I was prepared to let Mike Rocco walk away into a starting role. Kid didn't have the chops to solidify his role as starting QB, but seemed pretty nice about handling the situation by acknowledging the situation and moving on. Well until now:
Way to go kid. Class move. Blame your failures to grab the bull by the horns and take the job on the coaching staff and quarterback rotation. You know who doesn't have to deal with QB rotation problems? Good quarterbacks. Quarterbacks that don't overtly show an inability to compete with someone hungry for their job. It's division one football for crying out loud. If you can't stomach a little competition and someone challenging your abilities then try and marry a princess and become king of some irrelevant European nation. If you want to play competitive football, grow a sack and deal with some competition. Or at least be an adult and don't have your Dad throw your head coach under the bus. That makes you seem childish. There is no way for your father to know about anything that happens during the game unless you go crying to him every time you got pulled for throwing the ball behind a receiver, or leaving the ball too short, or not be able to throw the ball through a slight breeze. Man up, work hard, and win the job. Or just give up and leave.
Oh and by the way. Everett Golson says hi.
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| To clarify, Golson beat out and held off senior incumbent Tommy Rees this year to the tune of a 12-0 record and a BCS National Championship Bid |
Of course he's going to talk to his father about it. And we all know crazy sports parents who make decisions and talk about stuff like that without their kid's blessing. I think he's just a crazy dad who wants the best for his kid, and can't really see the big picture. I don't think giving Rocco a hard time about it is fair at all. Yeah, it's division 1 football, but a kid is a kid.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Leah on this one. If we need to put out some criticism, let's direct it at Frank Rocco, not Mike. Frank's the classic high school football coach who righteously feels the need to criticize his son's college head coach. This happens all the time, it just sucks that it had to happen here.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think this is better than the alternative: Another open competition that drags through the 2013 season. Let's hope Phillip Sims can take the ball and run with it from here, lest we'll see Watford and Lambert muddy the situation again.
In rebuilding the quarterback position that Al Groh left in shambles, Mike London was always going to have to throw a bunch of QBs against the wall and see who stuck. Gotta breaks eggs to make that omelette.
Yeah perhaps I came down a bit hard on Mike, but I've known plenty of guys that create some perceived bias against them to cope with not being able to play. Heck even recently Jared Green did basically the same thing. I'm desperately clinging to the belief that Mike London didn't actually pull Rocco without even telling Coach Lazor, which makes Rocco sound like a whiny kid who is looking to blame someone for not getting the PT he thinks he deserves. Rock's dad didn't pull that out of thin air. That's my issue with it.
ReplyDeleteNow if that actually happened, we have a much larger problem on our hands.
TLDR: If Rocco made it up, he's a wuss. If he didn't, this program is a giant mess.
Yes. Hopefully was just Frank Rocco being a helicopter parent. I always heard good things about Rocco from the players I talked to. And yeah, we didn't have much of a chance at QB, unfortunately. Hopefully we can find someone that combines Rocco's game knowledge with someone who has good arm strength, a bit of mobility, and decent arm strength.
ReplyDeleteI'm with M. Rocco on this one. Rocco deserved the starting spot after the Peach Bowl season. And while I understand to a degree London wanting to see what he had in Sims, the platoon was ludicrous.
ReplyDeleteAnd to compare this to Notre Dame is even sillier than the platoon. The comparison should be to Rees. But even that would be faulty - as anyone who watched the Hoos this season can attest, Rocco didn't lose the job as nothing Sims did suggested he had won it.
This is all on London, and the head-scratching firing of some of his assistants just reinforces a picture of a head coach who has no clue what he's doing.
Notre Dame comparison is completely valid in my mind. Golson stepped in and performed and won that job from Rees, even after Rees had that stint as the closer. Did Kelly have more faith in him and give him more chances? Of course, but Golson's play is what made him the clear starter. If Rocco had come out and played as well as he did at the end of last season we wouldn't be having this discussion because he would have done the same thing as Golson. In my opinion Rocco felt the pressure of Sims behind him on the depth chart and reverted back to his old ways before London made him the full time starter last season.
DeleteI'm not arguing that the platoon was stupid, it very clearly was, and if it continues next year everyone should be fired. But it also was pretty apparent that Mike Rocco did nothing to prevent being replaced, and from what the story says he's making up excuses for why he was benched rather than accepting that it was due to his poor play.
Golson did indeed step in and win the job from Rees. So in ND's case, we have a lower classman winning the job from an upperclassman. And that was the correct decision as Golson is clearly better than Rees.
DeleteIn UVA's case, Rocco is the upperclassman and should be compared to Rees. Regardless, UVA's lowerclassman did NOT win the job yet the upperclassman was constantly yanked around.
I see it as a workplace analogy. An employee (Rocco) left his job because an inferior coworker (Sims) was sleeping with the boss (London). The coworker was always favored, and who wants to work under those conditions if other options are available?
Ah I see what you're saying now. I think we're just looking at it in different ways. When you factor in the age your point makes sense.
DeleteThe point is the QB situation is a debacle. We all know it. And if it continues it is going to cost Mike London his job.
Thanks for reading!
"Sleeping with the boss?" "Always favored?" Come on. Sims clearly has the most potential of the two QBs, but Rocco was given more than enough chances to take the job and run away with it. Sometimes you just have to go with the high ceiling over the low ceiling.
DeleteI don't like the two-QB system, but let's not act like Rocco was criminally jerked around just because we're pissed off at Mike London right now.
Mike - I'll always read this site. It's great.
DeleteKendall - Just wondering what makes you say "clearly the most potential" - did Sims show you anything other than a strong arm? Believe me, I'd love to be wrong and hope that a full spring/summer in the system (whatever that means in this case) turns him into the 5* we're all hoping he'll be. But it's just hope at this point, nothing obvious. At least not to me.
from someone who knows the entire story. That was in fact what happened at the PSU game. The entire season Lazor wanted Rocco to start, but London promised Sims he would eventially start this year. Ask Sims High School coach if you don't believe me. I even have more info I can reveal at a later date.
ReplyDeleteWell. That certainly changes things. Now we have a much bigger problem to deal with.
DeleteI'm actually okay with London promising players PT is that's what it takes to get 5* players in the door. That's how it works. As for Lazor not knowing Sims was going into the game, I don't buy that for a second. He knew. He might have disagreed, but he knew.
DeleteLondon is the one who will ultimately be judged for the success or failure of the program, so he should be the one making those kinds of decisions.
Imagine that... A QB that has been jerked around for 2 years by the head coach decides to leave. Look I am not saying that Mike Rocco was a world beater by any stretch of the imagination, but the fact is he was a known quantity. Who was in the game at every penultimate moment in games this year? All the more reason that the 2 quarterback system never works.
ReplyDelete