but not everyone around him. At the end of the day while Clark could have been a great face & leader of this program, he didn't live up to the standard.

Seems like a very reasonable take.

It’s actually pretty ridiculous. Clark had a loaded roster in 2020. Didn’t win anything with it. Was lucky enough to have those guys granted Covid years, most came back. Didn’t win anything again. In 2022 he had two years of guys in his program, and the transfer portal available. The team was considerably worse.

We haven’t had a HS QB recruited and developed since Zac Thomas. That is one persons huge error to own - Shawn Clark. And is emblematic of his recruiting and development as a whole.

You can't pin the QB thing on just Clark. That started under Satterfield and continued with Drink and Clark. Ponce was the OC for five of those eight classes under two different coaches. I'd start there.

[BUTCH1991]

Someone posted on the Today I Give My All Facebook page that our football program is lacking a good nutrition program. Specifically that our program is not equivalent to a D III program. That players are scraping to find food and/or eating unhealthy.
If true, it would appear that could have a direct impact on performance on the field... stronger, faster, longer stints on field, etc.
I believe it was the parent of a recent former player.
Just curious if this is an accurate perception.

Absolutely, unequivocally false statement.

I was going to say they did a long segment a few years ago on “App Fuel” and they’ve had a full time nutritionist for a while

Current offensive lineman Thornton Gentry's Dad.

[BambooRdApp]

Someone posted on the Today I Give My All Facebook page that our football program is lacking a good nutrition program. Specifically that our program is not equivalent to a D III program. That players are scraping to find food and/or eating unhealthy.
If true, it would appear that could have a direct impact on performance on the field... stronger, faster, longer stints on field, etc.
I believe it was the parent of a recent former player.
Just curious if this is an accurate perception.

Absolutely, unequivocally false statement.

I was going to say they did a long segment a few years ago on “App Fuel” and they’ve had a full time nutritionist for a while

Current offensive lineman Thornton Gentry's Dad.

Understand we may have a nutritionist. I took the post on Facebook that the actual volume of food needed for a proper nutrition to be a D1 caliber player is not there throughout the year and not adequate when it is there. I have no idea as I do not follow nutrition of players. Although we may have nutritionist...if not getting enough of the correct foods...seems it could be a problem.

[BUTCH1991]

Someone posted on the Today I Give My All Facebook page that our football program is lacking a good nutrition program. Specifically that our program is not equivalent to a D III program. That players are scraping to find food and/or eating unhealthy.
If true, it would appear that could have a direct impact on performance on the field... stronger, faster, longer stints on field, etc.
I believe it was the parent of a recent former player.
Just curious if this is an accurate perception.

Absolutely, unequivocally false statement.

I was going to say they did a long segment a few years ago on “App Fuel” and they’ve had a full time nutritionist for a while

Current offensive lineman Thornton Gentry's Dad.

Understand we may have a nutritionist. I took the post on Facebook that the actual volume of food needed for a proper nutrition to be a D1 caliber player is not there throughout the year and not adequate when it is there. I have no idea as I do not follow nutrition of players. Although we may have nutritionist...if not getting enough of the correct foods...seems it could be a problem.

True, got to keep them fed properly to maintain weight & strength.

[311neers]

Absolutely, unequivocally false statement.

I was going to say they did a long segment a few years ago on “App Fuel” and they’ve had a full time nutritionist for a while

Current offensive lineman Thornton Gentry's Dad.

Understand we may have a nutritionist. I took the post on Facebook that the actual volume of food needed for a proper nutrition to be a D1 caliber player is not there throughout the year and not adequate when it is there. I have no idea as I do not follow nutrition of players. Although we may have nutritionist...if not getting enough of the correct foods...seems it could be a problem.

True, got to keep them fed properly to maintain weight & strength.

Are you saying that Thornton's dad posted on facebook or that he is the nutritionist? I thought he was the Chapin High Coach.

[BambooRdApp]

I was going to say they did a long segment a few years ago on “App Fuel” and they’ve had a full time nutritionist for a while

Current offensive lineman Thornton Gentry's Dad.

Understand we may have a nutritionist. I took the post on Facebook that the actual volume of food needed for a proper nutrition to be a D1 caliber player is not there throughout the year and not adequate when it is there. I have no idea as I do not follow nutrition of players. Although we may have nutritionist...if not getting enough of the correct foods...seems it could be a problem.

True, got to keep them fed properly to maintain weight & strength.

Are you saying that Thornton's dad posted on facebook or that he is the nutritionist? I thought he was the Chapin High Coach.

I believe posted on FB. He is not nutritionist.
I am unable to post the thread here. It is a thread on the Today I Give My All FB group page.
I think the post is an attempt to be well meaning that we need to give more to athletics for better nutrition....but the reference that we are not even at DIII standards does not sound good..
Overall, I was just curious if this is what others think that are "more in the know" than me...

[BallantyneApp]

Current offensive lineman Thornton Gentry's Dad.

Understand we may have a nutritionist. I took the post on Facebook that the actual volume of food needed for a proper nutrition to be a D1 caliber player is not there throughout the year and not adequate when it is there. I have no idea as I do not follow nutrition of players. Although we may have nutritionist...if not getting enough of the correct foods...seems it could be a problem.

True, got to keep them fed properly to maintain weight & strength.

Are you saying that Thornton's dad posted on facebook or that he is the nutritionist? I thought he was the Chapin High Coach.

I believe posted on FB. He is not nutritionist.
I am unable to post the thread here. It is a thread on the Today I Give My All FB group page.
I think the post is an attempt to be well meaning that we need to give more to athletics for better nutrition....but the reference that we are not even at DIII standards does not sound good..
Overall, I was just curious if this is what others think that are "more in the know" than me...

we might not be on NC States level but I frankly find this very hard to believe. We had a former Oline coach as head coach and plenty of coaches that have been a part of lots of Power level programs. Whats an additional million calories or so? $100k on a ~$14MM budget? less than 1% costs.

Kids may be eating unhealthy, but I doubt its because they don't have access to healthy nutrient dense and heavy caloric foods.

[fjblair]

Someone posted on the Today I Give My All Facebook page that our football program is lacking a good nutrition program. Specifically that our program is not equivalent to a D III program. That players are scraping to find food and/or eating unhealthy.
If true, it would appear that could have a direct impact on performance on the field... stronger, faster, longer stints on field, etc.
I believe it was the parent of a recent former player.
Just curious if this is an accurate perception.

Complete nonsense.