Ty Watches "Last Chance U" Season 4
/It seems like the last 2 years right around this time of year I find myself giving a review of the Netflix show "Last Chance U", and today, I will be doing that very thing.
I just finished the fourth season last night, and this season was quite a doozy. The first 2 seasons of the show featured a pretty prominent Junior College football team in Mississippi. They had some good players, a loud coach and won. They were established as a junior college powerhouse. It was interesting to hear these kids stories, and pick sides, I pretty much always took the players side.
The show then shifted in season 3 to a new juco in Kansas. This team, Independence Community College, was a bottom of the barrel squad. They never had a winning record, at one point they were in the midst of a 14 game losing streak, they hadn't been to a bowl games in decades and they had never won any of the bowl games they were in when they made bowl games. Then they hired a volatile new coach, Jason Brown, and he was starting to turn things around. In his first year, while they still held a losing record, he stopped the horrid 14 game losing streak, and he had his team playing some solid football by the end of the year. Then he had a full offseason to recruit, and recruit he did. This is where season 3 picked up. He had gotten some of the top D1 transfers to come play at this small school in Kansas. They had a QB who was at Florida State. There were a few other guys that saw some snaps on other big time D1 schools, but had bad grades or run ins with the law or school, and they were kicked off their teams. His team was pretty good, and in Brown's second season, the Independence Pirates won the conference, and made their first bowl game in a long time, which they won. He did all this with some good players, but, he is a brash, no nonsense guy that has hustled his way to where he was at the time. He curses like a sailor. He drinks, by his own admission, too much. He constantly yells at his players and fellow coaches. Guys would leave for other jobs, or get fired, simply because Brown did not like them. There is a lot of screaming matches on the sidelines during season 3. I do have to say, while it made me uncomfortable at times, it was riveting TV.
I was excited to see season 4. I would check occasionally for updates, and then I want to say in early August, I was made aware that the new season was available to stream. I do need to say, I already knew going into this season that Brown was forced to resign because of a very insensitive text exchange with a German player, more on that in a minute. So I was curious to see how everything was going to unfold. When I started watching, about a week ago, the first episode of the season started out with Brown gushing over all his new talent. He had one of the top dual threat QB's, a few solid receivers, the number one rated juco D lineman and a crop of solid linebackers and defensive ends. This was going to be a big year in Independence. They were picked in the preseason to win the league, and were a national title favorite. And after one game, they looked the part. But, their dual threat QB would get injured on the second play of the game, which should have been an ominous sign. After that first game, the season went to hell. They lost 8 straight games. It was brutal to watch. This team, beaming with talent, just couldn't put it together. They would have a few miscues, the coaches would get into it, and the game would be lost. They seemingly did it to themselves all year long. After the QB got hurt, they went to the backup, and after one or 2 mistakes, they would take him out and out in the third guy. It got so bad that they brought the former FSU player back. That really messed with what little stability this team had. When they couldn't decide on a QB, the offense went to shit. This was rough for the defense. They were constantly put in horrid situations that no team could recover from. Then, when the offense had the occasional spark, the defense would find a way to blow leads. I do need to say this though, the defense was much, much better than their offense. I put very little blame on that unit. During the losing streak things got rough both on and off the field. The players started to lose any interest in playing like a team. It turned into guys just trying to get film work to get a scholarship. The coaches then started to bicker. Then some other players started to stop going to class. Then Jason Brown started to cut guys for no reason and fire coaches who already said they were leaving at the end of the year. While I think Jason Brown knows the game of football well, what he needs to work on, according to what was filmed, are his people skills. This all came to a head for me in 2 instances during this 4th season.
The first was when he cut his best receiver because he smelled like weed, and then started to bash him, this coming from the player mind you, to coaches recruiting him. The second was the text incident I mentioned earlier. He had a redshirt QB from Germany on his team that he let be team manager during his redshirt year. This kid did what was asked of him, and because he wasn't right on time to hang a poster for Brown, he called him a "German fuck", and said, "I am your new Hitler". Look, I understand letting your emotions get the best of you. It happens to me every Tuesday at my rec league basketball games. But I have never verbally abused anyone, and I wouldn't even think to compare myself to a horrific dictator that murdered so many people. This was too far. As I said, I think Brown knows the game of football enough, but he has awful people skills. When all this came to light I thought he would be more apologetic, or at least show some kind of sympathy. Instead, he called himself "old school", said that he could be someone else's "treasure", blamed the kid and said, "if you do the crime, you have to do the time". He never once apologized. That is far too prideful even for me. This could have easily been a non story, and something that was solved quickly, but Brown didn't want it that way. It was a bad season, that did not live up to expectations, Brown blamed everyone but himself, cut good kids for no reason and fought constantly with his players and coaches. He let his emotions run him. Even I think he would admit that. That was my biggest takeaway from the fourth season, how pride can get in the way, and when things go bad, the best way to handle them would be the exact opposite of what Jason Brown did in Independence, Kansas. I'm sure he will get another chance to coach somewhere, but for Brown, this one incident will, unfortunately, be what he is always remembered for.
That being said, if you like "Last Chance U", this recent season was cringe worthy and great. I highly recommend it. Just know that it gets real nasty at the end, and that it is like watching a train wreck, where the train decides that everyone else is to blame.
Ty
Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. One time in his rec league another player told Ty that he was his Lech Walesa. Ty has no idea what that means.
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