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Good comments / perspectives.
My issue with "Marioball" is he sends a very different message with what he says compared to what he does.
For 8-months I have heard how "iron sharpens iron"...how the newcomers are challenging the veterans...how the young players are closing the gap blah blah blah...then the first game of the year at home, only 3 players run the ball???
For whatever reasons the young talent gets to play on defense but not offense? You don't get "game experience" sitting on the bench.
Thus my new filter for Marioball is to ignore whatever he says. No longer interested.
I would respect him more if he was honest as in, "I know a lot of people want to see a more wide open offense but we are going to stay with our culture of running between the tackles and short passes."
Instead he plays this silly game of teasing people with the hope that he is going to actually let the 4* and 5* young talent show what they can do let alone actually get in the games. It is a facade.
The problem now is opposing head coaches and DC's also have figured out Marioball so they too go by what happens in games. Hence these slugfests, some of which should be lopsided Oregon wins.
For me Cristobal coaches games with a terrified mindset...he is so scared of failure on even one play that his answer is to do nothing essentially.
As the saying goes, "Actions speak louder than words" and he is a text book case affirming it when it comes to what he says vs what we see in games.