[Husker] Time's Up, Bill

[Steve Reichenbach]

Okay, analogies can be fun.  I'll revise mine.  Suppose I go to a fancy
restaurant, Chez Husker.  I order the house specialty, beef victorious,
which I have been enjoying for years and which has been widely
recognized as excellent.  My order comes and it doesn't taste good;
it's too salty (even though I like salty food) and it's overcooked
(even though I ordered it rare).  I ask what has happened and the
waiter says that they have made some improvements recently, including
a new head chef, Kevine Cosgrovier, with a wonderful reputation in his
previous job and new apprentice cooks who were highly recruited by
other establishments.  Now, I am not an expert cook, but I know enough
to say that the food is too salty and overcooked.  I'm not too happy,
but I'm a loyal customer so I come back the next month.  Again, I order
my favorite dish, the house specialty, but again it is overcooked and
salty.  I tell the waiter, Rober Desbeach, that the new chef isn't
doing a good job (understanding that it was prepared by one of the
apprentices upon instructions from the head chef) and that the food is
overcooked and too salty.  The waiter tells me that they've received
many complaints and retorts: "What do these people know about cooking?
Do they think the know as much about as Kevine Cosgrovier?
Preposterous!"  I'm thinking that may be true, but the proof is in the
pudding, which wasn't very good either.

> >I'm not a great golfer, but I can
> > tell whether or not someone else is playing great golf.  Because I'm not
> > a good golfer, does that mean I can't say someone else isn't getting the
> > job done on the course?  Really, it comes down to results.  Look at the
> > results, Bob; if Cosgrove is doing a great job, why is the result of his
> > work so bad?  And, if it is bad, why are the observations about the
> > nature of the failings so suspect?
> 
> Golfing is an indvidual effort. Coaching invovles at least one other
> person: the athlete. Therefore, this is a bad analogy. You would have
> to WATCH a coach coach before you could evaluate that performance.
> Instead, as the average fan without special access to practices,
> meetings, etc., we are reduced to watching 11 or so young men attempt
> to execute whatever said coaches (not just Cosgrove, but all the
> coaches) asked them to do.
> 
> Note that I am not offering any opinion on just what nature of the
> problems with our defensive preformance may be. Just knocking down the
> strawman that we have enough information to assign "blame" to any
> particular party or parties.
>