Celebrating 25 years of Kirby Dar Dar is gone gone

[Scooch]

My freshman year, second game in the Dome. Been hooked ever since.

 

[orange79]

That's a way too simplistic view of things.

The rankings - which by the way are incredibly accurate in looking at the teams over time - show that after the 1992 season there was a drastic decline. 1993 was a huge disappointment with senior year Marvin Graves, then the mediocre year of Kevin Mason before McNabb came and saved the day for four years (simplistic view, but he covered a lot of maladies within the program).

Then after his departure, a return to mediocrity before two run-heavy, defensive teams flipped the switch for two seasons. Then it got drastically worse. It was time for a change from Pasqualoni.

Greg Robinson was a disaster, Marrone liked to play NFL and keep games close and Shafer... I'm still trying to figure out what he was trying to do.

There are a ton of external factors at play as well - but to say things would have been better if Pasqualoni was kept is, in my opinion, untrue.

P getting fired when he did directly led what transpired since. Things obviously would have been better. Would a change have been made at some point, sure, but that was the wrong time to do it.

P comes back in 2005 with a talented and experienced defense, a Jr. Perry Paterson in his second year starting, a very good backfield with Rhodes, Rice, and Brinkley and a good senior laden OL.

2002 was a really bad year but it was a blip. If you think one losing season in 14 happens IN SPITE OF the coach, you are clueless.

Please take the P discussion to another thread. Thanks

 

[AgentOrange]

Spurrier recalling that day, "We were back on our heels on defense. If we set up for a pass, they ran the option. If we expected option, they ran the sprint draw. If we expected the sprint draw, they passed. It was that sort of day against an offensive game plan that was masterfully drawn up and executed perfectly."

Deleone was magnificent that day. It's hard to comprehend, really, how he lost the recipe just a few years down the road.

 

[Briancuse]

Spurrier recalling that day, "We were back on our heels on defense. If we set up for a pass, they ran the option. If we expected option, they ran the sprint draw. If we expected the sprint draw, they passed. It was that sort of day against an offensive game plan that was masterfully drawn up and executed perfectly."

Deleone was magnificent that day. It's hard to comprehend, really, how he lost the recipe just a few years down the road.

Any day that Spurrier is miserable is a good day for me.

 

[RF2044]

Man, that speed.

Speed?

What's really amazing is that as fast as Dar Dar was going, Qadry Ismail catches up to him easily, running with his hands up in the air.

THAT'S speed.

 

[SWC75]

P getting fired when he did directly led what transpired since. Things obviously would have been better. Would a change have been made at some point, sure, but that was the wrong time to do it.

P comes back in 2005 with a talented and experienced defense, a Jr. Perry Paterson in his second year starting, a very good backfield with Rhodes, Rice, and Brinkley and a good senior laden OL.

2002 was a really bad year but it was a blip. If you think one losing season in 14 happens IN SPITE OF the coach, you are clueless.

I will grant you this: firing a coach after a bowl game is very bad timing.

1) You're in a bowl game
2) It's way too late in the season to assemble a good staff. We wound up with a bunch of people, inclduing the ehad coach, who had been promoted to their level of incomeptence.
3) It's also very late in the recruiting season

2002 was not a blip. It was the beginning of the end. We rallied slightly from it, just as G-Rob rallied slightly in his second year. But the program was in decline well before P left.

 

[kirbivore]

It's a good question. I factor in my non scientific belief that the SEC teams had no clue about how to handle our speed and unique offense. I think we would have stifled them with some innovation in that game. Pasqualoni, for all his warts, usually had the team ready for bowl games (Purdue nothwithstanding).

They didn't play Purdue in a bowl game. Purdue was an opening day national TV blowout.

 

[kirbivore]

I will grant you this: firing a coach after a bowl game is very bad timing.

1) You're in a bowl game
2) It's way too late in the season to assemble a good staff. We wound up with a bunch of people, inclduing the ehad coach, who had been promoted to their level of incomeptence.
3) It's also very late in the recruiting season

2002 was not a blip. It was the beginning of the end. We rallied slightly from it, just as G-Rob rallied slightly in his second year. But the program was in decline well before P left.

From 1999 - 2004 the '01 season was the dead cat bounce. Anyway I get a kick out of the people who say they should have let P finish out the final year then let Gross decide after the 2005 season. I'm not arguing that P playing out the string would've been worse than the abject GRob cluster F. What I am arguing is that you can't have a lame duck coach. Think with a new AD and no extension that Ray Rice still comes to SU? I agree that the decision needed to made after the regular season. Either fire P then or extend him.

 

[SWC75]

From 1999 - 2004 the '01 season was the dead cat bounce. Anyway I get a kick out of the people who say they should have let P finish out the final year then let Gross decide after the 2005 season. I'm not arguing that P playing out the string would've been worse than the abject GRob cluster F. What I am arguing is that you can't have a lame duck coach. Think with a new AD and no extension that Ray Rice still comes to SU? I agree that the decision needed to made after the regular season. Either fire P then or extend him.

That's a good point, too. You have to either extend or fire if you want to recruit. Recruits want to know that the people recruiting them will be there when they get there. That forces decisions that are otherwise premature.

But I still think firing a coach after a bowl is terrible timing. I think we might have been better off with a small extension.

 

[JDubbin]

 

[Toga]

 

[BrooklynCuse]

I was in the endzone he scored in. The Dome was rocking that day. I remember all the SEC peeps being really friendly going in and not so much on the way out.

Great Dome memory, that and the Van Halen Diver Down tour of course...