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You forgot that he wasn't good at all against P5 competition, and had a tendency to blow or not even show up for big games. (08 Houston blowout, UH 09 close loss we should have won at home, BSU 09 close loss we could have won at home. ECU Hail Mary. A couple heart breakers against June Jones at SMU. Pretty much every OU / OSU game he played in, @Arky...) His best games were ND and Hawaii neither of which were that astounding of teams that season. (yes I know ND went on a run after and Hawaii was ranked coming in)

Also, he never won a conference championship despite playing in two. Honestly, in terms of the peaks of their Tulsa programs, Monty is probably one 10 win season and another conference championship birth away from tying Graham. (Obviously Monty's lows were more pronounced and more prolonged than Graham's)
Yeah Haith has pretty much duplicated the feats of Tubby Smith. That is, 'cept for the number of ncaa bids, the records he had every year, his record in postseason tournaments, where we were ranked during and after the season, etc., etc.

The distance from the truth on both issues, it's funny.
 
Pat Fitzgerald recently turned down the NFL and if you believe rumor, Ohio State in the past. He’s a beast of a man. Mad respect.

He's literally the only reason I'll watch one of those 11 a.m. Big 10 games. I despise, DESPISE the Big 10. But if Fitz's team is playing ...
 
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He's literally the only reason I'll watch one of those 11 a.m. Big 10 games. I despise, DESPISE the Big 10. But if Fitz's team is playing ...
His teams are fun to watch just because of how hard they play every down. They're not the most talented but they don't take plays off.
 
The thing that always stood out to me about Graham is that both his predecessor and successor won conference championships, something he has never done at any level.
 
How many games did Graham stay in the top 25 compared to Montgomery. If I were guessing Montgomery loses that competition..

We've always had problems with our offense with Montgomery. It's not the same, when it's your defense keeping you in games. Our defense was decent, and our offense was phenomenal with Graham. With Montgomery, our offense was average to subpar and our defense carried us. The only time our offense has really carried it's weight was with Dane at the helm. Hopefully that will change next year, when Brin takes over.
 
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How many games did Graham stay in the top 25 compared to Montgomery. If I were guessing Montgomery loses that competition..

We've always had problems with our offense with Montgomery. It's not the same, when it's your defense keeping you in games. Our defense was decent, and our offense was phenomenal with Graham. With Montgomery, our offense was average to subpar and our defense carried us. The only time our offense has really carried it's weight was with Dane at the helm. Hopefully that will change next year, when Brin takes over.
Obviously a quick google search could/will correct me, but i dont remember Graham having a good track record of winning games when we broke into the top 25. I think Monty Topped him in this one season alone.

Not defending by any means. Just stating an opinion.
 
Obviously a quick google search could/will correct me, but i dont remember Graham having a good track record of winning games when we broke into the top 25. I think Monty Topped him in this one season alone.

Not defending by any means. Just stating an opinion.
I just remember us being ranked more, not for longer periods of time. As in entering the rankings more times than Montgomery has, and definitely in more seasons. But I think all the weeks even at a week or three a time, probably still equaled more than this season did for us. I'd rather be ranked several different seasons, than staying in for a longer time during one season. Which is all Montgomery has done for us. IIRC correctly, during the 10-3 year we were never ranked.
 
I just remember us being ranked more, not for longer periods of time. As in entering the rankings more times than Montgomery has, and definitely in more seasons. But I think all the weeks even at a week or three a time, probably still equaled more than this season did for us. I'd rather be ranked several different seasons, than staying in for a longer time during one season. Which is all Montgomery has done for us. IIRC correctly, during the 10-3 year we were never ranked.

From what I can find, Graham’s teams were ranked for 3 weeks in 2008 and 1 week in 2010. This year’s team was ranked for 6 weeks.
 
From what I can find, Graham’s teams were ranked for 3 weeks in 2008 and 1 week in 2010. This year’s team was ranked for 6 weeks.
Thanks. I thought we were ranked in three seasons with Graham. Guess I have a Blue & Gold memory.
 
Thanks. I thought we were ranked in three seasons with Graham. Guess I have a Blue & Gold memory.

Highest ranking in 2008 was 19. Highest ranking this year was 18.

You have to go back to 1952 for a ranking higher than this season, and no I wasn’t at those games.
 
I wasn't saying that I would put Monty equal to Graham yet, but he has had a 10 win season (Graham had 3) and a 6 win season which probably would have been closer to 10 if we hadn't lost the opportunity to play Houston, Arky State, Akron, and Central Arkansas.

Monty only has one bowl victory (CMU). But he's had to play two P5 squads (one SEC one ACC) in bowl games which Graham never had to do.

Graham saw two conference championships losing both. Monty just saw the one. He'd need another to tie.

Monty was ranked for longer and set more records on offense (year two) but regressed afterwards. After Collins goes in the draft (likely in the 1st or 2nd round) Monty will have more players who were all drafted in higher rounds than Graham did. (3 vs. 2)

Like I said, what really sets them apart to me is a couple more bowl wins (though Monty has had arguably tougher draws in terms of opponent's athletic talent level), another conference title game appearance, and another 10 win season. I also noticed how frequently some of Graham's best teams just didn't show up against tough opponents. We've honestly not seen that with Monty. We certainly play down to our level of competition by shooting ourselves in the foot, but we also play up to some really talent laden, well coached teams.
 
Were Trevis and Reggie recruited by Monty? Like Huffy said this is a throw away season. Players opted out, games were not played, teams started late. An *** year for sure. Next year will be the real test if we have a real season. The entire team is back with the exception of Zach, Corey, and Zaven. This year should be really special. Hoping that Brin is all that everyone expects him to be.
 
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Obviously. But Toddles has never had a season worse than 5-7 anywhere he's been. My guess is he would easily out-recruit Monty if both were in the AAC.
It’s absurd we are having this discussion. But for the availability of a player he recruited eight years ago, there’s no way this team breaks .500 the last two years. To those who would say “But Brin ... “ My reply is that if Brin is better and hasn’t played, that just further proves the flaws and deficiencies in the current staff.
 
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I just remember us being ranked more, not for longer periods of time. As in entering the rankings more times than Montgomery has, and definitely in more seasons. But I think all the weeks even at a week or three a time, probably still equaled more than this season did for us. I'd rather be ranked several different seasons, than staying in for a longer time during one season. Which is all Montgomery has done for us. IIRC correctly, during the 10-3 year we were never ranked.
Graham got a pass because he put entertaining teams on the field with lots of good players and he did it pretty consistently. Monty had a good year 1, a great year 2. Years 3-5 were disasters, and year 6 resulted in me not having any hair left. We won a lot of exciting games this year but why were those games even close? Our defense should have made it so we saw Boomer and Brin in the 4th quarter of every game. The games were always exciting this year because our offense (specifically the QB) was so bad in the 1st quarter, us grinding out of the hole and coming back put people on the edge of their seat. We played in a ton of exciting, close finish games this season. Great TV. Most fans would have preferred the Graham era of 70-30 wins. If I'm Dickson I'm finding the money for an OC and insisting Monty hire one and he can cite the numerous timeouts wasted because he can't figure out a play to run.
 
There’s plenty of video now on YouTube of Marion’s offense. And it’s his not somebody else’s. And it’s very interesting. Especially the parts about off the field preparation leading to field success.

We didn’t see a lot of it with Hawaii last year. I wonder if we see more. If we don’t, he may be ready for a jump.

When the current regime changes, we will be stacked at RB. And Marion’s Go-Go offense includes crazy formations with as many as 3 RBs offset to the play side of the QB. All four of them are eligible receivers or potential rushers under different base plays. There’s some vulnerabilities to the offense. Namely everything is bunched up between the hashes. So you wonder if elite recovery speed and strength at the larger classifications of college football will defeat or frustrate some of the vulnerabilities and opportunities Marion’s set creates.

It’s worth 20 minutes of your time. He knows how to talk to people and teach. Much like Switzer who had a compelling personal story and magnetism that appealed to recruits, so does Marion. He’s gonna be great some day if he gets the chance.
 
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There’s plenty of video now on YouTube of Marion’s offense. And it’s his not somebody else’s. And it’s very interesting. Especially the parts about off the field preparation leading to field success.

We didn’t see a lot of it with Hawaii last year. I wonder if we see more. If we don’t, he may be ready for a jump.

When the current regime changes, we will be stacked at RB. And Marion’s Go-Go offense includes crazy formations with as many as 3 RBs offset to the play side of the QB. All four of them are eligible receivers or potential rushers under different base plays. There’s some vulnerabilities to the offense. Namely everything is bunched up between the hashes. So you wonder if elite recovery speed and strength at the larger classifications of college football will defeat or frustrate some of the vulnerabilities and opportunities Marion’s set creates.

It’s worth 20 minutes of your time. He knows how to talk to people and teach. He’s gonna be great some day if he gets the chance.
It is definitely a twist on the Malzahn go-go. He is definitely a recruiter as well. He has that real experience that will relate to kids who had it rough growing up and college football is their chance out of the poverty cycle. He definitely has that mentor aspect to him as well. We should all write Dickson pushing this.
 
It is definitely a twist on the Malzahn go-go. He is definitely a recruiter as well. He has that real experience that will relate to kids who had it rough growing up and college football is their chance out of the poverty cycle. He definitely has that mentor aspect to him as well. We should all write Dickson pushing this.
Watch the videos and read his book. He borrows a little from Malzahn’s concepts of putting one of the two or three safeties on a island based on down/distance/position/quarter and forcing them to choose which responsibilities they will take on a given play. Most frees can take a man or zone and come over to help into one area. Malzahn forces those safeties into guessing where they are going to be needed to help, then creates a third opportunity the defense can’t defend due to physical match ups. We saw this when defenses could either defend Meyer at the first down marker and help with the Clay mismatch on the wheel or flag. But that would leave Marion alone up top. Or if they played deep to defend Marion they left Clay in single coverage. If they zoned to both, Jesse almost always had a first down.

Marion tries to do some of that, but he doesn’t bring in all the gimmicky single wing, veer, and option looks that Malzahn did trying to be so unconventional it was fundamentally unsound which forced unsound defense decisions which created break downs and big plays (Two QBs on a double reverse throw to the endzone, etc.)
 
Were Trevis and Reggie recruited by Monty? Like Huffy said this is a throw away season. Players opted out, games were not played, teams started late. An *** year for sure. Next year will be the real test if we have a real season. The entire team is back with the exception of Zach, Corey, and Zaven. This year should be really special. Hoping that Brin is all that everyone expects him to be.
I believe Robinson was. Gipson was re-recruited after Blank was fired. To make it fair, I don’t think Todd recruited Chamberlain who was one of his two (the other being Clay) to go in the draft.

Graham was handed a very good football team that had gone 9-4 and 8-5 the seasons before he got the head coaching gig. He also had an administration that was pouring boatloads of cash into his program and a complete stadium renovation to sell recruits on. I bet if Monty got that IPF he was promised a half decade ago, he might have landed a couple more big-time recruits.
 
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I believe Robinson was. Gipson was re-recruited after Blank was fired. To make it fair, I don’t think Todd recruited Chamberlain who was one of his two (the other being Clay) to go in the draft.

Graham was handed a very good football team that had gone 9-4 and 8-5 the seasons before he got the head coaching gig. He also had an administration that was pouring boatloads of cash into his program and a complete stadium renovation to sell recruits on.
You may be confusing Graham recruiting Garrett and needing to be re-woo’d by Blankenship.

Gipson was a Coach Ashley target. Gipson was an early target of Top 25 programs. The guys we brought up from Baylor knew about him from there but he never physically matured until we got him on campus. We were his only FBS offer. He committed under BB after his senior year was over and nobody else asked him to dance, then he visited in January with the new staff. He wasn’t going anywhere. I think it’s generous to say he was “re-recruited.” Or that Monty gets credit for evaluating hidden talent nobody else wanted. Like Zaven, there was immense personal desire coupled with a system that showcased his talent.

Robinson was also not on our radar until the new staff came in.

Graham “recruited” Chambo as the DC for Krags to play either of the hybrid positions, bandit or spur, but he grew into a LB. We were his only offer but he signed with TU over walking on elsewhere because the coaches didn’t tolerate bad language in practice as I recall. My how times have changed.

Graham came back to a program he helped build and re-energized recruiting that had stagnated in his absence. Our passing game was atrocious despite a past all conference and future record setting QB and we couldn’t recruit a WR to replace two NFL guys in Bryant and Culton.

You make a fair point on having a lot of enhanced facilities to show recruits that other schools in the conference did not yet have and have now surpassed 12 quick years later.
 
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Word out East is that Marion is headed to PITT. Would be a great fit for him and most of the football kids in Pa especially Western Pa. already know and respect Marion.
 
Were Trevis and Reggie recruited by Monty? Like Huffy said this is a throw away season. Players opted out, games were not played, teams started late. An *** year for sure. Next year will be the real test if we have a real season. The entire team is back with the exception of Zach, Corey, and Zaven. This year should be really special. Hoping that Brin is all that everyone expects him to be.
I think Brin is who we saw. What we also saw was Monty opening the playbook for him, something he didn't do for Boomer (or even Smith really). If Monty sticks with the aggressive play calling (similar to the play calling during Dane's last season) there's no reason this team shouldn't win every game 45-17 (save for the two P5 games although I do think we're better than OkState going into next season and can definitely win that game). There's no reason to not believe Tulsa could go 11-1 next season knowing what we have coming back. The defense will keep us in every last game to the end and we've seen what the offense can be under Brin and w/ Monty throwing caution to the wind on the play calling. Cincinnati will be tough but I fully expect UCF and USF to both be soft, SMU might be a challenge and Houston is a hot mess with no identity right now. I think we've seen the last of Navy unless they find a diamond in the rough somewhere to take over at QB and that's not easy with that offense. Tulane and Memphis will be meh. IF Monty let's the offense play it could be a special year. If he calls plays to not lose games, we won't be that great.
 
You may be confusing Graham recruiting Garrett and needing to be re-woo’d by Blankenship.

Gipson was a Coach Ashley target. Gipson was an early target of Top 25 programs. The guys we brought up from Baylor knew about him from there but he never physically matured until we got him on campus. We were his only FBS offer. He committed under BB after his senior year was over and nobody else asked him to dance, then he visited in January with the new staff. He wasn’t going anywhere. I think it’s generous to say he was “re-recruited.” Or that Monty gets credit for evaluating hidden talent nobody else wanted. Like Zaven, there was immense personal desire coupled with a system that showcased his talent.

Robinson was also not on our radar until the new staff came in.

Graham “recruited” Chambo as the DC for Krags to play either of the hybrid positions, bandit or spur, but he grew into a LB. We were his only offer but he signed with TU over walking on elsewhere because the coaches didn’t tolerate bad language in practice as I recall. My how times have changed.

Graham came back to a program he helped build and re-energized recruiting that had stagnated in his absence. Our passing game was atrocious despite a past all conference and future record setting QB and we couldn’t recruit a WR to replace two NFL guys in Bryant and Culton.

You make a fair point on having a lot of enhanced facilities to show recruits that other schools in the conference did not yet have and have now surpassed 12 quick years later.
You also have to consider the player development as well, not that Graham was necessarily bad at it, but from year one to year 3-4 under Monty, a lot of fringe D1 recruits have developed into really quality role players if not stars. Outside of the defensive success we’ve had, that’s probably been Monty’s biggest success. The only guys that we seemed to whiff on as far as player development goes were some huge OL’s that just seemed to massive too have success.
 
I think Brin is who we saw. What we also saw was Monty opening the playbook for him, something he didn't do for Boomer (or even Smith really). If Monty sticks with the aggressive play calling (similar to the play calling during Dane's last season) there's no reason this team shouldn't win every game 45-17 (save for the two P5 games although I do think we're better than OkState going into next season and can definitely win that game). There's no reason to not believe Tulsa could go 11-1 next season knowing what we have coming back. The defense will keep us in every last game to the end and we've seen what the offense can be under Brin and w/ Monty throwing caution to the wind on the play calling. Cincinnati will be tough but I fully expect UCF and USF to both be soft, SMU might be a challenge and Houston is a hot mess with no identity right now. I think we've seen the last of Navy unless they find a diamond in the rough somewhere to take over at QB and that's not easy with that offense. Tulane and Memphis will be meh. IF Monty let's the offense play it could be a special year. If he calls plays to not lose games, we won't be that great.
One small caution: thinking that Monty was willing to open up the offense just because Brin was in might be a logical mistake. Remember that Brin and Monty were having to play from behind to salvage a win in a very short amount of time. There is no other option for Monty in that situation but to throw. We’ll see how it goes if Brin is in during Q1 and Monty tries his Run-Run-Pass trademark.
 
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One small caution: thinking that Monty was willing to open up the offense just because Brin was in might be a logical mistake. Remember that Brin and Monty were having to play from behind to salvage a win in a very short amount of time. There is no other option for Monty in that situation but to throw. We’ll see how it goes if Brin is in during Q1 and Monty tries his Run-Run-Pass trademark.
100%
 
You also have to consider the player development as well, not that Graham was necessarily bad at it, but from year one to year 3-4 under Monty, a lot of fringe D1 recruits have developed into really quality role players if not stars. Outside of the defensive success we’ve had, that’s probably been Monty’s biggest success. The only guys that we seemed to whiff on as far as player development goes were some huge OL’s that just seemed to massive too have success.
He’s missed more than he’s hit. He’s had two or three high profile successes and two CBS. That’s it. But you forgot to mention two years worth of WRs, about 6 players, as well as three or four DBs that are nowhere to be found. Some never made it out of two days. There’s a lot of no other offer guys on this squad that have done nothing and left after a year. And at enormous lost costs. You need four year practice players. But this crew is wasteful and disturbing.
 
He’s missed more than he’s hit. He’s had two or three high profile successes and two CBS. That’s it. But you forgot to mention two years worth of WRs, about 6 players, as well as three or four DBs that are nowhere to be found. Some never made it out of two days. There’s a lot of no other offer guys on this squad that have done nothing and left after a year. And at enormous lost costs. You need four year practice players. But this crew is wasteful and disturbing.
You see, I just disagree, i would also point out that Graham had more than his share of busts as well.
 
One small caution: thinking that Monty was willing to open up the offense just because Brin was in might be a logical mistake. Remember that Brin and Monty were having to play from behind to salvage a win in a very short amount of time. There is no other option for Monty in that situation but to throw. We’ll see how it goes if Brin is in during Q1 and Monty tries his Run-Run-Pass trademark.
Everyone talks about that...but it was id 3Q when he got in, about 8 min left and TU was only down 14-0. The first series started and Brin threw a screen, we ran for a nice gain, and we may have even picked up a first down. That drive was going when Brin completed about a 25 yarder to Rogers who ended up fumbling. Drive stalled. Maybe Monty was feeling desperate but I don't think fans were quite to that point yet. I mean he went for it on 4th and a lot from his own 35 the series before which led to Tulane's 2nd score. Let's be honest, if Monty was desperate, he created the situation himself. 7-0 in the 3rd quarter....why are we going for it on 4th down. Maybe if you want to try a fake punt but why line up and go for it in that situation? I have every confidence in Brin and my guess is everyone else on the offense does as well. It also points to Monty's inability to be both HC and OC...he's too attached to his system and too stubborn to value anyone else's perspective.

I want a QB going rogue like the dude in Any Given Sunday. Just call his own playground plays and go have fun.
 
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