Overnight Success? Not So Much …

[ranco]

My point is clear. All these guy had losing records -- sometimes really bad losing records -- in their first two or three years at their new job.

No, your point isn't clear by any means, because, for starters, you left out all the coaches that went the other direction. It's a myth that coaches invariably get better after their first two or three years at their new jobs. A complete myth.

Take Don Read. First year at Portland State (1968), 4-6. Fourth year? 4-5. Second time around at Portland State (Conference, 1982), first year, 2-9. Fourth year? 4-5-1.

Don Read's worst years at Montana were his 1st, 4-4, and his fifth, 4-4, and his seventh, 4-3. Don won as many games his second year, 5, as he did his ninth year at Montana. Obviously, you can't assign "his recruits" to explain any of that.

Bobby Hauck's first year, 9-4. Third year? 8-4.

Joe Glenn? First year at Doane, 5-5. Fourth year? 5-5-1. At Wyoming? First year (conference), 2-5. Sixth Year? 1-7. At South Dakota, first year 0-8. Third year? 0-8.

Larry Donovan, first year 3-7, fifth year, 3-8.

You can cherry pick coaches that did, indeed, do better with the passage of time. You can find plenty of coaches who buried their programs with the passage of time.

The "risk" of making your assumptions, which are generally false, is that they will prove to be false in this specific case. If you take this program seriously, it is a serious question.

Right now, we are 3-4 in conference. .429. A win over the Cats would bring us to just .50. A loss to the Cats would be 0.375, the worst in modern history. The concern is that this is not just an overreaction of fans to overhype, an overhype assisted by both journalists and the coach himself, it is whether what we are seeing on the field is prologue, not circumstance.

So I guess you are saying is that no coach should be given more than 2 or 3 years? Yes, not all coaches get better with time. But each new coach deserves a reasonable time frame to prove their worth. Firing a coach every 2-3 years does not a program make. The Griz are extremely young, at the very least Stitt deserves 2 more years.

 

[BillingsMafia]

Stitt has a 3 year contract. There is enough evidence out there of success after transition time to allow him at least the 3 years that both he and the University agreed to in that contract.

To do otherwise, on the University's part, would have negative consequences for future Coach recruitments, in more than just football.

And we would have to still pay out his contract. Regardless, Stitt will be here next year. This team is young, it has shown that in multiple ways this year. But, this team will be much better next year. People need to remember, we are trying to rebuild a PROGRAM not a team. The former takes a bit of time to instill habits of mind, your players, a system, etc.

However, I don't think it's all rainbows. Until Stitt installs a true heavy package (that doesn't include pulling half our D line) with tight ends on both sides of the line that aren't converted wide receivers, I think we will have struggles in the red zone and establishing a true running game. I think his biggest flaw was getting rid of the traditional tight end in this offense and simply using the modified "lighter" H back. A strength of a real running game is it lets a QB settle into the game and a young QB settle into the team/season. We have not had that for some time.

you are correct. playing without tight ends was an interesting experiment but it has failed.

 

[putter]

I don't think Stitt should be fired now either. Only year 2 but you would have to think the pressure is building. Fans who pay FBS prices to watch a team tend to have high expectations