[NU Sports] Barnett

[SjT (Stephen J. Truog)]

> sense a lot of that in the comments re Barnett. If
> he had not come along 
> NU would have been lucky to get into the MAC given
> the football program 
> we had prior to his arrival.
> 
True - and that's probably why it's shameful joy.:)
Like I said, I don't bear Barnett ill-will, but I
won't rewrite his time in Evanston either. He took the
Purple to Pasadena and was a terrific young coach. But
it wasn't perfect either - especially his ending. He
burned almost as many bridges as he built while in
Chicago and hurt the program he built - media-wise,
alumni-wise, recruiting-wise, etc. -- with his job
flirting and stealth departure.

The real story, though, IMO, isn't the state of the
program prior to Barnett's arrival, but the state
since (though a lot of the folks demanding winning now
forget the status of the program pre-Barnett). I
remember the day Barnett left Evanston and how many of
my Big Ten friends at other schools chuckled and said
that the party was over - we had our savior, he left
and now things would return to the "way it ought to
be" in the Big Ten with NU sliding back to the bottom
of the pack. Most people thought Barnett's departure
would be the end of the resurgence, especially after
the woeful final recruiting class in transition and
transfers.

But it wasn't - and a lot of that credit has to go to
Coach Walker. Winning the 2000 title with Barnett's
recruits kept the building project going and now with
three straight 6-win seasons and 4th and 3rd place
finishes in league play, we're really starting to
build on solid foundation for a program that -- yes --
was a joke to MAC teams prior to Barnett.

It will be interesting to see if Kansas State can keep
their recent turnaround going (with far more generous
"extra" factors such as academic admissions:) )
without Snyder next year. Or VaTech when Beamer
retires (or PSU when JoePa steps down? :)).

So yeah, there's a bit of shame in the joy given that
Barnett started this project. But there's more real
joy in that the project did not END with Barnett.
We're about to head to our third bowl game in six
years and with Mr. Sutton in the backfield, things
continue to look bright ahead.

GO CATS!!!
Go Big Ten!
-SjT

* * * * * * * * *
STEPHEN J. TRUOG
sjtruog at yahoo.com
GO CATS!!!

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