vegattk wrote:
So were they going to quit? Were Hunter, Little & Turner going to leave if Laney stuck around? Did Cobb sit down, hold their hands and tell them all was going to be okay?
Didn't we switch offenses in 2004? Was Cobb around then? Seems to me that it was the playcalling on the offensive side of the ball that got us farther in the playoffs... not the man sitting in the AD office.
How's basketball now? Seems to me we were stagnate at BB and then made some really dumb coaching moves afterwards..
We were able to keep the baseball coach that got us playing well again? Seems to me he jumped ship to another team recently...
You see... it's the coaches and players, not the bureaucrats that bring in the wins...
It's like saying my dean is responsible for my students passing my classes...
Hunter, Little and Turner were all either ineligible or suspended indefinitely for violation of team rules before Cobb got there. Maybe you don't remember, but we were at a point then that if a player had either of those happen to him - he was usually never heard from again as far as playing football. It was a running joke on the MMB whenever Moore would mention that someone might be back. Suddenly - Little and Turner were given "one last chance" and Hunter stayed in school and got eligible.
Don't be obtuse - you think our baseball team is as good as it was last year with that debacle of a field we had on the hill behind KBS? We didn't even have permanent stands! Yes - he didn't hire Pollard - but he got a superb cold weather stadium built, with an indoor batting range (which we didn't have), and the ability to play home games before the 20th game of the season. Facilities matter.
You do bring up a great point - he did keep Pollard around. Before that, any non-scholarship coach (with the exception of Weaver) who was worth his salt was gone after a season or 2...we went thru 3 soccer coaches in 3 years while I was there. Cobb supported those programs with facilities, increased scholarship funding, etc.
He gave our football team a third bus to travel in - and that matters. The only time Laney did that was when a drunk plowed headlong into a support staff van and incinerated it. It was back to 2 after that year. Cobb had them staying in better hotels, eating better food, etc. He even allowed them to travel to places like Greenville the day before the game, as opposed to the day of like a high school team. Those things matter to coaches and players...we don't realize it...but things like that on the road can make the difference between winning and losing.
You're right - the players play and the coaches coach...but like with any experiment, you have the control, and the variable. What was different in "05? It wasn't the coaching staff, it largely wasn't the players. Also - before then - were our coaches given money to travel to places like Utah and WVU to learn from Urban Meyer and RichRod? They weren't. Where do you think we learned the spread option? If you think we ran the same offense in '05 as we did in '04, you're wrong. We ran the Air Raid in '04 and had no running game. We ran the WVU Spread in '05 with Richie getting 900yds rushing and KR over 1400.
Another example - our video coordinator got fully digital, modern, facilities and is now a full-time employee. Before Cobb, he worked part-time, made about 18k a year to put in around 80 hours a week during football season, and had to work another job on campus to feed his family.
I'll even submit that we had more talented teams than '05 in both '00 and '95 and we didn't get as far. What changed? What got us over the hump - what enabled us to win a semifinal and National Title game almost completely without our starting QB?
Leaders create environments - there was an expectation of winning - there was support for that expectation too. You think it all just happens on the field - but there is so much more that goes into it. We don't do what we did without Cobb - hell, the interim AD even gave Moore a schedule so tough, it was designed to run him off! Cobb took that off his shoulders with a contract extension 7 games into the season. Is all of that luck?
