Epley's comments on Talent

[BigRedBuster]

I wonder if any of the journalists thought to ask Boyd to clarify his statements.

Purely out of curiosity, which ones are you interested in seeing clarified?

Maybe clarify is the wrong word. Expand, maybe?

But this one maybe stands out. Because it's a little ambiguous:

“If we could stop the world and let Mark go develop these guys for a year and a half, I think we would be right back where we need to be,”

That to me means, we have talented players in the system, they just need 1.5 years to be developed.

I'm not sure how it can be taken any other way.

 

[Saunders]

I wonder if any of the journalists thought to ask Boyd to clarify his statements.

Purely out of curiosity, which ones are you interested in seeing clarified?

Maybe clarify is the wrong word. Expand, maybe?

But this one maybe stands out. Because it's a little ambiguous:

“If we could stop the world and let Mark go develop these guys for a year and a half, I think we would be right back where we need to be,”

That to me means, we have talented players in the system, they just need 1.5 years to be developed.

I'm not sure how it can be taken any other way.

Yeah, same.

 

[Sargon]

We have had the talent to win a conference, for quite a while.

False

 

[StPaulHusker]

I wonder if any of the journalists thought to ask Boyd to clarify his statements.

Purely out of curiosity, which ones are you interested in seeing clarified?

Maybe clarify is the wrong word. Expand, maybe?

But this one maybe stands out. Because it's a little ambiguous:

“If we could stop the world and let Mark go develop these guys for a year and a half, I think we would be right back where we need to be,”

That to me means, we have talented players in the system, they just need 1.5 years to be developed.

I'm not sure how it can be taken any other way.

Where we need to be as in 9-4? Or 1990's? Or in the CFP hunt?

Coming off a 5-7 season I am not sure what he means and based on some discussions here, neither do other people.

 

[Saunders]

We have had the talent to win a conference, for quite a while.

False

The recruiting data says there's quite a few teams have won a conference championship with lesser talent.

 

[Enhance]

I was listening to the crossover between Nick Bahe and Josh Peterson/John Bishop, and perhaps someone mentioned this earlier in the thread, but Bahe said it is indeed a fact that certain media members were summoned to Memorial Stadium to talk to Epley directly about this. And it wasn't an open invitation, either.

As I stated earlier, I don't have a real issue with them doing this as it's very common for a lot of entities to try and shape whatever narrative they want to shape.

However, that leads me to this...

I wonder if any of the journalists thought to ask Boyd to clarify his statements.

Purely out of curiosity, which ones are you interested in seeing clarified?

Maybe clarify is the wrong word. Expand, maybe?

But this one maybe stands out. Because it's a little ambiguous:

“If we could stop the world and let Mark go develop these guys for a year and a half, I think we would be right back where we need to be,”

I think ambiguity is perfect for them and perhaps even part of their intent. If they have another middling season in 2016, they can sit back and say 'well, we told you this team needed help.' If 2016 turns into a good season, then they can use this to say 'look at what happens when you have a long time to build up the talent and develop players.'

 

[BigRedBuster]

I wonder if any of the journalists thought to ask Boyd to clarify his statements.

Purely out of curiosity, which ones are you interested in seeing clarified?

Maybe clarify is the wrong word. Expand, maybe?

But this one maybe stands out. Because it's a little ambiguous:

“If we could stop the world and let Mark go develop these guys for a year and a half, I think we would be right back where we need to be,”

That to me means, we have talented players in the system, they just need 1.5 years to be developed.

I'm not sure how it can be taken any other way.

Where we need to be as in 9-4? Or 1990's? Or in the CFP hunt?

Coming off a 5-7 season I am not sure what he means and based on some discussions here, neither do other people.

What I thought was being discussed was conference championships. We have the talent in the system to compete for those. If you are competing for them, you have a chance to win them. Several times over the Bo era we had this level of talent and fell short.

We obviously don't have the talent like the 90s. That is the level every single college program wants to achieve and I'm not even sure Alabama has that level of talent stacked up. So, if people are claiming our program is crap because we don't have 1990s level of talent, then they are going to be miserable for a long time.

Also, obviously, the CFP hunt is the main goal so we need to be continually trying to achieve that level of program.

I personally believe very very very few programs have a HUGE advantage in talent. I wouldn't say necessarily any of the 4 teams in the playoffs have a HUGE advantage in talent. Possibly Alabama but I get the feeling they are a little lower right now than they have been.

There is a fine line between playoff teams and the next 5-15 programs.

 

[StPaulHusker]

We have had the talent to win a conference, for quite a while.

False

The recruiting data says there's quite a few teams have won a conference championship with lesser talent.

I agree to an extent. Between Callahan and Pelini, we went to what 4 conference title games? And 2 of those were losses by 4 points.

I think we have the talent. I am not sure it is developed into a winning group.

 

[It'sNotAFakeID]

I wonder how much players change from high school to sophomore, junior, senior year of college.

 

[Saunders]

We have had the talent to win a conference, for quite a while.

False

The recruiting data says there's quite a few teams have won a conference championship with lesser talent.

I agree to an extent. Between Callahan and Pelini, we went to what 4 conference title games? And 2 of those were losses by 4 points.

I think we have the talent. I am not sure it is developed into a winning group.

Yup +1

 

[Sargon]

We have had the talent to win a conference, for quite a while.

False

The recruiting data says there's quite a few teams have won a conference championship with lesser talent.

Probably false but you provided no evidence.

Quite a few huh? That sounds very convincing.

Won a conference huh? Who cares. The topic is NU's talent NOW (not 2009 or whatever) and the conference is the BIG with Urban's team.

 

[StPaulHusker]

I wonder how much players change from high school to sophomore, junior, senior year of college.

Certainly depends on the work they put in while there.

Abdullah is a prime example of quite a change

 

[Elf]

We have had the talent to win a conference, for quite a while.

False

The recruiting data says there's quite a few teams have won a conference championship with lesser talent.

Probably false but you provided no evidence.

Quite a few huh? That sounds very convincing.

Won a conference huh? Who cares. The topic is NU's talent NOW (not 2009 or whatever) and the conference is the BIG with Urban's team.

We're not going to consistently beat OSU with the talent level currently on the team.

 

[It'sNotAFakeID]

I'm referring to what Saunders said, that our prior recruiting rankings lends to the idea that we have the talent to win championships. I'm not disputing that, simply mentioning that recruiting rankings are no better than assumptions and that they should be taken with a grain of salt.

Legitimately, who knows the kind or quality of training the last staff put them through.

Nevertheless, I think we have the talent (just from watching the games) to have done better than 5-7.

 

[knapplc]

We had a one-score loss to Iowa and a one-score win against Michigan State this year. Talent-wise, we can compete with the best teams in the league.

We lack consistency, and "same-page-ness," for lack of a better way to put it.

On a national level, we're not ready for consistently being a top-ten team with the talent we have. But there's no reason we can't be consistently in the top 20, with the occasional up or down year.

I honestly think we're one or two more Smithsons and one or two fewer Schmekies away from being pretty good.