[quote name='Javery']If Rick made it to the finals instead of Sophie I think Coach would have won and I'd be OK with that. No one was going to vote for Rick. Sophie got some sympathy votes and some votes for winning those challenges (getting rid of Ozzy made her look stronger than she actually was). She probably also benefited from idiots voting because they were bitter and didn't want Coach to win since he was perceived as running the show.
I am also glad this season is over and I hope they really change things up next time. Ozzy got voted out THREE times this year - surely that is a record that will never be broken or even tied. They need to go back to one and done. You get voted out you are actually out. It makes everything matter way more. Every episode this year (and last year) there is no payoff at the end because you know that there is a possibility that whoever was voted out will come back.[/QUOTE]
Pretty much agree with this whole post. While I did enjoy this season because I felt Coach played essentially a perfect game (aside from maybe winning a few challenges that would have shown him to be a more dominant physical presence), it really bothered me that Sophie won over him. Albert's line about them "carrying" Coach was a bunch of crap. Yes, they maybe had a large role in winning challenges and keeping the numbers, but I think without Coach's experience and his steady hand, they would have turned on each other far sooner (Albert almost did multiple times) and ruined everything.
Despite Coach's "lies", he made sure they stuck together and put that group of 5 in the best position to win. And the fact that he did so without anyone EVER considering voting him off really says something. I hated Coach's sympathy for Ozzie because it just as easily could have been Ozzie with 3 tribe members against Coach by himself, had he entertained the idea of playing any kind of social game. Ozzie alienated himself the entire season, so that's how he deserved to go out. In my opinion, the two returning players were the strongest: Ozzie physically and Coach socially.
But Sophie wins by default because people are bitter at Coach. Even though Sophie voted right along with Coach the entire time, he gets the blame because he was the "leader". I wish he would have pointed that out at tribal though. Sophie matched him vote for vote the entire game. In that regard, I almost feel like the returning players were at a disadvantage. There was really no way either of them could fly under the radar and not be looked to for leadership. Then, at the end, everybody is mad about "their" decisions. Seems like the only two people on the jury who didn't have a high school mentality were Edna and Cochrane (probably the two people that Coach screwed the most). It's ridiculous that some people seem to forget that they're playing a game of deception for $1 million.
could have still lost that final challenge and would have been okay, except he screwed Coach over. Coach said he wanted to take the strongest to the end, not the stupidest.