. . . . so I guess you can say and post whatever you want to post. But just because you have a right to post it does not mean that you should post it.
I am mostly a lurker here, but I have been an active poster on a different board (for a different school). Everyone gets to set their own rules, but my rule is to not call out a player by name on a college board. As long as the young men are doing the best they can, that seems inappropriate to me. Yeah, they get a scholarship. [Well, most of them do, but not all of them.] But they work pretty hard for that scholarship. They make mistakes, certainly, but those mistakes are already pretty public. Most of us do not have jobs or avocations where our mistakes are caught on videotape for everyone to see. That is tough enough without our fans piling on.
As a relative newcomer to Wyoming sports, I am very impressed by the passion of Wyoming fans. Here we are in the smallest state in the union trying to run with the big boys. It is an uphill battle, but tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of people are passionate about the Pokes. That is a wonderful thing.
But I hate to see that passion turned against one of the kids who is doing his best to make the dreams of those who love the Pokes come true. As a very passionate fan, I have been tempted one many occasions to blast off against someone from one of my teams in a public forum like this. But that just does not seem productive.
As fans, there is little we can do to actually make a difference. Most of what we say here or elsewhere is not very important, because the coaches and players (and, sadly, officials) determine the outcomes of games, not us. But negativity toward one our players seems counterproductive, especially in a small state where that word might get back to that player. [Shouting at officials who are hurting our team with bad calls? Sure, both here and at the game. Criticizing coaching? I guess, but I think we should keep that within reason, too. But not players. Not college kids trying their best.]
Nobody has to follow this concept of avoiding criticism of players, especially by name. Feel free to tell me I am a fool and to keep my opinions to myself. That is all they are. [I will even admit that I have a new bias these days, as I am a parent of a member of the team (though not one who has had the good fortune of playing). So I am admittedly more sensitive about these things than I used to be when I was in "pure fan" mode.]
I do have a different rule for praising a player from our team. That, to me, is entirely appropriate. Since you raised the issue of Chris Prosinski, I will share my opinion, for what little (if anything) it is worth: I think the kid is a heck of a player. If not the best tackler on the team, he is certainly one of the best. I don't know if you have every tried to tackle someone in open space, all alone. Very possibly so, if you played football at any level, especially as a linebacker or in the secondary. If so, you will have to admit that it is not an easy thing to do. And I think Prosinski does it about as well as it can be done, by both hitting and wrapping up (instead of that "hit hard, but nothing else" approach that is so common these days).
Yes, it is true that our entire defensive backfield, especially the safeties, gets suckered in by run fakes and flea flickers every once in a while. But I don't think it is realistic to ask our safeties to do so much run support work and then expect that they won't fall for run fakes every once in a while. That is part of the joy of having a strong running game--it makes play action work.
If there is ever a time to take a shot at a college player on the board of fans for that player's team, this is a rather unusual time to take a broad shot at a defensive player. Our defense was outstanding yesterday. That loss stings. It really stings. [And I will be the first to admit that it undoubtedly stings even more for you who have been bleeding brown and gold for a lot longer than I have.] But taking out that understandable frustration on one of our best defensive players misses the target, in my opinion.
