The thing that hurt him has hurt everyone pre stoops. Overall money was just not being spent the way others were spending it on football. May had a great coach but $2 assistants even that out a little. Facilities were far behind most others till the middle 2010s were like the neglected step child to basketball.... At least now we will open the check book a little.
Bill Curry thoughts
- Thread starter Bluegrass79
- Start date
Bobby Ross won a national championship at Georgia Tech with Bill Curry’s players. Currys last year ,they were like 6-6, a newspaper reporter asked a Georgia Tech player the difference in coach Curry and coach Ross,and he said if coach Ross told you something,you better damn well do it! If coach Curry told you something,it was more like a suggestion.
Curry thoughts? Why? Have tried to forget that era for decades now.
He literally got run out of Alabama with top talent......it was no surprise he couldn't win at Kentucky.
Packer fan since 1993. I don't know I just never heard the Bill Curry was a packer I didn't know that . of course I never cared too much about Bill Curry because I mean he sucked balls when he was here. But I certainly respect him a lot more know he was a packer LOL
Claiborne was more successful before Curry and Mumme was more successful
after Curry. Doesn't support the theory of the administration or facilities.
He SUCKED!
The joke back in the day was: What do bill curry and billy graham have in common? They both can make make 60,000 people scream “jesus christ”.😅
Talent was awful and scheme was awful. The team kind of rallied behind him after it was known that he was done, but before that it got as low as it could get with the program. Claiborne had the same resources and at least you could wait until the Tennessee game to know that you wasn't bowl eligible a lot of years.
JMO, Curry was a 1st class guy at a 4th level school. Or as some have said, a BASKETBALL school.
Class human being, couldn't ask for a better background. No support, no backing, no players, no recruiting opportunities.
Everybody deserved better, it just didn't happen.
Class human being, couldn't ask for a better background. No support, no backing, no players, no recruiting opportunities.
Everybody deserved better, it just didn't happen.
Thats really when my memories of UK football kick in so I dont have any pertinent criticisms....I was just a kid.
One could argue that Curry's 1994 team was the worst Kentucky team in history, even worse than the last year of Joker, I walked out at halftime of one game (Miss State??) when we were down 28-0 and quit going the rest of that year.
I think we had a different offensive coordinator every season he was here. Also I think his background worked against him. I don't know that he came in with a plan as to how he was going to turn things around, he was hired because he was Bama's coach.
All our successful coaches since Bear Bryant and the exception of Stoops, have come from places that were on UK's level or worse. Claiborne played here so he knew the lay of the land but he had been at Maryland and Virginia Tech (before it was considered a football schooll) and knew all about lack of facilities and money. Curci, unbelievably, had left as head coach of Miami Hurricanes to come to UK but that was before Howard turned it into a power and was an independent school barely maintaining football and UK seemed like a step up and of course Mumme came from D-II and had a revolutionary offense. Ray and Bradshaw were coordinators at Notre Dame and Oklahoma and had no idea how to run a program on the cheap and they were the biggest disasters.
Stoops has stepped into a time where football money drives everything, even more than basketball at a place like Kentucky so failure is not going to be due to facilities, money for assistant coaches or recruiting budgets. I also think Stoops has been spot on with using contacts in Ohio and getting kids to go to the closest SEC school which is more exciting choice than a cold, gray, always a weird sex scandal lurking Big 10 school.
All our successful coaches since Bear Bryant and the exception of Stoops, have come from places that were on UK's level or worse. Claiborne played here so he knew the lay of the land but he had been at Maryland and Virginia Tech (before it was considered a football schooll) and knew all about lack of facilities and money. Curci, unbelievably, had left as head coach of Miami Hurricanes to come to UK but that was before Howard turned it into a power and was an independent school barely maintaining football and UK seemed like a step up and of course Mumme came from D-II and had a revolutionary offense. Ray and Bradshaw were coordinators at Notre Dame and Oklahoma and had no idea how to run a program on the cheap and they were the biggest disasters.
Stoops has stepped into a time where football money drives everything, even more than basketball at a place like Kentucky so failure is not going to be due to facilities, money for assistant coaches or recruiting budgets. I also think Stoops has been spot on with using contacts in Ohio and getting kids to go to the closest SEC school which is more exciting choice than a cold, gray, always a weird sex scandal lurking Big 10 school.
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I was a member there and had one interaction with Mel. I made a post that, while within the rules, was still rather insulting to another member. Mel sent me a message asking if I wanted to reconsider my post before making it visible, that it was within the rules and it would be posted if I replied back to do so. But I had regretted making the post almost immediately and replied back for him to delete the post. He was so nice and respectful, just seemed like a prince of a guy.
When we hit the field goal against IU with like 30 seconds left, I turned to two IU fans with whom I had spoken throughout the game, and said, “We just kicked your ass.”
We lost twice to UC at Nippert stadium when they were absolutely nothing. Once when we got not one, but 2 punts blocked, the other in the snow when we fumbled about 10 times, or so it seemed. He just had no idea what he was doing, ran the Stack I with Pookie Jones and the option with Tim Couch. Nice guy but a terrible coach at UK
Why did you bring this up again OP? It's been almost 30 years and I'm still getting PO'ed!!😡😡
Why did you bring this up again OP? It's been almost 30 years and I'm still getting PO'ed!!😡😡
Indeed and I had no idea how good Indian food could be until I moved to Asia and given your name, I suspect maybe you've been to Japan to train at least?
Well I haven’t been to Japan , but I know a lot of Japanese people. My sensei was Japanese AND a great cook ! His father was a sushi chef in Japan.
That's cool! I married into a family of Japanese chefs. I've had to up my game big time.
As a football guy, that era was awful. I despised our basketball fans
Well...it sounds like few if any remember the John Ray days...OMG, pitiful...he was the next great at UK...came from the Golden Dome...former DC under Parsegian, as I recall
I remember going to see them at Commonwealth against Cincy, it was really cold and the wind was whipping! I took a girl with me, she was bitching so much about it we left after the first quarter, I had a walk of shame with everyone making fun of me lol. That was the last time we went out together.
That must have been the season where I remember my friend telling me, “maybe they can just throw a long interception instead of punting”. They were THAT much of a mess.
At IU, for the famous double-sprained-ankle-Pookie-Jones beat down of 1993, I sat in a corner, but way down closest to IU fans, maybe 200 feet from the far corner of our section of the stadium.
In the 4th Quarter, a guy way up in the corner started yelling across the Kentucky crowd, “Do You Think This Is Shitty Football?”
We all ignored it until about the third time he shouted it.
Finally a guy not far from me me stood up and shouted back towards him, “Yeah, This Is Some Shitty Football!”
So the guy way up in the corner shouted back, “I Can Remember John Ray . . . now THAT Was Some Shitty Football.”
Might have been the year Pelphrey beat them with a 52 yard field goal, like 1991?
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Don't believe a lot of the excuses these coaches used.
The Nutter Center was state of the art when it opened.
Curry nor Claiborne could use it to their advantage.
They couldn't recruit.
They both were too old fashioned to beat better talented teams with innovation.
Couldn't hire coordinators?
Mike Archer was a former LSU head coach and wanted in the NFL.
Tommy Bowden would coach Tulane and Clemson.
Kentucky offense was never great, but Curry promoted assistants to oc twice.
As opposed to going out and finding some FCS guy come in and overhaul 1960 wing T.
The Nutter Center was state of the art when it opened.
Curry nor Claiborne could use it to their advantage.
They couldn't recruit.
They both were too old fashioned to beat better talented teams with innovation.
Couldn't hire coordinators?
Mike Archer was a former LSU head coach and wanted in the NFL.
Tommy Bowden would coach Tulane and Clemson.
Kentucky offense was never great, but Curry promoted assistants to oc twice.
As opposed to going out and finding some FCS guy come in and overhaul 1960 wing T.
Also had Lovin Smith on staff one year. I thought Uzelac was supposed to have been a big get from Colorado at the time, they had a good team. I don’t know what it is about coaches at that time coming to Kentucky and forgetting everything they know about coaching.
I was at the game at Nippert in, I think, 1991. It snowed in the first half. I remember we had 5 or 6 turnovers (??) and lost by something like 20-17. I guess I could look it up but, on second thought, nah.
91 was at Commonwealth, KY won 20-17, 92 was at Cincinnati, UK lost 13-17, maybe that one?
Yeah, I’d say 92 then for sure. It couldn’t be any later than that and 17-13 seems about right. We played up there again in the mid 90’s. I actually had tickets with @Glenn's take but I couldn’t go because of some medical issue. I can’t remember what it was though LOL. Must not have been that serious 😂.
A popular misconception, repeated, here, often is that there was no support of football of the level Stoops has received.
When Claiborne was hired, he was paid a Top 10 salary.
The first and then the second Nutter facilities were considered state-of-the-art, the indoor Nutter practice facility being the first of its kind in the SEC.
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