So everyone thinks late season collapses happen every year, but really they've only happened twice. This year and 2 years ago. They happen to be the only 2 times we've been ranked high. That's not a coincidence.
During years where we haven't been great, we've finished strong. I think we've actually finished better than our talent would suggest. When we sucked and beat 6th ranked Purdue, it was because we were getting better as the year went on (we had a lot of room for improvement ) and Purdue was complacent and didn't take us seriously. That's human nature and it happens all over the country every year.
In my opinion, Fran is actually a really good coach who gets his players to play as a team better than their talent level. That can be a problem when you have a top 25 team who he gets to play like a top 10 team early. As the year goes on, our team get complacent like every other team would. That's a problem because we aren't really as good as we are playing so we will fall even harder when we get complacent. A true top 5 team getting complacent can fall like Oklahoma has this year. If a top 25 team that's trapped in a top 5 team's ranking gets complacent, they fall like a ton of bricks. Especially late in the year when other teams are trying like hell every game to get their signature win.
We simple aren't talented enough to try to ride our talent against teams going balls to the wall. Fran is kinda a victim of his own coaching. If he wouldn't have coached us up to wins earlier in the year that we weren't talented enough to get, these games late in the year would be a lot easier without the target on our backs. We would probably end up with the same record if we didn't win so much early. We would have just gotten there differently and less frustrating.
Our record this year is going to end up about the same as it does every year under Fran, a little better than it should be based on talent. That's good news for the future after next year because the talent will be better.
During years where we haven't been great, we've finished strong. I think we've actually finished better than our talent would suggest. When we sucked and beat 6th ranked Purdue, it was because we were getting better as the year went on (we had a lot of room for improvement ) and Purdue was complacent and didn't take us seriously. That's human nature and it happens all over the country every year.
In my opinion, Fran is actually a really good coach who gets his players to play as a team better than their talent level. That can be a problem when you have a top 25 team who he gets to play like a top 10 team early. As the year goes on, our team get complacent like every other team would. That's a problem because we aren't really as good as we are playing so we will fall even harder when we get complacent. A true top 5 team getting complacent can fall like Oklahoma has this year. If a top 25 team that's trapped in a top 5 team's ranking gets complacent, they fall like a ton of bricks. Especially late in the year when other teams are trying like hell every game to get their signature win.
We simple aren't talented enough to try to ride our talent against teams going balls to the wall. Fran is kinda a victim of his own coaching. If he wouldn't have coached us up to wins earlier in the year that we weren't talented enough to get, these games late in the year would be a lot easier without the target on our backs. We would probably end up with the same record if we didn't win so much early. We would have just gotten there differently and less frustrating.
Our record this year is going to end up about the same as it does every year under Fran, a little better than it should be based on talent. That's good news for the future after next year because the talent will be better.
