I hate to lose Kenneth Harris...I thought he was pretty good.

(11-30-2022 10:32 PM)JSinLR Wrote:  I hate to lose Kenneth Harris...I thought he was pretty good.

Like the ULM fan said, he wasn’t a great cover corner, but our depth was so bad so he seemed pretty good compared to some of the others.

(11-30-2022 12:53 PM)gdunn Wrote:  So we're seeing a couple of coaches in the SBC in their second year at the helm...

Five to be exact: USM- Will Hall, USA- Kane Wommack, Marshall- Charles Huff, ULM- Terry Bowden, and stAte- Butch Jones

Seeing how these teams faired in year 2 vs how Butch Jones did, how do you guys feel about him? Do you think he has the program going in the right direction?

This is not a troll post, I know how much we've griped about Hall, and overall he doubled the wins in year 2 than he had in year 1... What do the Red Wolf faithful think is going on in Jonesboro?

AState had a fourth quarter lead in 8 games and lost five of those.

The defense was completely out of gas in the fourth quarter.
First three quarters, AState out-scored opponents 248-237 across 12 games. In the fourth quarter? Outscored 140-52

We had 15 guys that Blake Anderson recruited and only about 6 really contributed.

We are in the era of the Covid Super Senior, 4th year seniors, 5th year seniors and 6th year seniors. AState had 12 seniors.

Of the 10 offensive linemen on the two-deep, 2 seniors and no juniors.

The Red Wolves were a bunch of pups.

The defense wasn't very good, but gave up 100 yards per game less than last year.

Special teams across the board were really good.

Do I have full confidence in the staff? No. I don't believe the QB's progress under Heckendorf and I'm not a fan of his play calling either.

Unless the portal explodes and guts the development, should be better next year if the QB position is taken care of. We desperately needed a run threat at QB and Blackman couldn't provide that. Our only returning QB has 10 pass attempts under his belt so unless we sign a juco or a portal QB the competition in fall camp will be a redshirt freshman vs whatever true freshman rolls in, or maybe borrow a page from USM and use a wide receiver.

Figure out the QB spot and shore up the depth, I think AState will be OK next year.

I feel your pain. I wondered if it was coaching, sounds like your OC is carrying some blame... Sounds like your Defense needs a little work and depth..

Hopefully you guys get the depth and straighten out the issues you've all listed. Good luck wolves..

(11-30-2022 03:35 PM)BirdofParadise Wrote:  I said this earlier in the year. Arkansas State's biggest problem is quality depth.
THAT is the reason you saw leads slip away late. Jones needs another recruiting class at least.

Arkansas State fans lamented the shape of the program that Jones took over. If it was that bad, you need to give the guy more time.

This is exactly correct. People don't realize how bad Anderson recruited the last several years and then was justifiably distracted by his wife's death and Covid the last two years. We were signing tons of guys who had no other real FBS offers and didn't do a lot to develop them.

The timing was also bad. While Jones targeted HS players and signed the top rated class his first year, the rest of the country was hanging on to players with extra Covid eligibility. He plugged holes with the portal (notice all our all-conference guys this year were Jones signees) but ASU became one of the 4 youngest teams in the nation.

The youth and lack depth showed. ASU led in the 4th quarter in 3 games last year vs. 8 this year. Those 4th quarter struggles are what most of us saw early in our FBS or in FCS days when facing teams with more scholarships and depth.

The defense improved a lot. Most of us would like to see a new direction on offense and we need to bring in transfers at QB.

The second recruiting class looks to be one of the top in the SBC again and if they hit the right guys in the portal, we expect a jump in wins next year.

A lot of use knew it was not an easy or quick rebuild but many fans don't exhibit a lot of patience.

I thought 4 wins was a reasonable expectation. Giving a game away to Texas State was the only thing that put the doubt in my mind. He needed to get creative on how to win that game. It would have been 4 and doubling the win total from the previous year would have done a lot to stop my questioning.

His dogged determination to stay with "the process" is what I question. A good head coach should certainly have his system and recruit for that system but when his system isn't working he needs to be creative and find creative people around him. He didn't do that.

The next 2 years will tell. I don't see anyone running him off with less than 4 years to build this program back.

(12-01-2022 03:49 PM)sdcritter Wrote:  I thought 4 wins was a reasonable expectation. Giving a game away to Texas State was the only thing that put the doubt in my mind. He needed to get creative on how to win that game. It would have been 4 and doubling the win total from the previous year would have done a lot to stop my questioning.

His dogged determination to stay with "the process" is what I question. A good head coach should certainly have his system and recruit for that system but when his system isn't working he needs to be creative and find creative people around him. He didn't do that.

The next 2 years will tell. I don't see anyone running him off with less than 4 years to build this program back.

In normal circumstances a player becomes a starter or major contributor as a junior.

Why would you change what you are doing when the guys you recruited out of high school to do it haven't reached junior status?

Yeah I question Heckendorf (his third choice) because I don't think he develops QB's all that well and I don't think he schemes to maximize strengths and minimize weaknesses, and finally I think he is guilty of one of the things Blake did that infuriated me which was to consider the play drawn to be its own golden thing and the players mere interchangeable widgets. If you recall, right before I believe the last TD we scored vs Troy we ran a pass route over the middle in traffic to one of the shortest guys on the team. Run that play to a taller receiver and it's probably a TD. Targeting a short guy, it's knocked away. We both remember the frustration of not running jet sweeps when JD McKissic was a junior and senior and then calling a jet when JD has been swapped out for a guy who unlike JD did not have NFL speed and loses yards.

I'm not sure Limegrover is productive either.

But otherwise, it doesn't make sense to recruit guys with something in mind then switch to something else just as they reach the point where you expect them to be a factor.

Thus my saying he gets 2 more years. His recruiting is very good. But in the interim he needs to break his mold every once in a while in order to gt these guys some wins. Nothing wrong with trying something different until you have the horses to do what you want to do.

Butch was such a young fireball of a coach at CMU and was on Marshall's short list to replace Mark Snyder.

(12-02-2022 08:30 AM)sdcritter Wrote:  Thus my saying he gets 2 more years. His recruiting is very good. But in the interim he needs to break his mold every once in a while in order to gt these guys some wins. Nothing wrong with trying something different until you have the horses to do what you want to do.

Do you think it'll take that long? Did Anderson truly do that much damage to the program?

How do y'all feel about Andy Kwon as O-Line coach? Didn't watch any of stAte's games this year, so I don't know how your O-Line did. Asking since he's a GS alum.

(11-30-2022 09:25 PM)WARDAWG93 Wrote:  

(11-30-2022 07:58 PM)stAteNation Wrote:  

(11-30-2022 07:50 PM)WARDAWG93 Wrote:  

(11-30-2022 07:45 PM)stAteNation Wrote:  

(11-30-2022 07:26 PM)WARDAWG93 Wrote:  Since y'all falling off into a black hole tell Kenneth Harris to enter the portal and come home.

He entered the portal. So far we’ve had 3 go in the portal. All Blake Anderson guys. We will definitely add more because Butch is encouraging some to enter to free up their scholarship.

Harris is from my high school. I went to school with a bunch of his family and played ball with a few of them. I don't know him directly but hear really good things about him. Hope we can get him to come to ULM.

Don’t know him personally. He’s a solid corner. Not the best on the team, but really serviceable.

I don't think he's necessarily a great cover corner but he ain't afraid of contact, that's for sure.

So you want to take a guy that's just ok at his position because you know him? That explains all I need to know about ULM football. Thanks.

I could see that if he was a legacy that would turn some dollars at the donation window. But wow.

(12-02-2022 02:13 PM)gdunn Wrote:  

(12-02-2022 08:30 AM)sdcritter Wrote:  Thus my saying he gets 2 more years. His recruiting is very good. But in the interim he needs to break his mold every once in a while in order to gt these guys some wins. Nothing wrong with trying something different until you have the horses to do what you want to do.

Do you think it'll take that long? Did Anderson truly do that much damage to the program?

Not only did Anderson gut the program with terrible recruiting, when he left for Utah State, he took basically all of our top players with him to Logan. They went 10-2 last year with our starting QB from 2020 and a top receiver.

The program was gutted, and the remaining holdovers from last year largely transferred out

(11-30-2022 03:35 PM)BirdofParadise Wrote:  I said this earlier in the year. Arkansas State's biggest problem is quality depth.
THAT is the reason you saw leads slip away late. Jones needs another recruiting class at least.

Arkansas State fans lamented the shape of the program that Jones took over. If it was that bad, you need to give the guy more time.

I couldn’t have said it better; I dare say rebuild has been more brutal than I could’ve imagined but I still think Butch gets it done

(12-02-2022 02:38 PM)MUther Wrote:  

(11-30-2022 09:25 PM)WARDAWG93 Wrote:  

(11-30-2022 07:58 PM)stAteNation Wrote:  

(11-30-2022 07:50 PM)WARDAWG93 Wrote:  

(11-30-2022 07:45 PM)stAteNation Wrote:  He entered the portal. So far we’ve had 3 go in the portal. All Blake Anderson guys. We will definitely add more because Butch is encouraging some to enter to free up their scholarship.

Harris is from my high school. I went to school with a bunch of his family and played ball with a few of them. I don't know him directly but hear really good things about him. Hope we can get him to come to ULM.

Don’t know him personally. He’s a solid corner. Not the best on the team, but really serviceable.

I don't think he's necessarily a great cover corner but he ain't afraid of contact, that's for sure.

So you want to take a guy that's just ok at his position because you know him? That explains all I need to know about ULM football. Thanks.

I could see that if he was a legacy that would turn some dollars at the donation window. But wow.

The starting QB at Texas State this year had a legion of fans who wanted to start him regularly in Jonesboro over a more talented QB because his dad had money.

It's a South thing. Good Ol Boy System is alive and well.

(12-02-2022 02:21 PM)lelandhardy Wrote:  How do y'all feel about Andy Kwon as O-Line coach? Didn't watch any of stAte's games this year, so I don't know how your O-Line did. Asking since he's a GS alum.

His name frequently gets mentioned when the discussion turns to what assistants to replace. Mainly because our line was so pathetic. Sorry. Not sure it's his coaching as much as it's just the lack of depth and so much youth. I figure he's safe for next year. The only one that I think Butch shouldn't hesitate to replace is his OC, Heckendorf.

(12-02-2022 03:32 PM)sdcritter Wrote:  

(12-02-2022 02:21 PM)lelandhardy Wrote:  How do y'all feel about Andy Kwon as O-Line coach? Didn't watch any of stAte's games this year, so I don't know how your O-Line did. Asking since he's a GS alum.

His name frequently gets mentioned when the discussion turns to what assistants to replace. Mainly because our line was so pathetic. Sorry. Not sure it's his coaching as much as it's just the lack of depth and so much youth. I figure he's safe for next year. The only one that I think Butch shouldn't hesitate to replace is his OC, Heckendorf.

I’ve only heard positive remarks about Kwon and that he is not among our issues. I hope he stays.