Grady Brown, Mark Fields and Damon Arnette

[_NOVA_]

I know Spurrier has gone into almost crisis lock down mode with the local media, but has anyone asked him about Grady Brown's role in the recruitment of Fields and Arnette? Brown continued to be their primary recruiter after it was likely made clear that he would not be their position coach.

I assume Brown closed the deal with Fenton (although that seems like an HBC and Jr. type Florida pull) and Boyd. Although, unlike Arnette and Fields, both those recruits weren't serious long term targets and were probably not as wedded to Brown. In fact, I wonder if those two were told about Hoke before he was officially hired.

I'm not suggesting Brown did anything underhanded, and position coaches move around all the time, but I would assume it to be a fair line of questioning to better understand how two long-term commitments might have been lost in the shuffle of moving Brown to an administrative role while Spurrier was figuring out a way to bring Hoke in.

 

[ReadR00ster]

I think you are overthinking things. Probably Fields and Arnette thought that they committed to a much better team when they initially committed than we've proved to be later. That is probably all there is to it.

 

[G-C-Gamecock]

I'd be interested to know that also; however, with the current state of this program, it is considered blasphemy and outright treason to ask the Emperor anything that might be a bit uncomfortable to answer. That "tater" label will be stamped on your forehead if you even utter that someone has explaining to do..and that goes for His Majesty's son, also.

 

[b.wun]

What else needs to be known? They made a reservation here. Our season didn't live up to the top 10 hype. They were personally connected to Coach Brown and no guarantee was given that he would be their coach. Of course it should be noted that he won't be their coach where they are going either. Good chance Arnette would have gone to OSU regardless. Don't know about Alexander. With Fields, he had a good friend committed to Clemson so there is a good chance that those good salesmen also had inside info on which buttons to push.

Trying to find anything else out seems to be an attempt to find out if Coach. Brown sabotaged us. He may have done so just by telling the truth about his situation. To me that is different than trying to sabotage.

The other possibility is an attempt to second guess coach spurrier. It wasn't a black white situation. It is easy to say that we should have done this or that and assume positive outcomes but there is a good chance that what was done was the best. Anything else is pure guesswork about a different shade of gray. It was a bad year, that resulted in some negative effects on recruiting, coaching changes in the works, and difficult choices to make on the best mix of staff.

At this point it hasn't turned out how I thought would be the best scenario but I also have very limited inside info on skill sets and personality mixes.

 

[westmarinenmb]

Originally posted by ReadR00ster:
I think you are overthinking things. Probably Fields and Arnette thought that they committed to a much better team when they initially committed than we've proved to be later. That is probably all there is to it.

This ^^^^^^ plus remember Fields wanted Spurrier to promise him that he would be there all 4 years. Spurrier told him he could promise him that. I think it was more of our team didn't look like a contender (which we are not in 15) and the fact HBC might be gone in a year or two.

 

[USCRBCOCK]

Originally posted by G-C-Gamecock:
I'd be interested to know that also; however, with the current state of this program, it is considered blasphemy and outright treason to ask the Emperor anything that might be a bit uncomfortable to answer. That "tater" label will be stamped on your forehead if you even utter that someone has explaining to do..and that goes for His Majesty's son, also.

Off base. Wait for it........."Tater!"

it was the 'current state of this program' comment that got you caught.

 

[_NOVA_]

Originally posted by b.wun:
What else needs to be known? They made a reservation here. Our season didn't live up to the top 10 hype. They were personally connected to Coach Brown and no guarantee was given that he would be their coach. Of course it should be noted that he won't be their coach where they are going either. Good chance Arnette would have gone to OSU regardless. Don't know about Alexander. With Fields, he had a good friend committed to Clemson so there is a good chance that those good salesmen also had inside info on which buttons to push.

Trying to find anything else out seems to be an attempt to find out if Coach. Brown sabotaged us. He may have done so just by telling the truth about his situation. To me that is different than trying to sabotage.

The other possibility is an attempt to second guess coach spurrier. It wasn't a black white situation. It is easy to say that we should have done this or that and assume positive outcomes but there is a good chance that what was done was the best. Anything else is pure guesswork about a different shade of gray. It was a bad year, that resulted in some negative effects on recruiting, coaching changes in the works, and difficult choices to make on the best mix of staff.

At this point it hasn't turned out how I thought would be the best scenario but I also have very limited inside info on skill sets and personality mixes.

I'm not suggesting Brown did anything wrong or that Spurrier wasn't in a tough position. All I'm wonder is, with all the journalists covering the team, has anyone been able to determine how the time line of hiring Hoke and demoting Brown might have impacted two long standing CB recruits? There is a lot of conjecture and speculation.

At the very least, it's an intriguing situation where two long standing recruits, at a tough position to recruit for, leave in the midst of a new DC/DB coaching coming in and one being demoted. Unfortunately, the new DC/DB coach wasn't hired until after signing day and was not given the chance to recruit any players.

All we've gotten from Spurrier is, don't worry about recruits we lost, I always said I would add another coach and it was easier to make coaching changes after signing day.

 

[b.wun]

I understand but as I stated, it was a difficult situation. Would we have lost them if they knew who the new guy was??? No way to know maybe, maybe not. Would we have lost more? maybe maybe not. We don't know how it would have effected Ward recruits. I am definitely not saying that I know what would have been best, just that we were choosing between possible shades of gray.

Another thing that may be going on is that coach would like to keep Grady and is trying to smooth some things over behind the scene and get him to wait it out. One of the things that crossed my mind was that coach wanted to give Hoke a chance to evaluate the coaches during the spring and that more changes might happen after that. Maybe coach thinks that talking about it in the media doesn't let things calm down and therefore makes the situation harder.

There are a lot of possibilities though. There are different issues, what makes us the best recruiting staff, what makes us the best staff to develop the players, what makes us the best game day staff. Example, maybe coach wants to see if Ward can actually coach linebackers and make adjustments on gameday and possibly get EJ back as part of the additional staff.

Maybe he will switch Joe Rob with Grady as part of the game day staff and let Joe Rob help during practices. I doubt that Grady knows much about kicking but could probably get the guys fired up. But maybe Grady doesn't really want to be the special team guy.

I am thinking that either Hoke or Ward will be in the box. If that ends up being Hoke, and Ward can make game day changes with linebackers, that would put Grady back on the field. Maybe Deke moves to linebackers and Ward over sees the d-line on game day and we get another d-line coach for practices.

and the last possibility is that maybe Hoke will help the coaches in some technique or bring in some consultants to improve their skill set. That is always useful. It sounds strange but I think GA helped coach expand his offensive game plan by bring in new ideas.

Oh and just to make a poster happy,,,,,, TATER

 

[_NOVA_]

Again, that's fun speculation and some "if this, than that" type stuff that's great for a message board and seems to be what a lot of the pay sites get into. I'm looking for some legitimate reporting to answer questions such as: When did Spurrier let his defensive coaches know coaching additions and demotions were possible? Did Spurrier send his defensive coaches out recruiting with them knowing one or more than one coach could be demoted? Did that impact position coaches' ability to confirm they would still be on the staff to players they were recruiting? When did Grady Brown know he was being demoted and was this during a period he was still actively recruiting? Were recruits told of the potential coaching changes and additions? Etc.

I know covering a college football program is largely a thankless task because criticism can get you in trouble with the coaches and fans. However, what's happened with the South Carolina coaching staff, and the situation's potential impact on recruiting, seems to have been simultaneously misreported and under-reported. There are two reporters covering this team from the state's primary paper and I literally have no idea what the time line or potential impact was for all the coaching fuss that stretched over nearly two months.

 

[uscdoc]

The irony of all of this is that we will only strengthen our reputation as DB University for the NFL-esp with Hoke on the staff. This was a brain fart by Fields.