DeBoer is a great coach. I really never doubted him and hated they got him. But Forde gets at the heart of why it's hard to follow a legend no matter how good you are.
"My high school coach was Gary Barnett who took Northwestern to the Rose Bowl and Colorado to the Fiesta Bowl years later. We were extremely well coached in high school. That's why we won games. We were better coached than everybody else. He left to start his college career before my senior year. New coach comes in that was a very accomplished coach. He knew what he was doing. We kind of bought in and started off well. Won our first two games and we're ranked second in the state. And then we started losing and it just fell apart. "I'm not sure about his playcalling" and "Why are we doing that in practice?". We thought we were bought in but when adversity came we weren't bought in. New guy replacing a legend and I get the feeling this might be the same thing. "DeBoer is good, but why are we doing it this way? We never did it that way. Nick would never let us do that." I just wonder if there is a splinter there between people meaning to do their best, but it's just not happening."
"My high school coach was Gary Barnett who took Northwestern to the Rose Bowl and Colorado to the Fiesta Bowl years later. We were extremely well coached in high school. That's why we won games. We were better coached than everybody else. He left to start his college career before my senior year. New coach comes in that was a very accomplished coach. He knew what he was doing. We kind of bought in and started off well. Won our first two games and we're ranked second in the state. And then we started losing and it just fell apart. "I'm not sure about his playcalling" and "Why are we doing that in practice?". We thought we were bought in but when adversity came we weren't bought in. New guy replacing a legend and I get the feeling this might be the same thing. "DeBoer is good, but why are we doing it this way? We never did it that way. Nick would never let us do that." I just wonder if there is a splinter there between people meaning to do their best, but it's just not happening."
