I suspect that grades or something connected to academics has been a ?priority ? or something like that for quite awhile. In that the coaches have been perhaps disadvantaged because of it. All things being equal, academic standards just slightly higher than your opponents may be all it takes to be the difference. I may be wrong. I just don?t believe in bad luck. I also have watched all around us movement up as we fall farther down. I see feeble attempts to correct. I hear Wilson talk about athletics being the front porch and under her it looks like we live in a shack. But I figure the grades are great. I?m old and tired of being patient. I?m cranky and I want to see a no doubt big time push to get going up and stop the slow death.
I made similar comments about our front porch on twitter on a thread with Wilson's name on it. You may be right about the academic issues but I know that Dimel's teams never had a high APR rating and I doubt that transfers and JC players are majoring in engineering. Just saying.
I remember the David Lee days, very bad football, the Gary Nord days, one good year followed by several very bad years, the Bill Yung years, awful, the Tommy Hudspeth years, and on and on. Bad football is nothing new at UTEP, unfortunately. This is why I'm pleased that a young and ambitious coach who knows if he wins at UTEP then he can write his own ticket to a bigger, richer school. Thats the way I want coaches to leave UTEP, because of success instead of failure.
I'm right there with you on old, cranky and low on patience. The only good thing about the portal era is coaches no longer are allowed 5 year rebuilds. By the 2nd year this coach should have a good team. Time will tell and I'm getting low on time.
