NCAAbbs

Ole Miss quarterback walks away from team
By Scott Cacciola

April 9, 2007

His decision was so sudden, his walk off the field so short, hardly anyone at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium noticed.
But when Cliff Davis disappeared into the locker room early in the fourth quarter of Ole Miss

I don't see what the big deal is. A walk-on decided he didn't want to play anymore.

Wow, a thread about someone's 5th string QB.

Well now that I read it again it's not as big a deal as I thought it was scanning it and seeing the bleeps and it being placed as a main story on CA.com

fsquid Wrote:Wow, a thread about someone's 5th string QB.

I fell asleep and hit my head on the desk.

I'm out. Tommy, consider this my official notice.

I am sure shrek said "okay", but I thought according to Mississippi fans he was their number one option until saturday. Now their 4th stringer is the best they have, but they are not going to tell us.

Jeff

fsquid Wrote:Wow, a thread about someone's 5th string QB.

What gives? Did you have a bad weekend???

I'm just wondering if he had he been at Memphis would Tommy not have been honest and up front with him. We'll never know for sure but it sounds like the Ole Miss coaches chose not to be...almost hoping he'd quit so they wouldn't have to deal with it. Yeah, he's a 5th stringer but everyone deserves a little respect.

Oh well......

.

Tigers2640 Wrote:Davis, meantime, did not take a snap. He said he had been assured by the coaching staff in the days leading up to the game that he would play. He said he was disappointed.

This is the relevant quote in the article, IMO. Assuming no sour grapes, Coach O and company lied which certainly will tend not to build the team's morale.

gwade56 Wrote:I'm just wondering if he had he been at Memphis would Tommy not have been honest and up front with him. We'll never know for sure but it sounds like the Mississippi coaches chose not to be...almost hoping he'd quit so they wouldn't have to deal with it. Yeah, he's a 5th stringer but everyone deserves a little respect.

Oh well......

.

I agree and I think you've identified with what the REAL story is here, not that a 5th teamer quit. The story is that he felt like he was strung along until it came time to actually put him in the game and the coaching staff backed away. I'm sure that happens on a lot of teams with a lot of coaching staffs, but there continues to be a LOT of reasons for players to leave OM. In this case it's someone who wasn't going to play, but that's not been the case with some of the others.

oldtiger Wrote:

gwade56 Wrote:I'm just wondering if he had he been at Memphis would Tommy not have been honest and up front with him. We'll never know for sure but it sounds like the Mississippi coaches chose not to be...almost hoping he'd quit so they wouldn't have to deal with it. Yeah, he's a 5th stringer but everyone deserves a little respect.

Oh well......

.

I agree and I think you've identified with what the REAL story is here, not that a 5th teamer quit. The story is that he felt like he was strung along until it came time to actually put him in the game and the coaching staff backed away. I'm sure that happens on a lot of teams with a lot of coaching staffs, but there continues to be a LOT of reasons for players to leave OM. In this case it's someone who wasn't going to play, but that's not been the case with some of the others.

Logic has no place on this board, and you know it. Knock it off.

FtWorthTiger Wrote:I am sure shrek said "okay"

But Davis thought the marbled mouth ogre said "You'll play".

You can understand the confusion and disappointment when it is all put into context.

If a "walk-on" walks off? Oh nevermind

gwade56 Wrote:I'm just wondering if he had he been at Memphis would Tommy not have been honest and up front with him. We'll never know for sure but it sounds like the Mississippi coaches chose not to be...almost hoping he'd quit so they wouldn't have to deal with it. Yeah, he's a 5th stringer but everyone deserves a little respect.

Oh well......

.

Why would they want him to quit? He was a walk on, but he was only a walk on because he had a deal with the Astros where they would pay his scholarship if he chose to go back to school. If he hadn't already had a free ride by the Astros, he'd have been offered a scholarship. Since it wasn't costing us a scholarship to have him on the team, I don't see why we would have been trying to run him off. I could understand if he was taking up a scholarship that we would need later for another player, but he wasn't even on scholarship.

Also, you have to remember that in 2008, all we'll have at QB is going to be Snead and Herrick. Davis would have been one of only 3 QBs returning. He may have been 4th string at this point (Snead doesn't count since he can't play), but he'd have been at worst third string next fall. Now we definitely have to focus on finding a QB for our 2008 recruiting class to give us some depth.

He was down on the depth chart though, and I can understand if the coaches hadn't put him in going into the fourth since we had 4 other QBs that they wanted to see before him. For all he knows, they were planning on playing his snaps in the 4th quarter, but he walked off before they got a chance to put him in. Given that he was probably the third teamer for whichever team they put him on, it would probably make sense that he wouldn't see action until late in the scrimmage. To me, it sounds more like he realized he wasn't going to be able to get it done anymore, so he left the team. The fact that he didn't get snaps early in the scrimmage just solidified it for him. It sounded like he's more frustrated with himself than anything else.

Phillip26r Wrote:

fsquid Wrote:Wow, a thread about someone's 5th string QB.

What gives? Did you have a bad weekend???

Yes I did. However, my spirits were lifted back up yesterday afternoon. That's baseball.

bmglennreb Wrote:.........He was a walk on, but he was only a walk on because he had a deal with the Astros where they would pay his scholarship if he chose to go back to school. If he hadn't already had a free ride by the Astros, he'd have been offered a scholarship.......

All I can say is WOW. If that's allowable under NCAA rules, why bother even having the NCAA?

fsquid Wrote:

Phillip26r Wrote:

fsquid Wrote:Wow, a thread about someone's 5th string QB.

What gives? Did you have a bad weekend???

Yes I did. However, my spirits were lifted back up yesterday afternoon. That's baseball.

You got that right. I thought it was gonna be an ugly weekend after that game Friday night.

oldtiger Wrote:

bmglennreb Wrote:.........He was a walk on, but he was only a walk on because he had a deal with the Astros where they would pay his scholarship if he chose to go back to school. If he hadn't already had a free ride by the Astros, he'd have been offered a scholarship.......

All I can say is WOW. If that's allowable under NCAA rules, why bother even having the NCAA?

It was part of his contract. When he negotiated coming out of high school, he wanted to cover himself in case he didn't make it to the bigs. He didn't make it and was released, so as part of that deal, the Astros were to cover his tuition wherever he decided to go. So he walked on at Ole - Miss but was on a free ride from the Astros. It's not exactly a common thing for it to happen, but it has happened before. Guys like Matt Mauck and Chris Weinke both played pro baseball before coming back to college. I'm not sure if they had similar deals in their contracts like Davis did, but it's not overly common to hear about it either way.

By the way, I heard more about the reason he quit when he did. Apparently, the coaches had told him he'd play Saturday, and they were even saying he would at halftime of the game, and not just to him, which makes me think they really intended to get him in. Then early in the 4th he went up and asked Werner, I believe, when he'd get in, and Werner more or less told him it wasn't going to happen that day. So he walked off. Apparently he and the coaching staff (not just Orgeron) didn't see eye to eye on a lot of things. He wasn't performing all that well and therefore probably wasn't going to play for us either way, which probably was a factor in his decision, but it wasn't the only factor.

As for me, I don't really agree with the way this was handled. Basically we had a player on our team that was there for free (no scholarship needed), and he had had a lot of talent coming out of high school. Not that we should have been bending over backwards for him, but we definitely had no reason to want him off the team, so you'd think that they'd want to keep things in good standing.

Is anybody more surprised that the godsend/heisman candidate Brent Schaeffer is now the #2 qb.

A) what does this say about the hype of brent last year?
B) what does this say when brent lost out to a qb who was 2nd string at Delta State, and only threw for 177 yards last year.

wow

Am I the only one that every time I hear Brent Schaffer's name I think of Vernon's song????

georgiatiger Wrote:

fsquid Wrote:Wow, a thread about someone's 5th string QB.

I fell asleep and hit my head on the desk.

How big was the hole in the desk?

salukiblue Wrote:Is anybody more surprised that the godsend/heisman candidate Brent Schaeffer is now the #2 qb.

A) what does this say about the hype of brent last year?
B) what does this say when brent lost out to a qb who was 2nd string at Delta State, and only threw for 177 yards last year.

wow

To be fair to Brent, I think he could excel in a different style system. I don't think he'd ever have NFL type skills, but in a wide open offense that allowed him to utilize his legs more, he'd be doing much better. Instead, we've got a very bland pro-style (Cutcliffe-style) offense in place, and we've seen how well that works with him.

Rich Rodriguez has shown what can be done if you adapt to your personnel. He's adapted so well that most people forget that he made his name as a coach with a pass-first offense. Obviously he adapted that to his personnel at WVU and kept winning.

Again, not saying Brent would've been a world beater anywhere else, but I do think the system is part of his problem. Personally I hope Werner finds another job soon, because I'm not a big fan of his. You have to adapt your offense to your personnel. Guys like he and Cutcliffe have a system and try to teach their personnel that system.

Your own Randy Fichtner is good at adapting to his personnel. With Wimprine under center, he ran the spread and often threw to open up the run for DeAngelo. Then, with Danny gone and all the injuries at QB in 2005, he went to an offense with Avery at QB and had success using Avery and DeAngelo to primarily run the ball. Most places can't recruit well enough to run the same offense every year without tweaking to fit personnel. UT and Miami are both places that can afford to do that, so guys like Werner and Cutcliffe never learned there would ever be a need to change their systems. Honestly, I was hoping Werner would leave and Hugh Freeze would take over as OC. He'd be creative and keep teams off balance.

Hey, bmglennreb, I have a question for you. And I do not mean this in any way to stir up controversy. I'm just asking.

My girlfriend works with the wife of one of Orgeron's coaches who was fired back when he was in his first season, and he said that almost everyone on staff right now, has been fired by Orgeron but asked to come back. She said that she couldn't really get into anything specific, but that the whole situation down in Oxford is really volatile. She said that the coaches don't really get along with each other, and that her husband thinks that it is only a matter of time before Orgeron really blows up and ends up losing his job.

This sounded a lot like sour grapes to me. And I know Chancellor Khayat very well, and he doesn't seem like the type of person to let this happen. But, some of the stories that I've heard from football players that basically sit the bench is that he is just really crazy.

Again, I'm not trying to stir up trouble. And like I said before, this was a couple of years ago; I was just wondering if you had heard anything like this before.

Well, I don't know much about the relationships of the coaches other than the fact that the staff during his first year was pieced together and never really had any chemistry. That's probably the main reason why he had a near complete overhaul in his first season. The turnover between the 2006 and 2007 seasons was closer to average turnover than the previous year. That said, I wouldn't doubt that some of the stories you heard are probably true or at least are close to the truth. With that 2005 staff, I know they had a lot of altercations and butted heads a whole lot.

Obviously he does have a volatile personality and demands a lot of his assisstants. I can't speak much for how he'll turn out at Ole Miss, but I think his personality is one of the main reasons why our staff is so young as a whole. I don't think a whole lot of guys who have been around for a while would mesh well with the way he does things.