• Follow us on Twitter @buckeyeplanet and @bp_recruiting, like us on Facebook! Enjoy a post or article, recommend it to others! BP is only as strong as its community, and we only promote by word of mouth, so share away!
  • Consider registering! Fewer and higher quality ads, no emails you don't want, access to all the forums, download game torrents, private messages, polls, Sportsbook, etc. Even if you just want to lurk, there are a lot of good reasons to register!

Thad Matta (OSU's All Time Winningest Coach & 3x B1G COY, Butler HC)

pitt is an absolute mess, though. it's easier to rebuild a basketball program than it is a football program, but he'd be starting from scratch. then again, pitt does have a history from which to build upon, the expectations would be low, and he'd probably have carte blanche to make the program his own from the ground-up.

Pitt's AD is a former associate AD at tOSU during Matta's tenure. She inherited Stallings, so this is her chance to hire her guy.
 
Upvote 0
Pitt's AD is a former associate AD at tOSU during Matta's tenure. She inherited Stallings, so this is her chance to hire her guy.
yeah, when i heard that a couple days ago, i thought maybe there is some smoke here. perhaps pitt does what osu did and gives matta an 8-year contract offer. then again, the 8-year contract wasn't exactly osu's offer but ho1tmann's demand. no doubt that matta has the same upper hand. the head coaching job for pitt sure as heck ain't a seller's market.
 
Upvote 0
Matta could be holding out to go and clean up at Louisville. I was thinking where both sides would benefit the most, Louisville not being too far from Matta's roots and a really good history of success brothel notwithstanding.

Altogether I personally dont see him taking another gig, at this point.
 
Upvote 0
SKULL SESSION: HOW THAD MATTA TEAMS AVOIDED TURNOVERS

One cool thing about sports is you can sit on your couch and accuse part-time refs of belonging to elaborate conspiracies in effort to assuage cognitive dissonance created by your preferred team playing bad.

But there's a reason good teams don't get called for fouls, and it usually starts with coaching. Here's how Thad Matta's teams evaded refs all those years.

From Sports Illustrated in 2011:

Matta's secret to whistle-avoidance goes beyond merely having long, athletic players and telling them not to foul. One of the foundations of his philosophy came from something he heard while serving as an assistant at Butler in the early '90s, and listening to the Indianapolis radio show of then-Pacers coach Larry Brown. "If you can guard your man when he doesn't have the ball," Matta recalls Brown saying, "then it's 10 times easier to guard him when he gets the ball."

The point being: You avoid fouls and play effective D if you're in quality position ahead of time, not reacting after your man catches a pass. That kind of preparedness can only be achieved through a combination of effort, mental sharpness and advance scouting.

No one on the Buckeyes puts this into practice better than Lighty, a senior who's regarded as one of the nation's most versatile, elite defenders. He regularly draws tough defensive assignments, yet commits just 2.2 fouls per 40 minutes.

"If you do your work early -- fighting hard through screens, and anticipating where your man is cutting without the ball -- then you don't have to worry about fouling as much when he has it," Lighty says. "If we're fouling, that means we're not playing hard enough."

Entire article: https://www.elevenwarriors.com/skul...ootball-joe-burrow-thad-matta-charles-woodson
 
Upvote 0
We’ve been judging Jax by the back cover for years and then we have a meet up before the B1G championship game last year... and you ain’t whistling Dixie... lesson learned... best to not judge by the back cover... especially @Jaxbuck


ZXeI70W.gif
 
Upvote 0
people can quibble about this and that about matta's specific strategic decisions as well as about the waning seasons under him, but, man, i'm gonna be a fan of this guy wherever he goes and whatever he does. thad's just an all-around good dude without ego who did things the right way and represented our program the best that i could hope for.




A quote that will always stick with me from his last press conference when asked how he hoped he’d be remembered...

"I think the last thing I'm always remembered for is that we always did it the right way. That to me, is something I'm going to hang my hat on – that this program was run the right way."
 
Upvote 0
Back
Top