Jordan Lovett...
- Thread starter jlkirk
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Get him out of here. We're trying to clean up the culture, right? We're basically starting from scratch next year anyway so what's one more? Next year's roster has the looks of a first year coach in the transfer portal era.
Reckless driving and Marijuana possession is what I saw. That is a normal Thursday for the UGA players!
The rest of the story:
“Freshman wide receiver Hardley Gilmore, who entered the transfer portal over the weekend and reportedly will transfer to Nebraska, was charged on Dec. 7 with misdemeanor assault after allegedly punching someone in the face at a storage unit in downtown Lexington.”
“Freshman wide receiver Hardley Gilmore, who entered the transfer portal over the weekend and reportedly will transfer to Nebraska, was charged on Dec. 7 with misdemeanor assault after allegedly punching someone in the face at a storage unit in downtown Lexington.”
All of us make mistakes and hopefully this was something isolated for him. That said this team seemed to desperately need a cultural change to go forward and if he's still in the maturing stage it may have been best for him to move on when he did for both parties. I loved his potential but also saw a little bit of attitude come out from him at times that concerned me. Sometimes that can be a good thing as it shows fire in the belly, sometimes it can go the other way - see Vito Tisdale
Teenage boys do stupid shit. Anyone here ever drive over 100 on the open road while young? He shouldn't do it of course, but cut him some slack.
Cant say I did ... my car was lucky to top out at 65 ... going downhill. LUCKY
LoL how many times did I drive over 100?
But, TBH we could drink and drive back then too...
Time are different, people are under more scrutiny. Athletes are under even more scrutiny...
Who hasn’t punched a guy out at a storage unit, cast the first stone!
Some people just can't stand prosperity. Lovett is in line to start and be a team leader. Now this.
For the record, it has been said (by distinguished author and financier Doug Casey among others) that the most dangerous animal on earth is the young single human male.
I will not suggest my judgment was good when I was in college. Neuropsychologists have established that human judgment is not mature until the late 20s. Risk taking is inexplicably high among young human males. But Lovett is a part of something bigger than himself.
This is being handled internally. Some people misunderstand what that means. Stoop operates in a University system and is not free to forgive whatever he might want. But under most circumstances, they believe in second chances as long as they are dealing with an isolated mistake. Habitual offenders like Jason Hatcher, Marcus Walker, and Vito Tisdale were dismissed after showing that they would not put their team above themselves. Many fans wanted to keep Tisdale but Stoops was right to cut him loose. OTOH, Lovett has not been in trouble before and might receive a second chance. Depends on what the in-house investigation concludes.
As for implications for the team, Coach White has a lot of talented safeties but all are young. Martels Carter looks like a future star. If necessary, there is still time to acquire another safety through the portal.
For the record, it has been said (by distinguished author and financier Doug Casey among others) that the most dangerous animal on earth is the young single human male.
I will not suggest my judgment was good when I was in college. Neuropsychologists have established that human judgment is not mature until the late 20s. Risk taking is inexplicably high among young human males. But Lovett is a part of something bigger than himself.
This is being handled internally. Some people misunderstand what that means. Stoop operates in a University system and is not free to forgive whatever he might want. But under most circumstances, they believe in second chances as long as they are dealing with an isolated mistake. Habitual offenders like Jason Hatcher, Marcus Walker, and Vito Tisdale were dismissed after showing that they would not put their team above themselves. Many fans wanted to keep Tisdale but Stoops was right to cut him loose. OTOH, Lovett has not been in trouble before and might receive a second chance. Depends on what the in-house investigation concludes.
As for implications for the team, Coach White has a lot of talented safeties but all are young. Martels Carter looks like a future star. If necessary, there is still time to acquire another safety through the portal.
It's one thing to have a bunch of 4 and 5 stars across your roster, and another thing to have a sprinkling of them among a roster of 3 stars, even if the 3 stars are better and have a higher upside than their rating indicates.
Having a superiority complex is easy in the latter case. In the former, you're all at the same level. There's more mutual respect that comes naturally. It doesn't have to be coached, and there is where you strive to be, because parents and handlers, money, all make the job of coaching much harder, especially with a talent gap.
Bridging that gap gets you to 10 wins. To do that you have to have the right character of personnel, and that's tough to manage, but that's why coaches make the big bucks.
Getting to the top of the SEC a coach has to be a motivator and disciplined. He has to exude confidence and courage. Having a chip on your shoulder only gets you so far. Then you build.
You grow and you prune, getting rid of the diseased wood before it kills growth. If YOU DON'T continually prune, you could wind up cutting ALL the way back to a stump and starting over. Most trees won't survive this process without really strong root stock. Teams that have won titles have that root stock.
UK doesn't.
It doesn't come with a name brand coach.
It doesn't come without massive cost for a team that wants it.
It requires more than you've ever given before and maybe more than you can.
If just anyone could do it, than everyone would have done it.
Having a superiority complex is easy in the latter case. In the former, you're all at the same level. There's more mutual respect that comes naturally. It doesn't have to be coached, and there is where you strive to be, because parents and handlers, money, all make the job of coaching much harder, especially with a talent gap.
Bridging that gap gets you to 10 wins. To do that you have to have the right character of personnel, and that's tough to manage, but that's why coaches make the big bucks.
Getting to the top of the SEC a coach has to be a motivator and disciplined. He has to exude confidence and courage. Having a chip on your shoulder only gets you so far. Then you build.
You grow and you prune, getting rid of the diseased wood before it kills growth. If YOU DON'T continually prune, you could wind up cutting ALL the way back to a stump and starting over. Most trees won't survive this process without really strong root stock. Teams that have won titles have that root stock.
UK doesn't.
It doesn't come with a name brand coach.
It doesn't come without massive cost for a team that wants it.
It requires more than you've ever given before and maybe more than you can.
If just anyone could do it, than everyone would have done it.
All of that is true, and well stated. But OTOH, every college football program has the occasional outlier who makes a mistake. I can't remember any program having 100% compliance with team and campus rules every year. UK has actually been fortunate for the most part during Stoops' tenure with this kind of thing while nearby programs like UL and UT have comparatively had many more bad apples.
Your point comparing prior football culture to root stock is a particularly good one, especially at this point in time when Stoops is doing by far the heaviest pruning of his coaching career. A caveat, of course, is that a productive culture gets developed when coaching staffs make good decisions that build the culture. There is no simple formula for this. It requires discipline and consistent judgment. Most coaches don't have the luxury of inheriting a predominant or invulnerable football culture. Sarkisian, Freeman, and DeBoer were that fortunate. But getting to the top is easier than staying there. OTOH, Mike Norvell, Dave Aranda, and Brent Pry are showing how easily strong football cultures are compromised as soon as the quality of decision-making falls down, even though those three guys have the luxury of residing in strong recruiting territories. Mark Stoops does not have that luxury.
Stoops is trying to build something here. When he arrived, UK was coming off a 2-10 season. Back then, nobody believed UK could win 7 games in a season. But Stoops did that in 2016. In 2018, he won 10. I suppose we can choose to call that root stock, or not. When Stoops won 10 games, it had not been done at UK since 1977. In the intervening years, UK football had been on NCAA probation twice under Curci and Mumme. Rich Brooks brought the program back from probation, then Stoops took it up to the next level. But getting there is easier than staying there.
During Stoops' tenure, player issues have been handled internally, and each has been handled on a case by case basis. For example, Vito Tisdale was given multiple opportunities. Stoops made men out of Lynn Bowden and Jordan Jones. Because of Stoops, Chris Oats remained a member of the team despite his medical retirement and crippling disability. With Stoops' leadership, our coaches were active in the fund that was set up for Oats.
Now comes the case of Jordan Lovett, who apparently had a clean record in the program prior to last week. What Lovett did was dumb. Obviously Lovett will be disciplined. Whether he should be cut loose for
a first offense is a decision for which there is no simple formula. Can he still be a productive member of our locker room and a good teammate? I trust Stoops to make the right decision. When good decisions are made, they are building blocks for the culture. And vice versa.
I actually think we have relatively few incidents given the number of guys. Its just high profile issues from our higher profile guys and it skews perception.
Having issues with football players is just inevitable especially with nil. Just too many guys and now they all have money to boot.
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