More Dudes Got Kicked Off The Team

[JohnFloyd4Life]

http://www.toledoblade.com/College/2018 ... 0180720146" target="_blank

Armani Posey, Dirion Hutchins. Bad news for a bad news defense that has already sustained a lot of other bad news.

[CrazyFan]

http://www.toledoblade.com/College/2018 ... 0180720146

Armani Posey, Dirion Hutchins. Bad news for a bad news defense that has already sustained a lot of other bad news.

2 more of Jinx recruits arrested, charged and thrown off the team. Is it now time to finally cut ties with this unqualified, clueless clown of a head coach who clearly has no control of his program? Time to get someone else in charge of this program to get it headed in the opposite direction. This program is a total mess and a total embarrassment. This athletic department is a mess. #firejinks

[jpfalcon09]

Hutchins was a Babers recruit that Jinks was able to keep on. Regardless, we're getting back to the Brandon era with guys unable to keep their noses clean. It has not been a good offseason for the coaching staff.

[MarkL]

Brandon was fired for a lack of progress while these types of off the field incidents, including a credit card theft and fraud in offseason 2008, were happening. In fact I don't think any Brandon team had this many off season issues, even 2008. Brandon only once had a losing season, for context, and he followed that up with an 8 win season with a bowl game along with a 37-10 beatdown of UT and an upset over Minnesota.
Now I am expecting a turnaround. Jinks has everything he needs for a winning season and championship contention. If he can't win with the team he has, combine that with the offseason problems and there's a natural direction to go. I sincerely hope that's not the case.

[guest44]

When Brandon was coach the local media actually would actually ask him about this stuff. Our local media, tweets it and runs, as far as possible from it. The only person who used to actually question this stuff was Strack. However, he seems to just ignore it as it feels like piling on a coach who is obviously in over his head in this. The real story is the people who hired these people (including the swim coach) and the lack of leadership and accountability from top to bottom. Unfortunately, I'm not sure BGSU even realizes how bad this looks. In today's Twitter world, a few likes can cloud the reality into thinking one is doing good. As shown by the lack of posts on this board, and lack of enthusiasm for the upcoming season, people will find better things to follow.

[Schadenfreude]

Tough losses. Carl Pelini's job just got tougher. Hate to see this.

I also hate to see Mike Jinks get beat up over this. For those firing at Jinks right now, I ask: What is it that he was supposed to do to stop Dirion Hutchins from committing felonies on his own time? Buy a time machine two or three years ago when he decided to honor Dino Babers's original offer to Hutchins? Hire the Pre Crime unit from Minority Report? Hire 85 private eyes to shadow each of his players 24x7? Written psychological tests?

It happened. It isn't good. But I don't put this on Jinks.

[jpfalcon09]

Tough losses. Carl Pelini's job just got tougher. Hate to see this.

I also hate to see Mike Jinks get beat up over this. For those firing at Jinks right now, I ask: What is it that he was supposed to do to stop Dirion Hutchins from committing felonies on his own time? Buy a time machine two or three years ago when he decided to honor Dino Babers's original offer to Hutchins? Hire the Pre Crime unit from Minority Report? Hire 85 private eyes to shadow each of his players 24x7? Written psychological tests?

It happened. It isn't good. But I don't put this on Jinks.

He's not directly responsible, but it begs the question about the culture of the football program. Where's the leadership? Young men are going to listen to their peers more than the head coach. Jinks is ultimately responsible for that. I also think he or Moose owe those of us who buy season tickets and donate to the Falcon Club a public explanation. This spring and summer have been embarrassing.

[guest44]

Media Day is this week. It should be a good chance for Jinks and Moose to take responsibility for the mess this summer.

[MarkL]

He's not directly responsible, but it begs the question about the culture of the football program. Where's the leadership?

Those two words, culture and leadership, were tossed around these parts a lot at the end of the Brandon tenure. Brandon was let go largely because of attrition. He would sign good classes and by the time they were juniors and seniors, the classes were largely gutted, between academics, trouble, dropouts, etc and the result was 6-6 (4-4) in 2008 with a squad that had 12-0 and conference champions written all over them.

I can remember senior day in 2010 and 2011. The seniors (those that were recruited as freshmen) would have been recruited in 2006, 2007, or 2008, so second half Brandon tenure recruiting where a bunch of his recruits had character issues that he and staff either didn't notice or were willing to accept. There were only like eight or so seniors in each of those senior days that were recruited as freshmen. Then come 2012 and beyond when the classes reflected Clawson recruiting, the story was back to where it should be.

So I decided to do some quick research into attrition on the current squad. And what I found was a bit shocking.

2016 recruiting
Between high school and juco, the 2016 class brought a total of 22 recruits. Of those, only 9 are still on roster. That alone is utterly shocking. Two years in, guys that should be either juniors or redshirt sophomores.
Now two of them (Skattebo and Jefferies) have graduated. Skattebo was a junior college transfer and Jefferies amazingly graduated in two years and is transferring for grad school. Great for both of these guys.
Among the rest, you've got a transfer for playing time (Cunningham), quit the sport due to injury (Zimmerman), trouble (Hitchens and Posey), and many others I have no explanation.
Regardless, that is Brandon-level attrition.

2017 recruiting
Between high school and juco, the 2017 recruiting class brought 26 recruits. Of those, 7 are gone, 19 are still on roster. While this is a far better ratio than 2016, remember that these guys haven't even played the season opener of their second season, and this class was lauded as the best class in BG history.
Of the 7 gone, you've got Wilcox and Guyton, kicked off for violent assaults in the off-season, you've got Koontz, lauded as the best player of the class, who never showed, and you've got a few more. That is a quarter of the "greatest class in BG history" gone before beginning their second season.

Now I have to reiterate that I am expecting a turnaround this year. Jinks is in his third year, and third year of a head coach is generally when the team truly becomes his team. He's got a talented roster with a bunch of freshmen playing beyond their years. He's got an actual defensive coordinator instead of a position coach (whose results as position coach weren't even that good) carrying around a clipboard acting like he knows what he's doing. He's got a team that was in some games they had no business being in for as long as they did. All the pieces are there. That all said, when you break it down, this level of attrition is very concerning. The last coach we fired was fired for this very reason, and now two more Jinks recruits who have played for this staff for two years are out the door.

[Flipper]

First year classes often have a lot of blow outs...considering we had our third head coach in what three years...I'm not shocked to see so many have left.

My main concern is that this isn't an isolated incident within the program or department. I'm assuming they caught this with some kind of internal audit...I hope they're going over that process again to make certain no one else was doing something similar on a smaller scale

[guest44]

Hopefully the internal audit finds what is pretty obvious from the outside. Combine 8 losses to Toledo in a row, unparalleled lack of success on the field in the major sports, bad coaching contracts all over, and the majority of headlines about the department coming from the blotter, and I’d say the audit is pretty clear. The external audit reveals a complete lack of awareness.

[Schadenfreude]

Great research, MarkL.

I'm more inclined to judge a coach based on overall staff turnover, in part because I think this is a factor in the NCAA's APR that all Division I universities need to monitor.

The 2016 class was the bridge class. That's definitely high. Turnover in 2017 seems higher than we would like. I guess we will see what happens going forward.

[kdog27]

Jinks fault? No not directly. But it sure helps when you have other positives to point to. I'm still waiting for something positive to come from this hire.

[Falconwriter]

Jinks fault? No not directly. But it sure helps when you have other positives to point to. I'm still waiting for something positive to come from this hire.

It will be interesting to see how the team fares this season, given they've got some excellent returning offensive talent. We now have a defensive coordinator with an actual track record of success...but does he have enough decent players to stop BG from being a sieve on the field as it's been the last two seasons? Not sure about that one.

Brandon's undoing, ultimately, wasn't just losing and some off-field incidents. If you recall, the team academics ended up being so bad, BG lost scholarships because of it. That was both embarrassing for the program, and a bit devastating for the short-term. Hopefully, we aren't about to see a repeat of all of these issues.