I've seen nothing that makes me believe that Shannon can win more than 9 games next season. I get what you're saying but it's not enough. The schedule next season is tougher than this season. We got lucky to play a skeleton Oklahoma team. We could have easily lost to Wake Forest. We could have easily lost to Florida State as well. These were very close games. Wake Forest should have been a blowout. Even Coker blew the doors off of Wake Forest...with Kyle Wright.
Shannon's biggest problem is motivation. He's not a great motivator. He doesn't get excited. Doesn't matter if he's on the field or in the cafeteria. I've spoken to the guy. He's very quiet, very calm, very stoic. He's just not a guy who excites kids. Schnellenberger, Jimmy Johnson, those were Miami icons. Those were appealing guys who could get a kid to believe that in his vision. Shannon isn't selling his vision anymore.
But hey, he needs time to develop these kids right? Nick Saban needed a whole two years. Dabo Swinney took garbage *** Clemson to the ACC title game in his first full season as head coach. Shannon has been here three years and we've done nothing.
Shannon hasn't even won a meaningless game...how is he going to win a meaningful game?
Well, Shannon didn't need to 'excite' all of those top defenses he produced, and they seemed to be ok. I think it would be rather pointless to go over all of the coaches who don't 'excite' people and are still successful.
Nick Saban and Dabo Swinney are successful because they inherited some talent. Neither of those guys depended fully on younger players carrying the load, and being the leaders of the team. Saban has a heck of a lot of senior leadership and talent, especially on D. Swinney has CJ Spiller. You can't really rank these guys yet, because they have each dealt with far different scenarios and opportunities.
And now we're saying Shannon hasn't won a meaningful game? You think that beating FSU to start this season wasn't meaningful? Or blowing the doors off of Ga Tech at home the next week? Or beating a pretty good Oklahoma team (no they weren't elite like last year, but still pretty damn good). He has a lot to improve upon, but he's been making strides each year. Granted, if he didn't set the bar so low his first year, I might not be impressed, but I still have hope for him and the Canes for the next two years.