East Carolina

[jacobkdoyle]

This is ridiculous. We are just as bad today as we were against Austin Peay. Inexcusable. We lose this and we're looking at 2-13 last 15 AAC games. No use in even dreaming of the Big 12, or any better conference, as long as this is the garbage we are putting out there.

 

[david aka the TYZ]

I've never seen a season as a whole where a team gives up as many first downs on third down stops and penalties. Some is poor execution and I know I'm biased, but I've seen a lot of questionable calls to extend drives for our opponents this year. With that said, we just haven't been good this year. Defense is on the field way too much and offense still doesn't seem to understand running plays at the line of scrimmage doesn't generate yards and subsequently first downs. Fickle obviously gets a free pass this year and there has been improvement as the season has progressed, but I need to see more understanding of how college offenses can and should work next year.

 

[CHEER CINCY]

This is absolutely insufferable. The worst football I’ve seen in the past 10 yrs by far....and that includes the years with Fluberville. Fickell and his staff need to do some soul searching and reflect on what the hell happened this year. Personnel wise, I get we are often outmanned. Coaching wise, it appears we are outcoached. The discipline on this team is horrendous. And the play calling is extremely questionable. Fickell’s leash is shorter for me. This is inexcusable. You can have mediocre personnel but UC football should still beat ECU and blowout the Tulanes and Miami’s of the world.

 

[jacobkdoyle]

9 penalties already. That's coaching. This is Week 12.

 

[david aka the TYZ]

Agree, we've allowed a statistically bad 2-8 team execute perfectly against us today. And we continue to beat ourselves with penalties and missed tackles.

 

[jacobkdoyle]

This is a joke. This season is a total loss. We have nothing to build on.

 

[M64W]

Like George W said...

Do you miss me yet? TT

 

[jacobkdoyle]

Do you miss me yet? TT

Lmao. Maybe a little...

 

[david aka the TYZ]

Do you miss me yet? TT

I know you're joking, but even if Fickell turns out to be a bad hire it has nothing to do with Tubervile being horrible. He really set this program back. He failed miserably recruiting, especially considering he refused to recruit his back yard, the #5 ranked recruiting area in the nation. And worse off he blamed the fans and refused to take any blame himself. At least Fickell is taking responsibility as of now.

 

[XgradforUC]

The best thing I can say about today is that there is now only 1 game left in this season. Thank God!

 

[AZ BEARCAT]

I know you're joking, but even if Fickell turns out to be a bad hire it has nothing to do with Tubervile being horrible. He really set this program back. He failed miserably recruiting, especially considering he refused to recruit his back yard, the #5 ranked recruiting area in the nation. And worse off he blamed the fans and refused to take any blame himself. At least Fickell is taking responsibility as of now.

We need to give Fickell a chance. Agree

 

[UCBearcats]

Anyone who's reasonable had to have pretty low expectations for what this team would accomplish this season. I felt that we'd probably end up somewhere in the 4-6 win range and had mentally prepared myself for this season being a wash.

Prior to the start of games what I was most interested in seeing was how this staff would coach. Fickell and staff clearly have upped the bar in terms of recruiting and it's going to take some time to see that pay off on the field. Fickell spoke a lot early on about having an aggressive defense and being the best tackling team in our conference despite the talent on the roster. Given that our defense has been rather awful since early in the Kelly days I was kind of looking forward to seeing a noticeable improvement in technique and scheme on that side of the football.

After watching us play this season I have to say it's been a total loss. We're poorly coached and very poorly disciplined. There's a big difference between going 4-8 or 5-7 and looking good doing it and what we've seen from the team this year. Even if we win on Saturday and achieve a 4-8 record I don't see how this season is anything but a complete loss for the program. Obviously you have to give Fickell more time and clearly his recruiting should improve the talent base on the roster but you have to be concerned about how this team has been coached this season. College football is littered with washed up HC's who knew how to recruit but couldn't translate that into winning, let's hope Fickell doesn't eventually join that long list.

In the spirit of optimism I'm going to chalk it up to having a lot of first time guys on the staff. Hopefully the staff works hard in the off season to correct of lot of the mistakes and we come out next season with some noticeable improvements to both the talent and the coaching schemes. Three years from now when we're preparing for an AAC Championship game let's hope we can look back at this season as a learning experience for a first time HC and his staff.

 

[M64W]

I understand what you are saying about coaching, but you will find that coaching skills are directly proportional to the skill of the players. Recruiting is the name of the game, and then the skills of the assistants. I believe the skills of the players will be better. No coach wants to fail. The Bearcats will be back in a couple years--it takes time to build the program and depth.