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I think the revolving door of Defensive Coordinator is the #1 reason for past 2 years down fall. but not only reason. No stud defensive players, way too many personal fouls by certain unnamed players who I would have benched completely after second one, and way too many fumbles. I would still love to get 4 - 5 D-1 transfers every year who are NOT head cases. I truly respect and appreciate Coach P and hope we can get above 5oo this year. Not sure that will be enough though. Hope we win conference and go to playoffs and Coach P is back. Fall will tell it all.
B-Ball Fan
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| '71 and others, great discussion board. Glad to see others think as much of Coach P as I do. I love reading '71's impressions of the Spring game. I live ten miles from the UNI-DOME and UNI will again be strong and the dome is always a tough place to place as we visit this fall. Having a D coordinator for more than a year will help. Losing O'Kruch was no loss whatsoever. I can't believe Zook fired a Mallory to hire O'Kruch!
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Freshman
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Some good points here. And yes, I totally realize what happened on the field was not a reflection of Dno Patterson. It was much more a reflection of Harbaugh and some of those thugs from WKU. Problem is, because it was on Coach P's watch, people that don't know him would assume something totally wrong about the Western Illinois program. That's where I was going with that. As far as our window of opportunity, agreed on the 02-03 window. Hell, 2001 was a big disappointment in my mind (5-5). We had some really great players and they didn't always show up. YSU game comes to mind that year.
"I like that song, Mr. Sacrifice" - Coach Patterson
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Leathercy, I walked out to the stadium with the defense before the spring game. Initially said hello to a former student of mine and then walked along for the aviance! Having coached high school basketball, I still love the pregame environment, especially when players are psyched up, together and ready to play. The defense is basically built for "speed" and "attack" and the group is definitely built physically to do that. Good crop of corners and safeties, lean and mean LBS! They walked out really glued together. You can tell that they believe in each other and that goes along way when the season comes. With 3 down lineman, and the backers moving around, you never know where the pressure is going to come from. I just have a good feeling about these guys. The Douglas kid is really good too, and the O line is back to its old self. The center is Zeller, R Frosh who was a top 8 heavy weight wrestler from Fremd, smart, tough, will learn fast.
jc
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I will probably touch on everybody's insight here a bit.
It all started after the 2003 season. We lost a lot of studs. Time to re-load, right? Wrong. We need coaches. Solomon takes his many years of NFL experience out to the AZ Cardinals to join his buddy Dennis Green. Before Solomon left, we lost Vernon Dean and his NFL experience to the KC Chiefs. Solomon grabs D-Coord. Courtright for a Def. quality control position. Courtright was really coming around, shutting out WKU and YSU in the same season(02), not too bad. Holder leaves for Rutgers. McCall probably is or is turning into a very good coach but he doesn't have the ties that some others have had. Malloe takes off for, I think UTEP. It seemed like the players really liked this guy. Here comes Jamrog at DC...there goes Jamrog to Minn State. Okruch shows up a month before summer ball. After a rough 2004 season, which we knew it would be, Okruch installs a new defense in the spring...off he goes to ULM before summer ball. As you all know, it's a rarely used defense and we had to find someone who knows it and we now have him. Casey has shown he can recruit. These former coaches all had some pretty good ties for recruiting and/or credentials. It's got to be hard to recruit when you can't always introduce a kid to his position coach. The loss of coaches year in and year out is rampant in college football but we got hit hard. On the offensive side of the ball, we haven't really missed a beat in terms of putting points on the board. It's been great watching Steve improve every time he goes out there. I think it is safe to say that LaFalce has had some rough times but we saw Michna for two years. I've often read where many feel that Lafalce is indecisive, we got used to seeing Michna, one of the best, make throws that most QB's wouldn't. He threaded the needle many times and only ended up with 5 picks in 2002. At least two or three of those hit the WR in the chest and bounced into the hands of a defender. Patterson and Hendrickson have found stars in some extremely small and probably overlooked WR's in Coleman, Gray and Norris. Getting back to recruiting.
I think that winning may have some effect on attracting transfers, but the bottom line is that they want to play and if you want them bad enough, you can get the word out and they will come. A lot of them have one goal in mind and that is the next level. They haven't come up through the program, waiting for their turn. They don't feel the rivalries. I realize that there has been some great transfers who left it all out on the field and really wanted to win. You all know who those guys are and they are ussually the guys who have some years of eligibility left when they come to WIU. I've also seen transfers who probably never deserved a spot on 1-A roster and were lucky to get playing time at WIU when they came along. 1-A coaches make mistakes too, when they recruit. If you develope a reputation for re-loading at certain positions every season, like many teams are doing, what are you saying to the young guys who believe that they are next in line? A kid red-shirts, busts his tail for a couple of years, then by his sophomore or junior year, he thinks he has moved up to #2 on the depth chart then suddenly a transfer or two sends him right back to where he started. Could this maybe cause some morale problems, too? I'm sure most of you noticed the numerous true freshman who got PT lst year. It's good to see these kids out there getting knocked down and making mistakes, watch them 2 to 3 years from now. There are some guys from the 2000 defense who can attest to that. My opinion on the best way to recruit is to hit hard the kids who are getting serious 1-A attention. Glasford, Russell, Langan and Obrien fall into this category, I think. I know there has been many more. If you can snag 'em, there's a good chance that you can keep them for 4 or 5 years. This years class is a perfect example. There are SEVERAL of them who got some 1-A looks. This is one of the best classes that WIU has had since Coach P has arrived. There are a few positions where I would like to see a transfer or two but I like where we're headed. In '99 we had approx. 23 transfers on our roster, this year we have less than 5. I counted 13 on YSU's roster. Do you think they will win a national championship? Maybe, I'm not sure. They didn't blow anybody out last year with their 2 transfer RB's. Maybe they were a little banged up, I don't know, but Mason had a big game against us and a few others. I don't think YSU won their NC's with transfers. They won by playing disciplined football. Tressell's teams never beat themselves. I completely agree with B-Ball Fan about the revolving door of the DC being WIU's downfall the last two years. I don't think the offense will ever slip too much with P and Hendy around. This year the Necks need to focus on giving themselves a chance to win by cutting down on turnovers and penalties, the defense will be better. You shouldn't lose 6 games when you average over 30 pts/game.
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damn...end of thread. way to bring it pit. great stuff....a real in-depth look at the issues and how coach p and the staff are going to turn it around....
keep on coming back. are you a former player....or just a super-fan that spent lots of time just south of hanson field 4 hours until kickoff???
amr
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I guess I'm just a super fan that tries to follow this team closely. I would like to begin my Saturday 4 hours before gametime but OPS kind of related to me one time that it wasn't acceptable behavior. I wanted to say that I'm an alumni, I drop alot of cash here, I don't get stupid and I have a designated wifer but I played it cooool and said, "right on." 
It is definately true that many 1-A players can be instant impacts or impact players and I really like to see a few come in at times when it looks like all we need is a few holes filled to really do some damage, but I'd much rather watch them come up through the program. 71 sums up best, in his first post on page 1, what I was trying to say.
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Freshman
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I was told that this board cannot be missed, and it has lived up to the hype. There has not been this much team buzz since the 03' season on "Thegatewayconnection" board. An impact transfer from the last couple of years who was also a solid member of the neck community was Phil Archer. Unfortunately, even with the talented O'Brien and Russell, it was a bend, don't break unit by the end of the year.
I love I-AA football.
"It would be better if you weren't a liar"--Ron Burgundy
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