You're right this is the most important game of the season at this point. If your boy doesn't get this one I don't see him getting GT or UMD.
Getting this one sets up the three home games as all equally important.
6-6 modest success.
7-5 surprising success
5-7 disappointing.
I don't hope he fails. I expect to him to fail based on what we've seen so far. I hope I'm wrong and he pleasantly surprises me. I'm not calling for him to fired, unless he keeps having embarrassing sideline outbursts.
He's here for at least three years. I hope he wins. But, other than the eternal hope of an SU fan I've seen nothing to make me think he can prepare a team to win on the road in Raleigh, or MD or GT.
I find it fun that fans think they have to "support" and "love" their coach to be fans. I'm a Giants fan, never liked Allie Sherman. I'm a Celtics fan, never liked K.C. Jones or Rick Pitino. It's nice when you like the guy coaching your team, but it's not required to still root for the team to win. You are just not surprised when they lose.
Look clown, I've expressed my feelings about his sideline antics, but at the end of the day that has little impact on how he manages the program overall, just like Marrone's restrained behavior didn't either.
I'm not sure what you could have seen so far that lead you to expect him to fail. Other than to have mistakenly taken a job at Michigan all the guy has done is done in his career is perform with excellence. He was an integral part of reviving this program, and because of that you expect him to fail?
You've brought up press conferences a couple of times, and what that has to do with his capability of being the HC is beyond me.
Mac was a good BS'er who played the press and glad handed the fans. He was also to a large extent a delegator who recruited and left the details to an excellent staff. He gave good quotes, and he still almost got canned.
P was beyond shy and outside of his world had trouble connecting with people. Guy was an excellent coach, X and O, teacher, gameplanner. Outworked the next guy and for the most part did an excellent job. Basically the opposite of Macphearson. But his press conferences were filled with coach speak and cliche ums and ahs.
Gerg was a disorganized mess in everything. About the only guy that you could say his communications skills reflected how he did the job. He was basically incoherent in any public setting I ever heard him, rambling, disconnected, no organization or through line on what he was trying to say. A bunch of blather that in the end amounted to nothing.
Marrone was a guy who you could tell being in front of a mic was not his natural setting but he worked it and forced himself to do better. I don't think public speaking came naturally to him at all. He was certaintly ly at times but he was also one of the best at giving clear answers to questions to the point of overcommunicating at times. With people he trusted he was very open, he gave Rahme almost total access to the program. He also tried to be a seller of the program to the community and when there wasn't much return on that investment of time, he got out of that business.
Shafer if you ever listen to him is a very good public speaker, he exudes confidence and leadership. He is also really motivated to try to up the support of the program, and he is in full on sell mode much of the time. I think some of the blue collar hardnose friggin this friggin that lock them in the dome is a little over the top, but that's how he is trying to brand the program. He's also the most crisp and clear when he in a press conference setting of all the guys listed here. He doesn't come across as a meathead idiot and I've never seen a deer in the headlights act out of him. It's also obvious that this job means a lot to him and that he wears his heart on his sleeve. Does he need to tone it down, in my opinion sure, but that has nothing to do with his ability to do the job.
If you are really basing your assessment on his ability to do the job based on his sideline demeanor or a press conference, you're an idiot.
