You can usually tell when the tide has begun turning against a coach within his or her organization when the boss starts to give off read-between-the-lines-speak. When pressed about the situation, the GM or owner or AD will use words that seem to show support on the surface but masked a not-so-thinly-veiled understanding to the fans that a change is not out of the question. Thankfully, DOCTOR Daryl Gross is at that point: "We're gonna get his thing fixed, and Greg (Robinson) wants to get it fixed," Gross said. "And he's telling me, 'I'm gonna get it fixed.' I've gotta trust him and believe him. He says he's gonna fix it, I say, 'OK, tell me what you need, we'll get it for you and you can fix it.' You've gotta stand by your people, so we're standing by the guy - but with the caveat that we're gonna make this thing right."
While Gross labored to paint with a diplomatic brush, there was some seepage as to his true feelings . . . and it mattered not at all that Robinson, a man in denial, would later attempt to put some earrings on this barnyard animal of a performance. And never mind that his outfit had been outscored 79-12 in an eight-day stretch.
"I thought," Gross said, "that Washington (which beat SU by 30) was a better team than Iowa coming into this game. And I also looked at Northern Illinois, and Iowa only won that game by 16-3 (the previous week). And I thought that was encouraging for all of us."
Besides, its not like Gross has anything else to do. Courtesy of Big Daddy Drew, my favorite quote of the week sums up his job in a nutshell:
"All AD's do is fire football coaches and cut wrestling teams."