yosef69 wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 29, 2022 2:20 pm

AppStateNews wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 29, 2022 2:13 pm

BUTCH1991 wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 29, 2022 2:07 pm

unknown wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 29, 2022 12:27 pm

MrCraig wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 29, 2022 12:22 pm

I'm sorry. You're right that I'm putting words in your mouth a bit. I take what you said and it sounds like him being stubborn. If he was asked/told that he needed to change some things and he refused, that seems stubborn to me. In most professions, but especially coaching, you have to adapt and innovate or get left behind.

Never happened so mute point

Guess you need to set the story straight since you say this didn't happen and these guys seem to have a pretty good track record on this stuff.

Nobody needs to set the story straight. Neither one of us were in that room when conversation was had. We likely got our info from two different sources from opposing sides.

Bottom line -- DJ was not retained. DJ gave his all for App State. There should be no ill will to the man. He is a top notch LB coach and we will miss him a lot.

I personally think he deserved another year or two. The defense made tons of strides (with A LOT of adjustments because of personnel issues) throughout the season. If we were able to fix the secondary, with the pieces he has coming back, our defense could be really good.

But, alas, I am not the one to make those decisions. I hate it for DJ, but understand it too.

Strides throughout the season? He started with 63 points and ended with 51. That’s not progress

Sure, if all you look at is the box score ...

AppNews is correct, the defense got better as the year progressed.

Can you say "scape goat?"

MrCraig wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 29, 2022 11:00 pm

unknown wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 29, 2022 10:07 pm

AppStateNews wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 29, 2022 2:13 pm

BUTCH1991 wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 29, 2022 2:07 pm

unknown wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 29, 2022 12:27 pm

Never happened so mute point

Guess you need to set the story straight since you say this didn't happen and these guys seem to have a pretty good track record on this stuff.

Nobody needs to set the story straight. Neither one of us were in that room when conversation was had. We likely got our info from two different sources from opposing sides.

Bottom line -- DJ was not retained. DJ gave his all for App State. There should be no ill will to the man. He is a top notch LB coach and we will miss him a lot.

I personally think he deserved another year or two. The defense made tons of strides (with A LOT of adjustments because of personnel issues) throughout the season. If we were able to fix the secondary, with the pieces he has coming back, our defense could be really good.

But, alas, I am not the one to make those decisions. I hate it for DJ, but understand it too.

Oh but I do know. And it's clear that you don't based off of your responses in this thread. It is also clear that App is pushing a false narrative

Well now I want to know which narrative is the false one and which is legit. I hope the real story is juicy. Like Dale Jones was using Macado’s to launder money.

You didn't know that Macado's was our recruit drop point? I thought that had been common knowledge for a while. It's how we lure all the high-value 3* recruits that we do. We take them up to King St. while on their officials and they each get a cinnamon bun and when they begin to pry it apart it's loaded full of cash incentive. Sometimes a bun will have $30, $35, maybe even $37 bucks in it. It's a pretty SWEET system we have - take that NCAA!

Good move. Time to upgrade.

AppStateNews wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 29, 2022 10:24 am

Mjohn1988 wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 29, 2022 10:17 am

appstate24 wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 29, 2022 10:06 am

Gasparato?

Love to have Woody back, but understand that ain’t happening.

I remember when Drink took over, I talked to players and staff in New Orleans, and the ones I spoke to wanted Gas to be DC.

GO APPS!!

I sure hope we make this hire based on a lot more than who the players want.

Players and previous staff all said he was ready for it. It was Gaspo being the on field voice that turned the defense around in 2019.

Correct. It was much more than the players that were taking note of Gaspos savvy. He's a perfect example of the type of coach we need to cycle at App to keep salaries low and platforms high. We just have to have the next guy loaded in the chamber if the one we shoot out there gets plucked. To me, a good G5 program is one that can successfully provide a 3 year showcase for a coach who is looking to hit a big P5 contract.

unknown wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 29, 2022 10:07 pm

AppStateNews wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 29, 2022 2:13 pm

BUTCH1991 wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 29, 2022 2:07 pm

unknown wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 29, 2022 12:27 pm

MrCraig wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 29, 2022 12:22 pm

I'm sorry. You're right that I'm putting words in your mouth a bit. I take what you said and it sounds like him being stubborn. If he was asked/told that he needed to change some things and he refused, that seems stubborn to me. In most professions, but especially coaching, you have to adapt and innovate or get left behind.

Never happened so mute point

Guess you need to set the story straight since you say this didn't happen and these guys seem to have a pretty good track record on this stuff.

Nobody needs to set the story straight. Neither one of us were in that room when conversation was had. We likely got our info from two different sources from opposing sides.

Bottom line -- DJ was not retained. DJ gave his all for App State. There should be no ill will to the man. He is a top notch LB coach and we will miss him a lot.

I personally think he deserved another year or two. The defense made tons of strides (with A LOT of adjustments because of personnel issues) throughout the season. If we were able to fix the secondary, with the pieces he has coming back, our defense could be really good.

But, alas, I am not the one to make those decisions. I hate it for DJ, but understand it too.

Oh but I do know. And it's clear that you don't based off of your responses in this thread. It is also clear that App is pushing a false narrative

Oh, but you don’t. You just like to tell everyone they are wrong but don’t provide any actual info. It’s like telling someone they did it the wrong way afterwards when you were available to tell the the right way before they started. Or like those that complain but offer no solutions. If you’re not going to post actual info, what’s the point of even posting? Your troll job is so amateur.

Very few who really know inside "facts" go on message boards and throw out " I know but can not/ will not tell". There is a reason for that.

CoachRob wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 29, 2022 11:41 pm

yosef69 wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 29, 2022 2:20 pm

AppStateNews wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 29, 2022 2:13 pm

BUTCH1991 wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 29, 2022 2:07 pm

unknown wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 29, 2022 12:27 pm

Never happened so mute point

Guess you need to set the story straight since you say this didn't happen and these guys seem to have a pretty good track record on this stuff.

Nobody needs to set the story straight. Neither one of us were in that room when conversation was had. We likely got our info from two different sources from opposing sides.

Bottom line -- DJ was not retained. DJ gave his all for App State. There should be no ill will to the man. He is a top notch LB coach and we will miss him a lot.

I personally think he deserved another year or two. The defense made tons of strides (with A LOT of adjustments because of personnel issues) throughout the season. If we were able to fix the secondary, with the pieces he has coming back, our defense could be really good.

But, alas, I am not the one to make those decisions. I hate it for DJ, but understand it too.

Strides throughout the season? He started with 63 points and ended with 51. That’s not progress

Sure, if all you look at is the box score ...

AppNews is correct, the defense got better as the year progressed.

How? The same deep ball never got fixed. The middle of the field was always wide open. Third down defense was atrocious. These were the same issues that we started with against UNC.

HkyMtneer wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 30, 2022 6:14 am

MrCraig wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 29, 2022 11:00 pm

unknown wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 29, 2022 10:07 pm

AppStateNews wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 29, 2022 2:13 pm

BUTCH1991 wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 29, 2022 2:07 pm

Guess you need to set the story straight since you say this didn't happen and these guys seem to have a pretty good track record on this stuff.

Nobody needs to set the story straight. Neither one of us were in that room when conversation was had. We likely got our info from two different sources from opposing sides.

Bottom line -- DJ was not retained. DJ gave his all for App State. There should be no ill will to the man. He is a top notch LB coach and we will miss him a lot.

I personally think he deserved another year or two. The defense made tons of strides (with A LOT of adjustments because of personnel issues) throughout the season. If we were able to fix the secondary, with the pieces he has coming back, our defense could be really good.

But, alas, I am not the one to make those decisions. I hate it for DJ, but understand it too.

Oh but I do know. And it's clear that you don't based off of your responses in this thread. It is also clear that App is pushing a false narrative

Well now I want to know which narrative is the false one and which is legit. I hope the real story is juicy. Like Dale Jones was using Macado’s to launder money.

You didn't know that Macado's was our recruit drop point? I thought that had been common knowledge for a while. It's how we lure all the high-value 3* recruits that we do. We take them up to King St. while on their officials and they each get a cinnamon bun and when they begin to pry it apart it's loaded full of cash incentive. Sometimes a bun will have $30, $35, maybe even $37 bucks in it. It's a pretty SWEET system we have - take that NCAA!

Man, that makes so much sense now! I bet if Arch Manning knew about that, he would've chosen App over Texas.

CoachRob wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 29, 2022 11:41 pm

yosef69 wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 29, 2022 2:20 pm

AppStateNews wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 29, 2022 2:13 pm

BUTCH1991 wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 29, 2022 2:07 pm

unknown wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 29, 2022 12:27 pm

Never happened so mute point

Guess you need to set the story straight since you say this didn't happen and these guys seem to have a pretty good track record on this stuff.

Nobody needs to set the story straight. Neither one of us were in that room when conversation was had. We likely got our info from two different sources from opposing sides.

Bottom line -- DJ was not retained. DJ gave his all for App State. There should be no ill will to the man. He is a top notch LB coach and we will miss him a lot.

I personally think he deserved another year or two. The defense made tons of strides (with A LOT of adjustments because of personnel issues) throughout the season. If we were able to fix the secondary, with the pieces he has coming back, our defense could be really good.

But, alas, I am not the one to make those decisions. I hate it for DJ, but understand it too.

Strides throughout the season? He started with 63 points and ended with 51. That’s not progress

Sure, if all you look at is the box score ...

AppNews is correct, the defense got better as the year progressed.

Better at what? We were good against the run pretty much all year. However, against teams that were capable of throwing the ball, based upon what I saw, we didn't improve at all. Opponents passed for 352 (UNC), 209 (JMU), 281 (TSU), 284 (CCU), 220 (MU), and 385 (GS) in our losses. If we had an average pass defense, we probably win 2 or 3 more games, and maybe all of them. I didn't see any improvement in our pass defense all year which also includes our rush.

I appreciate Dale Jones and his time spent at Appalachian (and I wish him well), but I am not going to fault Coach Clark from making a tough decision based upon what I saw this year. I hope he is going about this comprehensively and takes care of some other issues. I hope the university system takes care of the portal issues so that universities in NC can have a level playing field.

You have to have players to make the right plays and reads. Dale didn't just forget how to coach defense this year. We simply didn't have the jimmy and joes that we usually have and the ones we had at LB got injured and missed too much time. Our coaches knew this, they tried to get DB's and DE in the portal this past spring, just didn't work out. 2 of the DBs that we wanted and wanted to be here chose not to come because our admissions wouldn't accept their earned credit hours. Both ended up starting on P5 schools, pretty sure had they been here we would have had a much better defense. Our coaches knew the issues, we just couldn't remedy it. Hopefully this changes this year.

t4pizza wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 30, 2022 11:28 am

You have to have players to make the right plays and reads. Dale didn't just forget how to coach defense this year. We simply didn't have the jimmy and joes that we usually have and the ones we had at LB got injured and missed too much time. Our coaches knew this, they tried to get DB's and DE in the portal this past spring, just didn't work out. 2 of the DBs that we wanted and wanted to be here chose not to come because our admissions wouldn't accept their earned credit hours. Both ended up starting on P5 schools, pretty sure had they been here we would have had a much better defense. Our coaches knew the issues, we just couldn't remedy it. Hopefully this changes this year.

Well let's just see if we are having the same discussion next year about whomever the new guy is or another coordinator or position coach.

NewApp wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 30, 2022 1:16 pm

t4pizza wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 30, 2022 11:28 am

You have to have players to make the right plays and reads. Dale didn't just forget how to coach defense this year. We simply didn't have the jimmy and joes that we usually have and the ones we had at LB got injured and missed too much time. Our coaches knew this, they tried to get DB's and DE in the portal this past spring, just didn't work out. 2 of the DBs that we wanted and wanted to be here chose not to come because our admissions wouldn't accept their earned credit hours. Both ended up starting on P5 schools, pretty sure had they been here we would have had a much better defense. Our coaches knew the issues, we just couldn't remedy it. Hopefully this changes this year.

Well let's just see if we are having the same discussion next year about whomever the new guy is or another coordinator or position coach.

If we don't get upgrades at those positions, we will most likely be having a very similar discussion.

yosef69 wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 30, 2022 9:18 am

CoachRob wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 29, 2022 11:41 pm

yosef69 wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 29, 2022 2:20 pm

AppStateNews wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 29, 2022 2:13 pm

BUTCH1991 wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 29, 2022 2:07 pm

Guess you need to set the story straight since you say this didn't happen and these guys seem to have a pretty good track record on this stuff.

Nobody needs to set the story straight. Neither one of us were in that room when conversation was had. We likely got our info from two different sources from opposing sides.

Bottom line -- DJ was not retained. DJ gave his all for App State. There should be no ill will to the man. He is a top notch LB coach and we will miss him a lot.

I personally think he deserved another year or two. The defense made tons of strides (with A LOT of adjustments because of personnel issues) throughout the season. If we were able to fix the secondary, with the pieces he has coming back, our defense could be really good.

But, alas, I am not the one to make those decisions. I hate it for DJ, but understand it too.

Strides throughout the season? He started with 63 points and ended with 51. That’s not progress

Sure, if all you look at is the box score ...

AppNews is correct, the defense got better as the year progressed.

How? The same deep ball never got fixed. The middle of the field was always wide open. Third down defense was atrocious. These were the same issues that we started with against UNC.

Overall, the defense improved and the eye test showed it. Coaches mixed in plenty of man and zone coverages, and had plenty of personal changes throughout the year trying to correct several of the issues you stated above. The mistakes you are referring too didn't happen nearly as frequently later in the year as they did earlier in the year and that's a testament to the coaches.

Truth is, there's nothing more the coaches could have done in the course of the year to fix our problems because all were personal issues. Either have to be fixed with new personal or off season work.

Yes - the defense improved - let's not forget we probably had the best returning trio of LBs - Harrington missed the entire season (except for 1/2 of unc game) - Cobb missed half the season and Hampton didn't play in the last month - if someone thinks that wasn't a huge hit for the defense they you don't understand football ---

WVAPPeer wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 30, 2022 3:29 pm

Yes - the defense improved - let's not forget we probably had the best returning trio of LBs - Harrington missed the entire season (except for 1/2 of unc game) - Cobb missed half the season and Hampton didn't play in the last month - if someone thinks that wasn't a huge hit for the defense they you don't understand football ---

I went on a rant with a friend at the end of the last game but you are 100% correct. We just didn't have the folks we needed to succeed. When all is said and done i think we had more of a player problem than we did a coaching problem. OL, DL, LB, DB .............

bcoach wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 30, 2022 3:37 pm

WVAPPeer wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 30, 2022 3:29 pm

Yes - the defense improved - let's not forget we probably had the best returning trio of LBs - Harrington missed the entire season (except for 1/2 of unc game) - Cobb missed half the season and Hampton didn't play in the last month - if someone thinks that wasn't a huge hit for the defense they you don't understand football ---

I went on a rant with a friend at the end of the last game but you are 100% correct. We just didn't have the folks we needed to succeed. When all is said and done i think we had more of a player problem than we did a coaching problem. OL, DL, LB, DB .............

So half the team...maybe we just weren't good? Small, slow, lack of depth. Injuries didn't help.

t4pizza wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 30, 2022 3:02 pm

NewApp wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 30, 2022 1:16 pm

t4pizza wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 30, 2022 11:28 am

You have to have players to make the right plays and reads. Dale didn't just forget how to coach defense this year. We simply didn't have the jimmy and joes that we usually have and the ones we had at LB got injured and missed too much time. Our coaches knew this, they tried to get DB's and DE in the portal this past spring, just didn't work out. 2 of the DBs that we wanted and wanted to be here chose not to come because our admissions wouldn't accept their earned credit hours. Both ended up starting on P5 schools, pretty sure had they been here we would have had a much better defense. Our coaches knew the issues, we just couldn't remedy it. Hopefully this changes this year.

Well let's just see if we are having the same discussion next year about whomever the new guy is or another coordinator or position coach.

If we don't get upgrades at those positions, we will most likely be having a very similar discussion.

According to some at 247, and I mean others not named Moose, we have been getting the best players that we can get. We either battle P5 teams or win the battles against our piers in the Sun Belt 90% of the time. I have never bought into this narrative but I have thought our players we are signing overall are pretty good.

If that is the case, then it is poor coaching and development but if not then what can we do to improve that?

We have had attrition due to injuries or players wanting playing time so we have missed at some spots but if we have a bunch of players going FCS and being stars, which we are, then that tells me we have a lot of talent. We have a couple former players who are likely to be named All-Americans in FCS this year, just like Bucky Williams was.

With all the bad luck from injuries and good players leaving because they did not want to wait we have become thin and are planning to hit the portal and JUCO just as hard as HS this year. If we do and bring in a 50/50 class then how can we expect to be fine if this deal with accepting credits that has held us back won't be fixed until next year, like is being rumored?

If we can't suddenly fix our issues with the portal now then how can we upgrade the talent if our issue is lack of talent? If you can hit 60% in HS recruiting then you don't need to hit the portal much if you are signing 22+ every year.

I bring this stuff up because it makes me worried we can't fix all of our issues. I have also heard that the COVID year messed us up and we had a lot of misses in that class because of it. Apparently it hit us harder than other schools in the Sun Belt for some reason.

Can we make enough upgrades, assuming our coaches aren't fully to blame? If we just get rid of a bunch of coaches then we have the other problem brought up not having continuity in our staff

I bring all this stuff up because we can have concerns and make excuses all day long but the bottom line here is that either our coaches are doing a bad job of evaluating talent and addressing injuries (we have taken injured players that work out and many who have not) or do we just have bad coaching or a mix of both?

If we make a few coaching changes and sign a ton of JUCO and portal players then it tells me Shawn has been told he is on the hot-seat and the pressure is on. Coaches don't go after those type players unless they missed badly in recruiting or are taking over and trying to turn a program around quickly not being worried about 3-4 years down the road.

We will see what happens but I fear we might be asking same questions and looking for a new coach if Shawn does not identify our issues and fix them quickly, regardless of whatever hurdles we have had. I refuse to believe we suddenly have hurdles that prevent us from beating Troy, CCU, Marshall, GSU, Texas State, etc every year with all we have done in the past and as much as we have beaten them before.

More heads rolling this week.....

appstatealum wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 30, 2022 3:55 pm

More heads rolling this week.....

Hopefully one of them shares a name with a car brand…