I find these well laid out threads by a couple of intelligent posters to essentially be racing stripes on a dodge prius. You can cite every advanced stat and slam keys for literally hours comparing to coach xyz to fit a narrative and there's going to be plenty of great coach abcs that needed 3 years to turn it around. Anybody concluding Underwood is a bust after 1 year and 2 games should be slapped silly. That's not saying everything has been perfect but there's a pretty wide spectrum between "everything is perfect goodnight" and "FIRE UNDERWOOD 2 GAMES INTO HIS SECOND SEASON".
It seems like the debate on Underwood has almost polarized people to the extent of debating real life issues where there's very little middle ground (and no claiming you're middle ground does not make you middle ground). I think the stat guys really have no clue how to "project" as the whole process of an abrupt turnaround in a system literally defies stat trends when unexpected jumps are made. You can't project a turnaround and when it will or won't happen. There's just too many variables.
If people want to debate his recruiting his first two classes I think that's slightly more fair game (although people are still concluding things after literally 1 real recruiting class). I think the negative tone being taken by a lot of fans including on twitter is pretty bizarre. It's not costing us recruits but it's certainly not helping with all the "quick to conclude we're a lame duck" stuff I'm reading often by supposed fans who, again, just seem to think piling onto Illinois mediocrity is just really super duper cool.
If Underwood doesn't succeed we are officially going to become a program where coaches go to die. If that happens it is his own fault but we do need to give him a reasonable time to succeed here and we simply are not there yet.
It seems like the debate on Underwood has almost polarized people to the extent of debating real life issues where there's very little middle ground (and no claiming you're middle ground does not make you middle ground). I think the stat guys really have no clue how to "project" as the whole process of an abrupt turnaround in a system literally defies stat trends when unexpected jumps are made. You can't project a turnaround and when it will or won't happen. There's just too many variables.
If people want to debate his recruiting his first two classes I think that's slightly more fair game (although people are still concluding things after literally 1 real recruiting class). I think the negative tone being taken by a lot of fans including on twitter is pretty bizarre. It's not costing us recruits but it's certainly not helping with all the "quick to conclude we're a lame duck" stuff I'm reading often by supposed fans who, again, just seem to think piling onto Illinois mediocrity is just really super duper cool.
If Underwood doesn't succeed we are officially going to become a program where coaches go to die. If that happens it is his own fault but we do need to give him a reasonable time to succeed here and we simply are not there yet.
