The Culver-Stockton Wildcats Need A Shot In The Arm

As much as I hate to admit it, the Culver-Stockton Football Wildcats are about as disappointing as Bill Terlisner’s Quincy University team or former New Orleans Saints head coach Jim Haslett’s St. Louis Rams. The Wildcats can often be a good team, but often gets compared to fish being blown out of water. With the Wildcat squad now 0-4 and 0-3 in the NAIA Heart of America Athletic Conference and coming into Homecoming with a Lindenwood University beating on Saturday 68-12 and coach Christian Guenther’s career record dumbing down to 7-29 in his fourth season as the WIldcats’ rally cry begins to resound louder for a win this season.

With this lack in performance, it should be no wonder why athletic director Rod Walton, athletic boosters and the alumni association haven’t made any demands. They must want a HAAC title or have a national NAIA title sometime! They have been too lenient on demands and even Culver alumni who are still in the sports department, including WGEM’s Tyler Tomlinson, would agree.

It makes me wonder why Guenther and his coaching team are making so many errors with the Wildcat team to accrue such a disappointing 7-29 record in the Guenther administration, which came out of a 1-10 2007 record and is in the middle of Season 4. If they can pull off more than one victory in 2008, it won’t be because of the Guenther playbook, but because the players had more common sense than the coach. These players won’t be such a waste of talent if they just would have gone to UMiami, Oklahoma State, UCLA and the like. Players like Steve Kerr, Tyler Buckman, Dustin Jacoby, Justin Gumm, Ted Daniels, Preston Nicholson, Jeremy Osborne and Ben Mohwinkle all deserve better than that. All other players who have any potential on the team are put on the back burner as long as Guenther remains coach.

If the Wildcats have any chance of finishing 2008 with 2-9 or better, there better be improvements not only on the team, but on the upsetting coaching team, who need to get rid of coaching errors and change up their playbooks. Even your favorite sports editor could tell you that. Mediocrity cannot stick on to Ellison Poulton Stadium at One College Hill much longer in the sports program, especially football. You only get one person who will potentially be drafted into the NFL, but it won’t happen as long as Culver-Stockton remains as the losingest team in the NAIA.

Maybe, just maybe the Blue Expressway will open up on Saturday, October 4 at Homecoming, when they face 1-3 Benedictine University and perhaps pull off their first victory of the season. All they need to do is stop the run, step in and make interceptions, gain yardage and limit the opponents to NO MORE than a two touchdown lead! (In 2007, the Wildcats allowed 437 points or 39.7 points per game.)

One tip for Guenther: Throw away the playbooks and start up a new one! (If you had done this in 2005, you’d be 29-7 and not the opposite.)

IN MY HUMBLE OPINION: I can care less what Wildcat Country thinks of me right now because I am so critical of their football coach. Christian Guenther has only won 7 of 36 games as head coach since starting in 2005. The 2005 and 2007 season were highly disappointing, the 2006 season went through somewhat bumpy and if things don’t change, the 2008 season will be as bad as 2005 and 2007. No offense, but that playbook of his is Crap, with a capital C. (This is even according to high school and college coaches in the Tri-States, who compares his playbook as one stolen from a JFL football coach and mediocre, elementary play planning.)

There should be some real demands for Guenther, who really should deserve another season at Culver-Stockton. Here are some true demands for the athletic department to consider:

1. Win more than three games a season.
2. Offense needs to boost up to no less than 28 ppg.
3. Defense needs to limit opponent offense to no more than two touchdowns a game (or point difference).
4. Do more scouting away from the obvious states (IL, MO, TX, CA, IA…and then some).
5. Reach no less than fifth in the HAAC standings.
6. Win at least one HAAC title and get into the NAIA playoffs.
7. Win at least one NAIA title.
8. Win enough to get out of the NAIA and HAAC forever! (That may be a long time, as the Culver-Stockton football program, which started in 1907, is currently 288-513-31*.)

Coach Guenther probably has at least one season left to do something to prove him worthy to lead the Wildcat squad or he’ll be auto-booted. He needs a turbo booster (for good and effective coaching) in the behind to turn it all around and finish 2008 better than the past three seasons. He has more potential than he thinks he does, but he lets all of the down-talk let him down and it affects the team. He needs to change his offensive and defensive playbooks to be effective and bring more into the win column. Doesn’t he want his team better than they are? He has let three classes of graduating players down, and I’m sure he doesn’t want the Class of 2009 to fall down as victim like the last three years. At 0-4 before Homecoming, the bad performance slowly diminishes any hope of winning a game this season.

My Scorecard:
Coach Guenther: F
Coaching Staff: D
Players: C
Overall Coaching: F
Overall Team: C-

*Statistic came from John Schild, Sports Information Director of Culver-Stockton College.

Jake Leonard is the editor-in-chief of Politics & YouTube In Review, which can be viewed online at http://www.politicsandyoutubeinreview.co.cc. Leonard is also the president and CEO of this website’s parent company, WorldWide Publications & Media, based in Canton, Missouri. Its website can be viewed at http://www.worldwidepublicationsandmedia.co.cc.