OaktownBear;842107647 said:
I have a lot more sympathy for your concerns than the argument you make in support of them or the code red mentality you seem to be taking toward them. Now, I guess adding a little unbridled pessimism to the unchallenged and unthinking optimism that has been pretty rampant is not bad, but repeated long posts of bad statistics and speculation that doesn't really follow isn't really helping the argument.
Why do I have sympathy for your concerns? I agree completely with your premise that we need to excel in all phases of the game. We hired a coach who is known for offense. That is worth some wait and see type of concern.
But in terms of demonstrating ACTUAL behavior, you are just piling numerous tenuous arguments on top of each other and seeming to think that sheer volume adds up to a conclusion:
1. La Tech finishing last one year - As I have been trying to get people who seem convinced that Dykes is an unstoppable offensive genius to look beyond one year of results to six years of results that DO NOT support the conclusion that we can expect years of dominant offenses, I feel I must in turn defend Dykes against drawing a conclusion about the defense based on one year. The year before they were 36th in defense which to me is pretty respectable in an offensive minded conference. Be fair and tell the whole story. I'm also not sure how relevant it is. He IS an offensive coach, so he relies on his defensive coordinator - Cal has a completely different set of defensive coaches.
2. How many proven wide receivers do you count? I count 2 for 4 positions. Yes we have more prospects at WR, but wide receiver IS more fundamental to our success than safety. As for recruiting more safeties, maybe he didn't see quality players at the position that late in the recruiting cycle.
3-4. Big deal. 2 personnel decisions. Maybe they are just better there.
5. Yeah, and we told SQT he could have a shot at WR also. That lasted about zero minutes. If guys want to take a shot at a position you give it to them. Generally they will see where they belong.
6 and 7. I get that you were motivated to look up info on offers. I was similarly motivated to look up his past offensive stats and definitely came out scratching my head about the conclusions that have been drawn. But what I looked up was solid, verifiable data. You don't seem to understand how poor the data you are citing is. I'm sure you did a great job looking through all the sources, but the sources stink. As far as we know, Dykes could have 35 offers out to safeties. I would also point out that UCLA's offer numbers are always overemphasized because recruiting reporters simply ask about them a lot more frequently. But bottom line is, offers do not equal recruiting anyway. It is way too early to draw any conclusions whatsoever about what Dykes is emphasizing in recruiting. I'd also say to you, we are not going to have a class of 10.
8. Sorry, but the number of walkons at various positions means extremely little.
9. Jefferson is not a DB. Anyone else you think should convert?
And I'm sorry, "the whole conference is getting better" argument is the hallmark of the pessimist and is made EVERY year. It can't possibly be always true. I'm not sure why you've became terrified of WSU and CU who don't show any signs of doing anything, but I find your argument regarding WSU amusing. 1. I'm not really concerned that we have ONLY averaged 15 point victories. 2. Seems like if you are concerned about us only scoring 27 a game against them, you might want an offensive coach. 3. The stat is hogwash when you look at the underlying games. 2 of those games were on the road at two of our lowest points in years. Brock Mansion beat them by 7 when he couldn't move the offense AT ALL against anybody. Last year, we got our last victory, easily by 15, on the road, against the mighty Mike Leach, being ahead 21 points in the fourth quarter. WSU should be ashamed not to have won both of those games, let alone neither. As for the third game, were you at that game? We were ahead 30 - 0 in the third quarter when two things happened almost at the same time. Our starting QB (who played well that day) got injured and the persistent showers turned into a downpour. Cal packed it in. WSU scored one touchdown on a short field after a fumble.
Again, I share your concerns. But there is really no indication whether they will prove to be valid, and there won't be until at least we get into the season, and later for recruiting purposes. The long dissertations setting out all the "evidence" that Dykes has the wrong approach is not timely at this point. Next year, at this time, maybe. I'm happy to point out some of the fantasies about Dykes past performance, but the guy deserves a season before we enumerate all the ways he's doing everything wrong.
Oaktown, I appreciate the time and care you spent breaking down my arguements and that you steered clear of accusations. If I have sounded negative it is because I was writing under duress-never a good idea. That was probably the explaination for the poor and lengthy writing.
I find it ironic that you claim that I didn't tell the whole story on Dykes when I am already being accused of lengthy posts. It may surprise you that I really strive to be fair. I thought it was unfair to criticize Dykes prematurely. And I don't see this as a criticism of Dykes other than the decision to put Piatt at WR, which is really more of a question than a criticism. And that is all this is. All these are questions based on data I was inspired to collect based on concerns from another thread. Sometimes the questions themselves reflect some loss of trust on my part. Posts like yours help me to regain that trust, which is what I really want. In any case, since 8 separate events have happened since Dykes was hired, each of which elevated my concerns, and since another post raised a related concern about recruiting in 2014, I did not feel that it was premature to post.
As far as waiting until next year to express concerns, that is certainly valid. But the same argument was made about some of my preseason concerns in the past. Those concerns, which were posted last year were ridiculed but eventually became the voice of the masses as the season progressed. I imagine that I will be defending Dykes during the season even if he goes 4-8, because I have a realistic expectation of what he can do in year 1.
6&7: I would love to be corrected on this. I'm sorry you think my sources are bad. In all honesty I don't particularly like some of my sources. That is why I use more than one. I use the same sources many others do on this board, which, I admit, does not say much. I also use some of the same sources that are used by the staff here to compile the "recruiting database". If you have better sources, you could either share them here, or simply post the superior data from them. Very few folks are having trouble with my data so much as they are troubled by what they see as negative conclusions drawn from them.
2. Recruiting more "unproven" WRs is not going to change this. Recruiting JC transfers would, but that is not where the offers are going. So, to use your own argument about wait and see, I hope Dykes waits to see what he has at WR before oversigning more of them. We also only have 2 proven DBs for a position of 4. On it's own, I'm not complaining about the 2013 recruiting class or anything else. It is the overall pattern that concerns me. And I respectfully disagree with your assessment of who is proven at WR. Powe, Hagan and Rodgers have all made plays at the D-1 level. And Harris made some plays as well. If you want to leave you Whitehurst's college experience, fine. But there are at least 5 "proven" guys.
I guess the point I was trying to make about Colorado and WSU is that they are good enough to beat us on a given Saturday. WSU beat Washington last year and Colorado beat Utah the year before. We have yet to show that we are that much better than Colorado in Boulder, which is where we play this year. We also don't know what WSU brings under 2nd year coach. Many posters here thought that WSU would go to a bowl last year. I didn't think so. But that could be true this year and is much more likely.
The code red mentality is a fictional response created by you and others. Nowhere in my posts did I spell doom for Cal. I made a bunch of "if" statements and am willing to wait and see before spelling doom. I had this same sort of attitude about Clancy Pendergast's scheme. In fact very few, if any, of my early springtime concerns proved to be unfounded come fall. But, once again I will wait because we have a new coaching staff.
I challenge you and any other person to point out a single of my statements where I criticize Dykes and/or spell doom for Cal.
I asked some rather pointed questions like "how many WRs do we need?". Or, "why aren't we offering more safetys?". I believe there are good answers to these question, but until I know them, my enthusiam for Dykes will be somewhat tempered.
I thought it would strengthen my credibility here if I posted some concerns about Dykes after being a big defender of him and his 2013 recruiting class a month ago. To the extent that I am wrong, simply correcting me is the best approach. Calumnus has done this several times regarding the Bridgford vs. Maynard debate and eventually got me to see that I was grossly over-estimating Bridgford's abilities.
If I am wrong about the number of DBs offered simply provide the data.
Early? Here is a list of the # of players already commited.
Top players commited:
CB=9 (10%)
S=15 (20%)
DT=9 (16%)
C=0 (0%)
RB=14 (14%)
Among the top 25 players at each position,10 for center, the percentage is 29% overall.
ykes