Herbstreit - Being a team

[RyanCuse44]

Mark Cuban has even said he is dumping millions into the program ... you are spot on.

It's too bad he's such a huge douchebag.

 

[wfschrec]

It's too bad he's such a huge douchebag.

Yes he is

 

[SUFaninNJ]

Yes on McDaniel. Re: Gill, he wanted to be a #1, no room for 2 #1s in today’s NIL market. So he was encouraged to look elsewhere.

If he wasn’t going to be this coming season’s #1, who is the other #1 you speak of?

 

[Forza Azzurri]

i'm totally down with never hearing the terms DART or LEVEL 5 again.

A level 5 dart is a high quality dart.

 

[VA Citrus]

I had a problem with talking several times about next year while we still had a few games left in the season. Not adhering to the whole "relentless" thing in DART, if you ask me. And this is the coach doing this, mind you, not the players. To me, that makes it even worse.

It sent the wrong message to the seniors, the rest of the players still trying to win, and the fans who pay their good money to come and watch you play (and win) THIS year. If the coach wants to THINK that, fine. But he has to have the discipline to know when he needs to keep his mouth shut publicly about it.

Agreed. This isn't tanking for a draft pick. You try and win every game. It's just ridiculous to demand everyone give money to pay players when each game matters less than ever.

 

[FrancoPizza]

i'm totally down with never hearing the terms DART or LEVEL 5 again.

They can say dart all they want - I just don’t want to see it plastered on the Jumbotron when we’re getting our asses kicked at home.

 

[Sherman20]

Marrone got rid of Shafer kids. Fran is getting ride of Fran kids and coaches who are culture problems.

What does any of this mean? Shafer was Marrone’s DC and then became the head coach when Marrone went to the Bills.

 

[Sherman20]

Has anyone ever seen the two of them in the same room? Until proven otherwise they are the same person.

Well, Greg Robinson is dead, so you don’t see him in any room anymore. What are you on about?

 

[tbonezone]

A level 5 dart is a high quality dart.

not that i don't appreciate the effort required to somehow manage to shoot yourself in the ar$e with a blowpipe .

 

[JoeCollege]

I am an assistant manager at a midsize textile firm located in the rust belt. I drive a Dodge Stratus, and feel that Fran and I have met at a Tony Robbin’s seminar, at least spiritually.

Give the man a chance.

You probably financed your waterbed, so there's that.

 

[Forza Azzurri]

not that i don't appreciate the effort required to somehow manage to shoot yourself in the ar$e with a blowpipe .

I have no idea what this means.

 

[Cusefan95]

I get it. I was pissed off about last season too. Fran owns that catastrophe 100%

But it's over. I think it's time to look to 2026 and hope for the best. If the season is a dog then we'll have all the answers we need about Fran.

If I was a player with any chance to transfer and play elsewhere, I would have had my name in the portal roughly 11 seconds after it opened - entirely because I had a coach who preaches DART but didn’t live it. If it’s true that we’re not really losing many players who didn’t get the talk, there’s two possibilities:

1) Fran talked with the team after the last game, owned the catastrophe of a season and took accountability - and gave some vision of a path forward that they could buy into.

2) Fran didn’t say anything - but it didn’t matter because nobody cared. The culture is already wrecked and isn’t going to be fixed, because everyone still here is a part of it.

I agree with the last part - all we can do now is hope for the best. And by the end of next season, we’ll have a really good idea which of those two scenarios was the more likely one to have occurred.

 

[elimunelson]

I get it. I was pissed off about last season too. Fran owns that catastrophe 100%

But it's over. I think it's time to look to 2026 and hope for the best. If the season is a dog then we'll have all the answers we need about Fran.

Of course. I will always root for SU when it comes down to it. Hope he turns it around.

I think there’s an immaturity to the entire program. Hope that can be rectified.

 

[Scooch]

If I was a player with any chance to transfer and play elsewhere, I would have had my name in the portal roughly 11 seconds after it opened - entirely because I had a coach who preaches DART but didn’t live it. If it’s true that we’re not really losing many players who didn’t get the talk, there’s two possibilities:

1) Fran talked with the team after the last game, owned the catastrophe of a season and took accountability - and gave some vision of a path forward that they could buy into.

2) Fran didn’t say anything - but it didn’t matter because nobody cared. The culture is already wrecked and isn’t going to be fixed, because everyone still here is a part of it.

I agree with the last part - all we can do now is hope for the best. And by the end of next season, we’ll have a really good idea which of those two scenarios was the more likely one to have occurred.

We've had all the folks with inside knowledge tell us that nearly all of the guys who portaled out were either encouraged to do so, or were buried on the depth chart. One guy left who we wanted to keep, they've said.

So maybe you'd have left, but apparently that hasn't been the prevailing behavior.

The great thing about sports is that we find out. 10 months from now we'll know just how this high-risk HC hire is panning out.

 

[Scooch]

Of course. I will always root for SU when it comes down to it. Hope he turns it around.

I think there’s an immaturity to the entire program. Hope that can be rectified.

Immaturity is an interesting word. I think there's definitely an unearned bravado, or perhaps a fake-it-til-you-make-it vibe.

Fran was an incredibly risky hire, and personally I was glad we took that risk. We've tried the ol' ball coach approach over and over and it's abundantly clear there's a ceiling to that.

All that aide, what's MOST clear is that SU doesn't have very good seasons unless we have a high-impact QB under center (see: Nassib, Dungey, McCord). Anything less and we'll have to fight tooth-and-nail for 7 wins.

 

[Cusefan95]

We've had all the folks with inside knowledge tell us that nearly all of the guys who portaled out were either encouraged to do so, or were buried on the depth chart. One guy left who we wanted to keep, they've said.

So maybe you'd have left, but apparently that hasn't been the prevailing behavior.

The great thing about sports is that we find out. 10 months from now we'll know just how this high-risk HC hire is panning out.

I didn’t explicitly state it - but the only way I would have stayed is if Fran had a mea culpa moment with the team and communicated the path forward. Expecting people in any position you deal with to be perfect is a fantastic way to have nothing but miserable, failed relationships. Giving them some grace if they own it when they don’t meet their commitments to you builds stronger relationships.

I’d be astonished if Fran didn’t get that message out in some way to the team. If he didn’t, I’ve completely misread his character. I also know when I’ve had situations like this where either I let someone know I’d messed up or was told that by someone else - it didn’t go beyond the four walls of the room that conversation occurred in. So it doesn’t concern me that we don’t know - I’d be more concerned if we did know he told the team he’d let them down since that might have been more for public show than sincere communication.

I’m hoping that the reason we’re not seeing guys leave en masse is because the way Fran handled this with the team brought them closer together with a focus on getting back on track in 2026. We might not have a successful season even if that happened - life isn’t fair and sometime failure happens no matter how hard you try. But at least we’ll have a shot at it.

 

[Scooch]

I didn’t explicitly state it - but the only way I would have stayed is if Fran had a mea culpa moment with the team and communicated the path forward. Expecting people in any position you deal with to be perfect is a fantastic way to have nothing but miserable, failed relationships. Giving them some grace if they own it when they don’t meet their commitments to you builds stronger relationships.

I’d be astonished if Fran didn’t get that message out in some way to the team. If he didn’t, I’ve completely misread his character. I also know when I’ve had situations like this where either I let someone know I’d messed up or was told that by someone else - it didn’t go beyond the four walls of the room that conversation occurred in. So it doesn’t concern me that we don’t know - I’d be more concerned if we did know he told the team he’d let them down since that might have been more for public show than sincere communication.

I’m hoping that the reason we’re not seeing guys leave en masse is because the way Fran handled this with the team brought them closer together with a focus on getting back on track in 2026. We might not have a successful season even if that happened - life isn’t fair and sometime failure happens no matter how hard you try. But at least we’ll have a shot at it.

I thought you did explicitly state that.

Isn't the fact that we haven't had that "mass exodus" suggest that the rank-and-file does still believe in Fran and has confidence in him and his 2026 approach?

Gill. He's the one guy that people have posted here that we wanted to keep. We lost ~30 guys, which is the average amount of departures per team across FBS.

I'll say for the umpteenth time that I thought Fran suuuucked last season, post-Angeli injury. He pissed away all the goodwill he built up from the prior season. His DART stuff became carnival barker nonsense and his inability to squeeze even one win out of the last 8 was coaching malpractice. He and his staff stunk. Period.

He has 8 months to fix his sh!1t. If we stumble and bumble our way to a 6 win or less season in 2026 then I'm likely out on Fran.

 

[2B20Again]

I thought you did explicitly state that.

Isn't the fact that we haven't had that "mass exodus" suggest that the rank-and-file does still believe in Fran and has confidence in him and his 2026 approach?

Gill. He's the one guy that people have posted here that we wanted to keep. We lost ~30 guys, which is the average amount of departures per team across FBS.

I'll say for the umpteenth time that I thought Fran suuuucked last season, post-Angeli injury. He pissed away all the goodwill he built up from the prior season. His DART stuff became carnival barker nonsense and his inability to squeeze even one win out of the last 8 was coaching malpractice. He and his staff stunk. Period.

He has 8 months to fix his sh!1t. If we stumble and bumble our way to a 6 win or less season in 2026 then I'm likely out on Fran.

 

[2B20Again]

And I’m sure he’ll loose sleep over that. I don’t know one person that was happy about the the way the season ended. The route of playing for development and or to get a better look at the youth in game time conditions. Regardless results disastrous. So we move on. 2nd year head coach, learning as he goes. It is my feeling Fran just needs time, of cours $$$$ Nil would help as well. For myself, I watch and root for the team I’ve followed since 1954. Out

 

[baggerbob]

If I was a player with any chance to transfer and play elsewhere, I would have had my name in the portal roughly 11 seconds after it opened - entirely because I had a coach who preaches DART but didn’t live it. If it’s true that we’re not really losing many players who didn’t get the talk, there’s two possibilities:

1) Fran talked with the team after the last game, owned the catastrophe of a season and took accountability - and gave some vision of a path forward that they could buy into.

2) Fran didn’t say anything - but it didn’t matter because nobody cared. The culture is already wrecked and isn’t going to be fixed, because everyone still here is a part of it.

I agree with the last part - all we can do now is hope for the best. And by the end of next season, we’ll have a really good idea which of those two scenarios was the more likely one to have occurred.

Until I see Coach Nixon prove he can run an effective offense with not all the perfect pieces I have my doubts. Those last 8 games the offense was the worst I have seen. 1-4 bad games you might get a pass, but 8 games in a row. Fran should have told him to look elsewhere. He better have the offense going within the first couple of games or be relieved of the position.

 

[VA Citrus]

Until I see Coach Nixon prove he can run an effective offense with not all the perfect pieces I have my doubts. Those last 8 games the offense was the worst I have seen. 1-4 bad games you might get a pass, but 8 games in a row. Fran should have told him to look elsewhere. He better have the offense going within the first couple of games or be relieved of the position.

Dino may have gotten lazy towards the end but his coaches adjusted to the personal available and ran Dan Villari in the wildcat to beat Pitt and get the team to a bowl game. You have to be humble enough to admit its not working and draw something up in the dirt if you have to. They looked like they had no plan to win any of those games. Feels like they weren't Detailed or Relentless.