Karcher must be removed from the head coach's office, or we will end up stuck where we are, barely able to survive against the same level of competition we are currently playing. There is no way around it.
Karcher does not have what it takes to lead a team to victory. I know what it takes to win. I have been a student of the game all my life. When I was growing up in NE Colorado, my (at different times) mother, father and (mostly) grandmother would hold me while watching as much football as came on TV. I played 4 years of high school ball for a team that lost 4 games in 4 years and essentially lived in the coach's office. I would play here, but I'm too skinny and I cannot fix that despite my best efforts (those of you who have recognized me by now know that of which I speak).
Do not get me wrong: Karcher is a good coach with a good track record, and off the field, he is without question the best coach in the NCAA. But, after being a career QB coach for so long, I think he came here and got too much responsibility, too fast and is just wearing too many hats. The evidence:
1. Karcher's playcalling, while not neccessarily bad, is redundant and predictable (and calling back-to-back WR screens is just plain dumb in ANY situation).
2. While he can get the big prospect, his priorities on the recruiting trail are seriously out of alignment.
3. His choices of what to do with recruits once they come here are simply delusional. For example, over the last 4 years, he took a RB named Chris Green, turned him into a CB, made him an excellent corner (#3 on last year's depth chart), then moved him back to RB last spring after losing our top 2 CBs to graduation, watching our #4 CB walk out, and recruiting three (3!) excellent RBs. Then he watched with genuine shock(?!) as Youngstown State absolutely embarassed our corners with a WR that, had he stayed at CB in the spring, Green could have run with.
4. His problems with (of all positions) QB. In 2K3, we had a redhirt senior named Condon and a redshirt sophomore named Painter. Everyone believed that Painter was a better, more mobile quarterback with a better arm and better field vision, but Karcher started Condon. Understandable, seeing the time and loyalty the man had given to Liberty football. But he started him THE ENTIRE SEASON! LU went 3-8, and Condon finished with 5TD/10INT, compared with Painter's stats (3TD/1INT in trash time with 2nd string offense, but usually still against the enemy's 1st string D). Then when he learned that, because of the transfer of a man named Troth from ECU, he would not get more than mop-up duty until his senior year, he left the Mountain, complaining loudly about Karch as he went. Then, in 2K4, we had redshirt senior Troth, a redshirt junior named Farrell and a redshirt freshman named Johnson. Troth then proceeded to be the biggest flop since Ryan Leaf. Except Leaf had better stats. But through loss after embarassing loss, Karcher refused to bench him until the season was completely lost, because he had moved heaven and earth to convince him to transfer. Finally after LU was 2-5 and Troth had 1TD/8INT (statistically speaking, the worst quarterback in the history of LU and Big South football), Karch finally gave up Troth's ghost. But did he start Johnson, the #1QB prospect in Va. just 2 years previous and the obvious future of the program? No, he started Farrell, who won 4 games that, let's face it, Karcher would have been fired if we had lost. They were that gimme. Because of what seemed to be a knife in the back from Karch, Johnson is now playing baseball (BASEBALL!) at a D-II school in Alabama. What's worse, this caused Ryan Grigsby, our #2 reciever in 2K4 and the man who would now be our starting WR and our #1 return man, to leave as well. So instead of having Painter, who would be a redshirt senior with 2 years of starting exp., and Johnson throwing to a recieving corps of Williams, Grigsby, Edwards, Jackson and Taylor, we have Farrell and Smith leading us to what will probably be a 2-9 season. How special... needs.
5. His D-line does not stay low off the ball (the fact that they do not simply get embarassed every single play because of this is a testament to their skill and will to win) and the O-line has the worst leverage of any team I have ever seen, played, or heard of. Just watch for this at games: at the start of every play, the first movement of every single offensive lineman is up, not out. They actually get lower in pass protection then they do in run blocking. Now, if you have any personal experience with football AT ALL, you know that the second rule of playing O-line (the first is Thou Shalt Know Thy Snap Count At All Times, Without Excuse) is Thou Shalt Not Stand Straight Up Immediately Following The Snap, But Fire Out Horizontally Instead. The reason for this rule is simple: if your center of gravity is lower than your opponent, then you will automatically have better leverage then your opponent, which multiplies and amplifies your strength and skill. I would postulate that leverage is more important than skill or strength in blocking. For example, about 6 years ago, some anonymous
skinny (then 6'2",141lb) high school freshman went downfield in kickoff coverage and ran into a 6'1", 260lb, senior OL who was all-conference the previous year and knocked the big man butt-over-bandbox. Now how did that happen? While the giant was clearly stronger and more skilled and probably just as quick, the kid simply got lower than he did and used simple 6th-grade-level physics and geometry to send the guy to the thick-cut grass. Now, if some skinny frosh can do that, how much more awe-inspiring would a leverage advantage be in the hands of Kevin Inge?
6. Sloppy, stupid mistakes by upperclassmen at crucial moments. How many critical moments on offense this season have been ruined by a senior forgetting the snap count or going the wrong way or throwing a bad pass or missing a critical coverage downfield? In the 2nd quarter of the Youngstown State game, one redshirt senior was called for false start two plays in a row at an extremely crucial juncture, turning a 3rd&2 near midfield into 3rd&12 at the 38. Whose fault is that? The guy with the 3.something GPA, or the coach who had 5 years to teach him to remember the snap count? Brock Farrell's misguided (though heroic) INT against Coastal; was that mental foux pas his fault, or does the blame fall on the man who has had 4 years to teach him what to do in that situation? And don't forget the untimely delay of game penalties, which are
[glow=red,2,300]ALWAYS[/glow] the fault of whomever is wearing the headset.
7. Last, and possibly most important of all, THE TACKLING!!! My teammates in high school were surer, if not neccessarily better, tacklers than almost everyone here. This is absolutely unacceptable and inexcusable.
These problems, and others, have been maddening. But even more so was the extension. I attended every home game last year and saw one of the most obvious cases of underachieving I have ever seen in sports. And then the most guilty party gets 125K/yr? I remember saying as much and recieving the same general reaction everywhere: Karcher's a great coach who just gave us a winning record and is turning the program around. My reaction (which generally went ignored) was How can you say that the program is turning around? Last year Liberty had the best roster in school history. We were at least 2-deep at every single position. We had 4 all-BSC caliber O-linemen, one of the 5 best RBs in 1-AA, a man with 2 years' playing exp. at pass-happy ECU and a year in Karcher's system under his belt at QB, 3 returning WRs, and the best defensive lineup in the BSC (imagine how good that lineup could have been had Karch had the wherewithal to redshirt DeBerry and get an injury redshirt for Howard). With that team, we should have had 9+Ws and a trip to the quarterfinals AT LEAST! And we still had to limp to a winning season with a 4 game streak against teams that were a collective 7 games under .500. All in all, the most disappointing performance I have ever seen or heard of. However, the cupboard is not completely bare. We are still Liberty University. We still have the talent to be a playoff team for the next 2 years at least... if we develop it properly. We will have the best facilities in the BSC after the new building is finished, and if we ever get rid of that shag carpet we play on
, we will have the best stadium in-conference as well. But all it takes is one man to throw it all away and sentence us to an eternity of mediocrity in the purgatory of I-AA. This man is Ken Karcher. Now, I love the man. In fact, I can't think of a man who would make a better QB coach (recent woes included). But we MUST get a new head coach. 30 years from now, Liberty students will stand in their dorm rooms on a campus of 20-30K undergrads with windows looking out on the School of Medicine/University Hospital or the 20K-seat basketball/hockey/chapel arena with dozens of banners hanging in the rafters and say that the winter of 2005-06 was where the course of Liberty football was set. That this was the time that determined whether Williams stadium stayed a 12K seat hole in the ground or became a 50K seat coliseum hosting classic battles with VT or FSU or, yes, ND. This program is ready and just dying to take the next step on its almost preordained march to greatness, but I do not think Ken Karcher is currently equipped to lead us to that higher level. He can't even compete on this one. Simply put, we all deserve better.