Originally published at: Cowboys Lose on Last-Second Shot in Fort Worth
The Cowboys fall in heartbreaking fashion.
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Ouch…
GO POKES!
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I’ll be interesting to read what Lutz has to say about the way both halves ended.
First half: shot clock is off and Brantley shoots a runner with :14 remaining. His miss gives TCU the rebound and they make a 3-pointer at the buzzer.
End of game: I wish we would’ve used our last TO after Newman’s miss on the first free throw. The second free throw was meaningless…and Newman should’ve intentionally missed.
say what you will about the mistakes, etc., but at least these MFers do not give up! Excited for the future with Lutz…
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Eh… this is shades of Mike Boynton, the new coach smell, he’d come on late each season and juuuuust miss the tournament, and people to this day still only begrudgingly acknowledge that he was a disaster. It’s year one. Lutz isn’t a bust yet by any means and he had a lot of obstacles to overcome, but having teams that “keep fighting” doesn’t mean anything to me. That characterizes most of the last coach’s failed tenure. I don’t have a problem with optimism, but there’s nothing with teeth that gives me a lot of purchase for optimism to take hold yet.
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Am I the only one who finds it weird that the same guy (Hey Champ!) who whole-heartedly backs 3-9 Gundy and jumps on anyone who criticizes Gundy, can’t derive any optimism from the current MBB coach and program.
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I don’t know I’m kind of in the same court as champ. Lutz took previous teams to the dance early in his tenure but it doesn’t seem likely with OSU, could be wrong. Also my tolerance for giving MBB coaches benefit of the doubt has flat-lined. We’ve spent decades on failed coaches giving them room to come up to speed. I don’t have the patience for that anymore. Our MBB coach needs to launch like a rocket and if not we need to move to someone else. So far Lutz is still sitting on the launch pad.
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Hey champ,
You’re probably not, but there are a lot of deranged fans around here. I’m not optimistic or pessimistic. People get easily captivated by novelty and familiarity breeds contempt. I saw the Gundy haters repeatedly cheer on Boynton and make excuses for him despite him never having any kind of success at all.
Gundy, at least, has a track record. How many D1 schools can you find with only 2 losing seasons over 20 years? Yeah, this season was a disaster, we finished dead last in the conference, but I know it’s a statistical outlier. We have one of the winningest football programs over the last 20 years.
However, why should I be optimistic about Lutz who is hovering near dead last in the conference (I don’t think he can outsuck Colorado, but second to last is still on the table)? He has no track record at a P4 school. Again, the sheen of novelty had everyone praising Boynton with glowing optimism for years when we barely cracked the top half of the conference twice. If we can make the tournament a couple times in the next three or four years, I’ll have some room for optimism.
I’ll tell you exactly what will happen if Gundy gets fired. We’ll probably get a coach with similar success and it will be cheered despite it not being any better or we’ll take a step back, and for four years, everyone will glow with optimism that he’s brought energy and fight to the program despite worse overall results. He’s building something! Then, after 5 or so years, everyone will start to turn on him as a bust or a lateral move.
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Team seriously lacks talent compared to the rest of the P4 and especially the Big 12. It’s no secret as to why this team sucks.
Not having him intentionally miss the second free throw was coaching malpractice and cost OSU the game.
And yet you’re optimistic about a football coach that went 3-9 (0-9) in the conference with the most senior team in the conference. I see you’re still a fan of riding the fence still when it suits your argument 
.
He rides the fence in hopes of nobody noticing. When he makes it obvious that’s exactly what he’s doing 
. Imagine if OSU basketball finished second in the conference, returned its entire roster, and then finished dead last in the conference the next season. You don’t think people would be ready to run Lutz out of the building?
Hey champ,
There are plenty of reasons for optimism: Gundy has never had two losing seasons in a row, this is only his second ever. We replaced our underperforming coordinators with veteran coaches. We were active in the portal. We have moved on from our underperforming QB. We have a lot of new moving parts. I’m optimistic that we could have a bounceback season.
What reason would I have to be optimistic about Lutz? I’m not down on him. I’m just nothing on him. I won’t be surprised by anything next season. Progression, regression, the same, last in conference, a tourney appearance. It’s all possible. He’s a complete unknown.
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Hey champ,
I think finishing second in the conference would buy him a lot of latitude. We haven’t done that in what? 20 years? If he performed that well, I would not call for his job even if he finished last.
And who was the one that hired the underperforming coordinators? Who were the ones wanting Dunn gone after 2022? Who were the ones wanting Gundy to hire an experienced D1 DC? Did you forget about that? We’ve always been as good as the coordinators we hire. The only person that didn’t seem to grasp this evidence was Gundy himself, and…apparently…you as well.
At least Lutz’ team tries to be competitive. At least they’re trying to avoid being last in the conference. It’s not like they’re getting beat by 20+ points like Gundy did against WV, ASU, Colorado, TCU, and K State. It’s one thing if you’re getting blown out by teams that are good. It’s another when you’re getting blown out by teams that are average to above average at best.
Gundy is supposed to be a tenured D1 coach, and he’s getting his a55 spanked in his 20th year as a HC with the most senior team in the conference. Lutz is coaching in his first year at a P4 school with a completely different roster and he’s lost by 20+ twice so far in 24 games.
Even when Gundy had all the stars align to win the conference again several times he still couldn’t do it. So the thought of hiring fired coordinators and adding players from Piss State should make someone optimistic about a coach that keeps proving he can’t win the conference, no matter what, does nothing for me. I mean….how much more evidence do you need?
Hey champ,
He also hired the highest-paid, most sought after coordinator in the country right now. He also hired the Baltimore Ravens OC. Now he has veteran coordinators, so according to you, we should be optimistic.
Lutz should have had someone on the ball before the throw in and he could’ve made that good a pass. I would have put the tallest guy we had
I’ll give Lutz another year because he was handicapped bad by the guys leaving and having to pick up crumbs in the portal ….
Tell me how coordinators that have been fired are supposed to make us optimistic? Meacham wasn’t good enough for .500 or below TCU to call plays. Grantham wasn’t good enough to be the DC for Saban. Actually, wasn’t even good enough to be a positions coach. I’m just curious how hiring such coaches makes us ready to win a conference title?
Hey champ,
I’m glad you asked. This will help dispel some of your misconceptions if you listen. Firing coaches to shake things up or due to short-term failure happens all the time, and it’s a ridiculous practice. You might be interested to know, for instance, that both defensive coordinators in the Superbowl have been fired several times. Steve Spagnuolo is considered one of the best defensive minds in the NFL. Many praised Vic Fangio’s amazing defense this year and especially in the Superbowl. There are teams in pretty bad shape right now that used to employ both of these excellent, veteran coaches.
There could be legitimate reasons for firing a coach like the team feels that their defensive scheme or style is a bad fit for their division/conference or to take down who they feel is their top competition, but often it’s for some nebulous, “it’s just not working” as if success is a straight line rocketship trajectory to the top without setbacks. Contrary to popular belief, every good coordinator hire doesn’t have to be some young guy innovating the game!
Let’s go back to the Superbowl! I saw a breakdown of an excellently designed offensive play where Xavier Worthy was put in the backfield which got him matched up with a linebacker and he was wide open for an easy score, but this touchdown never occurred because Fangio’s simple four man rush got to Mahomes and made him dump off an incompletion for a 3 and out. A perfectly executed, disciplined, simple play thwarted offensive brilliance. Good coaching doesn’t have to be innovative. It can look like simple attention to fundamentals. In fact, Fangio didn’t so much as blitz in the entire game. Sure, it helps that his defensive line was better than KC’s offensive line, but it takes a confident veteran to know he can keep it simple and not worry about tinkering and throwing wrinkles out there to look impressive when he doesn’t have to.
If you want a college example, you might be interested to know that Notre Dame, who just appeared in the national championship has an offensive coordinator who is a long-time veteran that they themselves have let go twice before! I hope you learned something today, but of course you didn’t.
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