[76lsjumb]

The team appears to be struggling mightily without Plummer. 

That's one way to put it; I can think of others. But one would anticipate some drop-off without the 2-time national player of the year. I'm not surprised that without her we are struggling mightily to play as well as we do with her. That we are still 7-1 in conference play without Plummer might be some evidence of good coaching.

I strongly suspect the 2016 team would not have won the natty without Plummer. They even sometimes "struggled mightily" with her; at one point they were 5-4 in conference play.

Of course Hambly can never be a "complete" national championship coach until he wins it with all his own players, but in the meantime we have more data points by which to judge his coaching than just the team's current performance. We would not have won the national championship last year without the stunning improvement of both Alade and Campbell, and that improvement must be attributed to his coaching. Saying he was "on the sideline" while the junior class won the natty last year seems a bit harsh to me. His recruiting seems to be excellent. He is a former National Coach of the Year, an award he managed to win without the current senior class. The many current football threads on this forum (Shaw is the worst; Shaw is the best) have helped me think it is best to judge coaching performance over periods longer than partial seasons. There can be all kinds of reasons apart from coaching why teams underperform expectations for a time.

Well said. For more details one can check out his Wikipedia bio.  Maybe he can’t coach his way out of a paper bag, but, if so, he’s sure fooled a lot of people over the past 10 years...  :-)

[76lsjumb]

The team appears to be struggling mightily without Plummer. 

That's one way to put it; I can think of others. But one would anticipate some drop-off without the 2-time national player of the year. I'm not surprised that without her we are struggling mightily to play as well as we do with her. That we are still 7-1 in conference play without Plummer might be some evidence of good coaching.

I strongly suspect the 2016 team would not have won the natty without Plummer. They even sometimes "struggled mightily" with her; at one point they were 5-4 in conference play.

Of course Hambly can never be a "complete" national championship coach until he wins it with all his own players, but in the meantime we have more data points by which to judge his coaching than just the team's current performance. We would not have won the national championship last year without the stunning improvement of both Alade and Campbell, and that improvement must be attributed to his coaching. Saying he was "on the sideline" while the junior class won the natty last year seems a bit harsh to me. His recruiting seems to be excellent. He is a former National Coach of the Year, an award he managed to win without the current senior class. The many current football threads on this forum (Shaw is the worst; Shaw is the best) have helped me think it is best to judge coaching performance over periods longer than partial seasons. There can be all kinds of reasons apart from coaching why teams underperform expectations for a time.

Well said. For more details one can check out his Wikipedia bio.  Maybe he can’t coach his way out of a paper bag, but, if so, he’s sure fooled a lot of people over the past 10 years...  :-)