Originally published at: https://pistolsfiringblog.com/john-smith-vows-to-clean-a-lot-of-things-up-after-disappointing-wrestling-season/
‘I think years like this helps you really reevaluate things.’
1 Like
Just curious: does a wrestler on a “half scholarship” get the full $5,900 from the university?
Sounds like he may be under his own gun
1 Like
He is talking BS. He’s CEO of the program. Completely unacceptable. Any board in America would fire him. Maybe one more year, if he presents a solid recovery plan. Not understanding the transfer portal? Not understanding NIL? Not holding folks accountable in practice? Lazy, lazy, lazy. Not CEO level performance. Not willing to keep up. Unacceptable. CEOs have a straightforward job: communicate the vision (based on the future and changes needed to stay ahead) and then hold people accountable. That’s really it. We may never recover from his unwillingness to to do his job.
Are you stupid or something? First of all, CEOs fail all the time and get handsomely rewarded for derailing their companies. Bad analogy. Smith is a coach and a good one. There are only 4 active coaches who’ve won a title and he’s one of them. Now, it’s perfectly fine to criticize has lack of understanding on the portal and NIL. Perhaps, college athletics has passed him by and maybe it’s time for him to retire, but to claim that any college, i.e., “board” would fire him today is idiotic.
5 Likes
It’s a:
'what have you done for me lately world"
I had posted recently that John Smith needed to submit a written plan of action for improvements for next season. Well, his 12 hour days this week and all of those meetings sounds like he is doing just that and more. I have never seen coach Smith sound and look so dismal in any interview. He is truly crushed.
But I like his assessment, especially about recognizing the problem in getting off bottom. I agree with him that the problem is due to lack of having the right moves, but I also think it is due to the fact that our opponents look much stronger than most Cowboy wrestlers and that is why they cannot escape.
When the season ended recently I hoped that coach Smith would give a media interview where he would be real with us. And that is what we just got in that interview. About half the team wrestling with significant injuries, and our best wrestler out with an injury, that killed the season. The results of this season I would not hold John Smith responsible for. I hold him responsible for now needing to revamp the program to take us from a perennial top 4 program to a top 2 program. Do what it takes, Different assistant coaches, better recruiting, bigger bribes using NIL, better scholarship money.
I don’t expect us to beat PSU while Cael Sanderson remains there, but I would like to see us battle them for the title each season and usually place higher than Iowa.
I agree with Robert, that the pressure that John Smith is now under is self-imposed. He’s a fierce competitor used to almost always winning as an individual. So I think he will take up the challenge and rebuild this team into a contender in the near future. He did not have to be that aware of the transfer portal. That should be the job of Caldwell, director of recruiting. Coach Smith looks a lot older since the NCAA tournament. Give him a few years to right the ship. Do we need new blood? Meaning different assistant coaches? I don’t care how great those 2 coaches were when they wrestled. I care about how the guys they are training are performing. And not enough of our guys are performing at the level that we need them to be at.
1 Like
My take on it is John has never wanted to change from his days in college, the way he trained and competed. No one had to motivate him, he was driven to be the best. Kids are different now, you handle everyone of them different. Some you drive them, others need a pat on the back. Shouldn’t be that way but it is. We have had really good recruiting classes for 3 years, not many have lived up to their billing. I would think there are enough out their to give to the NIL , facilitates badly need upgrading. I hope he stays on top of the portal too. It burns my a55 to see Cael winning the way he is
1 Like
Your last sentence is where it is. These kids can’t live on their HS laurels I think this is what separates John and Cael…. they have to want it and put the work in. Strength !! Don’t know if we use a strength coach in wrestling or not , but we need to
1 Like
What I don’t get is we got all these kids, but we have guys jump 2 weight grades. I know we’re not at practice but.
1 Like
Lots of shuffling around with the weights for sure. HW is two years away from competing, AJ you never know when he’s gonna blow up. We have just had too many high recruits that haven’t lived up to billing. I know Cael redshirts some to fix it where he has a shot at the championship. We redshirted some this year. I hope they come in with a bang. Look at Iowa, they were a favorite this year and finished what ? 7th ?
1 Like
Yea I wasn’t happy about Harris losing his spot. I didn’t think the freshman was ready. We went thur the same deal with harris… Harris may not been able to better surgery but he would have done better. I thought we had a kid that would have been better at 197.
Eating non stop and wrestling a different style was not good.
1 Like
You know much about the redshirts other than Vincovich ? Supposedly 2-3 others we didn’t pull them
1 Like
No it’s hard to get any info.
1 Like
Yea only thing I see is what Seth writes
1 Like
Victor V. looks like he is the top guy as far as redshirts go, based on his past accomplishments. I forget who the other freshmen are.
Another reason we are behind compared to PSU and Iowa, is our RTF is not on par with others. PSU guys are training with Olympians who are part of their RTF.
I trust that John will look at every aspect and come up with a plan. Afterall, he did that with his career. It was not going the way he wanted it to go early on, so then he came up with the ankle pick and the rest is history. So now his coaching efforts are not producing championships, so he is again forced to invent something. And I hope that he does.
1 Like