This season compared to the previous two downer years

[Purple Pile Driver]

Good idea. It’s like Narcan for purple koolaid. Welcome back to the real world!

Maybe you can take a dose as well and we can float unharmed through the land of dragons and demons!

 

[IGNORE2]

Maybe you can take a dose as well and we can float unharmed through the land of dragons and demons!

Isn’t it Dungeons and Dragons?

 

[stpaulcat]

The funny thing about college football...anyone from fans to "analysts" - are usually wrong when it comes to guessing what's going to happen, or what would hypothetically happen. So let's agree this is an exercise in futility

I would argue the figures who were key to this season's success were Braun, Bryant, and our receivers. They were here with or without Fitz. While I think Fitz was always a terrible gameday coach, the results would have been roughly the same with him in place. Maybe we would have lost to Minnnesota (or Maryland) but beaten Iowa (or Nebraska)...I think the final record would have been within one win/loss of where we landed...still a winning record, including a bowl win (probably).

Big difference in our faces right now: recruiting. I think we'd have a better class if Fitz had stayed in place.

I don't think Fitz was suffering from burnout...I think he was suffering from a bad case of unchecked power and a lack of humility. To his credit, he was showing signs of change by releasing some coaches and seeing the obvious need to hit the Portal...the 1-11 season was clearly a wake up call.

And...not to rip this scab off, but hazing happened, and it was almost definitely facilitated by several players we were rooting for all season, right under Fitz's nose. Did he know the specifics? Eh...maybe not, but if he did, he was nose blind to the definition of hazing and incorrectly wrote it off as knuckleheads doing a little harmless horsing around. It was almost definitely no worse than what's happening in any other football locker room in America at any level, but Fitz was pretty vocal about "zero tolerance," and those words mean something. I would agree he was mistreated in his dismissal and deserved a better ending, but I also think time heals all wounds, and it's not hard to see a future where he eventually gets a hero's welcome back (albeit not on the payroll) - probably post-Gragg/Schill, but it will happen.

Insight from the peanut gallery--the apple does not fall far from the tree. At a game a while back, I inadvertently met Fitz's dad and a friend of his in the West Lot and had a conversation about the Gothic jerseys they were wearing. A tough nut, in a curmudgeonly sort of way. Pretty clear where Fitz may have gotten his intransigence, which put a limit on his ability to change. He was no doubt unfairly judged and charged. However, the positives he brought to the program this year would have been mediated by his continued inability to adjust to change, were he to have remained as coach. All in all, I believe what has transpired will prove to have made this a better program. Next step--hold the administration accountable for their clumsy and insensitive treatment of Fitz.