Buffalo Bulls

[jpfalcon09]

How do you let a program go from winning a MAC Championship to worse than Eastern Michigan & Kent?

1) Give a AD with a orange pickup the ability to hire whoever he wants no questions asked. Jinks and the ass slapper.
2) Keep Mike Jinks around too long.
3) Allow the right hand man of the previous AD to hang around and have a huge say in the next hire, while tossing money in Lake Erie for a search firm.
4) Allow the fantasy of Dave Clawson to continue to convince you that guy you hired can coach.
5) Give the guy 5 years to fully reck it to the ground while lowering the standards based on previous coaches leaving for better jobs and after actual success.

It's incredible that you've found so many ways to say the exact same thing every time you "contribute" here. Really impressive stuff.

The horse carcass has been pulverized to dust.

[roguewarrior]

Two players walked off this week during practice …. One is a big knucklehead-no loss, the other had some promise, played ST.

[jpfalcon09]

Two players walked off this week during practice …. One is a big knucklehead-no loss, the other had some promise, played ST.

See ya. Never had time for guys who quit on their teammates.

[BillyLP]

Two players walked off this week during practice …. One is a big knucklehead-no loss, the other had some promise, played ST.

See ya. Never had time for guys who quit on their teammates.

Yeah, it's one thing to decide it isn't the right spot for you and transfer after the season, it's another to quit in the middle of it. Only excuse is if you just physically or mentally can't play the game anymore (which, who knows, could be the case).

[Tony4BG]

I highly doubt every guy in portal right now are quitters. Most know how Loeffler really is as a coach.

[roguewarrior]

Two players walked off this week during practice …. One is a big knucklehead-no loss, the other had some promise, played ST.

See ya. Never had time for guys who quit on their teammates.

Yeah, it's one thing to decide it isn't the right spot for you and transfer after the season, it's another to quit in the middle of it. Only excuse is if you just physically or mentally can't play the game anymore (which, who knows, could be the case).

One is an idiot. The other is speculated that he didn’t want to burn his red shirt. Makes some sense if you are committing to Bolt in December anyway. If you go the honorable route and tell him in a sit down, you are probably shown the same door anyway.

[jpfalcon09]

Two players walked off this week during practice …. One is a big knucklehead-no loss, the other had some promise, played ST.

See ya. Never had time for guys who quit on their teammates.

Yeah, it's one thing to decide it isn't the right spot for you and transfer after the season, it's another to quit in the middle of it. Only excuse is if you just physically or mentally can't play the game anymore (which, who knows, could be the case).

One is an idiot. The other is speculated that he didn’t want to burn his red shirt. Makes some sense if you are committing to Bolt in December anyway. If you go the honorable route and tell him in a sit down, you are probably shown the same door anyway.

Kid can transfer then if he has a disagreement with the coaching staff. I think it's a weak cop out. None of these kids are ever going to conquer any sort of adversity in life if the first thing they do is bolt when something doesn't go their way. Again, personally, I don't have time for kids like that on my team. We encountered the same thing when I coached the club hockey team and honestly, those kids simply aren't worth the time if they're already set on wanting out.

[roguewarrior]

I would agree. I am just noting in the scheme of the Knuckleheads, the one is a decent person and not a complete waste…. He may end up somewhere, as opposed to out of football.

[hammb]

Two players walked off this week during practice …. One is a big knucklehead-no loss, the other had some promise, played ST.

See ya. Never had time for guys who quit on their teammates.

This is all well and good but it's the same BS we said every single year during the Dakich 2.0 years.

Yeah, maybe every kid that left was a knucklehead that we didn't really want around anyhow. Maybe none of them were ever going to amount to much. I don't know, and I don't much care. The bottom line is this becomes a coaching problem. Either he's not recruiting the right kids, or he's not doing a good job with them to keep them happy, or some other who knows what reason. At the end of the day the reasons for so many defections are irrelevant; equally as irrelevant is the fact that most of these kids may not amount to anything after they leave.

WHat is absolutely relevant, is when you continue to see mass defections every year you will NEVER build a legit program. That's all I care about.

[Flipper]

IIRC things got so bad under Dakich that he had players actively encouraging recruits to look elsewhere.

[roguewarrior]

Gone is gone. Early on, a lot of the Bong team and “ likes to fight guys” from the Jinks era were tossed. I am continually surprised to learn and see that a lot of the ones they brought in prefer Buddha and sleeping in over training, rehab, good nutrition and football.

[jpfalcon09]

Two players walked off this week during practice …. One is a big knucklehead-no loss, the other had some promise, played ST.

See ya. Never had time for guys who quit on their teammates.

This is all well and good but it's the same BS we said every single year during the Dakich 2.0 years.

Yeah, maybe every kid that left was a knucklehead that we didn't really want around anyhow. Maybe none of them were ever going to amount to much. I don't know, and I don't much care. The bottom line is this becomes a coaching problem. Either he's not recruiting the right kids, or he's not doing a good job with them to keep them happy, or some other who knows what reason. At the end of the day the reasons for so many defections are irrelevant; equally as irrelevant is the fact that most of these kids may not amount to anything after they leave.

WHat is absolutely relevant, is when you continue to see mass defections every year you will NEVER build a legit program. That's all I care about.

There's going to be defections every year now under the current climate of college athletics. Programs like BG are going to be feeder programs for bigger schools - and kids who think they can excel at the P5 level are going to explore that opportunity now. Others will have their reasons, as you mention. I don't think laying all that at the feet of the coaching staff is fair. You recruit guys with the information you have and you hope it's accurate. But things change when kids get to campus. I think we can all look back on our own college experiences and remember buddies in our dorms who never came back after a semester or a full year. Program building as it stands now for many programs is going to be picking through the portal to supplement homegrown talent and replace defections. It's the new reality.

[hammb]

Two players walked off this week during practice …. One is a big knucklehead-no loss, the other had some promise, played ST.

See ya. Never had time for guys who quit on their teammates.

This is all well and good but it's the same BS we said every single year during the Dakich 2.0 years.

Yeah, maybe every kid that left was a knucklehead that we didn't really want around anyhow. Maybe none of them were ever going to amount to much. I don't know, and I don't much care. The bottom line is this becomes a coaching problem. Either he's not recruiting the right kids, or he's not doing a good job with them to keep them happy, or some other who knows what reason. At the end of the day the reasons for so many defections are irrelevant; equally as irrelevant is the fact that most of these kids may not amount to anything after they leave.

WHat is absolutely relevant, is when you continue to see mass defections every year you will NEVER build a legit program. That's all I care about.

There's going to be defections every year now under the current climate of college athletics. Programs like BG are going to be feeder programs for bigger schools - and kids who think they can excel at the P5 level are going to explore that opportunity now. Others will have their reasons, as you mention. I don't think laying all that at the feet of the coaching staff is fair. You recruit guys with the information you have and you hope it's accurate. But things change when kids get to campus. I think we can all look back on our own college experiences and remember buddies in our dorms who never came back after a semester or a full year. Program building as it stands now for many programs is going to be picking through the portal to supplement homegrown talent and replace defections. It's the new reality.

I don't disagree that with the current rules on transfers there are going to be more kids coming and going through transfers than ever before.
I don't disagree that kids deserve the right to go where they feel is best for their futures
I don't disagree that laying it ALL at the feet of the coaching staff is fair.

But again, in the end, it doesn't much matter. It is the job of the coaches to correctly assess HS talent and find which ones fit well enough culturally at BGSU that they want to stick it out. It is the job of the coaches to correctly assess HS talent to find which ones will be able to play at a high level at BGSU. Certainly defections will be at an all time high, but it is nearly impossible to field competitive football teams losing big chunks of your kids every year, even if you replace them with like age/experience transfers coming in (which you absolutely should do). IT is very difficult to field championship caliber football teams on mercenaries; returning players familiar with the coaching/teammates are paramount.

Bottom line, I agree it's a new world. But any coaches that manage to retain and develop kids for multiple years will be at a massive competitive advantage in the MAC, and it is probably one of the most important jobs our coaches will have. For better or for worse, in this climate you don't stop recruiting your talent until they graduate. Coach Loeffler need only go across campus and talk to Huger; he's been a master at re-recruiting and retaining players that had every opportunity to leave for greener pastures.

[Flipper]

Coaches often find themselves at the mercy of circumstances they largely created themselves....

[hammb]

IIRC things got so bad under Dakich that he had players actively encouraging recruits to look elsewhere.

I absolutely know for a fact that there were players that were here when Dakich left and returned that never forgave him and absolutely did tell HS kids to go elsewhere they don't want to play for him.