Let me clearly articulate why the “give it time” and “be patient” argument is untenable for Coastal football: This is not 2012. It is not even 2019. In the portal era, the old model of a patient two- or three-year rebuild is mostly fiction, especially at a G6 school. Your best players will likely leave every offseason for more money or a better situation—especially if you’re not competitive on the field. Power programs can (and will) outbid you. What you have in September is largely what you have. You do not get to bank years of development and expect the same roster to still be here when it finally clicks. You’re largely starting all over every season. It is a win-now sport. Programs that treat the first half of a season as an extended tryout watch the talent that could have helped them win walk out the door in December. We more-or-less went through that for 3 seasons. This new staff was hired to pull us out of that spiral. And through five games, things have only gotten worse, with no signs of a turnaround. The only win is against a lowly FCS team, and the losses have not been clean or competitive. They have been games defined by the same self-inflicted problems: double-digit penalties, repeated drops, turnovers at the worst times, poor pass pro, an offense that struggles to run the ball when it matters, and second halves that completely fall apart. Those are not “still installing” problems. Those are discipline problems. Whether that falls on the coaches, the players, or both, it is still showing up week after week. The play-calling doesn’t seem to fit the personnel we actually have. There is still no clear team identity. Other programs with brand-new coaches and portal-heavy rosters have figured out who they are well before the midpoint of Year 1. They run a style, they protect the football, and they stop beating themselves. Coastal has not. Telling fans we need half a year to “figure out who we are” is not patience. It is an admission that the things that decide games in this sport—discipline, schematic fit, and a basic culture—are still missing in October. The portal era does not pause for culture-building, patience or chronic incompetence. Neither do the teams we are supposed to compete with. There’s no grace for “going back to the drawing board” halfway through the season. We already know what this program can look like when it has an identity and refuses to beat itself. Expecting that five games into the season is not impatience. It is the minimum.