The unofficial online home for fans of the UAB Blazers. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

(02-25-2013 04:45 PM)BlazerPhil Wrote:  Wow. Is Ellis worse than Zero ?

Go over to the Southern Miss board and ask them.

Wear earplugs.

Former UAB head coach, SEC assistant Neil Callaway hired at Western Kentucky
http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2013/..._assi.html

Poison pill.

(02-25-2013 04:40 PM)Smaug Wrote:  Neil Callaway > Ellis Johnson

Granted, that low on the head coaching ranking scale, the delineations between them start to get pretty damned blurry.

If Watson Brown cared to compare, he would likely say that he had been promised football facilities when he took the job and never got them. Neil Callaway got the facilities but also got the APR penalty mess so he started off from 60 scholarship players and had to build from there. Johnson had NONE of these problems and still went "0-for", so I guess he wins whatever you call that prize.

Callaway could probably take over a good program (like Western Kentucky) and keep it more or less on the same level. He needed to build UAB up, and he can't do that like McGee can because the man is an absolute snore. Who wants to go play for some who is that boring and sounds kind of stupid when he talks? He couldn't get out there and pound the pavement and win the hearts and minds of the community.

Western Kentucky would beat UAB right now, with or without Petrino. They've got a good thing going up there, at least at their level. We're not in a place to ridicule a very good Sun Belt team right now.

This is a team that went from 0-12 in 2009 to 7-5 in 2011 and 7-6 in 2012. One or wo of those losses each year are top-tier SEC beatdown paydays too.

(02-26-2013 11:37 AM)BAMANBLAZERFAN Wrote:  

(02-25-2013 04:40 PM)Smaug Wrote:  Neil Callaway > Ellis Johnson

Granted, that low on the head coaching ranking scale, the delineations between them start to get pretty damned blurry.

If Watson Brown cared to compare, he would likely say that he had been promised football facilities when he took the job and never got them. Neil Callaway got the facilities but also got the APR penalty mess so he started off from 60 scholarship players and had to build from there. Johnson had NONE of these problems and still went "0-for", so I guess he wins whatever you call that prize.

Watson Brown put better football players on the field a helluva lot of the time and still managed to lose.

That's coaching.

(02-26-2013 12:20 PM)Smaug Wrote:  Watson Brown put better football players on the field a helluva lot of the time and still managed to lose.

That's coaching.

Specifically discipline. I think Watson is a much better X's and O's guy than Callaway. It's my impression that he ran a sloppy program though, and went for quick fixes with talent at the expense at the long-term viability of the program. I think Watson is a big part of Callaway's failure by creating a multitude of messes, mostly off the field, that Callaway couldn't handle. If UAB was already a winning program, Callaway might still be our coach.

Correct me if I'm wrong. I'm not extremely well-versed in the Watson Brown era because I was a youngster who was not nearly as obsessed with football as I am now.

Watson was just shy of mediocre on the field. He would almost assuredly be held in higher regard by Blazer fans if he hadn't burned the place down on his way out.

Callaway didn't win. But he left the place much better than he found it.

Anyone who thinks otherwise has forgotten exactly how toxic the program had gotten his last 2 years. We needed a change. Hell, we needed an exorcism.

I don't know if Callaway would have ever won here. What I do know is McGee inherited a program in much better shape than the one he did.

My opinion is that success in football depends on a triad of good coaching, talented players and competitive facilities to properly train & condition the players for success.

In Watson Brown's staff we had as good a staff as any new program could have. Some of those are still in coaching today and some have been on our "favorites list" for bringing back to UAB. We did not ever have the third leg of that triad - competitive facilities - while they were here. When those original coaches left for "greener pastures", their replacements were not so hot and one was a disaster. I have said before that when Brown failed to win bowl eligibility in Hackney and White's last seasons, he essentially "mailed in" his last two years.

The then new APR rules caught both Callaway and Davis from the blindside. Callaway had never been in a situation where he could not easily replace players he had lost or run off. Due to the situation he walked into, he found he had to actually put a team on the field with only 60 scholarship players in his first year. It was his 4th year before he was able to have a full load of legitimately scholarship players and he still didn't win. Were it not for Joe Webb, UAB might have had trouble drawing flies to games.

So we have FBHC McGee who has an apparently good staff (since other teams covet them so much) and a better grade of playing talent (since other teams seem to covet them so much) and we have the renovated facilities which he says is good enough to win with. I am very excited about spring practice once again and am looking forward to the 2013 season.

Quote:In Watson Brown's staff we had as good a staff as any new program could have.

A fish rots from the head down. And from the moment he set foot on campus, Watson Brown stank like the putrid sack of decaying catfish splooge that he is.

And it's spelled FACILITIES.

B'n'B, Watson "mailed in" his last two years in the sane way the Unabomber mailed his grievances. Yes, he lost control of the program and, yes, it was a reaping of what had been sown, but that man also found himself compelled solely by ego - not even any sense of self-preservation - to scorch the earth if made to leave and he followed through (not to mention trying to undercut men, and their families, that had been close to him for years).

It's one thing to rebuild what has been neglected. Quite another to find purchase in ashes.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

We're talking scorched earth...

(02-25-2013 05:32 PM)UAB Band Dad Wrote:  

(02-25-2013 04:45 PM)BlazerPhil Wrote:  Wow. Is Ellis worse than Zero ?

Go over to the Southern Miss board and ask them.

Wear earplugs.

& take the Parrot/Mynah Bird out of the room if you're the kind that likes to read online posts out loud when by yourself.(as I sometimes do)...

(02-27-2013 02:54 PM)Matrix Wrote:  

(02-25-2013 05:32 PM)UAB Band Dad Wrote:  

(02-25-2013 04:45 PM)BlazerPhil Wrote:  Wow. Is Ellis worse than Zero ?

Go over to the Southern Miss board and ask them.

Wear earplugs.

& take the Parrot/Mynah Bird out of the room if you're the kind that likes to read online posts out loud when by yourself.(as I sometimes do)...

Really?

Those birds will repeat you in a heart beat.