Ok State - KU

[Section31]

I'm not saying anything about his ability to coach and haven't from the beginning. I'm talking about Capel's ability to handle egos, which was my initial post in the thread.

My first post was really kind of a joke. But, I certainly think that teams falling below .500 with McDonald's All-Americans on the team is not the usual result.

I agree with that...I guess I just don't think you can use THAT team as a reflection of Capel's ability to deal with those kids.

 

[Mr.B!!!]

LOL, five page thread on how big a DB Ford is, I could sum it up real quickly, he is the coach at oSu, he sucks. How's that for analysis!

 

[stoops4pres]

I'm no good at replying to posts in chunks like you are, and I don't want to risk the format issues.


I don't know the details of what got Pilgrim and Penn suspended, if they were ego caused or academic or lateness to team meetings or what, or how detrimental to the team they were. Even with Penn around all year, I don't think this team gets another win. The real negatives were losing Gulley to injury in November and D. Williams rape charge. I think a definite argument could be made that, that was poor evaluation on Ford's part. I have no idea if D. Williams was a known trouble maker or malcontent before stepping on campus. But, sometimes you just get burned.

As far as why players leave, I don't know if egos play a big role in that. I think Ford (for better or worse) has a quick trigger when getting rid of players and signing new ones, see Mssrs. Walker, Akol and Kirkland.

My main (original) point is that having a sub .500 with one McDonald's AA talent (let alone 3) is not the norm, and be it just flat out bad luck on Capel's part or mismanagement from the get-go and things just snowballed after that on him, the odds are in favor of Ford being more successful with his egos than Capel was with his.

That's not because I think Ford has some inherent and identifiable advantage over Capel with handling egos, but rather I think Capel's experience was such an outlier that it will be tough for Ford to NOT do better than that, and maybe exceptionally better, and I'd feel the same about just about any coach.

I just think talent overrides chemistry, particularly when that talent is winning. Now, if OSU hit some bumps in the non-conference schedule like OU did last year, then who knows what could happen. But, if I were betting, I would bet against it.

You bring up a lot of good points, and I agree with most of them.

The only thing I'll caveat is that while there is no excuse for OU underachieving to the extent that it did last season even while WW was hurt, the fact remains that he was hurt.

So if Gulley's injury is included for reasons why Ok. State and Ford's season was hindered, I think its fair to treat WW's injury throughout the majority of the conference season as the same. Furthermore, its a little misleading saying they went 12-18 with 3 McD AA's, when like I said WW was injured. Its still pathetic the way that season turned out, but not as pathetic when the WW injury is clarified.

But enough with the digressions, and back to the main point: There's a good chance Ford won't match Capel's inability to evaluate and mishandle ego's as Capel did the '09-10 season. But given the discontent and apparent lack of management of some of the ego's Ford's had already, I wouldn't dismiss that possibility. I guess we will see later on down the road.