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Where should we go from here?

OKTornadoes

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Sep 18, 2022
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I say this with proverbial tears behind my blue and gold glasses (lol), but where is there for us to go?

I don't want to see us left behind like we almost were during the C-USA/Big East debacle in the early 2010's. I also would detest the day we go to FCS level.

I just want to see what everyone is thinking as far as coaching, NIL, current roster, the portal, and recruiting. I still think we are years away from having to worry about throwing in the old towel. But things like today haven't happened since the turn of the millennium. It's embarrassing, but I believe it's fixable with the right staff and allocations.

It's not just us. OU and OSU are arguably having their worst seasons since 1998. Ironically, we beat OSU that year and they beat OU. This year could mark the first time since 1998 that none of the OK 3 FBS teams make a bowl.
 
I say this with proverbial tears behind my blue and gold glasses (lol), but where is there for us to go?

I don't want to see us left behind like we almost were during the C-USA/Big East debacle in the early 2010's. I also would detest the day we go to FCS level.

I just want to see what everyone is thinking as far as coaching, NIL, current roster, the portal, and recruiting. I still think we are years away from having to worry about throwing in the old towel. But things like today haven't happened since the turn of the millennium. It's embarrassing, but I believe it's fixable with the right staff and allocations.

It's not just us. OU and OSU are arguably having their worst seasons since 1998. Ironically, we beat OSU that year and they beat OU. This year could mark the first time since 1998 that none of the OK 3 FBS teams make a bowl.
So there are definitely some disadvantages with the NIL thing with us , I don’t know how , but we are going to have to start paying something or we are going to lose all of our good players . As far as the transfer portal goes , I think it is really starting to show how it has hurt the stability of most teams , I mean usually we have about 4 or 5 top teams and then pretty much everyone else competes for other bowl games , this year there is not one team that is looking just flat out better then everyone else . I will say this though , if they really do the split , with NIL schools in one division and the ones that don’t in the other one , we will have to go with the lesser one , I know hearing that sucks, but I would rather win most weeks then what we are seeing this year , however , without a change in leadership , it dosnt matter because everyone beats us anyway now
 
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Also with Rick Dickson bragging about all of these donations , people aren’t going to buy the crap of “ we can’t afford to fire Wilson “. In all honesty; we can’t afford to keep him !
These donations are allocated to other things than firing a coach and paying his buyout. No matter whether you or any other fan 'buys the crap' about us not having any money to fire him. That won't change no matter how many times it is repeated.

The majority of that, being the 30M, goes to paying scholarships that we did not fund before, in other sports. We will have more soccer, volleyball, track, rowing, etc scholarships than we had before, instead of them walking on or taking partial scholarships. That is in an endowment for that, and only that purpose. The remaining 8M is in an endowment(IIRC) for upkeep of equipment and facilities.

Neither one can be touched for buyouts, and once again the majority of it is for funding stuff we've never funded before. Which means no money was freed up by funding it, since we didn't fund it before.
 
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At most schools, it’s good donor management to approach the donors who funded the hiring to contribute the buyout. And that just makes sense, if you donated to build an art museum and named it after your father, a conservative Baptist minister, and the school suddenly changed it to a theater for drag shows, you’d be upset and likely not give again in the future. Its also true in football.

Joe Jamail famously confronted the AD at Texas by shouting across a very crowded press box during a particularly embarrassing loss “I gave you $100 million and you put my name on the field, how much do I have to give for you to take it off!!?”

Regardless of how much has been given as restricted gifts in the last year or so, the folks that helped with the hire will also likely play a role with any firing.

And they may not be able to, or have the desire to, help out.

Which is why you see a lot about venture capital coming into college sports.

The schools and the networks have too much invested and too much to lose at this point to tolerate negotiating through the whims of some local car dealer in Starkville, MS or wherever.

Carson or Moore may very well want to fire Wilson now or at the end of the season, but they may not have that option.

It will certainly be an interesting off season.

I don’t think they will make a change on a whim.

TU’s overall academic ranking is partially tied to graduation rates. If you fire the coach and 40 players leave, that disproportionately skews the graduation rate of smaller schools like Tulsa. And that 2% or 3% decrease in graduation rate can be the difference between TU being 98th and 176th in U.S. News. So a stable program is much preferred.

In any event, it is difficult finding affinity for a school through athletics when we are asked to donate our time, money, and emotions to something as hapless as what we watched the last few seasons.

I think most of us have something better to do with our lives, and if this continues, we will move on and TU might never cross our minds. Unless we see the sign driving down 244. And if that becomes the case, the school has bigger problems than Kevin Wilson.
 
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At most schools, it’s good donor management to approach the donors who funded the hiring to contribute the buyout. And that just makes sense, if you donated to build an art museum and named it after your father, a conservative Baptist minister, and the school suddenly changed it to a theater for drag shows, you’d be upset and likely not give again in the future. Its also true in football.

Joe Jamail famously confronted the AD at Texas by shouting across a very crowded press box during a particularly embarrassing loss “I gave you $100 million and you put my name on the field, how much do I have to give for you to take it off!!?”

Regardless of how much has been given as restricted gifts in the last year or so, the folks that helped with the hire will also likely play a role with any firing.

And they may not be able to, or have the desire to, help out.

Which is why you see a lot about venture capital coming into college sports.

The schools and the networks have too much invested and too much to lose at this point to tolerate negotiating through the whims of some local car dealer in Starkville, MS or wherever.

Carson or Moore may very well want to fire Wilson now or at the end of the season, but they may not have that option.

It will certainly be an interesting off season.

I don’t think they will make a change on a whim.

TU’s overall academic ranking is partially tied to graduation rates. If you fire the coach and 40 players leave, that disproportionately skews the graduation rate of smaller schools like Tulsa. And that 2% or 3% decrease in graduation rate can be the difference between TU being 98th and 176th in U.S. News. So a stable program is much preferred.

In any event, it is difficult finding affinity for a school through athletics when we are asked to donate our time, money, and emotions to something as hapless as what we watched the last few seasons.

I think most of us have something better to do with our lives, and if this continues, we will move on and TU might never cross our minds. Unless we see the sign driving down 244. And if that becomes the case, the school has bigger problems than Kevin Wilson.
I’ll never get to the point where tu doesn’t cross my mind. Dumb post
 
lol this thread is hilarious!!! The same people on here trashing this man were slobbing his knob back in March 2023. The level of hypocrisy on this board is just simply amazing
You mean to tell me a message board has fans who may be a little irrational about their favorite team??? This is definitely breaking news!!!
 
At most schools, it’s good donor management to approach the donors who funded the hiring to contribute the buyout. And that just makes sense, if you donated to build an art museum and named it after your father, a conservative Baptist minister, and the school suddenly changed it to a theater for drag shows, you’d be upset and likely not give again in the future. Its also true in football.

Joe Jamail famously confronted the AD at Texas by shouting across a very crowded press box during a particularly embarrassing loss “I gave you $100 million and you put my name on the field, how much do I have to give for you to take it off!!?”

Regardless of how much has been given as restricted gifts in the last year or so, the folks that helped with the hire will also likely play a role with any firing.

And they may not be able to, or have the desire to, help out.

Which is why you see a lot about venture capital coming into college sports.

The schools and the networks have too much invested and too much to lose at this point to tolerate negotiating through the whims of some local car dealer in Starkville, MS or wherever.

Carson or Moore may very well want to fire Wilson now or at the end of the season, but they may not have that option.

It will certainly be an interesting off season.

I don’t think they will make a change on a whim.

TU’s overall academic ranking is partially tied to graduation rates. If you fire the coach and 40 players leave, that disproportionately skews the graduation rate of smaller schools like Tulsa. And that 2% or 3% decrease in graduation rate can be the difference between TU being 98th and 176th in U.S. News. So a stable program is much preferred.

In any event, it is difficult finding affinity for a school through athletics when we are asked to donate our time, money, and emotions to something as hapless as what we watched the last few seasons.

I think most of us have something better to do with our lives, and if this continues, we will move on and TU might never cross our minds. Unless we see the sign driving down 244. And if that becomes the case, the school has bigger problems than Kevin Wilson.
I don’t think I could ever forget about it… it’s meant so much to me over the years. The history, success (both historically and even relatively recently with Krag and Graham), coupled with all the fun of game day, would always stick in my mind.

We aren’t in a good place, that’s for sure, but I’d be willing to say we’re still in a better place than many FBS schools. We just need to figure some things out… quickly.
 
lol this thread is hilarious!!! The same people on here trashing this man were slobbing his knob back in March 2023. The level of hypocrisy on this board is just simply amazing
It's not about hypocrisy it's about results. Yes, I thought the OC at Ohio State who was also an acclaimed OC at OU would be a home run hire. An old school coach who would bring discipline back to the program. The performance is improved in the classroom but abysmal on the field. The play calling looks confused and indecisive. We don't have the talent to make up for Wilson's mistakes.

Where should we go from here? Obviously, amassing a competitive NIL war chest is critical. New AD Justin Moore and Deputy AD Joe Fields are aware of this. The results of this campaign is critical to the survival of the program. I would bet that the lack of an NIL program caused several candidates to replace Montgomery to shy away from the TU job. Wilson's claim that he signed "the best non-NIL recruiting class in the country" might be his excuse in advance for futility. He's definitely not working out. Can he turn it around? I don't know. Give us one ray of hope.

Ok, now for my outrageous prediction: Wilson steps down at season's end after a deal is made. TU goes out on a limb and hires the Milkman (or Mike Norvell if he's run out of Tallahassee). We'll all think it is a home run hire but we won't really know until we see the results.
 
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It's not about hypocrisy it's about results. Yes, I thought the OC at Ohio State who was also an acclaimed OC at OU would be a home run hire. An old school coach who would bring discipline back to the program. The performance is improved in the classroom but abysmal on the field. The play calling looks confused and indecisive. We don't have the talent to make up for Wilson's mistakes.

Where should we go from here? Obviously, amassing a competitive NIL war chest is critical. New AD Justin Moore and Deputy AD Joe Fields are aware of this. I would bet that the lack of an NIL program caused several candidates to replace Montgomery to shy away from the TU job. Wilson's claim that he signed "the best non-NIL recruiting class in the country" might be his excuse in advance for futility. He's definitely not working out. Can he turn it around? I don't know. Give us one ray of hope.

Ok, now for my outrageous prediction: Wilson steps down at season's end after a deal is made. TU goes out on a limb and hires the Milkman. We'll all think it is a home run hire but we won't really know until we see the results.
The man was hire to fix the program. He has to fix the classroom and then build the team. Is this season abysmal? Yes but he has to be given time to build the program. We don’t have the “NIL” that other schools have including some in conference. Until there is regulation on this then here we sit. I have been cautious this whole time. I don’t know how the hire is until they do something. I don’t know how the recruit is until they show me something. We should not be paying players to come here at that point it’s no longer amateur athletics and shouldn’t be considered college football. I just find it hilarious about how some people come on here and trash others about how they don’t know football and if we aren’t on board with Wilson we are trash fans. Then a year and a half later are calling for him to be fired. A year and a half.

What we need is someone to fix our “fans” lol
 
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What we need is someone to fix our “fans” lol
you mean the “fans” that show up every single game regardless of record? The “fans” who donate their hard earned money to the athletic department? The “fans” who want to see their school be successful? Those fans?

What exactly needs to be fixed?

Venture over to an SEC school fanbase where a coach gets death threats after a loss… are we a little self-hating? For sure we are. Again - cynicism is definitely a thing here. But at the end of the day, the people left who still care enough to show up, donate, and even participate in conversation here aren’t the problem.
 
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Thank you for saying the quiet part out loud… we have the most fickle fan base in sports.
Not even close to the most fickle. Check out what they're saying in Norman and Stillwater these days. You can't fault the fan base. Like Goldenhurricane2 said, most of the remaining fan base here is still paying full price for tickets and making donations to the Champions Fund as much as their incomes allow.
 
Not even close to the most fickle. Check out what they're saying in Norman and Stillwater these days. You can't fault the fan base. Like Goldenhurricane2 said, most of the remaining fan base here is still paying full price for tickets and making donations to the Champions Fund as much as their incomes allow.
Exactly.
 
Not even close to the most fickle. Check out what they're saying in Norman and Stillwater these days. You can't fault the fan base. Like Goldenhurricane2 said, most of the remaining fan base here is still paying full price for tickets and making donations to the Champions Fund as much as their incomes allow.
lol you are correct we are most definitely not the most fickle fanbase but I’ll be damed if we are trying to work towards that. lol
 
Now before anyone says it, ECU fired their coach after the loss to army. That said he was in his 6th season with the team. So you guys can start calling for heads in another 2-3 years. Seems precedent has been set. Lol
 
lol this thread is hilarious!!! The same people on here trashing this man were slobbing his knob back in March 2023. The level of hypocrisy on this board is just simply amazing
I can honestly say, that this is not me. I caught a lot of flack for not being enthusiastic enough about the two hires Dixon made. I wasn't outright lambasting them as I felt they both deserved a fair shot, but they both seemed to have too many red flags for my liking.
 
The man was hire to fix the program. He has to fix the classroom and then build the team. Is this season abysmal? Yes but he has to be given time to build the program. We don’t have the “NIL” that other schools have including some in conference. Until there is regulation on this then here we sit. I have been cautious this whole time. I don’t know how the hire is until they do something. I don’t know how the recruit is until they show me something. We should not be paying players to come here at that point it’s no longer amateur athletics and shouldn’t be considered college football. I just find it hilarious about how some people come on here and trash others about how they don’t know football and if we aren’t on board with Wilson we are trash fans. Then a year and a half later are calling for him to be fired. A year and a half.

What we need is someone to fix our “fans” lol
This is a post full of excuses. Same sorts of posts that kept Haith 4 years too long.
 
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The man was hire to fix the program. He has to fix the classroom and then build the team. Is this season abysmal? Yes but he has to be given time to build the program. We don’t have the “NIL” that other schools have including some in conference. Until there is regulation on this then here we sit. I have been cautious this whole time. I don’t know how the hire is until they do something. I don’t know how the recruit is until they show me something. We should not be paying players to come here at that point it’s no longer amateur athletics and shouldn’t be considered college football. I just find it hilarious about how some people come on here and trash others about how they don’t know football and if we aren’t on board with Wilson we are trash fans. Then a year and a half later are calling for him to be fired. A year and a half.

What we need is someone to fix our “fans” lol
Sometimes, it doesn’t take long to realize that you have a bad fit, whether it be employee, co-worker, student, player and even coach.

Yes it’s only been a year and a half, but that may be all the time needed to recognize the bad place that we’re in. There doesn’t seem to be any progress being made, and players aren’t being put into the best position to be successful. But maybe more importantly, there is no fire or encouragement on the sideline. I sit right behind the offense bench, and when those guys come off the field none of the staff really do anything at all, good or bad. That really tells me something.

I’ve probably been to more of these games that almost anyone here, and during the last two games I’ve caught myself calculating in my head how many more TDs for the visitors before I can get up and head home. That’s never happened before, which also tells me something.

I’ll be at those 3 remaining games but I really don’t look forward to them.
 
The man was hire to fix the program. He has to fix the classroom and then build the team. Is this season abysmal? Yes but he has to be given time to build the program. We don’t have the “NIL” that other schools have including some in conference. Until there is regulation on this then here we sit. I have been cautious this whole time. I don’t know how the hire is until they do something. I don’t know how the recruit is until they show me something. We should not be paying players to come here at that point it’s no longer amateur athletics and shouldn’t be considered college football. I just find it hilarious about how some people come on here and trash others about how they don’t know football and if we aren’t on board with Wilson we are trash fans. Then a year and a half later are calling for him to be fired. A year and a half.

What we need is someone to fix our “fans” lol
We definitely have fans and donors who need “adjustments”

You make great points. All of this and remember that we are converting out of a veer and shoot offense which required players who, by design, often did not have and were not required to have, the physical attributes and athletic ability of players in more conventional offenses. It took some program 5 to 10 years to convert out of the wishbone. We may be in for a similar ride.

You can put me square in the camp of cautiously concerned when he was hired, and check the receipts on that, then enthusiastic when he started to produce results off the field we all wanted. You’ll find posts where I speculate he is a bridge hire to clean up the program for the next person. And that might prove to be the case. If so, he needs to accelerate his efforts. There isn’t much more of this the program can take.
 
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Sometimes, it doesn’t take long to realize that you have a bad fit, whether it be employee, co-worker, student, player and even coach.

Yes it’s only been a year and a half, but that may be all the time needed to recognize the bad place that we’re in. There doesn’t seem to be any progress being made, and players aren’t being put into the best position to be successful. But maybe more importantly, there is no fire or encouragement on the sideline. I sit right behind the offense bench, and when those guys come off the field none of the staff really do anything at all, good or bad. That really tells me something.

I’ve probably been to more of these games that almost anyone here, and during the last two games I’ve caught myself calculating in my head how many more TDs for the visitors before I can get up and head home. That’s never happened before, which also tells me something.

I’ll be at those 3 remaining games but I really don’t look forward to them.
Great post. I did the same searching in my head during the 4th qtr.

Even during the worst of Burns, you still kinda had semi hope that individual effort or some fortunate bounce of the ball would keep us in games and we could win 21-14. And indeed we won several games we should have lost that way over the years.

I don’t recall the program being this low and rudderless since 2000. There was a UTEP game at home we lost like 40-7 and it wasn’t that close. Bitterly cold. Blankenship did his best but I think we ran for like 3 yards and there wasn’t really any cohesion to the offensive. And it wasn’t their defense. We just kept trying to run the same 3 plays that UTEP was ready for each time.

It took a few more years before the program was put back together in 2003.

The body language on the offensive players yesterday was telling. At times it looked like they knew in advance what they were running wasn’t going to work. If that’s the case, I have real concerns.

We will get there eventually, but these are tough times.
 
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Wilson was not my first choice but after hearing his press conference I liked the things he said. Last year I thought we made progress throughout the year especially when Francis began to play.

My reasons for becoming pessimistic:
- We have not improved game to game this year (Coaching issues)
- Against all of the FBS opponents except Temple the other teams made much better half time adjustments (Coaching Issues)
- Wilson, from everything I have been told by people that should know, refuses to give up the play calling (Similar stubbornness to Monty)
- Poor special teams play (blocking, tackling, out kicking coverage, etc…)

Some reasons for optimism:
- Whether people on here believe it or not our recruiting is significantly better than any coaching staff in the last 40 years, with the exception of TG’s first two years (Malzhan, Blankenship, Norvell and K Patterson were the primary recruiters for some of the most important key players and got those players sometimes in spite of Todd’s personality)
- Improved academics and accountability
- Wilson is willing to talk about the shortcomings in private with donors, former players, etc…

What I would like to see if Wilson continues as HC:
- Better game planning and in game adjustments
- A new Special Teams Coordinator
- A new D-Coordinator
- Turn over the play calling and be the HC

If he does those things and it doesn’t show improvement relatively quickly then change the HC.
 
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ECU just fired their coach after a 3-4 start. Um, wish we were that committed to trying to fix what's obviously broken. I had high hopes for Wilson mainly because he brought in some really good coordinators and position coaches who were good recruiters. Wilson is obviously not set up and doesn't have the mindset to run a program in this new era of pay for play and college free agency. There's a reason why guys like Stoops and Saban left the college game. Stoops saw what was coming and jumped. Saban got disillusioned when winning championships wasn't enough for players to keep them in the program. Wilson, and TU, haven't adapted and don't seem in a rush to change the approach. And when it looked like Wilson addressed some of the issues at the skill positions on offense, he forgot about the OL. And the DL and the DBs.

Hopefully the new AD has an idea about how to fix the problem and aggressively set TU up for the future which is going to be a new roster every year.
 
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Wilson was not my first choice but after hearing his press conference I liked the things he said. Last year I thought we made progress throughout the year especially when Francis began to play.

My reasons for becoming pessimistic:
- We have not improved game to game this year (Coaching issues)
- Against all of the FBS opponents except Temple the other teams made much better half time adjustments (Coaching Issues)
- Wilson, from everything I have been told by people that should know, refuses to give up the play calling (Similar stubbornness to Monty)
- Poor special teams play (blocking, tackling, out kicking coverage, etc…)

Some reasons for optimism:
- Whether people on here believe it or not our recruiting is significantly better than any coaching staff in the last 40 years, with the exception of TG’s first two years (Malzhan, Blankenship, Norvell and K Patterson were the primary recruiters for some of the most important key players and got those players sometimes in spite of Todd’s personality)
- Improved academics and accountability
- Wilson is willing to talk about the shortcomings in private with donors, former players, etc…

What I would like to see if Wilson continues as HC:
- Better game planning and in game adjustments
- A new Special Teams Coordinator
- A new D-Coordinator
- Turn over the play calling and be the HC

If he does those things and it doesn’t show improvement relatively quickly then change the HC.
All the recruiting in the world won’t help if the staff can’t put players in a position to maximize their potential.
 
I don't know enough about football to have a solution but games are no longer enjoyable. I need to see some kind of spark to invest my time in attending. I have anger and frustration fatigue.
 
I don't know enough about football to have a solution but games are no longer enjoyable. I need to see some kind of spark to invest my time in attending. I have anger and frustration fatigue.
Ya I’m not going to anymore games either until the product on the field is worth watching again
 
The body language on the offensive players yesterday was telling. At times it looked like they knew in advance what they were running wasn’t going to work. If that’s the case, I have real concerns.
The whole team looked like this. There was very little hustle on several specific plays and I remember thinking “wtf are we doing?”

It looked like they just wanted to get the game finished and get out of there…
 
Ya I’m not going to anymore games either until the product on the field is worth watching again
My father would roll over in his grave if I skipped a game. I guess I owe it to 75 years of tradition to continue attending, but this isn’t enjoyable at all.

I do think I will break down and go to my first high school game in a few years. I need something to cheer for and I hear the local team is pretty good.
 
We definitely have fans and donors who need “adjustments”

You make great points. All of this and remember that we are converting out of a veer and shoot offense which required players who, by design, often did not have and were not required to have, the physical attributes and athletic ability of players in more conventional offenses. It took some program 5 to 10 years to convert out of the wishbone. We may be in for a similar ride.

You can put me square in the camp of cautiously concerned when he was hired, and check the receipts on that, then enthusiastic when he started to produce results off the field we all wanted. You’ll find posts where I speculate he is a bridge hire to clean up the program for the next person. And that might prove to be the case. If so, he needs to accelerate his efforts. There isn’t much more of this the program can take.
Agreed
 
My father would roll over in his grave if I skipped a game. I guess I owe it to 75 years of tradition to continue attending, but this isn’t enjoyable at all.

I do think I will break down and go to my first high school game in a few years. I need something to cheer for and I hear the local team is pretty good.
I would still be going if I lived nearer, so i stream the radio brodcast
 
This is a post full of excuses. Same sorts of posts that kept Haith 4 years too long.
You have no excuses on day 1. The opposite answer isn't usually the right one. You didn't lambast them for three weeks, and then you went all gale force hurricane on them after such a long wait. Thanks for the waiting! :rolleyes:
 
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