Quote:
Originally Posted by jacobkdoyle
The biggest knocks on Tuberville were usually about being unprepared and undisciplined. I can't say for sure how Fickell and staff will handle gamedays, but I very much doubt that we'll have gripes about the issues of Tuberville's teams.
I don't know how exotic we'll be this year, especially on offense, as we start to get the pieces in place...but I expect a physical team that plays to their assignments. With our schedule, that could easily be enough to send us to a bowl. The days of beating ourselves, then shutting down in the 2nd half need to be over for good. And I can't imagine Fickell punting the ball away with 3 TO, over 4 minutes left, down 14. So that's a start.
I forget who it was, but one of the players did an interview and said that it sounds bad to admit it, but they would shut down and quit in the 2nd half last year. You can put whatever % you want of that on the players, but that to me starts at the top no questions asked. Terrible leadership. If the coach is quitting the game and shutting things down, and you've lost however many in a row, it's hard to expect the players to rally, basically against the coach, to keep going despite getting whipped play after play with no real gameplan.
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I expect that our team under Coach Fick and staff will play with a lot more emotion and desire than we did under TT. I'd imagine we won't be lacking for hustle and desire as a team, and unlike the prior staff, this staff will demand it and lead by example. I really liked Fick's comments right after he was hired about UC having a focus on becoming the best tackling team in the country, I think the staff is really going to stress the fundamentals on the defensive side of the football.
Recruiting, marketing, and inspiring are a big piece of a successful program and Fick seems to have all of that down. I'm interested in seeing if he can figure out a way to combine all those things into winning on game days. I think he will be able to, especially against our competition in the AAC, but to what degree is what I'm most eager to find out. Despite the fact that we're still going to have some real gaps in talent and depth on this roster I think we'll be able to learn a lot from watching this year's team play.