Bumped. Post written on January 31. GO BRUINS. -N
How do you know whether someone is a good coach? Well just the gauge the reaction of his team's fan-base when he goes somewhere else. I am sure many here can remember the reaction of Pitt's fan base when Howland announced he was leaving the Panthers to join our Bruins. It ranged from anger to despair. Same goes for Roy Williams when he left Kansas for UNC. So with that in mind it is really interesting to read the reactions from Nebraska fans, who just lost their OC - Jay Norvell - to UCLA. Here is one example of a Nebraska fan's perception of their former OC:
Norvell is like a trained parrot, always ready to put the blame on the players at every opportunity. Even if every loss was the players' faults (which it isn't), you simply don't put the blame on your players at every opportunity.
In any case, whose fault is it if a player doesn't execute a gameplan given a month to prepare?
A coach who is fond of playing the blame game. Well at least that means his philosophy is going to be in sync with the blamer-in-chief of the Bruin football program. More comments on Norvell (from the same posted linked above):
In any case, whose fault is it if a player doesn't execute a gameplan given a month to prepare?
Norvell's only contribution on gamedays seems to be blaming players when anything goes wrong...he's certainly not helping Callahan make good adjustments. In short, I think Norvell sucks as a coach.
HT to What's Bruin, Dawg, who like rest of UCLA fans (which apparently even includes the toadies over at the Daily Bruin (via DD)) are not excited about the arrival of Norvell:
Frankly, this hire is uninspiring at best. At worst, Dorrell has hired an empty sheel of an offensive coordinator whom has no real game experience. Wonderful!
The West Coast offense is slowly going the way of the dodo bird in the Pac-10, and college football in general, and yet we continue to hitch our own horse to an offensive failure that defensive coaches have all but figured out. It's predictable. It's not just Dorrell's play-calling (although that has a great deal with it). Defenses have solved the WCO. That's why more innovative coaches have moved on to the Spread and QB Option offense.
Couldn't agree more with Jason. To be fair there are few Nebraska fans who may have some nice things to say about Norvell. But then again there are fans who are loyalists to a fault in every program. Case in program we can look at our program, where there are still people who believe the football program is heading towards the right direction under Karl Dorrell. Then again there were actually self proclaimed UCLA basketball fans who supported Lavin to the very last day in the name of staying loyal to the program. So I took those reactions with a grained of salt. The three games I saw Nebraska play this year were against Southern Cal, Oklahoma, and Auburn. And I'd rather trust my eyes, which saw why Nebraska fans might have had serious reservations about Norvell's contributions as the OC of their vanilla, boring, and predictable WCO.The West Coast offense is slowly going the way of the dodo bird in the Pac-10, and college football in general, and yet we continue to hitch our own horse to an offensive failure that defensive coaches have all but figured out. It's predictable. It's not just Dorrell's play-calling (although that has a great deal with it). Defenses have solved the WCO. That's why more innovative coaches have moved on to the Spread and QB Option offense.
We will try to keep an open mind about Norvell. And see how the offense turns out under him. But given Karl Dorrell's incredibly mediocre track record, it is hard to get excited about his latest hire, who doesn't have much on his resume to rebut the perception he was anything but a "trained parrot" at this previous job.
Anyways, "trained parrot" or not, Norvell with 10 returning starters on offense will be responsible along with Karl Dorrell for delivering a Pac-10 championship to Westwood next season. If he doesn't he should be looking for a new gig along with head coach this time in 2008.
UPDATE: Per Nebraska fans Norvell doesn't bring much to the table when it comes to recruiting either.
GO BRUINS.