ColomboLQ said:
bear2be2 said:
ColomboLQ said:
Bleed Green said:
ColomboLQ said:
bear2be2 said:
ColomboLQ said:
This is an odd thread. Are you trying to say that Stranger is not a Baylor fan? Because if so, I've not gotten that impression over the years. And if you're saying he's not a Rhule fan, this would be an odd game to try to use to boast about anything for Rhule considering the result relative to the opponent.
I'd argue that this game was one of the best examples yet of why Matt Rhule is an excellent football coach. His team's can play poorly for most of a game and still find ways to stay in it and win at the end.
There's a reason his record is what it is when leading going into the fourth quarter and why his teams are freaking nails in tight ballgames. The dude builds mentally tough football teams that nut up when things get tough, which is coincidentally a quality many on this board -- Stranger especially -- could learn from.
Playing poorly against a really good/ great team and finding a way to win is one thing that would show excellent coaching. Playing poorly against a mediocre team that you should crush and then winning is NOT proof of excellent coaching.
Are you under the impression that we are on OU's level? IMHO we are much closer to Tech's level than we are OU. And that is the only team that has truly blown out Tech this year. Texas very well could, but we aren't in that level yet either. The lack of objectivity on this board from either side is ridiculous. We are a good team with very good coaching. We are no where near elite as a team and coaching will have to continue to show growth to be labeled great.
Rhule was a good hire. Probably even a great hire considering who would have come here at the time. I love Baylor, but the truth is we have not had a single coach go on from here and coach another school. Only 2 in my lifetime were even courted by others. Quit thinking we had the pick of the litter when we hired Rhule. Given that, Rhule has done nothing but shut down critics. (You can't simply look at year 1 and ignore everything since) I loved Briles, but he had plenty of issues despite leading our program to its greatest heights. He rarely had great teams as shown by our lack of pro players but he had a great system. He also benefited from UT and ATM having mediocre coaches. Rhule has issues, but he is 6-0 and has only 2 games on his schedule that I will be shocked if we win.
Far from it. I'll explain my reasoning. We beat Tech last year by 11 in a neutral site. Our team was worse last year, and considering they just went through a coaching change with completely new systems for both offense and defense, lost a lot of key contributors for last year's team, they came into this game starting their 3rd string QB, and considering the fanbase was already asking for the coach to be fired just 2 games ago because of how poor they were playing, I feel fairly comfortable in saying that they are a worse team than last year. We are in year 3 of our coaching regime, with our offensive and defensive systems seemingly in place, or at least in a place more advanced than Tech's would have been, we returned a lot of key players from last year and we were playing at home this year. We were even favored to win by double digits. This game should not have been competitive. There's just no objective reason for it to have been.
****NOTE: THIS IS NOT AN INDICTMENT ON RHULE. I'M NOT SAYING HIS HIRING WAS A BAD HIRE OR A MISTAKE. I'M NOT SAYING ANYTHING BAD ABOUT RHULE AT ALL IF YOU JUST READ WHAT I'M WRITING. I'M SAYING THIS GAME SHOULD NOT BE USED AS AN ENDORSEMENT FOR HIM EITHER. LITERALLY THAT'S ALL I'M SAYING****
We're not talking about video games or Strat-O-Matic here. There are a million different factors that go into every game that make each and every game unique.
We could play Tech 50 times and every game would be different. Many of them would be competitive. That's what makes sports -- and particularly college football -- great. And what makes the whole, "we should have crushed them" critique a really shallow one.
A) there are very few objective measures that suggest we should have crushed them, and B) there are two teams on the field full of scholarship athletes who are all trying to win the game. Sometimes the other team plays well. Sometimes you don't.
But this idea among fans that games shouldn't be competitive is a really silly one unless you're rooting for Alabama or Clemson. Good teams play competitive games all the time.
I literally just provided you with some. Like, just read. Nothing I said was opinion, unless you believe that Baylor's team is not better this year than last year. And really, as far as not being competitive, we're really talking about the offense here. And the offense has played very poorly multiple times already in just half the season: the 2nd half against Rice, the 1st half against ISU and the 1st half against Tech just off the top of my head.
Those aren't objective measures. Objective measures would include statistical evidence based on the two teams' performance this season, not circumstantial evidence based primarily on last year's outcome and phrasing such as "I feel fairly comfortable in saying ..."
And perhaps you just overrate(d) our offense. Given that it has struggled for stretches in every game but those played against Stephen F. Austin and UTSA, I think that would be a reasonable conclusion. Certainly more reasonable than assuming we would crush them because "we should."
Based on what's actually been put on paper, our proclivity to play close games and the fact that our spread was 11 points and not some astronomical number, I'm struggling to see why anyone would find this outcome to be shocking.
Could we have beaten them worse if we had played better? Certainly. We likely win by two scores at least if Charlie doesn't throw that pick in the end zone. But Tech had something to do with our inability to pull away. And the fact that we took their best shot and still managed to win is a feather in the cap of this team and coaching staff whether you want to admit it or not. These are the types of games good teams/coaches find ways to pull out.