I think people were upset with the fireronzook.com or whatever it was because it pushed the program in the wrong direction. It forced a guy who was not a strong ceo leader type person into the arms of the players. This made the relationship worse.
The “noise in the system” and general pressure to win now contributed to a number of mistakes by Zook. A major one was reaching for a number of JuCo guys who weren’t SEC caliber to plug gaps on both lines, which also got a depleted roster out of balance.
But a strong, grounded and focused leader would ignore outside distractions, commit to a plan and might even absorb a down year for the sake of future excellence. And he would sell that to players, recruits, parents, boosters, fans, etc. Zook was in over his head. He couldn’t even see it, much less do it.