"There’s a sense of entitlement with some young kids. ... Kids don’t fear anything. They don’t respect anything.," Capel said.
"But it goes back to me. I’ve done a poor job. I’ve always felt one of my strengths was being able to figure out what buttons to push, how to get best out of guys. I haven’t been able to do that this year.
"It’s been frustrating. Frustrating to me, frustrating for people to watch. It’s embarrassing. I’m ashamed."
"You never sign a team. You sign individuals and you hope they can become a team. That’s something we’ve struggled with all year," Capel said. "You look at the teams that are at the top, they have a definitive guy who is their best player. And no one has a problem with it. No one has a problem saying Sherron Collins (Kansas) is our best player, James Anderson (Oklahoma State) is our best player, Donald Sloan (A&M) is our best player. There are no other agendas besides winning.
"To be completely candid, we’ve struggled with that all year. If I would have said earlier that Willie is our best player, I may have had three guys in the locker room upset. In conference after five-six games, I say Tommy is our best player, still you may have three guys upset in your locker room.
"That falls back on me. Whether it’s Nate Carter, Blake Griffin, Longar Longar for a stretch, I’ve been able to say these guys are our best player and everything has fallen into place and guys have settled into their roles. On a team, everyone has a role. Everyone has to fall in love with their role. You have to love and embrace your role. If you do that, you have the opportunity to be a good team.
"And we haven’t been a good team all year."
5 months ago
ccmachine
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Worst OU team of my life time
I fully realize how ridiculous it sounds, but after reading what Capel had to say after the game and witnessing this atrocious performance all season long I can’t help but think we’d be better off next year just keeping TMG and Cade and literally getting rid of everyone else.
I am happy to see Capel take the brunt of the criticism because I would have been extremely disappointed to get the typical coach speak after a season like this one. For me personally, that goes a long way in restoring my faith in his ability to be the coach of this team in the years to come. By no means had I written him off or anything, but given how god awful we’ve played this year and his inability to get through to any of his players I don’t think I’m alone in starting to worry about his and our program’s future.
It’s going to be a LONG off season for Capel and these players. It will be interesting to see how things shake out and if some of these guys decide OU is not the place for them. I could see any of Gallon, Pledger, Willis, Hardrick, and possibly Fitzgerald leaving. The problem is at this point Capel only has two kids signed and by recent “rumors” appears to be trailing for the seven footer he had his eyes set on. So between losing Crocker and Warren plus any possibly transfers, we need to sign more than two kids just to have bodies for next year. I’d suggest signing some kids who will appreciate the opportunity and make the most of it rather than taking it for granted and expecting everything to be handed to them. From the sound of things, Capel has realized that and I hope to see the results in the kinds of kids he starts to bring into this program.
"We call him The Hammer." - Bob Stoops
I'm glad....
….that Capel admitted he’s done a poor job this year. I can respect that. However, simply admitting the he did a poor job doesn’t necessarily mean that I have confidence that he can turn this around any time soon. In fact, i would have preferred that he tell us how he’s going to change this situation instead of telling us he did a poor job, which was easy to see.
Usually the fall is much faster than the rise back up. It’s obvious that Capel needs to recruit some competitors and leaders, because this team has none.
I agree with both the above comments
This is pretty unique comment by Capel, but it needed to be said. He called out the players, but took the responsibility of the team as well. And this season was a train wreck. Never has such a talented team done so little.
I’ve seen mediocre teams play over there head. I’ve seen good teams play great, and great teams go to the finals. I’ve seen no talented slow footed teams with guys with lots of vowels in their names get blown away. But this season was terrible. Capel needed to say something, and I’m glad he man’ed up. He could have gone all typical “coach speak”, but he didn’t, because this year was not typical. Now….fix it.
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