grey: Given history repeats itself and those who ignore it seem damned to repeat it, I think we probably should be mindful of what happened in the past. As you say it doesn’t define the future, but the best predictor of future performance is past performance.
Yow set this one up with her initial expectations of what TOB’s successor would do. DD’s done some of them (run a clean program and graduate players we are proud of), but he’s missed on some other ones (results, Alabama styled recruits). Yow’s kept him around despite missing those expectations and what I personally think is poor handling of the media. That’s fine, but one can’t really ignore that DD isn’t getting the results that the previous guy that got fired did (note, I was no TOB fan, so it’s not like I’ve got some retrospective rose colored glasses). If she’d have said that she fired TOB for “general program management” with a wink, wink, nod, nod to the RW situation, then I think it might be a little different. Maybe that’s not fair to DD, but it doesn’t change it.
DD also laid the biggest egg in year one in 25+ years of the program. It’s almost as if one had to try to go winless in the ACC that year. That was as bad as it gets and he paired it with calling out the fans. In life there really aren’t mulligans, particularly at that salary and job profile. He put himself in a very tough position right out of the gate with his paying customers. This is an entertainment business, and sometimes coaches forget that.
I want DD to do well because if he does well, NC State does well. As a fan, I’d kind of like to taste any sort of success in a revenue sport because it has been a long time since 1979. Yes, DD wasn’t coach that entire time, and it’s only fair to judge him on his tenure, but one has to be mindful of the bigger picture and also understand why the natives could be quite restless.
