I can tell you for a fact that there were young men like Pope and Williamson on the team in the late 60's and 70's. The difference today is public platform for their views.
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- Thread starter MD Buckeye
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OH10
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Happens at every school. Players get passed over. They all have Twitter. Why did we have two players bash the coaches on the way out? There’s got to be some explanation for that.
I look back to the beginning of the year when the defensive rotation was an absolute shitshow. The coaches didn’t pick firm starters. It seemed they were trying to make everyone happy. And that’s just what we saw on the field. We don’t know what promises were made behind the scenes.
Williamson and Pope are being reckless and very immature on the way out. But we all know there is a problem in the lockerroom on that side of the ball. This isn’t all a coincidence.
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I agree that there are issues on the defensive coaching staff and I am happy for then changes that are coming. My only point was that for every player that idolized Woody there was one that hated him.
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McCall and Master Teague? Absolutely.
But what's going on this week makes me appreciate Jonathan Cooper, Tuf Borland, and Pete Werner more.
If I had to guess one thing, I'd say it's a leadership vacuum. Maybe half time of the Rose Bowl was this teams' half time of the Outback Bowl in January 2002?
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This is not normal. There is too much mess. Something is smelling off in the program and Ryan Day needs to assess and take control.
I believe he will. I think it starts with him realizing he delegated a bit too much on defensive side of the ball.
I believe he will. I think it starts with him realizing he delegated a bit too much on defensive side of the ball.
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What’s not normal? A player that was passed up by younger players being upset like Pope or a player that doesn’t like the institution of the NCAA like Williamson?
Because I can provide a boat-load of examples of each.
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Obviously, none of us are privy to what goes on inside of the program on a day-to-day basis. However, what we seem to have is two players who are now throwing a tantrum on social media because their careers didn't work out the way they expected or felt they were entitled to. The fact that a number of players have come out stating that they did not experience the same treatment leads me to treat their claims with a great deal of skepticism. Hell, Cardale Jones had as much reason to validate their claims as anyone. He was literally benched his last year. This smacks of two kids who didn't get the playing time they expected for whatever reason and want to blame everyone but themselves.
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Those things are normal and you’re right there are many examples.
And usually at a place like Ohio State those players are told clearly that they don’t have a future as a starter at the program and should either become a leader in another way (McCall, Teague, Saunders) or transfer (Jamo, Miller, Antonio Williams).
I think this year the coaches played around with personnel rotation far too long. Almost like they didn’t know what they had. Which is fine in the NFL because everyone is getting a game check. But in college you have to be straightforward especially at an NFL feeder like tOSU (and most players come here for the chance to get to the NFL).
Expectations and entitlements are right to call out but I don’t doubt that there was also a personnel mgmt issue this season. That’s what I think Day will get closer to.
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It's not unlike a bunch of Cooper's guys in 03/04 coming out to anyone with a microphone. All guys that saw some PT in 2000/2001 but got completely passed over by a loaded 2002 freshman class.
As I said, this really stinks of a leadership void on the defensive side in the locker room. Maybe the staff expected Harrison or Garrett to be The Guy (tm) and that's just not their personalities, but the defense pulling a complete 180 in the middle of being pantsed on national TV in The Granddaddy of Them All and finding out after the fact it was McCall that stepped up?
Maybe the lack of a firm depth chart and treating that side of the ball as plug-and-play all August & September contributed to players not knowing their roles -- and I mean off the field and in the pecking order.
My problem all season with laying this on the defensive staff is that we all know these guys are good coaches and, at least before this season, their players/former players raved about them and were fiercely loyal.
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Abenaki
Ohio against the world.
Yeah, that tells me what I need to know here.
There may have been a leadership void, say what you want about Tuf on the field (and I have), I don't think his leadership skills could be questioned. There was probably confusion in the locker room about coaching leadership with Coombs battlefield demotion.
Next year they'll have a clear leader as a coach. I hope someone on the field learned from Demario at the Rose Bowl. Some of the poison has excised itself, make sure you got it all.
Edit: Pope has also been in the portal since Sept and still doesn't have a landing spot. So, he probably not getting the offers or attention he thinks he deserves. Probably fueling his outburst, while the outburst explains why he hasn't found a spot yet.
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There's an avalanche of assumptions here, and the 2 bolded sentences don't fit together at all.
The reality is they didn't have good LBs, and they tried a lot of guys to fix it. We can speculate as to why, but no one got on the field and then played great. Some felt Pope's play was less inconsistent than others, but it was a mess overall, and very basic things were not happening at the position.
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