Now is not the time to have this performance

[ragtimejoe1]

Budget crisis is looming large and no end in sight. The football team struggling may lead to the question and discussion: is this a coaching ceiling or a UW ceiling? If UW ceiling, is football financially sustainable for the return on investment?

I fully believe football can succeed and should be played. However, I worry that the budget crisis coinciding with the current state of affairs of the football team will provide ammo to those who have always viewed football as a "fool's errand" or waste of resources.

[307bball]

I fully believe football can succeed and should be played. However, I worry that the budget crisis coinciding with the current state of affairs of the football team will provide ammo to those who have always viewed football as a "fool's errand" or waste of resources.

There is a lot of people that share your view on this board...could you or somebody else break that down for me? I'm a lifelong pokes fan and I want what you are saying to be true but I can't really convince myself of it. It seems like most people who hold the view that Wyoming can succeed in college football at a high level (however you define that) are mostly pointing to the period of time from '87 to '99 where Wyoming posted an overall win percentage of .617 with three conference championships. I think most of us would be pretty pleased to have a return to that level of play at Wyoming. Since that time, Wyoming has no single season as successful as that entire stretch when measured by winning percentage (for reference 9-4 gets you there while 8-5 is below). My question is two-fold:

1. Should we define success at Wyoming as something that looks similar to what happened during the stretch from '87 to '99 (basically averaging 8 and 9 win seasons)? Obviously you get a couple low win seasons balanced out by a couple 10 win season during that time.

2. Is the confidence that success at Wyoming (as defined above) based merely in the fact that it happened once so it obviously can happen again?


For myself...the answers are:

1. I would kill to have a return to the success mentioned above. I would really run from making statements like "championships or else" .... If we consistently average over 8 wins per year in the MWC ... the championships will happen.

2. The mere fact that it happened gives me zero confidence that it could happen again...in fact I believe that larger shifts in college football that Wyoming has no control over have largely left us behind.

[ragtimejoe1]

1. Should we define success at Wyoming as something that looks similar to what happened during the stretch from '87 to '99 (basically averaging 8 and 9 win seasons)? Obviously you get a couple low win seasons balanced out by a couple 10 win season during that time.

2. Is the confidence that success at Wyoming (as defined above) based merely in the fact that it happened once so it obviously can happen again?

1. I'd say 8+ wins should be our really solid to good years (probably some 7 win seasons scattered in). Our special years should be MWC champs (every 3-4 years). We will likely have a few years of 4-6 wins and should largely avoid years like 2020. With as bad as the MWC normally is, this shouldn't be out of reach.

2. Bohl and company have been above average (at WYO) at recruiting and developing players. The D is on the right track and solid enough. Special teams are generally decent. The run game can work and would be more effective without a loaded box. I think we are literally a passing game away from where we want to be or at least close to where we want to be.

[307bball]

1. Should we define success at Wyoming as something that looks similar to what happened during the stretch from '87 to '99 (basically averaging 8 and 9 win seasons)? Obviously you get a couple low win seasons balanced out by a couple 10 win season during that time.

2. Is the confidence that success at Wyoming (as defined above) based merely in the fact that it happened once so it obviously can happen again?

1. I'd say 8+ wins should be our really solid to good years (probably some 7 win seasons scattered in). Our special years should be MWC champs (every 3-4 years). We will likely have a few years of 4-6 wins and should largely avoid years like 2020. With as bad as the MWC normally is, this shouldn't be out of reach.

2. Bohl and company have been above average (at WYO) at recruiting and developing players. The D is on the right track and solid enough. Special teams are generally decent. The run game can work and would be more effective without a loaded box. I think we are literally a passing game away from where we want to be or at least close to where we want to be.

Ragtime, thanks for the response. This concept of "success at Wyoming" has been on my mind off and on since the Glen era. I agree with your general assessment of what is missing from an X's and O's standpoint from the Bohl era teams...I can't imagine that Bohl himself would disagree with it even, and yet, here we are. 7 years into the most successful tenured coach at Wyoming since 1999 and most everybody is unhappy with where the program is at. The main thing that Bohl seems to have done that has yielded (marginally) better results than the other three coaches from the last 20 years is the development of offensive and defensive lines. DC and JG both had some success but IMO were a notch below Bohl in this category.

I don't believe that the statement you make about being a "passing game away" is trivial....Both Glenn and Christiansen had glaring weaknesses that had folks saying similar things..."...if only we had (fill in the blank)". Are Glenn/Christiansen/Bohl fundamentally flawed coaches that are unable to put the pieces together over a long time frame? I really don't think so. I know it is like poison to some folks to consider that the failures of the last 20 years of Wyoming football may be attributable to something besides the acumen of the man in charge ... but I'm starting believe that to be the case.

Maybe the better question is...if you are right .... and what you describe missing (a passing game in this case) is all that seperates us from being in the echelon of BSU in the MW...then why does the staff not add it? Surely these guys want to succeed...surely they know something about football. I suppose you could dismiss them and say "well...they are dogmatically attached to a style of play and will not change..". I'd be surprised if that was the case...There is zero chance that these coaches are intentionally handicapping their teams to chase some sort of ideological version of football strategy. I'm not just talking about Bohl here...there are similar statements made across college football by many different fanbases.

Here is my best guess at what is going on....There is actually a limit on what a coach can download into his players during any given season. This is the case mentally and physically. Mentally...even if the NCAA did not limit practice time...there comes a point where players need a break....not only that but the thing that you taught early in the season will be forgotten if it is not re-enforced later in the season. This is why you don't see a team come out in an air-raid style offense for a series and then change to a triple option style in the next...it would be logistically impossible to do either of these things well. The physical dimension is an interesting one...we have seen amazing advancements in weight programs and strength development but that has come with an increase of some truly horrific injuries. There seems to be a balance of training and recovery that everybody is trying to maximize. Now given that this is the case...what would be the main limits on a given teams long term success? I don't think it is strategy...even if you are a genius and eke out some schematic advantage, it will get analyzed and copied so fast that if you are able to use it to dominate during an entire season you would be extremely fortunate. I don't think it is the relative talent of a coach either, the amount of money that these guys make is so high, even at lower level programs, means that you don't have any truly terrible coaches that last any amount of time...if you are a head coach at any college for 4+ years...you are automatically in the top 1% of 1% of the guys who think about football for a living. So what is making the difference? I think the biggest difference is talent....for all sorts of reasons, Laramie is not a top destination for great high school footballers...the next thing on that list would be institutional bandwidth to support a football program. There is almost no end to the resources that a school like Alabama or Ohio St can throw at scouting, game planning, nutrition, ... etc, etc. This means that even though all schools have a hard cap on the ability of players to digest the coaches game plan or the strength coaches training plan...the top schools outspend on the development of the strategy in ways that is really profound. There is no way to run this experiment, but I believe if you but Bohl at Clemson and Dabo at Wyoming...you would see some dispiritingly similar results.

Anyways...sorry for the wall of text.

[ragtimejoe1]

Honestly, I think it's hard to find a QB and I don't think Vigen is good at developing them when they get here. Then he doesn't trust them in games and the passing game tightens up. I've never witnessed a passing game so afraid to play. It's weird.

With that said, Bohl actually said we moved the ball good enough to win. Maybe he really doesn't mind this offense. If he is mostly satisfied with the offense, then we won't have success.

[stymeman]

Post on Facebook can get down right nasty anymore, too many hurt feelings etc. All i was saying what kind of loss this was(bad) and could potentially have us take a step back somewhat and that I'm ready for 9-3 10-2 seasons. My goodness people just think I'm attacking etc. I guess it's just not worth voicing any opinions and such cuz people take all things outta context. I'll do it moreso here bit of a more educated and with it fanbase. Life is nothing but complaints and arguments anymore it seems