SnowyRange
Well-known member
Rather than throwing in the towel, there's another way of looking at this. But it's not much more pleasant.
I was talking to one of my sports-obsessed friends about this (non-Wyoming guy). He said, basically, "Face facts. You haven't been a credible football program for a long time. Maybe ever. So now you got a new guy who's a builder. But you have to realize he has to build a program, not simply rebuild a team. There's a big difference. It's going to take years. Don't sweat this season. Don't sweat next season. Or the season after that. You're not going to be able to tell if he's being successful until 5 or 6 or 7 years into this."
He's probably right.
If I added correctly: in the last 45 years we've had 16 winning seasons. 3 of those were "winning" because we had one more win than we had losses. From Tiller through last year our winning percentage is about .450. From 1970 through Tiller it was slightly better: around .475.
To make a long story short, he thinks the whole "it's hard to recruit to Laramie" thing is bullshit. If you have a credible program, then a higher level of recruit is going to think seriously about playing there. (He knows our basketball program. He says, hey, you're in a spot where, within reason, your coaches can walk into any house in the country, and a kid is going to give them a real listen. Doesn't matter if you're in the middle of nowhere and the wind blows.)
But it's going to take a long time to get our football program to that level (if it can be done at all). This is going to require daily, tiny, incremental effort over a long period of time. This isn't about Xs and Os and schemes; it's not about teaching our current level of recruits how to run, throw, block and tackle better. It's about, finally, making us credible in the eyes of a higher level of recruit.
So, I'm going to try to adopt that attitude: make an evaluation 3 or 4 years from now.
In the meantime, I'll quibble and argue and pull out my hair about any given game. Otherwise, what's the fun of sports? But I'm not going to agonize.
I won't go into existential despair, if ever, for a long, long time.
I was talking to one of my sports-obsessed friends about this (non-Wyoming guy). He said, basically, "Face facts. You haven't been a credible football program for a long time. Maybe ever. So now you got a new guy who's a builder. But you have to realize he has to build a program, not simply rebuild a team. There's a big difference. It's going to take years. Don't sweat this season. Don't sweat next season. Or the season after that. You're not going to be able to tell if he's being successful until 5 or 6 or 7 years into this."
He's probably right.
If I added correctly: in the last 45 years we've had 16 winning seasons. 3 of those were "winning" because we had one more win than we had losses. From Tiller through last year our winning percentage is about .450. From 1970 through Tiller it was slightly better: around .475.
To make a long story short, he thinks the whole "it's hard to recruit to Laramie" thing is bullshit. If you have a credible program, then a higher level of recruit is going to think seriously about playing there. (He knows our basketball program. He says, hey, you're in a spot where, within reason, your coaches can walk into any house in the country, and a kid is going to give them a real listen. Doesn't matter if you're in the middle of nowhere and the wind blows.)
But it's going to take a long time to get our football program to that level (if it can be done at all). This is going to require daily, tiny, incremental effort over a long period of time. This isn't about Xs and Os and schemes; it's not about teaching our current level of recruits how to run, throw, block and tackle better. It's about, finally, making us credible in the eyes of a higher level of recruit.
So, I'm going to try to adopt that attitude: make an evaluation 3 or 4 years from now.
In the meantime, I'll quibble and argue and pull out my hair about any given game. Otherwise, what's the fun of sports? But I'm not going to agonize.
I won't go into existential despair, if ever, for a long, long time.
