Where has Frank McGrath been. We need his perspective.
Please Frank, come out from where ever you've been and bring some sanity to this discussion......
Frank McGrath, Paging Frank McGrath
-
NOLABigSteve
- Riptide
- Posts: 4996
- Joined: Wed Dec 01, 2010 12:00 am
- Location: New Orleans, LA
- Contact:
- Status: Offline
Who is Frank McGrath?
Roll Wave!
Tulane University c/o 2003
Football Defensive End '99, '00, '01, '02
2002 Hawaii Bowl Champions
School of Engineering (Computer Science)
Tulane University c/o 2003
Football Defensive End '99, '00, '01, '02
2002 Hawaii Bowl Champions
School of Engineering (Computer Science)
He's a guy who used to post prolifically on NOLA.
He made some quality and insightful posts on this board.
He was also a big Scelfo guy on NOLA and applauded 5 win efforts.....well maybe not applauded, but he didn't appear to object to what he believed was TU's satisfaction with 5-win football.
He made some quality and insightful posts on this board.
He was also a big Scelfo guy on NOLA and applauded 5 win efforts.....well maybe not applauded, but he didn't appear to object to what he believed was TU's satisfaction with 5-win football.
-
jimcorbett
- Ripple
- Posts: 10
- Joined: Tue Nov 01, 2011 9:34 pm
- Status: Offline
Yeah - frank was part of our old "group" on Nola. And yes- very prolific poster. He still has tulane stuff on his old blog - google up "frank McGrath blog" if you wanna check out his bloggings. I dropped him a message on FB that he was being openly paged on this board. He said he's gonna check it out.
-
superwavefan
- High Tide
- Posts: 340
- Joined: Sun Oct 09, 2011 9:23 am
- Status: Offline
You would love it, Steve: Frank bought the skull of one of the past Mike's off of Ebay. It was so funny. He kept the skull in a bowling bag and then took it to an LSU-Ole Miss game one year. He posted a schedule of appearances at different bars in Baton Rouge for the skull on his website and carried it around with a baseball cap on it.NOLABigSteve wrote:Who is Frank McGrath?
The venom he got from tigger fans was just classic. He threated back to them that he could have used it as a plunger. lmao!
Thanks for the shout-out. As the poster above suggests, courtesy of the Chi O’s exertions, there is yet another new little person here. I am not sure if I have a revelation vis-à-vis Coach Johnson. Frankly, I share in the disappointment at not getting a “top guy”; I favored Rodriguez too.
But that may be the lesson? In 2006, I argued for the football regime’s retention on these grounds: give them a “win or else” year, as no one of any real merit would take this job on the heels of the unholy Katrina and program review duopoly.
Events bore that out. Rather than attracting a hot property, the post-2006 Wave was reduced to a position coach at North Carolina and busted coordinators at New Mexico. People forgot that calling for Scelfo’s head meant accepting a further responsibility for the subsequent hire. That hire figured to be a real reach- and Tulane was yoked to Toledo, rather than one year.
Now, I was hopeful that the crippling crazy macro-factors from 2006 had receded. Perhaps $6-7M guaranteed would make someone top-notch overlook the mere “losing problem” that remained. I hate trying to re-invent the wheel, and I looked to SMU’s experience with Jones as an example. But much like the new coach crowd in 2006, I was mistaken in 2011 about the level of awful, assigned by observers, intrinsic to the program.
Forget Rich, he was always likely to be offered a better situation. But the fact that no major BCS coordinator or Sunbelt success was willing to take our money… unlike SMU, maybe the “quick and easy” solution is not obtainable now?
It took decades from Tulane to slide from decent SEC program to bad SEC to good regional independent to bad independent to quality C-USA to an utter mess. Our widely-avowed plan of throwing a pile of money at someone and asking him to “trust” was premature. We should be humble enough to admit error here. Anyway, I am.
Maybe CJ is a necessary interim step- the quick fix is not available, and a generational slog awaits. Coming off a decade of bad on-and-off field performance, maybe we need three, four years of simple contemporary competence? Unlike last week, I’m no longer sure Tulane needs $10M for a coach right this second- as frankly, no one relevant will take it. Tulane needs some first steps: 10K actual fans in the stands, six wins and a New Orleans Bowl bid, etc. Then, maybe, someone will take our money in 2015.
Thus, since he is not first rank, I realize CJ’s chief qualification is “hope”. CJ is now a potential tool of the administration. Like Coach Conroy, he is simply grateful for the life-changing money and career-changing opportunity. He ain’t gonna push back on anything. But that situation was probably true of anyone that was willing to come here- you had to be a little desperate to come to the 504.
In that light, I offer the following three observations.
1. On field, things almost have to get better. C-USA is like youth soccer, everyone gets a trophy/makes a bowl game. During Toledo’s tenure, everyone else had at least one Bowl appearance. Thus, rank incompetence is required to completely fail like Tulane (2007-2011). As long as CJ is literally barely adequate, Tulane will play in one, probably two, Bowl games in the next four, five years.
If Tulane can split two New Orleans Bowls (or whatever) in 2013, 2014, 2015- I guarantee someone will take the dollars then. And I think almost any coach other than Toledo can get that done in C-USA.
2. An underreported story of the Toledo era is just how exasperating mainstream fans, the quiet majority, found him. From day one, excuses and sulking and odd character acts- from obtuse lectures on teaching Tulane to win, to blaming fans for canceling the parking lot walk through, to throwing players out of practice before a McNeese State tilt, loudly insisting on summer weight programs as if they were the problem rather than another excuse. The fact that Toledo thought this nonsense was relevant to his underperformance suggests he just didn’t get the job he is trying to do.
Toledo never got non-BCS football. You can’t be a program CEO if you are clueless as to the nature of the business. He didn’t get how to recruit the right players- even Rice, UAB, Memphis and Marshall win with their fifth tier recruits on occasion. He refused to accept the nature of offense in this League. He didn’t get the raw importance of program development, how to be a public face. In his head, he was still the coach at UCLA.
The seemingly charismatic CJ almost has to be an improvement in the CEO role. And unless he is also willful, he won’t fight the approved C-USA way.
3. The number one fall-off in recruiting in the Toledo years is the complete dearth of good African-American skill-players. Name one clear “better than average” skill-player that Toledo presented Tulane with. Maybe Darkwa. There is no Moore or Forte or J. Williams or Elpheage, heck even a Jovon Johnson is rare. Our WRs would be the worst collective in the Sunbelt. CJ has as good a chance as anyone to fix that.
But that may be the lesson? In 2006, I argued for the football regime’s retention on these grounds: give them a “win or else” year, as no one of any real merit would take this job on the heels of the unholy Katrina and program review duopoly.
Events bore that out. Rather than attracting a hot property, the post-2006 Wave was reduced to a position coach at North Carolina and busted coordinators at New Mexico. People forgot that calling for Scelfo’s head meant accepting a further responsibility for the subsequent hire. That hire figured to be a real reach- and Tulane was yoked to Toledo, rather than one year.
Now, I was hopeful that the crippling crazy macro-factors from 2006 had receded. Perhaps $6-7M guaranteed would make someone top-notch overlook the mere “losing problem” that remained. I hate trying to re-invent the wheel, and I looked to SMU’s experience with Jones as an example. But much like the new coach crowd in 2006, I was mistaken in 2011 about the level of awful, assigned by observers, intrinsic to the program.
Forget Rich, he was always likely to be offered a better situation. But the fact that no major BCS coordinator or Sunbelt success was willing to take our money… unlike SMU, maybe the “quick and easy” solution is not obtainable now?
It took decades from Tulane to slide from decent SEC program to bad SEC to good regional independent to bad independent to quality C-USA to an utter mess. Our widely-avowed plan of throwing a pile of money at someone and asking him to “trust” was premature. We should be humble enough to admit error here. Anyway, I am.
Maybe CJ is a necessary interim step- the quick fix is not available, and a generational slog awaits. Coming off a decade of bad on-and-off field performance, maybe we need three, four years of simple contemporary competence? Unlike last week, I’m no longer sure Tulane needs $10M for a coach right this second- as frankly, no one relevant will take it. Tulane needs some first steps: 10K actual fans in the stands, six wins and a New Orleans Bowl bid, etc. Then, maybe, someone will take our money in 2015.
Thus, since he is not first rank, I realize CJ’s chief qualification is “hope”. CJ is now a potential tool of the administration. Like Coach Conroy, he is simply grateful for the life-changing money and career-changing opportunity. He ain’t gonna push back on anything. But that situation was probably true of anyone that was willing to come here- you had to be a little desperate to come to the 504.
In that light, I offer the following three observations.
1. On field, things almost have to get better. C-USA is like youth soccer, everyone gets a trophy/makes a bowl game. During Toledo’s tenure, everyone else had at least one Bowl appearance. Thus, rank incompetence is required to completely fail like Tulane (2007-2011). As long as CJ is literally barely adequate, Tulane will play in one, probably two, Bowl games in the next four, five years.
If Tulane can split two New Orleans Bowls (or whatever) in 2013, 2014, 2015- I guarantee someone will take the dollars then. And I think almost any coach other than Toledo can get that done in C-USA.
2. An underreported story of the Toledo era is just how exasperating mainstream fans, the quiet majority, found him. From day one, excuses and sulking and odd character acts- from obtuse lectures on teaching Tulane to win, to blaming fans for canceling the parking lot walk through, to throwing players out of practice before a McNeese State tilt, loudly insisting on summer weight programs as if they were the problem rather than another excuse. The fact that Toledo thought this nonsense was relevant to his underperformance suggests he just didn’t get the job he is trying to do.
Toledo never got non-BCS football. You can’t be a program CEO if you are clueless as to the nature of the business. He didn’t get how to recruit the right players- even Rice, UAB, Memphis and Marshall win with their fifth tier recruits on occasion. He refused to accept the nature of offense in this League. He didn’t get the raw importance of program development, how to be a public face. In his head, he was still the coach at UCLA.
The seemingly charismatic CJ almost has to be an improvement in the CEO role. And unless he is also willful, he won’t fight the approved C-USA way.
3. The number one fall-off in recruiting in the Toledo years is the complete dearth of good African-American skill-players. Name one clear “better than average” skill-player that Toledo presented Tulane with. Maybe Darkwa. There is no Moore or Forte or J. Williams or Elpheage, heck even a Jovon Johnson is rare. Our WRs would be the worst collective in the Sunbelt. CJ has as good a chance as anyone to fix that.
-
- Fear the Wave NIL Collective
-
- American Athletic Conference
