What was the biggest mistake

[j2d2]

Capel made? I think it was misjudging the characters of the recruits, especially tmg who I believe was the central problem with this team last year. It only takes one, but it got WW's ego engaged and there went the season.
I'm am not about to blame Capel for not knowing what he couldn't have known without spying on his assistants. It's easy to conceal recruiting violations, at least for a while. Assistant coaches who are knowingly violating the rules will keep that away from the head coach unless there is direction or cooperation from the head man. No way you can convince me that Capel knowingly violated the rules. Unless he knew or should have known of violations then we keep him. We can argue about whether he should have known, but if there was an effort by the assistant to keep the matter concealed, then that's not Capel's fault. I dont like firing a good man because of something someone else did. That's called scapegoating and it sucks.

 

[boksooner]

Leaving VCU

 

[snrlvr]

That's called lack of institutional control!, and that's what shuts down programs! If Coach Capel can't oversee every aspect of the program and ensure complete integrity in the program, especially from his assistants!, then he is not earning his 1. Whatever million dollar a year salary.

 

[NickZepp]

Trying to recruit individuals and hoping they would make a team.

 

[Mr.B!!!]

Capel made? I think it was misjudging the characters of the recruits, especially tmg who I believe was the central problem with this team last year. It only takes one, but it got WW's ego engaged and there went the season.
I'm am not about to blame Capel for not knowing what he couldn't have known without spying on his assistants. It's easy to conceal recruiting violations, at least for a while. Assistant coaches who are knowingly violating the rules will keep that away from the head coach unless there is direction or cooperation from the head man. No way you can convince me that Capel knowingly violated the rules. Unless he knew or should have known of violations then we keep him. We can argue about whether he should have known, but if there was an effort by the assistant to keep the matter concealed, then that's not Capel's fault. I dont like firing a good man because of something someone else did. That's called scapegoating and it sucks.

Regarding mistakes that we have actual knowledge of, it was probably bringing in TMG. That having been said, every single poster on this board was probably as excited as I was when we got him. I don't think Jeff knowingly violated the rules either, and I am absolutely amazed at how quickly many of the fans/media types have turned on him based solely on speculation.

 

[boksooner]

That's called lack of institutional control!, and that's what shuts down programs! If Coach Capel can't oversee every aspect of the program and ensure complete integrity in the program, especially from his assistants!, then he is not earning his 1. Whatever million dollar a year salary.

Actually, its the compliance office's job to monitor the program, not the head coach. You would hope that the coach would know, when an assistant is going wrong, but there is no way a coach can keep up with all assistants and all times. This is why OU has a giant compliance staff, so Capel doesn't have to monitor his assistants.

 

[Max Power]

That's called lack of institutional control!, and that's what shuts down programs! If Coach Capel can't oversee every aspect of the program and ensure complete integrity in the program, especially from his assistants!, then he is not earning his 1. Whatever million dollar a year salary.

:clap
+1

I am a huge fan of Capel's, however i see no way he survives this. Either he knew or covered it up, or he didn't and thus is not fit to run a program.

 

[babytheothrwhitemeat]

You do realize capel wasnt the only person recruiting these guys right? They were being recruited by coaches all over the country. So it isnt like he has some sort of inability or problem recruiting or assessing character. If he does, then so did all the other coaches that offered these players.

On top of that, capel has proved himself as a head coach while at vcu. this is his very first losing season of his career. that's it. just one. just one. that's it. I dont understand why people want to walk him off the plank after one bad year amidst an already proven career.

 

[Tony]

At this point it's pretty hard to determine the biggest mistake.

For now, I have to say that the complete lack of silence is pretty baffling. This has been handled badly from the moment the first TMZ report was released. Obviously they don't have to and shouldn't spell out everything that has gone on, but I'm pretty surprised there hasn't been a gesture of some sort to the fanbase that the coach and the athletic department are on top of things. It has really let the rumors fester. God knows what is being said about our program on the recruiting trail.

May have to get Rockapella back together and film a "Where in the world is Felton Jeffrey Capel?" pilot for PBS.

 

[Mr.B!!!]

At this point it's pretty hard to determine the biggest mistake.

For now, I have to say that the complete lack of silence is pretty baffling. This has been handled badly from the moment the first TMZ report was released. Obviously they don't have to and shouldn't spell out everything that has gone on, but I'm pretty surprised there hasn't been a gesture of some sort to the fanbase that the coach and the athletic department are on top of things. It has really let the rumors fester. God knows what is being said about our program on the recruiting trail.

May have to get Rockapella back together and film a "Where in the world is Felton Jeffrey Capel?" pilot for PBS.

This is ruining our program more than anything right now. I'm floored that we haven't heard anything about the state of the program.

 

[babytheothrwhitemeat]

At this point it's pretty hard to determine the biggest mistake.

For now, I have to say that the complete lack of silence is pretty baffling. This has been handled badly from the moment the first TMZ report was released. Obviously they don't have to and shouldn't spell out everything that has gone on, but I'm pretty surprised there hasn't been a gesture of some sort to the fanbase that the coach and the athletic department are on top of things. It has really let the rumors fester. God knows what is being said about our program on the recruiting trail.

May have to get Rockapella back together and film a "Where in the world is Felton Jeffrey Capel?" pilot for PBS.

It's all speculation. The gallon thing is being investigated as OU released a statement saying so. who is to say he wasnt told to be quiet about it by Joe C? Neither of those two owe anyone an explanation until they know all the facts. You cant substantiate every single rumor about your program, especially when it was leaked by a celebrity gossip tabloid. Believe it or not, they also dont care what we talk about on message boards.

 

[Mr.B!!!]

It's all speculation. The gallon thing is being investigated as OU released a statement saying so. who is to say he wasnt told to be quiet about it by Joe C? Neither of those two owe anyone an explanation until they know all the facts. You cant substantiate every single rumor about your program, especially when it was leaked by a celebrity gossip tabloid. Believe it or not, they also dont care what we talk about on message boards.

I'd like to think that they do care about what the media is saying; and the reality is that the media is saying many of the same things as the posters on here are. Just heard someone on the Sports Animal speculating as to whether Capel would lose his job...to me that warrants some type of response.

 

[Dr Sleep]

What was the biggest mistake Capel made?

Losing too many games! Duh. We were the worst coached OU team that I have ever seen, and I have been watching since the late 70's. Really pathetic. I know there were attitude problems, it was his job to fix those and he admittedly failed.

He recruited his butt off and that was great and I don't believe he cheated, but he couldn't coach them up. Recruiting A, coaching F. Now he is going to have one of the greenest teams in D-1, and likely have talent in the bottom third of the Big 12 going into next season. He looks like he is behind the 8-ball. I sure hope he gets it together.

 

[Romulus]

Capel was never ready for a job like this
I put more fault on Joe C. than I do Capel

 

[scrybe]

It's all speculation. The gallon thing is being investigated as OU released a statement saying so. who is to say he wasnt told to be quiet about it by Joe C? Neither of those two owe anyone an explanation until they know all the facts. You cant substantiate every single rumor about your program, especially when it was leaked by a celebrity gossip tabloid. Believe it or not, they also dont care what we talk about on message boards.

Great response, baby. Frankly, though, I'm afraid your points are entirely too sensible to wash with this board.

 

[OUsky]

Losing too many games! Duh. We were the worst coached OU team that I have ever seen, and I have been watching since the late 70's. Really pathetic. I know there were attitude problems, it was his job to fix those and he admittedly failed.

He recruited his butt off and that was great and I don't believe he cheated, but he couldn't coach them up. Recruiting A, coaching F. Now he is going to have one of the greenest teams in D-1, and likely have talent in the bottom third of the Big 12 going into next season. He looks like he is behind the 8-ball. I sure hope he gets it together.

This... eventhough I wouldn't give his recruiting grade an A.

 

[Big Old Booger]

This... eventhough I wouldn't give his recruiting grade an A.

I agree. Too many misses and of the 4 highly ranked recruits he landed:

1 was the brother of a current player and from OKC.
1 is a headcase/malcontent and only played when he wanted to play.
1 left after 1 season and didn't play defense anyway.
1 was involved in some illegal payment from an agent.

Of his other recruits, the best one would either be Cade Davis or maybe Pledger or Fitzgerald. That's not very good recruiting.

The biggest mistake was Joe C hiring an up and comer on the cheap. And that's not really Jeff's fault.

 

[Krugerfan52]

Right now his biggest mistake is that he is nowhere to be found.

Over the past 3 years I don't think he's made many mistakes. Yes, some things didn't work out the way we had hoped. But had Juan Patillo gone to class and made some better decisions, he would have been here last year and this team would have been much better because he could rebound and play defense. And who would have known that recruiting and signing such a talented scorer as TMG would end up in a 13-18 season and a 1-year career. We all thought it was a great sign at the time.

 

[Krugerfan52]

I think one mistake was allowing Ray Willis to be with the program the past year and a half. It was a waste of time. His poor attitude was contagious. Another mistake was not benching Warren or TMG when they didn't run back on defense. Capel allowed them to get in the habit of not running back because they knew there was no consequences.

 

[trueou]

I have a little different take on things. Yep, the program is in distress. It is disturbing that we don't know much. But Joe C said that they were investigating the matter. It appears that enough smoke was around an assistant coach that he was forced out. But they are not going to tell us anything about the Tiny thing until they get to the bottom. The NCAA has not announced an investigation. Given the Bomar thing they are probably waiting for OU to self-report since Joe C has proven himself to be pretty good at self reporting. So we are not going to be told anything more than the NCAA will find out and most likely won't find out much less than that.

As far as Jeff goes, this assistant thing hit him right in the crunch time of recruiting. I am sure that he is spending every waking and some sleeping hour trying to salvage something of a recruiting class. This is the critical path for salvaging the program. Holding fans hands can wait until he has done the best he can with recruiting.

Also, most of the world does not live and die by message board or sports gossip or information. While the delay is causing us pain, we are not very big in the grand scheme of things. Jeff and Joe will get around to us. In the meantime, Jeff and the basketball staff should be spending all of their time trying to get us viable basketball players. All of the rumors coming out is making it easy for negative recruitment of potential players by our competition. He can't attack those rumors in public. He has to attack them directly with the recruits.

It has been said that you can't judge the purpose or outcome of a trial by its beginning or its middle. You can only judge a trial after it has run its course. But I would bet that next year is not going to be nearly as bad as we think it will be. Just like last year was no where as good as some imagined it would be.