Topic: Sorry, I have to get my 2 cents in....

[Flat Tire]

Sorry, but Pruett had never been a head coach, went 15-0 his first year.

Donnan- Had never been a head coach, seemed to do pretty well in his first year.

Chaump- Had been IUP head coach

Parrish- won right off the bat with no head coaching experience.

Randall- had been head coach at Citadel, should have been fired a year earlier than he was.

In short lackof previous head coaching experience has not always result in "ALL" coaches needing several years experience as a head coach.

.[/quote]

Bob was a head coach at high schools in Virginia.

Randall never coached at The Citadel. He was an assistant coach at ECU and then was head coach at UVA for just a few years.

[HerdAlum00_01]

I sure hope Snyder takes the non-conference games a little more serious than he did last year. I mean, last year against WV he comes out in a base defense, no gimmicks and no in game adjustments made on the fly. It was very discouraging to sit there and watch WV line up and run the ball for 10yd clips at a time.

I definitely agree with this.  With Pruett you always knew that we were going to come out against the big opponents and try to catch them off guard, get them on their heels to start the game and take the crowd out of it.  Even if it was a trick play that didn't always work, so what.  At least we tried something different that the other team hadn't seen.

At the WVU game, we had the perfect opportunity at the start of the game to throw deep down the seam to Slate, first play of the game.  They had no idea who he was or how fast he was.  These type of plays send a message that we came to play and we're gonna bust you in the mouth for 60 minutes.  

I think he needs to take a more aggressive approach to every game, when you're 9-14 every game is a must win. I hope he doesn't wait until we're 1-4  or god forbid 1-5 before he declares the Tulsa game a must win.

Agree again.  I think it was the Tenn. game where instead of going for it on 4th down we tried to kick a 50-yd FG in the rain and Snyder's comment was it's not a conference game and we wanted to see what we could do with our kicker.  Cmon, we need to go ballz out every time.  We have nothing to lose these days.  Against Miami, we'd better come out and look for Passmore deep, same scenario as we should've done with Slate last year.  They haven't seen him.  They don't know.  Wait until the 3rd or 4th series to settle into a base offense.

We can do this, but it starts at the top with confidence and aggressiveness and that's what Pruett gave us.

[goherd50]

-And, a handful of games where we just look to be totally unprepared and lost, i.e. Southern Miss last year, ECU, K-State

Say what you want about Pruett, and I do agree that he was the man in charge when we got in this mess.  But he never got out-coached and we were always prepared and ready to play.

Toledo 2000 ring any bells?  If I recall correctly we were down 42-0 at halftime.  How about Fort Worth Bowl?

Don't take that as a crack at Coach Pruett.  I think he was a terrific coach and would love for him to still be coaching.  Just pointing out that maybe we should be a little more realistic when evaluating Coach Snyder.  Every coach has games when his team looks unprepared.  It may be scheme wise or emotionally, but it happens to the best of them.

Ok how about 2000?   That Toledo game was the low point.  Pruett figured out a way to rally the troops and still win a conference championship.  That team was average at best but they came together made the adjustments mid season and brought home the hardware.   That is good coaching.   Fort Worth Bowl... OK I'll give you that one.  Unprepared and IMO that team had no senior leadership.

Don't get me wrong though, I'm behind Snyder all the way.  Like many have stated in this thread he's still learning on the job.  But the faithful won't put up with much more losing.  It's time to produce.   I'd be happy to just make it to a bowl game and to be competitive in every game.

No argument about the great turnaround job that year.  As I said in my post I think he was a terrific coach.  I was simply replying to your statement that Pruett's teams "were always prepared and ready to play".  99% of the time that was true, but there were a few exceptions that I pointed out.  

I just think we need to be fair to Coach Snyder when making this kind of comparision.  Living up to Coach Pruett's standards is hard enough, we don't need to enhance the legend.

[goherd17]

Pruett never coached a game in Conference USA which is a big step up from the Kent States and Buffalos of the world.  And yes he went 15-0 his first year but that was 1-AA.  Now we have 3 BCS games on our schedule.  I loved coach Pruett but he knew when to get out he wanted to go out remembered as a winner and did not have the desire to rebuild the program.  Snyder must be given at least 5 years

[catbird70]

Pruett never coached a game in Conference USA which is a big step up from the Kent States and Buffalos of the world.  And yes he went 15-0 his first year but that was 1-AA.  Now we have 3 BCS games on our schedule.  I loved coach Pruett but he knew when to get out...

So you think he bailed out because he didnt think we could compete in CUSA?  Thats why he got out?  Where do you come up with this crap?

[goherd17]

No I did not say that I said he did not have the desire to rebuild the program.  He did not get out because of conf usa he got out because he knew he had alot of work to do and he did not have the desire or because of health problems.  Yes he won alot of games and I said he did not do it at the level of competition we are in now.  I loved Coach Pruett but he did not leave the program in the greatest of shape and we have stepped up in competition.  Everybody is talking about him going 15-0 his first year like Snyder should have been able to do the same but we were 1-AA at that time and thats a big difference my friend.

[Dreamherd]

Pruett only had 1 loss in his career against CUSA.  He's beaten teams that Snyder is 0-4 at.

[goherd17]

Yes he was but that was when he had some talent on the field.  The last game he coached he got his butt kicked by a Cinn. team that was not that good.  the talent level or Marshall was greatly diminished at that time and when Snyder took over.  I can remember Coach Pruett saying Bernie would be the next Byron also.  As I stated before I loved coach pruett I am just sick of you people beating up on coach snyder when he has had to rebuild and step up in conf. has not helped.  Yeah we were the creme of the MAC and beat some conf usa schools but you are not going to tell me top to bottom that the mac was better than where we play now.

[Dreamherd]

That was Cinci's most talented team in terms of putting guys on NFL rosters.  They had around 18 starters returning that season.  They actually underachieved that year.  If O'Connor wasn't punting we probably would have won the game.  Pruett should have told Snyder about O'Connor last year, but why Snyder punted him we will never know.  The MAC had some pretty good out of conference wins when we where there.  CUSA is a decent conference right now.  It's as good as what the MAC was when we were there.  Central Florida had trouble winning a game in the MAC, but won a CUSA East title in their first year.  Central Florida used to be our *****.

[marshallsoccer]

That was Cinci's most talented team in terms of putting guys on NFL rosters.  They had around 18 starters returning that season.  They actually underachieved that year.  If O'Connor wasn't punting we probably would have won the game.  Pruett should have told Snyder about O'Connor last year, but why Snyder punted him we will never know.  The MAC had some pretty good out of conference wins when we where there.  CUSA is a decent conference right now.  It's as good as what the MAC was when we were there.  Central Florida had trouble winning a game in the MAC, but won a CUSA East title in their first year.  Central Florida used to be our *****.

Top to bottom CUSA is a better conference than the MAC, easy.

That year Cincy was picked 8th in the preseason in CUSA, they send 2 guys (I think) to the league. They were coming off a 70-7 loss to Loserville as well...

[goherd17]

Dreamherd you are dreaming if you think the MAC is anywhere near as good as the conf we are in now.  Thats just insane.  My last comment on this subject.  coach Pruett I loved the man but he left the program in bad shape we had players in  trouble all the time which we dont have now yeah he won alot of games and won alot with Donnans recruits and when it started to slip away he retired and it was not good timing.  Snyder has basically had 1 full recruiting class if you think about it.  We will be better maybe not this year but watch out the next couple of years.  Give the man some time

[W0lfman]

goherd17, Pruett didnt get out for any of the reasons you stated.  Its much much more complicated than that.  I'm not going to go into the details but believe me he didnt want out like you say.