Cushing countdown
- Thread starter catcrazy
- Start date
No. I'm speaking to this particular comment, not some other comments from the past. That isn't too hard to understand, is it?
Ok. But for every other team in every other sport, It's explicitly on the boss. Here it seems as if he gets a pass because people feel his loyalty or unwillingness to change assistants is some sort of tragic flaw which renders him not responsible. He's the boss. Good or bad, it's on him. Focusing on the deficiencies of subordinates will never prod this program to where many posters seem to think it can be.
If and when Sumlin's fired at A&M, he'll get picked up in a heartbeat by a big program as an OC, similar to what happened with Kevin Wilson. Honestly, I don't think NU could afford him, even if a spot were available.
I went to the A&M game last night, and they pulled out the win over South Carolina. They're 4-1 now, and it's not inevitable that Sumlin will be fired this year. They need to finish the season strong, and with the next two games against Alabama and Florida, they've got a tough road ahead of them.
Fair enough. Then get used to the program staying at the same level (which I think is ok as an alum). Just don't get how people think we can be B10 champs or National contenders with the status quo.
Can you clarify: did you mean small high school or small college? I don't see any small colleges hiring him after his time here...
Last edited:
Several OCs and DCs at SEC and ACC schools make well over $1M per year. Are you saying Doc and McCall make that kind of money?
In what way? We have't established anything under Fitz. Nobody is even talking about us on the Big Ten Network. I'd lump us ahead of Purdue but they are sneaking up on us. Minny has had us in cuffs and if Thorson leaves this year we are doomed next year Big Time as we have no real QB's behind him with any sorta experience.
PSU is a 15 point favorite playing away.
NU has zero home field advantage.At best it will be a neutral field. Often the opponents are more vocal than the NU fans.
I disagree. We will have a home field advantage. Fitz has never lost to Franklin. I think it will be a close game and I think we could win but we got to stop this nonsense of running the football and having very predictable pockets and plays. This will be the first home game and the last home game I come to this year and I'm expecting victory. This team surprised me last week in a few ways. Our defense looks damn good or at least better than I thought. The young guys are stepping up.
Not sure what the deal is with KOR but obviously Jelani fell out of grace. If we had a half baked OL we would have a pretty decent team. But our OL absolutely is dreadful. I'm hoping that McCall learns from his errors and stops the senseless running. We can't run so STOP IT. And our patterns need to be shorter. McCall was just as much to blame for 10 sacks as the OL and of course CT who gave up on plays.
We'll see. There are a LOT of tickets available on the secondary market, I checked because I need one.
In terms of defining the problem, there seem to be five camps on this:
1. It is all the fault of Coach Cushing (recruiting, training, and game prep)
2. It is all the fault of Coach McCall (play-calling)
3. It is all the fault of the O-Line Players (not winning one-on-one match-ups)
4. It is all the fault of CT (holding the ball too long)
5. It is the combined fault of all, part, or none of these groups but not the fault of any single one. The fault is such that no group or person is more or less at fault (note that the word "responsible" was not used but "at fault") than any other or than the whole.
As regards the severity of the situation, there are also various camps with two extremes:
1. The O-Line is such a disaster, we will be lucky to win another game
2. The O-Line is not where we want it to be but that just puts us in the same category of most other schools. A really good O-Line is a rarity in college football.
As regards the solution, there are three camps:
1. Fire Coach Cushing now to send a message of accountability
2. Start working to find a replacement for Coach Cushing and fire him at the end of the season
3. Don't fire Coach Cushing because he is really not the problem
There are also some outliers about firing Coach McCall and Fitz but I am not tracking those.
To try and bring some order to this chaos of opinions, I am asking myself the following questions:
1. Has the problem on the O-Line persisted through several iterations of O-Line players?
2. Has the problem of sacks and beleaguered quarterbacks persisted through several quarterbacks?
3. How many of our O-Linemen have been drafted into the NFL during the Cushing era?
4. We had 8 sacks on Saturday. All other things being equal, if the total had been 2 instead of 8 sacks, how high is the potential that the outcome of the game (an NU loss) would have been different?
5. We got stuffed on two third and shorts. All other things being equal, if we had made those first downs, how high is the potential that the outcome of the game (an NU loss) would have been different?
6. If the sacks are the fault of CT, then is it not just as logical that the lack of running game is the fault of JJTBC?
I am not trying to make anyone believe that I am not biased and do not have an opinion on this. I obviously do and my questions are slanted in that direction. However, just because I am biased does not mean that my questions are invalid.
1. It is all the fault of Coach Cushing (recruiting, training, and game prep)
2. It is all the fault of Coach McCall (play-calling)
3. It is all the fault of the O-Line Players (not winning one-on-one match-ups)
4. It is all the fault of CT (holding the ball too long)
5. It is the combined fault of all, part, or none of these groups but not the fault of any single one. The fault is such that no group or person is more or less at fault (note that the word "responsible" was not used but "at fault") than any other or than the whole.
As regards the severity of the situation, there are also various camps with two extremes:
1. The O-Line is such a disaster, we will be lucky to win another game
2. The O-Line is not where we want it to be but that just puts us in the same category of most other schools. A really good O-Line is a rarity in college football.
As regards the solution, there are three camps:
1. Fire Coach Cushing now to send a message of accountability
2. Start working to find a replacement for Coach Cushing and fire him at the end of the season
3. Don't fire Coach Cushing because he is really not the problem
There are also some outliers about firing Coach McCall and Fitz but I am not tracking those.
To try and bring some order to this chaos of opinions, I am asking myself the following questions:
1. Has the problem on the O-Line persisted through several iterations of O-Line players?
2. Has the problem of sacks and beleaguered quarterbacks persisted through several quarterbacks?
3. How many of our O-Linemen have been drafted into the NFL during the Cushing era?
4. We had 8 sacks on Saturday. All other things being equal, if the total had been 2 instead of 8 sacks, how high is the potential that the outcome of the game (an NU loss) would have been different?
5. We got stuffed on two third and shorts. All other things being equal, if we had made those first downs, how high is the potential that the outcome of the game (an NU loss) would have been different?
6. If the sacks are the fault of CT, then is it not just as logical that the lack of running game is the fault of JJTBC?
I am not trying to make anyone believe that I am not biased and do not have an opinion on this. I obviously do and my questions are slanted in that direction. However, just because I am biased does not mean that my questions are invalid.
You want shorter routes? I don't think we attempted anything over 10 yards against Wisconsin.
Very true. There is this myth that Wisconsin loads up on 4* OL talent. You know how many 4*'s were on the WI 2-deep Saturday?
One. Backup Van Lanen.
Here are the Rivals stars for the other 9 guys:
Deiter 3* 5.5 rating
Dietzen 3* 5.6
Biadasz 3* 5.6
Benzschawel 3* 5.5
Edwards Not even in the Rivals database
Kapoi 2* 5.3
Connors Zero stars
Erdmann Zero stars
Kasi 3* 5.6
Compare that to the NU 2-deep:
All were 3* recruits except Butler who was 2*
Thomas 3* 5.7
Hance 3* 5.6
North 3* 5.6
Doles 3* 5.6
Slater 3* 5.6
Butler 2* 5.3
Urban 3* 5.6
Vogel 3* 5.6
So you really can't predict the relative success of each OL from the recruiting ratings.
That's probably what has to happen because Thorson puts way to much air under long throws, making receivers wait and wait and sometimes come back to the ball.
That fact doesn't mean that they will be taken up by Pen.St. fans. They historically don't travel well to Evanston and probably have the smallest conference alumni base in Chicago, except for Maryland and Rutgers. Also it's homecoming so that should mean a few thousand more purple people. That being said, thinking that NU is in for a long, long afternoon..
Almost like star ratings are kind of ********, eh?
The biggest difference (pun completely intended) is that Wisconsin takes size and figures it out later.
Edwards was indeed in the Rivals database... as a 3-star 6-6 225 QB/ATH with multiple P5/B1G offers (LINK). Wisconsin has been able to pretty consistently develop guys like Edwards from 6-6 225 QB/ATHs into 6-6 315 OTs. Wisconsin sure does seem to have found a "secret sauce" for developing OL and I'm sure a lot of programs would like to know how they do it.
The good news is that NU seems to have prioritized size a little more in our latest groups of OL recruits. The bad news is that the recruits still aren't particularly large and it should still take them a couple years to develop in order to make an impact on Saturdays.
So... let's just skip the formalities and realize that you're just going to ***** about it either way.
How is this year any different than 2010 when Persa ran for his life the entire season? We looked good then because he pulled a rabbit out of his *** every week.
Oh, I was wrong, this OL problem hasn't been going on for at least five years, it has been going on for at least 7 years.
Then Colter's mobility in the pocket helped cover up a lot of issues as well. Unfortunately, the OL has been a problem for a while.
Public Service Announcement -- this is NOT an invitation for yet another rehash of the Colter/Siemian debate.
There were a couple down field pass attempts (one resulted in PI) but not much.
There wasn't enough time for CT to wait for the routes to develop for long passes.
I didn't say that they're underpaid.
Wisconsin lost Aranda to LSU, which nearly tripled his salary. Yes, Wisconsin has a reputation for being stingy, but that's still pretty amazing. As much as Fitz has fought to increase his assistant coaches' pay, NU is not in a position to win bidding wars for experienced, big name coaches. That's what I was getting at with my comments about Sumlin.
I'm not saying don't go for big-time coordinators, but LSU's highly paid coordinators couldn't get it done against Troy State over the weekend. Ya still gotta get it done on the field.
I agree. Wisconsin's defense is on its third DC in three years and is still excellent. I don't think NU can or should get into bidding wars for big-time coordinators, and sometimes it's the young and less experienced guys that can come in and find success with a fresh approach.
And that either way you're going to dismiss him immediately afterwards because you know so much more than he does.
Last edited:
Cushing isn't going to be fired. As someone pointed out, his kids play with Fitz's. Fitz is loyal, and he isn't going to fire his brah. What do you call Nepotism when it involves someone who isn't a blood relative? Cushing is a brah. Not a blood relative, but mind as well be. Completely unqualified and utterly incompetent and only holds his job (for 9 years!) because he's a brah. But, he has as much chance of being fired as Jared Kushner or Ivanka Trump of being removed from the Trump administration.
Our only hope is that a real brah wouldn't let Fitz take the heat for his incompetence. Let's hope that Cushing is as much of a brah to Fitz as Fitz is to him, and he resigns. Really, brah or no brah, anyone with any self-respect would do so given the utter failure he has presided over. It's also really the only way out for us, because all of our (fully justified) bitching is going to kill OL recruiting until a change is made (which is why we as fans who love NU football must keep the heat on to attempt to force a hand). It's our only hope.
Last edited:
The OLs sucked, but Colter at QB being a band aid is BS. Denver's OL provides little in terms of pass pro for Siemian but he's 3-1.
I would like for you to help out those who are in the 2nd camp in the first question and the 3rd camp in the second one so I can extend my inquisition against the Carmody huggers to these poor fools. Do such people even exist? If so, they must be dealt with appropriately and swiftly.
Carmody now linked with the Offensive Line coach..........5 years hence he still appears!
Yes, the power of our suffering under Carmody was strong. Death by papercut. Over 13 years. It will take 13 X 13 years for the pain to be forgotten.
But we wonder why we get negative recruited against?
I wonder why our self-proclaimed resident expert on recruiting, having paper-clipped recruiting files for a few years, has never once denied that the negative recruiting happens all the time? Not once.
Instead we get shifts of subject and belittment as know-nothing internet fans and whatever else it takes for him to stick his head in the sand like an ostrich and pretend that Cushing's mere presence doesn't cost us OL recruits.
Everybody knows it! Pay attention in the parking lot when you're talking to former OL next time! His incompetence is literally their #1 topic of NU football conversation. I guess they don't know anything either?
Last edited: