Here's one of my many problems with coach Mac and probably the one that's gonna kill us. He running this football program on a play to keep my job script. This is bad for business folks. He gets mad because Davis breaks up through the middle with nothing between him and the end zone and doesn't go down. All with 1:42 left and Vandy has no times out. This shows you have no confidence in your team and shows weakness. This was a big play by the offense and this true freshman and he turns it a moment of weakness. I would certainly understand if a fieldgoal bests us but a 14 point lead with no time outs and a 1:42sec left give me a freaking break. I really dislike him as a coach..........
Yes. You have hit the bottom line truth.
I too see it that way, unfortunately. You mention just ONE example (and one I noted TOO at the time: "Coach--Where are your priorities? Wake UP!" A LOTTA poor decisions, mistakes in the clutch by both players and coaches behind them; for eg, How often do penalties screw up, negate key plays at the worst poss moment?).
Unfortunatly, the "image" of our Coach IS being resuscitated by the wins--so he is and will continue to ride that "play-not-to-lose", "coach-to-keep-my-job" approach (one thing he appears to be really good at)--in the long run only delaying the inevitable, and in so doing, dig a deeper, more difficult and time-consuming job for the NEXT guy to dig us OUT of it.
And the media's dumbass/ignorant analyses only deepen most fans' shallow view of where we're really at (and hence our fearful, money- and fan-conscious "braintrust" behind any decision regarding replacing our headcoach themselves unable to even consider action--only HOPE things get better).
So for the time being, realistically, I figure what we really "eventually will do, HAVE TO do" won't be done--won't even be discussed in most circles...We won't get to begin what I believe will by then require a long and massive clean-up, break-down-and-rebuild process for our program.
I have said elsewhere here that the one thing that MIGHT well short-circuit that long term prognosis would be if we found/had/brought IN one of these "get-on-my-back-and-ride-ME" guys that have surfaced here and there around the college football nation of late. But there's so little to be done to help THAT happen, and unless he's already here or somehow on our radar, well, not real likely...
We're NOT that far from being viable RIGHT NOW--but the window is small and closing--and THIS Coach and staff aren't heading the right way, least not anything LIKE "fast-enough".
In other words, imho, without some long odds "shot-in-the-dark" kid-outta-nowhere, little is likely to save us from slow death now: We face at some point an obvious, bottom-falls-out collapse that EVERYONE recognizes. THEN they'll be howling for his head--and by then our program facing YEARS of hardcore patience where we HOPE we got "the RIGHT guy" while we give him time to undo the damage and decay.
So we are left with PRAYING that things DO break our way somehow--and that is pretty well a desperate situation: Where luck seems the only thing that can save us.