Yes, the 15’ team that we had was realistically an 8 win team talent wise. The issue for me was the defense, which has to be put on the players at the end of the day. I believe that having played for Mallory and Knorr that Knorr was legit. It wasn’t a game plan issue, nor was it a talent issue. It was more so a “Wilson didn’t care to manage the defense” issue. As I’ve noted before, CKW is a good coach and I respect him, but one of the upgrades that you get with CTA is that he strikes me as a guy who “won’t leave any stones unturned”. He will be locked in when it comes to all aspects of the game. He won’t neglect offense as much as Wilson neglected defense. At the end of the day the defense was bad because of the players, and I hesitate to put any blame on a coach, especially one that I respect as much as CKW, but objectively if I hadn’t have played for him, a part of me would’ve put some blame on him. As I’ve noted, it was a simple situation where guys weren’t held accountable on defense, and the standard that he set for offensive players was higher. They essentially knew what they were doing, and many guys who went in during the games to play defense had watched maybe 30 minutes of film on their own during the week? At some point I think he could’ve helped by stepping in and saying, “you won’t play if you don’t know what the hell youre doing”. And that was the difference between 9 wins in 2015 and getting 6 instead. Or in 2013 getting 5 and missing a bowl, when it was probably a 7 win team.
So overall, I respect that many believe Wilson was building a solid foundation, but I think that it’s also optimistic to note that Allen seems diligent. If he had the talent that the 15’ team had, I could realistically see better results. I think that he’s also a solid recruiter based on his 18’ class, so the team should have more talent in the future than what we had, or at least comparable talent. The difference will be that Allen should have ALL units on the team running on all cylinders, which I think can make us all optimistic. A point that often gets overlooked as well that people use against Allen goes something like this: “Allen didn’t make a bowl game, but sense Wilson upgraded recruiting, it’s unacceptable”. I think that’s a false premise. I don’t think those recruiting ratings represent the actual quality of the classes. I think that Wilson upgraded the talent from ‘11-14 and I think that his ‘15-17 classes were less talented. I don’t really focus on the ratings because I was able to see it up close and personal, and we can highlight which players performed the best in their careers. Someone like Jacob Bailey from the 12’ class for example was only a 2*, but was a serviceable player. Some guys rated higher have graded out much worse. So I think that it’s reasonable to conclude that Wilson’s classes tailed off at the end, because we can highlight the phenomenon of multiple guys who came in with higher rankings not performing as well as they need to. I think that with time Allen’s classes will be more like Wilson’s 11-14’ classes, and less like Wilson’s 15-17’ classes. The 18’ class may be the best of all of them, specifically at defensive end.
So in closing, I agree that the big mistake was not having someone like Allen in 13’ and 15’, but part of that was Wilson’s lack of interest in holding defensive players accountable. Clearly we can’t blame Wilson for it all, but there has to be a certain baseline level of involvement. What makes the future bright is that I don’t think Allen will neglect any one unit or aspect of the team, which means we should logically see better results when he replenishes the talent. I’m not saying the roster is devoid of talent now, but I think it’ll be two years before the talent is where it was in 15’ and I think the 18’ class was a HUGE step forward. They should be more talented in 2020 than we were in 2015, and should have a serious contender playing for Big Ten titles if things go on schedule.