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

[T-Dog]

One thing Stonewall shared today after the Loggains news broke was that he "told us the ugly truth."

That made me think, what are the "ugly truths" about App State football that caused the team to miss bowl eligibility 2 of the last 3 years and slip from a Top 20 team over the last five years?

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To me, as someone who watched every presser and every Mountaineer Talk, it seemed that Clark didn't put himself out there as much as he should. Most other coaches have two press conferences a week. Clark just had one and staff was ready to end it after 10-12 minutes. Have a presser on Wednesday.

I think that would help build more fan trust since he could give more injury updates. One of the biggest transgressions was saying "We came out of Clemson healthy" and then 5-6 starters were out at ECU due to injury.

I also remember how much whining he later did about doing all sorts of media after the Texas A&M game. He whined in that "I had to do XX interviews this week, but it wasn't a distraction" double speak.

Clark occasionally did off-mountain radio and such, but it seemed inconsistent. I know an App alum who was scheduled to have Clark in August, but then the Santana Hopper helmet incident leaked that day and the interview was canceled. No one called them to reschedule.

I want Loggains doing every radio hit possible this week. I know he'll be portal crootin hard, but this is immense. Have him do the rounds before the Yosef Club tour this spring promoting the vents. Same after the schedule release. Before and after spring practice. Get him out there.

Another media suggestion is to have Media Day on a Saturday, not a weekday. Reach out to Charlotte, Asheville, Triad and Tri-Cities media and invite them up. Invite some national reporters to spend a day and write a "Day in the life of the App State Head Coach" bits. And make sure to not have Media Day while the leafblower is running in the background again.

Make sure to coach him to never say "all of our goals are ahead of us" and "the standards is the standard."

Take advantage of that New Coach Smell.

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There are others, such as revamping the prospect camps as I've heard negative reviews from parents whose kids went in the last 3 years.


What say you?

[AppDawg]

Here is an ugly truth:

Our roster is so depleted, we are entering year 1 of a 3 year rebuild. Need a redo of 2012-2014 seasons to get back right in a sustainable fashion. Anything other than this we are playing portal roulette year-to-year. Cannot sustain success bringing in 15+ transfers per season.

[311neers]

Host a Spring game in the actual spring. Not 30 degree Feb/March
Anyone have contract details?

[Bigdaddyg1]

Serious question- how exactly do you “rebuild” and what exactly does that entail? These days you can lose 15 players a year and you have to go get 15. At our level you can’t expect a bunch of players to bide their time, work hard in practice and then start for 2 years. I can’t see how a 2-3 year rebuild is either logical or feasible. Reload every year and hope for the best.

[AppStateMtneer]

Ugly truth was our recruiting sucked…

[huskie3]

Host a Spring game in the actual spring. Not 30 degree Feb/March
Anyone have contract details?

I am more in favor of a controlled scrimmage rather than full blown spring game.

[BeauFoster]

Another ugly truth is we played extremely undisciplined football. We were highly penalized and a lot of those penalties came at the worst times. We developed a bad habit of turning the ball over a lot. We seemed to be unprepared very often, leading to poor starts and constant bad angles (which made us look slow).

I made a series of posts a month or so back detailing a lot of core statistics and how we were trending negative in most of them. For a staff that preached the value of analytics, they sure didn’t seem to be able to analyze the data and take actionable steps to turn those trends around.

If you want ugly truths, just look at the data-it was all there.

[falcoapp]

An ugly truth is our guys didn't want it as bad. They thought by just wearing the Black and Gold it was an automatic win.

What they don't understand is those that came before them worked their tails to put the program where it is today. It's time to get back to work and be the hunter, not the fat and dumb hunted.

[HurricaneYosef]

Linebacker play used to be elite every year, consistently has gone down hill since the Satt/Drink years, and went down even more post Dale Jones

Need the middle of the defense making routine tackles and playing at a high level again. Hoping our DC / new defensive staff has a strong history of developing and recruiting LB’s

[HurricaneYosef]

I think another ugly truth is our peers have “caught up” and adapted to the new era of CFB


We have not adapted, and have regressed

Gone are the days of sleep walking to a 7-1/6-2 conference record

Gone are the days of playing UNCC and hoping we’re up enough at halftime to give some backups a look in the 2nd half

[ASUTodd]

Ugly truths...... Our program is a steppingstone for coaches and players. We are more concerned about how we look than how we play. Undisciplined team (players and coaches). No fire in the players or coaches. I'd also say our strength and conditioning was lacking compared to years past. Ego ego ego ego and stubbbbboooorrrrnnnn...

[AppDawg]

Serious question- how exactly do you “rebuild” and what exactly does that entail? These days you can lose 15 players a year and you have to go get 15. At our level you can’t expect a bunch of players to bide their time, work hard in practice and then start for 2 years. I can’t see how a 2-3 year rebuild is either logical or feasible. Reload every year and hope for the best.

Try and retain 50-60% or better of a signing class over a 4 year period. Don’t relegate ourselves to being happy with a 20-25% 4-yr retention rate. We have been signing 15+ transfers per season… Boise as a comparison has brought just 5 to 8 in annually since the portal started. That is a big difference.

We do this by taking it on the chin and playing younger players. Rebuild the foundation. Show players if they stay and compete they will play. Not by bringing in 2/3’s of a lineup every season that “blocks” the players recruited out of HS and drives them away. The foundation brings pride and loyalty in the program.

We do not have the resources to compete in a one and done football world and need to break the current cycle we are in.

[PhillyApp1]

ugly truth.... we are what our record is

[hapapp]

We have to stop living on our reputation. We like to think we are a premier G5 program. I'm not sure that's true any more. I won't judge our new HC until he's had a chance to prove himself and I'm certainly not in position judge the decision makers given who was interested in the job. But, it does seem that it didn't draw the interest one would have thought given our "reputation."

[Saint3333]

Getting P4 coordinators, FCS HC and a former P4 HC to interview is exactly the applicant pool I would have predicted.

[BambooRdApp]

Evidently, no ice for cups...epic failure

[Boonedoc]

We've done a poor job recruiting and retaining OL from HS.

[The Rock]

Ugly truth is we continued to try and do things the way they used to be done and not adapt to the players we had. Chase Brice was a generational arm, and we tried to establish the run and not pass much, and tried to run the same offense we did with Zac Thomas and Taylor lamb.

[BallantyneApp]

Getting P4 coordinators, FCS HC and a former P4 HC to interview is exactly the applicant pool I would have predicted.

Agreed. I’ll add though a g5 coach we could have given a significant raise too.

I’ll wait until the contracts are out but I’m guessing us and uncc will be in the same ballpark again on pay.

Difference is they got a proven winner at the g5 level and we got a mostly career coordinator.

Both have pros and cons but one has a higher floor IMO.

[Saint3333]

A higher floor is what UNCC needs, a higher ceiling is what we need. Seems appropriate.