[Husker] The Irresponsible Rush to "Bury Barry"

[Mike Jaixen]

This evening, I was listening to the Average Joe show
out of Lincoln and Columbus, and I believe it was Bill
Doleman that made a couple more observations about
Collier.

1.  Until last season, the NCAA had an 8/5 rule for
basketball scholarships.  You could only hand out 5
scholarships a year, and 8 scholarships every 2 years.
  When Collier arrived, there weren't many
underclassmen left, which meant that Collier's hands
were tied in recruiting his first few years in
rebuilding the roster.

2.  Colliers first assistants, Dave "Soupy" Campbell
and Mike Broughton, seemed to be duds when it came to
recruiting.  Both are gone now.  One of the
replacements, Scott Spinelli, is a top recruiter, and
signed Joe McCray and Aleks Maric last year.

People who call for "Burying Barry" focus on the big
overall picture:  losing record, slightly declining
attendance from Nee's last year.

People who want to give Collier another year or two
are looking a little deeper.  They see the internal
signs of improvement, even if they don't show up in
the won-loss record.

I really don't think you fire a guy in 2005 because of
mistakes made 3-5 years ago and have seemingly been
corrected.


--- NUStLNorris at aol.com wrote:

> The easy thing to do is hop on the "Bury Barry"
> bandwagon ... however, 
> there's not much room left.  Five weeks ago, I
> thought Barry Collier's job here was 
> safe.  Now I'm NOT so sure.  The bandwagon is
> gaining momentum on a daily 
> basis.  But the piling on and superficial sniping by
> some of the knee-jerk, 
> flavor-of-the-week crowd is starting to get to me.
> 
> If someone were to ask me "should Barry be fired?"
> ... I'd have to admit I 
> can see both sides.  But I'm leaning about 70-30
> that he SHOULD be given one 
> more year.  Nobody's been more specifically critical
> of him on this list than me 
> (come to think of it, nobody's probably defended him
> as much, either).  But 
> you've NEVER heard me come close to saying he should
> be axed.
...
> But I also remember the old baseball axiom that goes
> "sometimes, the best 
> trades are the ones that you DON'T make."  You'll
> find some K-State fans who wish 
> they wouldn't have tried to run Dana Altman out of
> town years ago.
> 
> We lose four seniors off this year's team, but next
> year we'll have more 
> overall talent.  I heard some idiot on some
> talking-head show say today that 
> "nobody's seen these incoming players play."  Yes,
> we have and they ARE legit (I'll 
> guarantee you that Pedersen and Boehm have seen them
> play!).  Nobody's 
> questioning whether or not McCray and Maric are
> ready-for-prime-time Big XII players 
> now, and these new guys are supposed to be in their
> talent class.  I say, 
> bring it on!  
> 
> There's a major change coming next year.  The new
> guys take over.  Next year, 
> Joe McCray and Aleks Maric are, all of a sudden, the
> cornerstones of your 
> team.  It's THEIR team (and they've shown enough of
> a collective nasty, 
> get-after-it, only-the-strong-survive mentality to
> make me think that they definitely 
> "get it.").
> 
> Eddie Sutton is as good as it gets.  Last night he
> said that he didn't think 
> Collier initially understood the level of talent
> needed to compete in this 
> league.  He also said that it's evident that the
> talent is getting better at NU 
> and that "these people" need to cut him some slack. 
> Of course, fellow coaches 
> are going to be supportive, but it also segues into
> a rant about what an 
> irresponsible "journalist" Tom Shatel is.


=====
Mike Jaixen


		
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