UNC Football Catch-all | Bill Belichick Era underway

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Dumb has a 35% chance of working and smart has a 40% chance of working. I think your percentages are far too low.
OK. I'm focusing on the differential, not the absolute numbers. And maybe the differential is 10% or 15%. I mean, who knows. I think we are agreeing on the main point, which is that success requires a lot more than doing things the right way.
 
Va Tech? I mean, not now, but they were.

I used to follow recruiting at least somewhat. I don't now. Even during Mack's best years, I don't recall there being any year when we hit all top 10 instate prospects. Maybe one or two years we hit 8. Long time ago. But I think NCSU will always be a rival because there are players who grow up ABC and liking NCSU. Tennessee recruits the western part of the state, and they were a power for quite a while.

Like I said, someone should run a regression.
No school is ever going to get all of the top talent. But if we consistently get 50% of the elite NC talent, we would absolutely wipe the floor with our present competition and we would be highly competitive with an SEC schedule.

Va Tech, State, SCar and UVa have all had periods of recruiting success, but over the long haul, especially when we have had skilled recruiters, we have consistently outrecruited those schools.

The problem with a geographic regression analysis is that you would need to make a lot of qualitative decisions about what schools to include. For example, are you going to count Florida Atlantic and Florida International as being close to Miami? Are you only going to consider P4 schools?

It is certainly true than UNC is unique in having three other P4 schools within 75 miles, but Duke and Wake are extremely small schools with virtually no recruiting competition to UNC. (Obviously, some recruits will choose one of those two schools for idiosyncratic reasons, but historically, they have not been competitors).
 
I disagree. Cignetti is a savant -- or at the very least, the absolute perfect match of school and coach at the perfect time. What he has done at IU is absolutely unprecedented -- at least to date.

Certainly, a lot of schools will attempt to mimic the Indiana approach in the next hiring cycle (especially schools in the Indiana tier) but unless they get extraordinarily lucky, they will have nowhere near the success of Indiana.
I hear you. I do think we disagree, but I think it’s reasonable disagreement and I’m definitely in full acknowledgment that I could be completely off base.

If Cignetti is truly a coaching savant, then quite literally everyone else in college football missed him for decades, because after a long career of assistant coaching – including coaching under Nick Saban at Alabama, at a time when every school with an opening was trying to poach people from the Nick Saban tree- his only head coaching opportunities were at D2 IUP, FCS Elon, and then G5 JMU. I think he’s a good, no-nonsense coach with a good plan and vision for how he wants to implement his desired culture in his program- and I think Indiana did exactly what they should have done as a program of their stature, which is to take a chance on a G5 head coach who was having good success (and who had a good roster that would be willing to follow him to his new school, to boot).
 
No school is ever going to get all of the top talent. But if we consistently get 50% of the elite NC talent, we would absolutely wipe the floor with our present competition and we would be highly competitive with an SEC schedule.

Va Tech, State, SCar and UVa have all had periods of recruiting success, but over the long haul, especially when we have had skilled recruiters, we have consistently outrecruited those schools.
Have we out recruited them all combined, though? And add U of T, right? I remember us losing big recruits to that program.

I always thought the key to a program's sustained success wasn't necessarily the elite talent but the tier below. The guys who will be solid starters on the OL as juniors or seniors. The nickel backs. Etc. I definitely could be wrong.
 
I hear you. I do think we disagree, but I think it’s reasonable disagreement and I’m definitely in full acknowledgment that I could be completely off base.

If Cignetti is truly a coaching savant, then quite literally everyone else in college football missed him for decades, because after a long career of assistant coaching – including coaching under Nick Saban at Alabama, at a time when every school with an opening was trying to poach people from the Nick Saban tree- his only head coaching opportunities were at D2 IUP, FCS Elon, and then G5 JMU. I think he’s a good, no-nonsense coach with a good plan and vision for how he wants to implement his desired culture in his program- and I think Indiana did exactly what they should have done as a program of their stature, which is to take a chance on a G5 head coach who was having good success (and who had a good roster that would be willing to follow him to his new school, to boot).
Yup, sometimes the perfect coach is mired in obscurity for most of his career. It happens.

Personally, I think coaching talent is very often mistaken for coaching opportunity and luck. There are probably thousands of coaches that could be successful at the elite level but we will never know because only a dozen or so have built up enough a resume to let a P4 athletic program take a chance on them.
 
Well Larry was 45-43 at UNC, which is pretty much the definition of mediocrity. He had one good year.
i think larry more or less doomed his own tenure and was a pretty mediocre coach, but there's absolutely no chance that in the transfer portal era he wouldn't have at least gotten UNC to bowl eligibility in his last two years instead of winning 5 games across them. those teams were legitimately a quarterback away and it wouldn't have been hard to find one. replace that aggregate 5-18 with, like, 12-13 and he's 52-38, which i'm pretty sure would be near the top of UNC coaching records. He was a good hire, especially amid the NCAA investigation.
 
I will always have a soft spot for Fedora, and I will be likely crucified here for admitting it, but I also will fondly remember John Bunting. Dude bled Carolina Blue and that has to count for something. I also don't remember his teams as sloppy poorly coached illegal procedure type teams either (but maybe I'm looking back with my baby blue glasses on).

Going forward all I want is disciplined assignment football. Do your F'ing job, don't try to showboat or be a hero. Give me that team and a 6 and 6 record and honestly, I'd be content. That's a foundation you can build on. Our problem has always been we expect greatness as our due. We do some work see some success and then take our foot off the gas because we've decided we've arrived at what has always been destined for us. We have never ever once done the hard foundation building work necessary for sustained success (add customary Butch David disclaimer here).
 
Well I hope Gio comes back rejuvenated and the Heels surprise. Dealing with a chest cold and will need to get some rest tonight. Hoping for good news in the morning.
 
I will always have a soft spot for Fedora, and I will be likely crucified here for admitting it, but I also will fondly remember John Bunting. Dude bled Carolina Blue and that has to count for something. I also don't remember his teams as sloppy poorly coached illegal procedure type teams either (but maybe I'm looking back with my baby blue glasses on).

Going forward all I want is disciplined assignment football. Do your F'ing job, don't try to showboat or be a hero. Give me that team and a 6 and 6 record and honestly, I'd be content. That's a foundation you can build on. Our problem has always been we expect greatness as our due. We do some work see some success and then take our foot off the gas because we've decided we've arrived at what has always been destined for us. We have never ever once done the hard foundation building work necessary for sustained success (add customary Butch David disclaimer here).
Agreed on Bunting. He simply didn't have the success needed to stay as head coach and I thought that he needed to go, but I did really like him on a personal basis for the reasons you mentioned, and I truly wish it had worked out better for him here. He did bleed Carolina Blue - I still remember that image of him after a bad loss staying behind on the field and putting his cap over his heart while the alma mater is sung while standing virtually alone, and it looked completely heartfelt, and then we had that huge upset of Miami shortly after and there was the photo of him once again standing for the alma mater but this time he was surrounded by deliriously happy fans who had stormed the field. It was one of the most heartfelt and inspiring images I have of UNC football to this day. It's too bad it didn't work out for him, as he was likely the most loyal and "true blue" football coach we've had since 2000, imo.
 
I still remember that image of him after a bad loss staying behind on the field and putting his cap over his heart while the alma mater is sung while standing virtually alone, and it looked completely heartfelt, and then we had that huge upset of Miami shortly after and there was the photo of him once again standing for the alma mater but this time he was surrounded by deliriously happy fans who had stormed the field.
 
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