Hawkeyes Resemble Bullies of Past

[Zstatman]

After reading thru the threads in this post, I decided to read the article!

I thought the best words were early when Rob wrote 'They gashed the Gophers'. What did gash mean, I even looked it up to see the definition to see if there were some hidden meanings. There were nouns, verbs, and adjective using gash. But the basic meaning of gash meaning cut was it. The Hawks 'cut' thru the Gopher defense, and we all liked it.

I'm surprised Tim Polasek hasn't taken more heat over the Hawkeye offensive woes of the last several years. He wasn't a very good OL coach and didn't help much with recruiting. When he left the cupboard was bare in the OL room.

George Barnett has taken some heat but he's proving himself to be a good OL coach. I remember an article on him not too long ago where he told Kirk when he came in that the OL was in really bad shape and that it was going to take several years to get to going again. He was right. I do hope, and I assume they are, building depth on the OL so we don't suffer similar fates going forward.

 

[HuckFinn]

After reading thru the threads in this post, I decided to read the article!

I thought the best words were early when Rob wrote 'They gashed the Gophers'. What did gash mean, I even looked it up to see the definition to see if there were some hidden meanings. There were nouns, verbs, and adjective using gash. But the basic meaning of gash meaning cut was it. The Hawks 'cut' thru the Gopher defense, and we all liked it.

I'm surprised Tim Polasek hasn't taken more heat over the Hawkeye offensive woes of the last several years. He wasn't a very good OL coach and didn't help much with recruiting. When he left the cupboard was bare in the OL room.

George Barnett has taken some heat but he's proving himself to be a good OL coach. I remember an article on him not too long ago where he told Kirk when he came in that the OL was in really bad shape and that it was going to take several years to get to going again. He was right. I do hope, and I assume they are, building depth on the OL so we don't suffer similar fates going forward.

Recruiting Recruiting Recruiting

 

[Fryowa]

That's some pretty good prose..............

I stole the last part from Full Metal Jacket.

 

[Fryowa]

I lived in Nebraska when this all happened. There were two groups of people. There were the "Osbourne didn't know anything about it" crowd and the "Who cares, we won" crowd. There wasn't a "nothing happened, it's all just rumors" crowd. I'm sure he didn't know there was a gun hidden in his file cabinet either.

We'd be the same way. Any fan base would. Hell, as far as I can tell, no one resigned from being a Penn State fan after that scandal came to light and was adjudicated in a courtroom.

So my best friend lived in Pennsylvania for about 9 years before, during, and after the PSU deal went down. I visited there several times, went to 2 games, and tailgated/got to know a bunch of his co-workers and friends who were die hard fans. Here's my experience...

Every single one I met hated Sandusky and everything associated with him, and I never met one who thought it was handled well.

There was a VERY small contingent I did meet who idolized paterno and refused to accept any blame or even talk of blame on his part. Pure hero worship idolatry. Very apparent these were wacko fans.

99% of the people I did meet accepted that Sandusky and his enablers were scum, that paterno knew to varying degrees, and almost all of them thought paterno deserved to be wiped from the PSU history books. These folks loved their team and knew that yes, paterno created the successful powerhouse they became...but didn't give up on being a fan of the program. Many were alumni and felt that the university was bigger than joe paterno, and that the players who devoted 5 years of their lives to playing football shouldn't have their contributions be made into nothing because they didn't know about it. I think that's where I'd be at. If I'm being honest I don't think that would make me stop being a fan of the program if it happened at Iowa. I'd want the people involved in it to be hung up from light poles in the Kinnick plaza and the corresponding wins to be vacated, but I wouldn't hate the team or players enough to quit being a supporter.

I've also spent a whole lot of time around husker fans and gone to lots of games in Memorial Stadium. I haven't seen the same type of thing from them. I've met probably 50 times as many husker fans living where I do and at games, and absolutely none of them will accept anything less than god status for osborne. To the sand people, mr. tom is Christ incarnate and that program has done no wrong and never will. It's scary.

 

[Fryowa]

Sometimes, though, I feel those 2nd half adjustments are as much due to attrition from superior strength/conditioning/size/quality of recruit. I mean, at times, we attributed quite a bit to Chris Doyle in the past.

Talking to former players from up around my neck of the woods who were there during the transition, they've said Braithwaite is exactly like Doyle in the way he runs the program minus all the negative stuff. Which makes sense since he spent almost 20 years under Doyle who (aside form his obviously serious shortcomings) was the best in the business when it came to the technical parts of his job.

Hopefully he just learned the good parts from Doyle and ran with them.

 

[Fryowa]

And speaking of Doyle, has anyone heard (seriously) what the guy is doing if anything?

I'm guessing he took his last paycheck and is just staying under a rock somewhere and maybe doing some private training? Since the scandal there's not been a single social media post and google turns up zilch in these whole 4 years. He's probably got enough money saved from his time here that he doesn't have to do anything.

The guy lasted like a day and a half with the Jags before he got the boot and I can't see any place outside of maybe McDonald's who'd hire him to do anything. Like even if you were a HS or college football player and it came out that you were training with him you'd get blackballed into oblivion. Getting fired for questionable ethics by Urban Meyer of all people, you're pretty much untouchable for life.

 

[CP87]

So my best friend lived in Pennsylvania for about 9 years before, during, and after the PSU deal went down. I visited there several times, went to 2 games, and tailgated/got to know a bunch of his co-workers and friends who were die hard fans. Here's my experience...

Every single one I met hated Sandusky and everything associated with him, and I never met one who thought it was handled well.

There was a VERY small contingent I did meet who idolized paterno and refused to accept any blame or even talk of blame on his part. Pure hero worship idolatry. Very apparent these were wacko fans.

99% of the people I did meet accepted that Sandusky and his enablers were scum, that paterno knew to varying degrees, and almost all of them thought paterno deserved to be wiped from the PSU history books. These folks loved their team and knew that yes, paterno created the successful powerhouse they became...but didn't give up on being a fan of the program. Many were alumni and felt that the university was bigger than joe paterno, and that the players who devoted 5 years of their lives to playing football shouldn't have their contributions be made into nothing because they didn't know about it. I think that's where I'd be at. If I'm being honest I don't think that would make me stop being a fan of the program if it happened at Iowa. I'd want the people involved in it to be hung up from light poles in the Kinnick plaza and the corresponding wins to be vacated, but I wouldn't hate the team or players enough to quit being a supporter.

I've also spent a whole lot of time around husker fans and gone to lots of games in Memorial Stadium. I haven't seen the same type of thing from them. I've met probably 50 times as many husker fans living where I do and at games, and absolutely none of them will accept anything less than god status for osborne. To the sand people, mr. tom is Christ incarnate and that program has done no wrong and never will. It's scary.

But Nebraska was never a national-level scandal. You hear rumors about the Osborne era, but there was never any attempt by an investigative journalist to un-earth them and bring them to light. It is also hard to compare anything to PSU-Sandusky, the horrible sports scandal to end all horrible sports scandals (maybe Baylor men's BB, but that didn't involve kids).

Would Baylor FB under Art Briles be a reasonable comparison? If Osborne had been operating in the 2010s instead of the 80s and 90s, would his dirty laundry have been aired like Briles'?