| FTBL Can we talk about Jimbo from a coaching perspective?

A lot of the media seems to love him. It all goes back to one year, with Winston.

@TerryP I know you've been one who questions his coaching. Can you tell me more about how you feel? And why?

I don't see them getting through next year with less than two losses. I can see four or more and Jimbo on the hot seat.

@UAgrad93 what do you think about his offensive play calls?
 
@TerryP I know you've been one who questions his coaching. Can you tell me more about how you feel? And why?
I guess we need to clarify "coaching." I don't consider Jimbo as effective of a play caller as Lane: but he's no slouch. He's no where close to Lane if we're talking about an innovative offensive style: he's as basic as they come. It's not a "X and O" thing, with Jimbo it's about the "Jimmy's and the Joe's." That's easy to see with his NC at FSU: he had the players.

When he was at LSU and Auburn people loved calling him a genius: he was as far from that. Those suggesting so...rawgabbit.

But. What happened after Winston and his crew is where the criticism comes into play. He's great at recruiting players. He's not that good at developing the same players.

As an example, let's take this last draft. DeMarvin Leal was considered to be a top 10-15 pick in the first round when he entered collegiate ball. He ended up falling to the third round, somewhere in the high 80's as I recall.

As another example, ask yourself this question. Who has Jimbo signed, coached in college, where anyone has said "he's definitely better now than he was due to coaching?" Yeah, you'll struggle here. If there is no answer? It's not happened.

Thirdly, let's step back to FSU for a minute. He was the head coach in Tallahassee from '10 through '17. His recruiting classes ranked: 8th, 2nd, 4th, 11th, 4th, 3rd, 3rd, and finally 6th in his last year. Five top five classes, seven of eight were in the top ten.

Development? When he took over Bowden's team, FSU had 33 players in the league, 35 by 2013. By the time left in 2017 they had 16 (dropping from 17 in 2016. The development of his roster wasn't up to par against a Bowden coached team (a guy arguably past his prime, a guy who saw the game passing him by.)

There has never been a doubt he can recruit. That's his calling card: it always has been.

We can't haphazardly dismiss the NC in '13: those are rare to come by. But we can't talk about '13 without a caveat. It was one of the oddest pairings we've seen in a title game highlighted by going against an Auburn team will a little less than two months of rest and prep time.

On the same end if we look at his recruiting (as mentioned earlier) and then look at his record with those classes? What do we have? Under performance, lack of development, and teams left worse off than they were when he arrived.

From our point of view, as Bama fans, we saw the L the Tide took this past season. The scoreboard is the final answer. But that comes with its own caveat: everything that could have gone wrong for Bama in that game pretty much did. And still, in the end, we're left with an A&M team that under-performed. We're left with a season with four losses and a staff who quit because they didn't want to see five in the loss column. With that Bama win what are people saying about the '21 A&M season? That should be easy for one and all to answer.

I'm not meaning to appear to be "hating on Jimbo." I am saying he's a used car salesman in a coaching position. He's a snollygoster. After a while that '13 season loses its luster because people realize it's as close to a fluke as possible.

Before the NIL stories came to light I've pointed to the A&M locker room. It's split, undisciplined, with more problems on the way. It's FSU part deux.

Was FSU in a better position when he took the job than it was when he left? Most assuredly. Is the A&M program in a better position today than it was when he took over their program? If you think it's better, I challenge you to tell me how.
 
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