There's a lot of things about Kramer that just piss me off, so it's not one thing I can single out. It's the culmination of a number of things.Ok man, I'm seriously not trying to pick a fight. But what about Kramer pisses you off so much? And did Durham, or does Huse, or the track coach similarly make you so angry? Were you cut by Kramer? I can not figure out why you have ABSOLUTLEY nothing positive to say about a man who has:
1. Put together the first 5 winning seasons in a row in school history.
2. Produced exciting teams to watch to the point of resuscitating the game day atmosphere to the south of Kagy Boulevard.
3. Beat the Grizzlies more times in the past 5 years than anyone in the last 20.
4. Put over 80,000 miles (that's the past 2 years alone) on a vehicle traveling the state promoting Bobcat Athletics and Montana State University. (Something which, by the way, was not demanded of previous coaches, and thus was not in the job description).
I know there are others. And while I respect your right to voice your opinion, I am trying to understand why it is so strong in one direction.
I've said this before and I'll say it again so there's no confusion. I acknowledge what he has done for the program. To say I've had nothing positive to say about Kramer is simply not true. To date, he's done an excellent job but the productivity has plateaued. But to address your point, yes I have been critical. I think the program has outgrown him. I think he needs to acknowledge the landscape has changed and he needs to change along with it or make room for someone who can.
Yesterday's game is a perfect example. Stupid and idiotic errors that could have cost the team the game. Stupid errors have been an ugly yet recurring part of Kramer's tenure. To call the timeout management and roll punt a circus is an insult to bearded women everywhere. That crap is not something that is beyond anybody's control. It's absolutely within their control. Penalties continue handicap the Cats. Why are there penalties? Because there's little discipline at the individual level. Being a machinegunner in the Marine Corps, I happen to know a little bit about individual discipline and I know a lack of discipline when I see it. The coaching staff and team take one step forward with regards to correcting that stuff and two steps back, it seems.
However, I am actually starting to think you can teach an old dog new tricks. After the Chadron game and my huge tirade, I berated Kramer and the coaching staff for being too predictable. Playing defense against the Cats was pretty formulaic as opposing teams knew there wouldn't be any trickery. It's pretty easy to prepare for an opponent when you know what they WON'T do. Since Chadron, the opposition has been on the business end of a beautiful flea flicker and an incredible fake punt in the Cats' own territory nobody saw coming. Both resulted in touchdowns for the Cats. The one at NAU quieted down the home crowd. The fake punt yesterday boosted the home crowd. There hasn't been any trick plays or deception in these last five years. Now we've seen two instances in the past five weeks. I'm not suggesting I get all the credit, or any credit for that matter, but I never saw anybody else this season calling out for trick plays. Now I'd like to see some hook 'n ladder-iffic trickery (but nothing as goofy as Cal and the Stanford band).
The two-point play is completely idiotic unless you're back is against the wall and there's no other options left. I know all about the cheat sheet / matrix so I don't need a course in that. But allow me to explain where I'm coming from. There seems to be some subconscious phenomena of needing to keep the score "even" and in increments of field goals and touchdowns. This phenomena doesn't seem to be exclusive to the Cats, as I've observed. It's pervasisve across all divisions and conferences. The first time the Cats went for two yesterday they were down by two with 10:49 to play. At that point, the Cats had the wind and the momentum. Everyone seemed to feel another score was on the horizon. If the Cats would have just taken the kick, the score would have been 18-17. If, and a big if, Weber would have scored again, I guarantee they would have tried for two to try and get up by three. If they don't make it, the score is tied (assuming the Cats score again and take a kick, making it 24-24). As it turns out, they didn't score but the Cats did and did in fact make the two. In the end it was all the same. However, I feel it was bad decision making that was fortunate enough to have a good outcome. The game and conference are tough enough without reducing yourself to long shots. It's a lot like the roll punt: it looks good when it works but how often does that really happen?
I feel there should never be a two point conversion unless you're behind, the clock is close to 0:00, and there are literally no other options. I play a ton of backgammon and I learned a long time ago after losing numerous games by one stone that you never forsake points for style. Obviously backgammon and football are different but the lesson is the same: take the points and never leave anything on the table.
Another reason I'm critical of Kramer is for his simple lack of being able to take a compliment. I don't know about you all here, but as a child I was taught to say thank you when receiving a compliment. Again, back to the NAU parking lot beating two years ago where he said We're not that good and they're not that bad. Why can't the Cats put up 60 when they're clicking on all cylinders? After years of heartbreak, any reasonable Cats fan knows a game like that is rare. We don't need to be reminded by the coach in the press. Then after the Colorado game, Kramer said the team couldn't do that again in 100 tries. Really? One hundred? That's quite a few. Again, I think any reasonable fan knows the Cats couldn't do it week in and week out but if they thought they couldn't win why did they take the field? It'd be nice to enjoy big win without the coach implying, "We lucked out," and throwing a big bucket of spit on the celebration.
Another reason I don't really care for Kramer is the embarassing losses. Every coach has an embarassing loss but with Kramer there are too many to say they're coincidences. 2-4 against D-II schools. I would hope I do not need to explain this any further. Two's a trend, three's proof. With each week Chadron kicks butt, the loss seems like less and less of an embarassment, but it's still a loss to a D-II school.
Yet another reason I don't really care for Kramer is the lip service. I take full responsibility for the loss. Really? How? Can anybody provide specific examples that can be independently verified of how he has taken responsibility or been held accountable?
To address an earlier post where you stated Krames doesn't sit here reading message boards, I know that. However, he does have a wife and kids who probably check out the posts. I'm sure he has lots of friends who check out the boards also and let him know if there's anything that requires his attention. Did you know that JD Quinn and Rhett Bomar were busted through a Texas A&M message board? ESPN reported an assistant's wife was reading the A&M message boards and read a post that stated, "I heard Bomar gets paid for doing nothing." Even if the coaches don't actually read the boards themselves, the boards are just another tool by which they can monitor the program. At least Griz backers have to sift through pages and pages of nonsense to get to anything that's actually substantive.
Something else I want to address is that I do not believe it is fair to directly link Kramer with a full stadium each week. There's no question he's partly repsonsible for filling the stadium, but 100% responsible? Is there any proof? The census reports that the population of Bozeman was 27,509 in 2000. In 2003, there was 11.3% growth bringing the population to 30,753. If you project that same rate to 2006, the population in theory would be 34,228. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to track down county statistics but I would think they would show comparable growth. How much of the full stadium can be attributed to the coach and how much can be attributed to the fact that the county has simply grown? Here's the source from where I pulled the information.
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/30/3008950.html
I know Krames has done a lot better job on the booster side than his predecessors and I acknowledge that. As far as putting 80,000 miles on his truck each year visiting potential athletes, I don't know anything about that but I can believe it.
The stuff he does right cannot be an easy accomplishment and for that he deserves a great deal of credit. There's probably few people who can do it. I tip my hat to him in those regards. That's why it makes watching these blunders and stuff he has complete control over an exercise in torture. After the Chadron game, I said the Cats would need to win the conference to get into the playoffs. I knew what I was talking about back then because I've seen it time and time again, year in and year out (actually every long time Cats fan has seen it time and time again). Now, having to win the conference is an indisputable fact. I say history doesn't exactly repeat itself but it sure does rhyme.
If push came to shove I think a lot of people would rather seen a winning team on the field each week rather than one that is good but consistently comes up short of its potential due to embarassing blunders. The two go hand in hand. Even if most people wouldn't, I certainly would.
Let the anti-Cledus poop storm of biblical proportions commence...
