Last Chance U

Got a link to those HUDL games?

Editing can be rough, but when in the series did you see the coach do anything admirable? Maybe he did but I didn't see it. I have been an hc and wasn't perfect but still put the kids first. If you saw any part that you felt Stephens put the kids first please point it out. I've coached troubled and talented kids. I understand it's a challenge and there are no easy answers but I don't think a majority of coaches teach kids to fake it. I think most teach them and push them to do right. I may be wrong. When I got my first head coaching job the guy who was the winningest coach in school history said don't worry about Mon to Thurs just play the best on Friday. I refuse. I won't recruit. I won't play kids that don't act in a way that isn't a positive reflection on their school and family. I am probably a cliche coach but I can live with that.

I have read your post and I know you are a coach worthy of respect. I will not endorse coach Stephens or winning based on that series. And I would rather my son lose or not play than be part of that program.

Fair enough but it goes downhill...

I have watched the first two episodes and enjoyed it. It's like watching Hard Knocks or whatever.

I have had a number of athletes sign JUCO over the years and EMCC is actually pretty good compared to many of them. When you have a kid that has run out of options and one of these places come calling you send them. It is what it is.

I loved All In... sign defensive line meeting room was great. At bottom it read (Loaf = Traitor...Go play for the other team)

Good series, we are on the same page there.

Tbf I thought the oc, coach wood was a good foil for Stephens... Was a very positive coach, especially on game day.. Hc would chew em out then he would pick em back up

I liked that... I thought I was a fast talker but dang that dude talks fast!

what I liked the best about the series was how relevant to HS ball it is. You have these gifted athletes (though nowhere near as remarkable as their own ideas of their ability) who are emotionally and academically immature. The coaching staff is all about winning because that is what determines their worth, so they do what they must to win.

Imagine if Coach Stephens started dropping a point system or leadership mentoring or sits out the stud RB for skipping class...
These kids are going to take their act somewhere else because they don't have to put up with this because some coach, somewhere would be happy to put up with their mess for 8 months out of the year.

I guess that Stephens is kind of the JUCO football equivalent of John Calipari. Like Calipari, Stephens understands and embraces what the primary motivation of these elite athletes is...getting what they think they are entitled to.

I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing. There is an agreement between the coaching staff at a place like EMCC and the players...win championships for the school and the school will do everything it can to get kids a scholarship. As long as that happens, there aren't going to be any issues.

However, Stephens was directly responsible for taking that opportunity away from some of those kids, at least in their mind. And even the kids who got scholarships thought they could have gone to a bigger school had EMCC not have been banned from the postseason (The Ollie kid, for example who ended up going to Nichols State).

Now, that might not be true. Those kids might not have gone on to SEC schools regardless of how EMCC did in the playoffs. But the perception of the kids was essentially "I need to suck it up and accept Buddy's foul mouth, bad temper, personal insults, and hypocrisy and win him a championship so I can go to the big time." But, at least in the minds of the kids, Buddy had created the conditions (punching an official, running up huge scores on hapless opponents, encouraging his players to have an obnoxious and arrogant swagger, etc, etc) that made the fight in that last game an inevitability.

I do think that there should be a parallel route to the NFL for some of these kids. Clearly, a lot of them were simply not motivated to get a free education. For these kids, it was the NFL, boom or bust. And again...I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing. There should be some kind of NFL "minor league" in which kids who are not motivated academically can still compete at a high level and have a chance to move on to play professionally.

Of course, the NCAA would resist that effort as it would deprive them of the monopoly on talented athletes.

I think if there is one thing we all should learn, its that when you call timeout with 40 seconds left in the half while you're up 48-0, run the quick screen to YOUR OWN SIDELINE. That was the only thing I had an issue with....don't run anything to your opponent's bench when you're creaming them

That was the old BCS, wasn't it? Margin of victory was a big deal and lead to stupid score lines, or am I misremembering?

Honestly I don't know what system that Juco league is using but anytime your purposely running scores up to get up in the rankings just asks for trouble.. IMHO

No idea what there actually using

Well, if you're going to JUCO with the intent of going DI, I'm betting you want to go somewhere we can get as many snaps on film as possible. You can't do that if you're taking your foot off the accelerator once you go up by a touchdown.

If you can score 100, you may as well. Its up to the other team to show up and stop you. Also, given the nature of JUCOs, you will have an entirely new roster every year so its not like you need to concern yourself with bulletin board fodder

And that sucks. I'm not a saint and let something slip in front of the kids sometimes, but I do my best not too.

I knew a coach who was new to an area school coaching for a guy in our state's hall of fame. Notorious rough crowd of kids, bad home life, whole 9 yards. On his first day he dropped an F bomb at a kid. The HC called him over and told him that we don't do that around here. His response was "well they hear it at home and in the hallways all the time". HC told him that didn't matter, because on his watch they would get treated the way they should be treated all the time.

I hated how Stephens handled his players in that show. I get that his players had it rough, but by gosh if they aren't human beings who deserve some dignity and respect. I'm all about tough love and hard coaching, but that can be done with MF'ing kids and telling them they shouldn't be recruited. They need someone to believe in them.