Re: Honest question: What game this year was it for you when you got off the Goodwin

Completely honestly, it was some time between the Stanford and Virginia games. Despite the rather lopsided final scores, both teams moved at ease down the field. Neither of those offensive lines should have been able to establish any success against our DL (on paper), but they bullied us. Not to mention, the backups looked abysmal both times, as well. Just completely unserviceable, like they hadn’t been developed in the slightest. The backups looked hardly FCS caliber in both games, I mean just terrible. They didn’t look great against NC State, either, but it was domination up until that point, so I overlooked it, but against Stanford, and especially Virginia, it was just a horrid combination of a severe lack of intensity, terrible assignment football, and atrocious development of the younger guys. I really started to doubt Wes at that point. The Wake game in between the two I mentioned was an anomaly against an awful team, but of course, my suspicions of Wes were readily amplified against Louisville, Carolina, SMU, Texas, and so on. Dude is out of his depth, it’s embarrassing.

TigerPride97

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Dec 23, 2024, 5:18 PM

I don't think there was a specific game. I didn't like the hire when it was made, but was willing to see what he could do.

First year, I was disappointed we fell from the #2 defense to the #25 defense. But I realized he had 0 experience as a coordinator and so figured he'd learn to be more aggressive and when the blitz and pressure QBs. I also blamed the offense for so many 3 and outs, which does tire out starters. Finally, we went onto sign some decent players on defense, including Peter Woods, TJ Parker, Burley, and Aveion Terrell. So I was disappointed but recognized his book smarts, so thought he'd improve.

2023, we fell further to the #31 defense. I became pretty concerned, but there were flashes still. While the defense got owned by Duke, Kentucky, and FSU, they were solid against Notre Dame, North Carolina, and South Carolina. I noticed a steep drop in our players' fundamentals. Missed tackles and bad angles cost us two games. Our recruiting dropped more, but I recognized Sammy was among the best athletes in the country. So I left the year more concerned, but not calling for his firing.

This year, everything was worse. Before the season, I predicted we'd have 4 losses this year (UGA, Louisville, Pittsburgh, and South Carolina). But I did still expect us to win the ACC (I never guessed SMU would turn out so good, I thought we'd beat Miami or FSU) and I expected our defense to be improved this year, top 15 or so. But I really saw how bad our fundamentals had degraded when we played NC State. I lost all hope in him during that game, because it came right after a bye and the UGA game, where he was utterly unable to adjust at halftime. And then most games after that confirmed that. We didn't play elite NFL caliber QBs this year, and most of them are terrible under pressure, yet he refused to adjust his 3-4 defense, even when it was obvious it was failing. The Louisville game was the straw where I started calling for his firing.

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Honest question: What game this year was it for you when you got off the Goodwin