Heels vs Horned Frogs

That is not entirely accurate. The Patriots were without Tom Brady in 2008, when he got a knee injury in game 1. They went 11-5 that year, tying with the Dolphins, but lost the tiebreaker. So if you are counting Brady and non-Brady stats, 2008 should be in the non-Brady column.
Fair.
 
Coaches on the field. Sure looks like warmups. Soooo...I'm guessing that's been seen plenty of times before.
Yep. As critical as I am of Belichick and the Hudson sideshow, her being down on the field during pregame warmups and talking to him doesn't even register to me. Sally Brown did the same with Mack, Tammy Davis did the same with Butch.
 

UNC, Belichick drop their drawers​


"We all have a drawer. It’s the place where we need to place all the things — big and small — that might distract us. We then close that drawer and forget about what’s in there until our goals our accomplished.

Then, and only then, we can open our drawer and deal with all the things we stowed away.

The drawer is a major pillar of Bill Belichick’s coaching philosophy. He’s written about it in books on coaching and leadership. He’s preached it to his players.

“He’d bring up this drawer four or five times like after Week 14,” former Super Bowl MVP Julian Edelman said. “Like, ‘All right, put it all in the drawer. You gotta go out and do this. We all understand you have bills, taxes. Let’s just put it in the drawer and we’ll worry about that after the season.'”

Spending some of your newfound NFL salary on luxury items? Not during the season. Put that car, jewelry or boat brochure in the drawer. Endorsement deals? Contract issues? Personal business? It all goes in the drawer.

It’s why one of the phrases that pops up most often when searching Belichick’s name is “laser focus.” Another is “doesn’t want to talk about.” Belichick, in football mode, is completely dedicated to poring over film for the one minor key that will give him an edge. He’s better at it and more consumed with it than other coaches, which is saying a lot, given the level of obsession displayed by many in the profession.

Once, Belichick was asked about the “big news from the weekend.” He responded with a blank look. When told that Colts Pro Bowl quarterback Andrew Luck retired, he replied, “I didn’t see that, but I don’t really follow them.” Luck’s in the drawer with the rest of the breaking news on the ESPN crawl.

When Donald Trump mentioned Belichick in a speech the day before his first inauguration, the coach was asked if he had a reaction.

“Not really just — we’ve got a big game.” The president goes in the drawer with the CNN breaking news crawl.

Hit TV shows or movies? Doesn’t watch. Doesn’t care. In the drawer.

Taylor Swift comes to town for a concert? Welcome to the drawer.

“I don’t really know anything about tickets. I’m really focused on trying to get our team ready to play.”

TikTok, Twitter and Instagram drama?

“I don’t really know or care anything about social media. I don’t even know what’s out there or isn’t out there, so that’s irrelevant to me. It doesn’t matter. We played football before there was social media, and it didn’t matter then, either.”

This is the Bill Belichick that won six Super Bowls. It’s the one the Tar Heels thought they were hiring. They thought they were getting the “forsaking all others” focus. They thought they were getting the drawer.

That’s not who showed up in Chapel Hill.

Since his hire in December, nothing has gone in the drawer. It’s on the dining room table, the nightstand, piled up in stacks around a room looking like a hoarder’s house.

Consider, in the 10 days leading up to his first game as a college coach, Belichick:

  • Sold his beach house in Nantucket
  • Signed a deal with Hulu to do a documentary on his team
  • Applied for trademarks to produce jewlery and other merch bearing phrases like “Gold Digger,” “Chapel Bill,” “Belestrator” and “The Belichick Way.”
Comedian and movie star Kevin Hart told a story of being invited into the Patriots’ headquarters by Rob Gronkowski.

“I’m like, ‘Rob, I don’t think this is a good idea for me to go in,’” Hart said. “The first person I see when I walk in is Bill Belichick. He’s walking this way. (I say,) ‘Hey Bill, what’s up?’ This mother-(expletive) didn’t speak, didn’t shake my hand. I said, ‘Oh, they serious up in here.’”

Hart didn’t realize it at the time, but he was in the drawer. Contrast that with opening night at UNC, when enough celebrities to hold the ESPYs were on hand. There were folks with a connection to UNC: Michael Jordan, LT, Mia Hamm; with a connection to Belichick: Randy Moss, and ones who just wanted to be there, apparently, like Blake Snell and Aaron Boone.

There’s nothing wrong with selling property, signing media deals, cashing in on endorsement opportunities or hobnobbing with celebs. It’s just that there’s a time for that.

And a drawer for that.

And it’s not being used.

And it shows.

“Each week, get ready to go for that week, do the best you can to help your team win, and after that game move on to the next one,” Belichick once said. “And at the end of the season, that’s the end of the season. But on a week-to-week basis, I don’t want to spend time or get caught up in what happened five years ago, or what’s going to happen two years from now, and a bunch of other random stuff. … I’m committed to the team that I’m coaching right now, the players that are here. They deserve my best every day, and that’s what I’m going to give them.”

That’s what the Tar Heels thought they were getting.

They’ll have to decide if it’s what they got."
 
I say this as someone who really wants UNC football to be great, but is there any evidence BB is a great coach when Tom Brady isn't under center?
Well, many of the Super Bowl victories were despite the offense, not because of it.

The people who are saying, BB fell apart when Tom Brady left are making several mistakes:

1. First, correlation versus causation. This should be obvious, but the reason Brady left was that a rebuild was coming. The NFL is a hard-capped league, and that means that teams' fortunes are cyclical. It's what makes the NFL an entertaining league -- there are few perennial bottom dwellers. In order to extend a championship window, teams have to start backloading compensation for their star players, which then creates a hellish salary cap situation when those players get old.

What was more remarkable about BB wasn't that there was a downturn; rather, that the downturn took so long. And that's because BB kept finding obscure players to perform at star levels.

2. Second, every successful team in the NFL falls apart when the QB leaves. Well, not every single one I'm sure, but that's how the system works. When the team is rolling, there are no resources to invest in backup or developmental QBs. So when the first string QB is done, for whatever reason, there's nobody to step in. The best contrary example is in Green Bay, when Aaron Rodgers took over for Favre, but that was a long time ago. And it was when the QB position wasn't as valuable or necessary as it is today.

Meanwhile, signing high priced free agent QBs is usually a path to failure. Like most things in life, it's subject to a winner's curse and it's an especially potent one in this case.

3. If BB had a close to .500 record without Brady, that's actually good! What is the average win % for teams with crappy QBs?

4. Just how much better was Tom Brady than other elite QBs? Was he even better than prime Peyton? Was Tom Brady's superiority over Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers, Peyton Manning and a bunch of other top QBs who I am probably forgetting so large as to account for that period of domination?

I have no real opinion on BB as UNC coach, but I think it's wrong to say that he was just a Brady clinger.
 
That theory being floated is the most hilarious and most pathetic attempt at coping I've ever seen. It's completely unserious and it's deeply humiliating. Anyone floating that theory should be considered an enemy of UNC football- that's how absurd it is.
I think you're being too harsh. I have no idea about the provenance of that theory, and it seems an extreme wording, but you don't think there was some of that going on?

Why did Dean and then Roy use December games to give everyone some run, before settling into the main rotation later in the year? Because it's hard to judge a player without seeing what he can do. When he gave Hubert -- who was so lightly recruited in HS that Dean recommended he go to Furman, IIRC -- some PT early in his freshmen and then sophomore seasons, he took advantage of that. He went from afterthought to star and then (almost) NBA champion. Meanwhile, Max Owens -- a similar player -- did not prosper when getting run.

BB is coming into an almost unprecedented situation. Maybe Deion did this at UC, but how often does a team show up on the first game with a handful of players who had ever taken a snap for that team? And on top of that, they would be adjusting to a new system? I think it would be quite foolish to commit to a lineup without giving everyone a chance. Which isn't exactly the same thing as not trying to win or treating the game like preseason, but it's also different than going balls-out to win a game when you don't even know what the team can do.

For instance, suppose TCU had a hole in their defense that we could exploit all day long. I don't know, let's say they couldn't stop off-tackle runs, for whatever reason. So running 50 off-tackle plays might win the game, but it's not going to help gain experience for future games unless we expect that everyone will have that same hole in the D. Obviously that didn't happen, but can you really argue the point in the abstract?
 
I think those are totally fair and valid questions. I think the answer to most of them, and probably all of them, is a lot simpler than that wacky theory being floated by fans on IC. I think the answer is that this coaching staff, despite being led by the most accomplished NFL coach of all time, has some major flaws in terms of relevant experience in coaching, scheming, playcalling, and game planning at the collegiate level. Freddie Kitchens had one of the most disastrous head coaching stint anyone has ever had in the NFL, and has never been known to be a prolific OC or playcaller, yet he is our OC and playcaller. This staff has virtually zero collective collegiate coaching experience, so they were probably entirely reliant upon what they know, which is coaching, scheming, game planning, and playcalling for the NFL, which is decidedly different from doing it in college. A lot of NFL people seemingly have an arrogance about them that leads them to believe that "football is football" and that just because they were successful at the professional level, then they will automatically be successful doing the same things at the collegiate level, because the collegiate level must just be the "JV league" of the NFL.
First, Freddie Kitchens most certainly did not have such a disastrous head coaching stint. This was a team that went 1-15 and 0-16 in previous seasons. In the next one, they recovered a bit to 7-8-1, but the team was 2-5-1 until Kitchens was promoted to OC. Then when he became head coach, they were a disappointing 6-10 but come on. That's what the 49ers were last year and nobody thinks Shanahan is a disaster.

Second, the problem with these "coaches are incompentent" accusations is that they are completely wild and don't make sense. OK, let's suppose Kitchens is a bad OC. Is he so bad that he doesn't understand the benefit of moving the pocket? Of designing some short, quick-hit passing plays? That is not plausible. He was a HC and OC in the NFL. He's coached in the NFL for two decades. It is impossible that he doesn't understand basics like this.

Just like it's impossible that HD doesn't understand "how to run an offense." Whatever the virtues or vices of HD's coaching, it is impossible that he doesn't understand how offense works. Impossible. He played under Dean. He played at a high level in the NBA, as an offensive minded player. He coached with Roy.

Fans need to chill the fuck out sometimes. Maybe BB won't be a good coach, but the idea that he doesn't understand basics is ridiculous and more worthy of scorn than the preseason game theory.
 
I think you're being too harsh. I have no idea about the provenance of that theory, and it seems an extreme wording, but you don't think there was some of that going on?

Why did Dean and then Roy use December games to give everyone some run, before settling into the main rotation later in the year? Because it's hard to judge a player without seeing what he can do. When he gave Hubert -- who was so lightly recruited in HS that Dean recommended he go to Furman, IIRC -- some PT early in his freshmen and then sophomore seasons, he took advantage of that. He went from afterthought to star and then (almost) NBA champion. Meanwhile, Max Owens -- a similar player -- did not prosper when getting run.

BB is coming into an almost unprecedented situation. Maybe Deion did this at UC, but how often does a team show up on the first game with a handful of players who had ever taken a snap for that team? And on top of that, they would be adjusting to a new system? I think it would be quite foolish to commit to a lineup without giving everyone a chance. Which isn't exactly the same thing as not trying to win or treating the game like preseason, but it's also different than going balls-out to win a game when you don't even know what the team can do.

For instance, suppose TCU had a hole in their defense that we could exploit all day long. I don't know, let's say they couldn't stop off-tackle runs, for whatever reason. So running 50 off-tackle plays might win the game, but it's not going to help gain experience for future games unless we expect that everyone will have that same hole in the D. Obviously that didn't happen, but can you really argue the point in the abstract?
I absolutely do not think there was any treatment of the TCU game like an NFL preseason game going on, and if there was, Belichick needs to be fired on the spot for not understanding college football. There are no preseason games in college football, and the reason why the 'November and December games in college basketball' analogy doesn't compare, IMO, is because there are ~30 regular season college basketball games which makes each individual game significantly less weighted than an individual college football game, where the regular season matters significantly more so. Also, there are teams with new coaching staffs and new rosters that look way more competent in their first games than we did on Monday night. Florida State turned over their roster from last year's 2-10 team and kicked the crap out of Alabama this past weekend, for example.

What happened on Monday is very easy to decipher, IMO: the coaching staff was completely unprepared for how to coach, manage, and call a college game. Can they improve? Sure. Do I hope they will improve? Absolutely. But I'm just calling balls and strikes as I see them right now, and right now, we've got a very expensive coaching staff that *currently* appears to be in over their head.
 
First, Freddie Kitchens most certainly did not have such a disastrous head coaching stint. This was a team that went 1-15 and 0-16 in previous seasons. In the next one, they recovered a bit to 7-8-1, but the team was 2-5-1 until Kitchens was promoted to OC. Then when he became head coach, they were a disappointing 6-10 but come on. That's what the 49ers were last year and nobody thinks Shanahan is a disaster.

Second, the problem with these "coaches are incompentent" accusations is that they are completely wild and don't make sense. OK, let's suppose Kitchens is a bad OC. Is he so bad that he doesn't understand the benefit of moving the pocket? Of designing some short, quick-hit passing plays? That is not plausible. He was a HC and OC in the NFL. He's coached in the NFL for two decades. It is impossible that he doesn't understand basics like this.

Just like it's impossible that HD doesn't understand "how to run an offense." Whatever the virtues or vices of HD's coaching, it is impossible that he doesn't understand how offense works. Impossible. He played under Dean. He played at a high level in the NBA, as an offensive minded player. He coached with Roy.

Fans need to chill the fuck out sometimes. Maybe BB won't be a good coach, but the idea that he doesn't understand basics is ridiculous and more worthy of scorn than the preseason game theory.
I never said Belichick or his coaching staff don't understand basics. I'm saying that they clearly **currently** do not understand how to build and manage a college roster, or how to game plan, manage, and call a college game. That doesn't mean that they are overall incompetent or that they don't know football. It means that they don't know important nuances of the very specific level of football at which they are currently coaching.

Look, I get the desire to blame fans for not being "chill." I get it. But these guys are getting paid a whole metric fuck ton of money, and running around billing themselves as "the NFL's 33rd team" for heaven's sake. Criticizing them for looking completely lost and clueless on Monday night as unranked TCU took us behind the woodshed and handed us our worst home loss in 2 decades, in front of the entire freaking sports universe, is completely fair game.
 

UNC, Belichick drop their drawers​


"We all have a drawer. It’s the place where we need to place all the things — big and small — that might distract us. We then close that drawer and forget about what’s in there until our goals our accomplished.

Then, and only then, we can open our drawer and deal with all the things we stowed away.

The drawer is a major pillar of Bill Belichick’s coaching philosophy. He’s written about it in books on coaching and leadership. He’s preached it to his players.

“He’d bring up this drawer four or five times like after Week 14,” former Super Bowl MVP Julian Edelman said. “Like, ‘All right, put it all in the drawer. You gotta go out and do this. We all understand you have bills, taxes. Let’s just put it in the drawer and we’ll worry about that after the season.'”

Spending some of your newfound NFL salary on luxury items? Not during the season. Put that car, jewelry or boat brochure in the drawer. Endorsement deals? Contract issues? Personal business? It all goes in the drawer.

It’s why one of the phrases that pops up most often when searching Belichick’s name is “laser focus.” Another is “doesn’t want to talk about.” Belichick, in football mode, is completely dedicated to poring over film for the one minor key that will give him an edge. He’s better at it and more consumed with it than other coaches, which is saying a lot, given the level of obsession displayed by many in the profession.

Once, Belichick was asked about the “big news from the weekend.” He responded with a blank look. When told that Colts Pro Bowl quarterback Andrew Luck retired, he replied, “I didn’t see that, but I don’t really follow them.” Luck’s in the drawer with the rest of the breaking news on the ESPN crawl.

When Donald Trump mentioned Belichick in a speech the day before his first inauguration, the coach was asked if he had a reaction.

“Not really just — we’ve got a big game.” The president goes in the drawer with the CNN breaking news crawl.

Hit TV shows or movies? Doesn’t watch. Doesn’t care. In the drawer.

Taylor Swift comes to town for a concert? Welcome to the drawer.

“I don’t really know anything about tickets. I’m really focused on trying to get our team ready to play.”

TikTok, Twitter and Instagram drama?

“I don’t really know or care anything about social media. I don’t even know what’s out there or isn’t out there, so that’s irrelevant to me. It doesn’t matter. We played football before there was social media, and it didn’t matter then, either.”

This is the Bill Belichick that won six Super Bowls. It’s the one the Tar Heels thought they were hiring. They thought they were getting the “forsaking all others” focus. They thought they were getting the drawer.

That’s not who showed up in Chapel Hill.

Since his hire in December, nothing has gone in the drawer. It’s on the dining room table, the nightstand, piled up in stacks around a room looking like a hoarder’s house.

Consider, in the 10 days leading up to his first game as a college coach, Belichick:

  • Sold his beach house in Nantucket
  • Signed a deal with Hulu to do a documentary on his team
  • Applied for trademarks to produce jewlery and other merch bearing phrases like “Gold Digger,” “Chapel Bill,” “Belestrator” and “The Belichick Way.”
Comedian and movie star Kevin Hart told a story of being invited into the Patriots’ headquarters by Rob Gronkowski.

“I’m like, ‘Rob, I don’t think this is a good idea for me to go in,’” Hart said. “The first person I see when I walk in is Bill Belichick. He’s walking this way. (I say,) ‘Hey Bill, what’s up?’ This mother-(expletive) didn’t speak, didn’t shake my hand. I said, ‘Oh, they serious up in here.’”

Hart didn’t realize it at the time, but he was in the drawer. Contrast that with opening night at UNC, when enough celebrities to hold the ESPYs were on hand. There were folks with a connection to UNC: Michael Jordan, LT, Mia Hamm; with a connection to Belichick: Randy Moss, and ones who just wanted to be there, apparently, like Blake Snell and Aaron Boone.

There’s nothing wrong with selling property, signing media deals, cashing in on endorsement opportunities or hobnobbing with celebs. It’s just that there’s a time for that.

And a drawer for that.

And it’s not being used.

And it shows.

“Each week, get ready to go for that week, do the best you can to help your team win, and after that game move on to the next one,” Belichick once said. “And at the end of the season, that’s the end of the season. But on a week-to-week basis, I don’t want to spend time or get caught up in what happened five years ago, or what’s going to happen two years from now, and a bunch of other random stuff. … I’m committed to the team that I’m coaching right now, the players that are here. They deserve my best every day, and that’s what I’m going to give them.”

That’s what the Tar Heels thought they were getting.

They’ll have to decide if it’s what they got."
Season 1 Nbc GIF by The Good Place
 

UNC, Belichick drop their drawers​


"We all have a drawer. It’s the place where we need to place all the things — big and small — that might distract us. We then close that drawer and forget about what’s in there until our goals our accomplished.

Then, and only then, we can open our drawer and deal with all the things we stowed away.

The drawer is a major pillar of Bill Belichick’s coaching philosophy. He’s written about it in books on coaching and leadership. He’s preached it to his players.

“He’d bring up this drawer four or five times like after Week 14,” former Super Bowl MVP Julian Edelman said. “Like, ‘All right, put it all in the drawer. You gotta go out and do this. We all understand you have bills, taxes. Let’s just put it in the drawer and we’ll worry about that after the season.'”

Spending some of your newfound NFL salary on luxury items? Not during the season. Put that car, jewelry or boat brochure in the drawer. Endorsement deals? Contract issues? Personal business? It all goes in the drawer.

It’s why one of the phrases that pops up most often when searching Belichick’s name is “laser focus.” Another is “doesn’t want to talk about.” Belichick, in football mode, is completely dedicated to poring over film for the one minor key that will give him an edge. He’s better at it and more consumed with it than other coaches, which is saying a lot, given the level of obsession displayed by many in the profession.

Once, Belichick was asked about the “big news from the weekend.” He responded with a blank look. When told that Colts Pro Bowl quarterback Andrew Luck retired, he replied, “I didn’t see that, but I don’t really follow them.” Luck’s in the drawer with the rest of the breaking news on the ESPN crawl.

When Donald Trump mentioned Belichick in a speech the day before his first inauguration, the coach was asked if he had a reaction.

“Not really just — we’ve got a big game.” The president goes in the drawer with the CNN breaking news crawl.

Hit TV shows or movies? Doesn’t watch. Doesn’t care. In the drawer.

Taylor Swift comes to town for a concert? Welcome to the drawer.

“I don’t really know anything about tickets. I’m really focused on trying to get our team ready to play.”

TikTok, Twitter and Instagram drama?

“I don’t really know or care anything about social media. I don’t even know what’s out there or isn’t out there, so that’s irrelevant to me. It doesn’t matter. We played football before there was social media, and it didn’t matter then, either.”

This is the Bill Belichick that won six Super Bowls. It’s the one the Tar Heels thought they were hiring. They thought they were getting the “forsaking all others” focus. They thought they were getting the drawer.

That’s not who showed up in Chapel Hill.

Since his hire in December, nothing has gone in the drawer. It’s on the dining room table, the nightstand, piled up in stacks around a room looking like a hoarder’s house.

Consider, in the 10 days leading up to his first game as a college coach, Belichick:

  • Sold his beach house in Nantucket
  • Signed a deal with Hulu to do a documentary on his team
  • Applied for trademarks to produce jewlery and other merch bearing phrases like “Gold Digger,” “Chapel Bill,” “Belestrator” and “The Belichick Way.”
Comedian and movie star Kevin Hart told a story of being invited into the Patriots’ headquarters by Rob Gronkowski.

“I’m like, ‘Rob, I don’t think this is a good idea for me to go in,’” Hart said. “The first person I see when I walk in is Bill Belichick. He’s walking this way. (I say,) ‘Hey Bill, what’s up?’ This mother-(expletive) didn’t speak, didn’t shake my hand. I said, ‘Oh, they serious up in here.’”

Hart didn’t realize it at the time, but he was in the drawer. Contrast that with opening night at UNC, when enough celebrities to hold the ESPYs were on hand. There were folks with a connection to UNC: Michael Jordan, LT, Mia Hamm; with a connection to Belichick: Randy Moss, and ones who just wanted to be there, apparently, like Blake Snell and Aaron Boone.

There’s nothing wrong with selling property, signing media deals, cashing in on endorsement opportunities or hobnobbing with celebs. It’s just that there’s a time for that.

And a drawer for that.

And it’s not being used.

And it shows.

“Each week, get ready to go for that week, do the best you can to help your team win, and after that game move on to the next one,” Belichick once said. “And at the end of the season, that’s the end of the season. But on a week-to-week basis, I don’t want to spend time or get caught up in what happened five years ago, or what’s going to happen two years from now, and a bunch of other random stuff. … I’m committed to the team that I’m coaching right now, the players that are here. They deserve my best every day, and that’s what I’m going to give them.”

That’s what the Tar Heels thought they were getting.

They’ll have to decide if it’s what they got."
Man I can’t even bring myself to read articles like these right now lol. Just burying my head in the sand and hoping for a miraculous turnaround.
 
I absolutely do not think there was any treatment of the TCU game like an NFL preseason game going on, and if there was, Belichick needs to be fired on the spot for not understanding college football. There are no preseason games in college football, and the reason why the 'November and December games in college basketball' analogy doesn't compare, IMO, is because there are ~30 regular season college basketball games which makes each individual game significantly less weighted than an individual college football game, where the regular season matters significantly more so. Also, there are teams with new coaching staffs and new rosters that look way more competent in their first games than we did on Monday night. Florida State turned over their roster from last year's 2-10 team and kicked the crap out of Alabama this past weekend, for example.

What happened on Monday is very easy to decipher, IMO: the coaching staff was completely unprepared for how to coach, manage, and call a college game. Can they improve? Sure. Do I hope they will improve? Absolutely. But I'm just calling balls and strikes as I see them right now, and right now, we've got a very expensive coaching staff that *currently* appears to be in over their head.
It depends on what the seasons' goals are.

We're not at the level where a game in September is going to make a difference for us. We aren't going to be in the CFP. As people have been saying, the optimistic take has been like 9 wins against a poor schedule.

The goals for this season should be something like, "beat dook and state" and get into a lower tier bowl. With those goals, early evaluation is a good idea. Which isn't the same as a "preseason game" but it's also something different than "try as hard as possible to win every single game."

Obviously, the problems were far deeper than "give the bench some run." It's certainly possible that they felt that the team was better than it is. Either that, or they know the team is worse and tried to avoid things that [shudder] would have gone even worse. Or maybe BB doesn't give a fuck any more and neither does the staff. Time will tell. Here I'm more interested in the idea of whether an evaluation approach early is a good idea.
 
It depends on what the seasons' goals are.

We're not at the level where a game in September is going to make a difference for us. We aren't going to be in the CFP. As people have been saying, the optimistic take has been like 9 wins against a poor schedule.

The goals for this season should be something like, "beat dook and state" and get into a lower tier bowl. With those goals, early evaluation is a good idea. Which isn't the same as a "preseason game" but it's also something different than "try as hard as possible to win every single game."

Obviously, the problems were far deeper than "give the bench some run." It's certainly possible that they felt that the team was better than it is. Either that, or they know the team is worse and tried to avoid things that [shudder] would have gone even worse. Or maybe BB doesn't give a fuck any more and neither does the staff. Time will tell. Here I'm more interested in the idea of whether an evaluation approach early is a good idea.
If our goal is to make any bowl game we cannot afford to basically be throwing an early-season game in the name of "evaluation." I think it's possible Bill and Co. didn't want to put everything on film in the opener and therefore went more vanilla than if they were pulling out all of the stops to win the game. (or at least that after the game got out of hand in the mid-third quarter, they did that.) But candidly I think that's a really bad strategy in college football, where every game against major-conference competition is fairly meaningful and a result like the one we saw on Monday is going to have real and significant effects on fan attendance/enthusiasm for the rest of the season. Getting woodshedded like that also has a real impact on team psyche so I just can't see any way that getting thumped was part of the plan, even if only tacitly.
 
If our goal is to make any bowl game we cannot afford to basically be throwing an early-season game in the name of "evaluation." I think it's possible Bill and Co. didn't want to put everything on film in the opener and therefore went more vanilla than if they were pulling out all of the stops to win the game. (or at least that after the game got out of hand in the mid-third quarter, they did that.) But candidly I think that's a really bad strategy in college football, where every game against major-conference competition is fairly meaningful and a result like the one we saw on Monday is going to have real and significant effects on fan attendance/enthusiasm for the rest of the season. Getting woodshedded like that also has a real impact on team psyche so I just can't see any way that getting thumped was part of the plan, even if only tacitly.
Well obviously getting thumped was not the plan. Look, I don't know what happened, obviously. I'm just saying that, if they had been reserving something, essentially investing now for returns later, it wouldn't necessarily be a bad idea.

I don't know shit about football coaching and I've tried hard not to speak about what I don't know. Which is why I confine myself to comments like, "they can't be complete mooks who understand nothing."
 
I'm missing exactly WTF they would have been evaluating.

"Can we pick up a 1st on 3rd and 23 by running it up the gut?"

"Can we tell if our starting QB can win a game without passing the ball?"

"Can we shut down teams by playing 15 yards deep off the WRs and applying no pressure on the QB?"

I mean seriously. What kind of evaluation is possible if you don't even try to do the things that may help you win games down the line?
 
The knee-jerk, blow-it-up and fire everyone, extreme is so fucking ridiculous. They've coached/played one game together, virtually all of them. They're doomed to fail, really, after one game? And, to top it off, many of y'all are the ones saying to give HD and staff time to turn it around. How about we give them at least a season before we doom it the biggest failure in the history of everything?
 
The knee-jerk, blow-it-up and fire everyone, extreme is so fucking ridiculous. They've coached/played one game together, virtually all of them. They're doomed to fail, really, after one game? And, to top it off, many of y'all are the ones saying to give HD and staff time to turn it around. How about we give them at least a season before we doom it the biggest failure in the history of everything?
I hear you, and completely understand your perspective. I know it's got to be frustrating seeing all of the negative reactions. I can totally empathize.

I wont't speak for others, but speaking for myself, it's not that I think we should blow it all up and fire everyone after one bad game. It's not that at all. It's that I think that a coaching staff that we are paying $20M a year to win games, and a coaching staff that we've invested tens of additional millions in program infrastructure, and a coaching staff led by someone hailed as the greatest football coach of all time (one known to be obsessive about detail), should deservedly be held to a high standard. If we don't hold this staff to a much higher standard than we've held our previous staffs, I'm not sure what the whole point of this experiment is.

We don't have the luxury of time because our head coach is 73 years old and he ain't getting any younger. We don't have the luxury of sitting around waiting for a 3-5 year program rebuild to *maybe* happen. We need to win, and we need to win quickly, or all of the excitement, momentum, enthusiasm, and most importantly, unprecedented financial investment in the program will diminish. If we wanted a 5 year rebuild, we could have hired virtually any other collegiate coach and paid him half the money we are paying Belichick. If we are okay with getting completely obliterated by an unranked team, there are a ton of other coaches out there who could do it.

I think a lot of our fans are desperate to be relevant and are desperate for attention from the media, and are desperate for high-stakes football, but don't want the pressure and expectations that come with high-stakes football. If we are going to pay our head coach $10M, and if we are going to pour tens of millions more into the program, and if we are going to run around calling ourselves the NFL's 33rd team, then we have to be prepared for all of the criticism that coms our way, by fans and media alike, when we put forth such a laughably poor product as we did on Monday night with the whole sports world watching.

I want this thing to be spectacularly successful as any other UNC fan does. I want Bill to win ACC titles and compete for playoff berths. I want us to be on national television, on College Gameday, playing in high stakes games. If that happens under Belichick, nobody will be happier than me. But what happened on Monday night shows that we remain lightyears away from any of that being a reality- and since we have such a short window of time in which to accomplish the above with our current head coach, a massive setback like Monday night was the worst case scenario. That's all I'm saying.
 
I hear you, and completely understand your perspective. I know it's got to be frustrating seeing all of the negative reactions. I can totally empathize.

I wont't speak for others, but speaking for myself, it's not that I think we should blow it all up and fire everyone after one bad game. It's not that at all. It's that I think that a coaching staff that we are paying $20M a year to win games, and a coaching staff that we've invested tens of additional millions in program infrastructure, and a coaching staff led by someone hailed as the greatest football coach of all time (one known to be obsessive about detail), should deservedly be held to a high standard. If we don't hold this staff to a much higher standard than we've held our previous staffs, I'm not sure what the whole point of this experiment is.

We don't have the luxury of time because our head coach is 73 years old and he ain't getting any younger. We don't have the luxury of sitting around waiting for a 3-5 year program rebuild to *maybe* happen. We need to win, and we need to win quickly, or all of the excitement, momentum, enthusiasm, and most importantly, unprecedented financial investment in the program will diminish. If we wanted a 5 year rebuild, we could have hired virtually any other collegiate coach and paid him half the money we are paying Belichick. If we are okay with getting completely obliterated by an unranked team, there are a ton of other coaches out there who could do it.

I think a lot of our fans are desperate to be relevant and are desperate for attention from the media, and are desperate for high-stakes football, but don't want the pressure and expectations that come with high-stakes football. If we are going to pay our head coach $10M, and if we are going to pour tens of millions more into the program, and if we are going to run around calling ourselves the NFL's 33rd team, then we have to be prepared for all of the criticism that coms our way, by fans and media alike, when we put forth such a laughably poor product as we did on Monday night with the whole sports world watching.

I want this thing to be spectacularly successful as any other UNC fan does. I want Bill to win ACC titles and compete for playoff berths. I want us to be on national television, on College Gameday, playing in high stakes games. If that happens under Belichick, nobody will be happier than me. But what happened on Monday night shows that we remain lightyears away from any of that being a reality- and since we have such a short window of time in which to accomplish the above with our current head coach, a massive setback like Monday night was the worst case scenario. That's all I'm saying.
There's holding them to a high standard and then there's ridiculous takes after their first game together. I definitely agree with holding them to a high standard. But, how can we even do that without enough data to form any kind of opinions? It's been one game.
 
There's holding them to a high standard and then there's ridiculous takes after their first game together. I definitely agree with holding them to a high standard. But, how can we even do that without enough data to form any kind of opinions? It's been one game.
I hear ya for sure. I guess for me, whether it’s fair or unfair, I just don’t feel like this particular head coach and staff get much benefit of the doubt when we looked so completely overmatched, outclassed, and outcoached. I’d be way more willing to be more lenient in my assessment if we hadn’t looked so completely inept. That’s what was so alarming to me- not the loss, not even the margin of defeat necessarily, but the fact that we were just completely outclassed in every facet. TCU may be better then we are right now, but their being better had nothing to do with how awful our game plan was, how poor our play calling was, how awful our pursuit angles and tackling were, and how we never made any adjustments once it was clear that TCU could torch our soft defensive alignment through the air at their leisure. That’s what is so alarming to me.

My whole thing is if you’re given every financial resource you asked for, and if you’re going to run around calling yourself the NFL‘s 33rd team all off-season, then to me that is a signal that I as a fan should not expect that you need much on the job training to at least be able to field a competent team in game 1. Again, I definitely did not feel like we had to win the TCU game for there to have been progress. I just felt like we could not be completely and thoroughly humiliated and embarrassed. And to me we were.
 
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