Head Coach Pete Mangurian has a short review of spring practice now up on the athletic department website.
I thought the info about the size of the roster was the most informative part of the message.
My favorite part was Mangurian's shout out to the basketball team. I actually thought that was classy of him.
21 comments:
Sounds like he is addressing questions raised on this blog -players getting enough sleep, nutrition, recruiting class size and potential impact, hints of innovation. Granted, every program implements new plays but it does seem to overall amount to an olive branch in Pete's own way.
Any takers?
I agree. Mounds like he has listened and is trying something new. Other intriguing hints now need to be digested, much like the Kremlinologists used to scrutinize hints from Moscow during the Cold War. PS, how about everybody within 200 miles and not on life support systems getting out to Levien tomorrow night. These two teams do not like each other.
We have no way of knowing what the team and coaches are doing or are capable of, so we must wait and see. We do have an obvious baseline to judge from--Zero and Ten.
To me, one or two wins is no improvement unless there's a clear upgrade in competitiveness.
The one nugget I dug out of the generalities was that Nottingham's hand/wrist is recovered because PM said all four quarterbacks on the roster were available during spring training. If he can put together a serviceable OL,
that would be a foundation for recovery.
I think that's what Mangurian is betting all his chips on; a healthy Nottingham somehow providing some noticeable improvement on his own. With our O-line and no real new coach to guide them, I don't see how it can be done.
I am playing optimist so far and thinking out of the 30 some odd freshmen a few big mobile guys will be plugged into the OL, an effective RB will be found, a few receivers, DBs, and of course overall depth. 64 guys in spring training is barely adequate. We need the cavalry to mature quickly.
I did not find that his message provided much more than minimum information. Did not get me fired up or instill hope and confidence for the coming year.
WOF is not alone. Look, I'm sorry if this labels me a pessimist, (because anyone who knows me knows that I'm not), but the outlook is bleak for this team anyway you look at it.
Anyone who thinks I'm too hard on this coach and program is also misinformed. Many of you have no idea how much I hold back on this blog every day.
For example, I'm not posting anything about the ongoing Hell and embarrassment that can be found every time I read some of the player Tweets, etc.
For now, let's just give the basketball team the positive support it needs.
It's definitely going to take nothing short of a miracle for the fball squad to reach .500. 1-2 (dare we say 3?) wins seems the best they can hope to manage and that is not much of an improvement. Though I would rather see some good talent develop than witness the crash and burn of the program to even lower levels
and Jake, they are high school kids. Not too many kids that age are not idiots despite their academic achievements. I'm not impressed with most of the younger generations at large when they are adults either.
^ meant HS and college age. why can't posts be edited?
Hope I am wrong, but there was no swagger whatsoever in his message. As I was reading it I heard the words in monotone... Where was the energy and anticipation?
It would be sad if that were true and we had to play out another entire season just to get to the end of it and go back to the drawing board... Another wasted year...
WOF:
That's exactly what 2014 will be - complete waste of a year and we're back to square one in 10 months.
Hey, here's a CRAZY idea! Fire Mangurian now and at least get a head start on the cleanup and new coach search process.
As for the Tweets, this has gone way beyond the issue of racist or other inappropriate material.
I'll let you guys be the judge, read for yourselves and you'll see what I mean.
I really hope I don't morph into a Pete apologist but look at his personality. Pete displays very little emotion OTHER than on the field. He's aggressive and combative in a football sense but as a person he is level headed, neither up nor down. I base this on whatever videos I have seen of him (never met him). He doesn't strike me as one to take risks and fire people up for big turnaround after a 0-10 season.
I think we can give up the fire him now campaign. It would make the school look bad for the next guy they bring in. They want to project the best working conditions they can.
We look bad regardless. The whole world already knows what a joke we are, perhaps if we made a change now and made a real effort to find a winner it would be a sign that we really arent going to accept futility anymore and it starts now...
I have met Pete twice, not that I am anything special but he came across as aloof and disinterested in meeting a former player. Ironically, Argast and Davis were the exact oposite, however. That was during his first spring here...
Not to take readers away from the work Jake is doing here on this blog, I maintain my own blog (nowhere near as frequent as this one) just to ruminate a bit more than I do in this comments section. My reaction to pete's memo is here:
alswingman.wordpress.com.
Wingman, you did a good job of speculating about what we know, but since we know virtually nothing new, we still know nothing. Your reading of Mangurian is good too, but it's still this or that--either he has something up his sleeve or he doesn't. If he does, he doesn't want to give it away in advance. If he doesn't, he doesn't want to admit he's empty, and is hoping to get lucky.
Nothing on whether anyone has learned to throw, block, catch or run better. Often, a coach in his position will try to upgrade his staff. Several coaches quit, so he doubef up the duties of the remainder, and hired one new guy who graduated two years ago from UpsidedownCakeStateTech. The other Ivies have nine asst. coaches, many of them highly experienced and successful, we have six, mostly inexperienced and unsuccessful.
I understand first-rate assts aren't going to jump ship to come to CU this season, and hopefully some of our young assistants are good and getting better. But we don't know so just like before Pete said anything,
We'll have to wait and see.
He definitely doesn't have anything up his sleeve. Bottom line is what this blog and others already know - the program has talent but the coaching staff as a whole is not up to the task of doing anything meaningful with that talent. I put the caveat - unless they change their ways. Pete is not a creative coach. He does not innovate. Either he teaches himself new tricks or he is done. Plain and simple.
It's not going to matter one bean sprout what the lads did in spring practice because they are playing against each other, not better prepared programs. The key will be innovation - if there is any. At this stage, the specifics of that should be under wraps, not because it is great stuff but because it is still a work in progress. Yes, the rubber hits the road in September but worth speculating on before then.
totlaly agree, to say that the team has improved as evidence by Spring practice is comical
I think we're all in the same ballpark on the situation....unfortunately that ballpark is Wien.
As to expectations, what I hope can happen is that if Nottingham is healthy, he'll have enough protection to hit his receivers regularly and they'll hold on to the ball. We had no sustained attack last year and it's impossible to win without one. If we can score some, that'll help the defense too and maybe we can rise above last year's level.
True, solid teams have a backup QB who can take over if No. 1 goes down. We did not. But I'd still like to see what Nottingham can do.
It is fair to say the entire season is riding on a much improved OL. It's got to be a strength of the team or the O is in deep trouble again.
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