This is on Fitz.
- Thread starter stpaulcat
- Start date
There’s definitely not a lot of ‘development’ happening. If guys come in ready to play as freshmen, it shows and they’re good players. If not, they kind of stay that way.
Washington has had a pretty good year, about the only player to take a real leap. Gallagher, maybe. Otherwise, not much there.
Washington has had a pretty good year, about the only player to take a real leap. Gallagher, maybe. Otherwise, not much there.
The players did not do “the best they can.” Simple execution errors all over the place.
Doesn’t mean the coaching staff is without fault, more that there’s plenty of blame to go around right now.
That’s right. More than any other team I remember in the Fitz era, this team just repeatedly fails to execute and make plays. While the D had apparent scheme problems early in the season, most of our recent problems have been execution errors. At some point, players need to make plays.
Coaches are ultimately responsible for everything that happens, but people got to simmer down a tad. Penalties, mental errors, and turnovers have told the tale this season. That's on the coaches to fix, but it's also very unlike most Fitz teams.
Agreed. It is atypical for a Fitz team. Which is why I am willing to put some onus on the players.
Well, Fitz was responsible for a penalty on a good non-call that legitimately may have cost our team a TD. So, ya, that is on him.
He even said “it’s on me” after the possession, something he’s never said before…
Coaches are ultimately responsible for how those players perform, but the players are making the kind of mistakes that make it really difficult to win at Northwestern. Oh yeah...and Evan Hull is a dude.
You're actually claiming that Fitz has never said "it's on me" before? It's probably one of the biggest coach cliches that Fitz employs.
When Wiederkehr was coming off the field after the series you could see Fitz apologizing to the players. I think he did something that the camera didn't see and he was apologizing to his players. Not talking to media. Is different.
Hull is one of those late offers to fill out a class (Plan C, like McManis) who ends up being a great player. He will make a fantastic combo with Porter next year.
100%. The refs were really strange today tho. A lot of ticky-tack stuff. The "fair catch"? The last PI on the Iowa corner? That penalty on Fitz was huge and, from what I can understand, it was called because he was on the field. He seemed pretty far behind the play and I see coaches on the field often, so a little unclear about that one but Fitz owned it and said it was the right call.
Beyond that most players did the best they can, why were there simple execution errors all over the place? The question is where does performance begin? I believe the team is being let down by this coaching staff, and if those players are not performing because they are not enough, why are they there? That is also on the coaching staff.
Yeah, I saw that. That was a pretty dramatic camera shot. In the press conference Fitz indicated it was the right call and seemed to indicate that it was because he was on the field. The refs were really odd. Millen was perplexed that they called it.
I have been stating this ad nauseam on these forums but our fans just don't want to hear the truth.
It's easy to point at JON or Bajakian... but right now that's not what our biggest issues are. Our biggest issue is that the team is just not executing on the field and perhaps at some level some players are not really capable of reaching a higher level that's needed in the Big Ten.
Offense just has had too many misfires (Marty was hit or miss too often for example today), defense was on the field too much past couple of games and just wore down and also had its own execution issues at times.
Coaches are ultimately responsible for recruiting and developing players, but the players themselves are responsible for their development and how well they play on the field.
"Coaches are ultimately responsible for recruiting and developing players", and for the way they perform in the field.
Tonight, it was apparent the players were giving it their all. NU is currently suffering from poor player development, recruiting and coaching.
Very random note: I spent a lot of time watching Hunter Johnson on the sidelines tonight. Loneliest guy there. Here's my issue: dude is still a captain, right? I get that he's gotta be living a nightmare right now, but if he's still a captain...act like it - pump up your offense, feign excitement...or just don't bother, right? And for all that I know Fitz has put into leadership council, sacred jersey numbers and all that BS...it surprises me that Fitz is fine with it. It's also what we seem to be talking about here between players and coaches...the behavior of HJ on the sidelines, to me, says a lot about the whole organization right now.
I keep reading on this board that NU is hamstring in recruiting not enabling it to recruit high level players, but gets the smartest players. Accordingly, mental mistakes should be minimal due to the mental acuity of our players. Am I missing something?
These are adult men wearing the uniforms. They bear some of the responsibility along with the coaches.
I saw a lot of players in position failing to make plays. Why should the responsibility not be shared?
Sure, but the coaches can’t make the QB catch the snap from center that hits him in the hands.
This may shock @CoralSpringsCat and others… but I thought all of the coordinators had their best game of the season by far.
Nice calls on offense, the defense did enough for us to be in the game and win, and we had a blocked punt (THANK YOU GENYK & NIRO!).
Fitz shouldn’t have been on the field but he owned it. Bad call by a bad officiating crew.
I have hope that we’ll compete in all 3 of our last games. Win 2 and we could make a bowl. Go Cats!
Nice calls on offense, the defense did enough for us to be in the game and win, and we had a blocked punt (THANK YOU GENYK & NIRO!).
Fitz shouldn’t have been on the field but he owned it. Bad call by a bad officiating crew.
I have hope that we’ll compete in all 3 of our last games. Win 2 and we could make a bowl. Go Cats!
I mean ultimately it's on the coaches. So far six our of 9 opponents have been more motivated than we. How did that happen, did they just happen to recruit more motivated players?
Agreed. There is a reason that a lot of these upperclassmen didn't play much until this year, and it's scary to think that the underclassmen behind them simply can't beat them out.
I watched them celebrate a bunch of seniors I basically hadn't even heard of. Literally out of the 12-14 seniors I had heard of four, Gerak, Spivak, Miller and Snodgrass. The churn and lack of development over 4-5 years is an indictment. Yeah you miss on some but not well over 50% for a class.
I think you have to exclude O’Neil from your statement. What we saw at the beginning of the season defensively was an unmitigated, disorganized disaster when his schemes were at work unabated. What we’ve seen since the bye week is different. Turns out we are just not very talented, deep or disciplined on defense this year but when we play a proven scheme we are able to keep people from running free all over the place and scoring at will.
Did Fitz drop the perfectly thrown pass from Marty to JJ Jefferson on our first play?
Yeah, agree… The only reason we look even somewhat decent on defense at times is that we completely scrapped our new DC’s scheme in favor of the old DC’s schemes over the bye week.