The Fake Lonnie Finch

Forgot about BYU. Sorry, Perry. Looks like Nevada is a good enough replacement, though.

A loss to North Dakota

Look, I am desperately hoping for better. I am clinging to a fantasy that this thing will turn around. I want to believe there are 9 wins in this team. But...the same mistakes over and over and over again. You just start to wonder whether this thing is even close. The scores look close. I guess it just gets weary losing. Like a dog that's been beat too much, I'm now curling up at the first sign of trouble.

Yeah, they must suck. But, the MWC will be monsters with those guys, BYU, TCU, and Fresno.

Over. Announcers just said 45 different college coaches visted Nevada this summer to study the Wolfpack's "Pistol" offense. I wonder if Canales or Dodge were among them.

Nevada intercepts with less than 2 minutes left...game over. Wow! What a game! Cal with Tedford coaching and a senior QB. Wow.

Wow! This is why people don't like to give non-BCS school home-and-home games. Side note: How much is Giovanna Vizza regetting not taking the scholarship to Nevada? Yeah, he'd be riding the pine behind Keapernick (sp?), but the Wolfpack have been to like six or seven bowls in a row and will be half way to bowl eligibility yet again after tonight's win with 10 games left on their schedule. We talk about Boise State a lot; I'd settle for Nevada's success.

When Mangino was there yelling at them, not coddling them, they played with more of an edge. Gill will baby them and they will turn to the mush the were under Terry Allen. Beating Georgia Tech is just stopping the run. Gap discipline. When a mistake is amde, taking the correct pursuit angle to back up.

Agree. And, the dream of beating Kansas State will be even more dim if we can't stop the run, given that they may have the best tailback in the Big 12. So much rides on these next two games.

I'm thinking it is. If we can't beat Army - a school with an offense so skewed to the run - I think the players will be mentally done. Many people are talking about injuries. It doesn't matter. We have had five seasons in a row of losing. Injuries? Well, if your team is deep enough, you can still get by. I just don't think the recruiting has been such that we have that kind of depth. If Army beats us, it means we can't defend the run. And, as much as I loved Deloach's defense in the early oughts, it will be hard to defend any coach on the staff, from the top on down, if this thing goes badly tomorrow. At the beginning of the week, I still had some confidence that this thing could take off. After seeing very strong performances by upcoming opponents, even in losses, I'm now not sure we can so much as break even in the Sun Belt - even if we were at full strength. I hope I'm wrong, but I'm teetering again towards reality. Reality is as I said it was last year: Our football program doesn't exist in a vacuum. Everyone else has been practicing and getting better as well. All things being the same, we still are what we are, and Troy/MTSU/FAU, etc. still are what they are. And, that's not good for us. I'm glad the game is early, so we'll have a clear picture by the afternoon of whether this team has any fight left in it for the long haul. If not, four years of this regime and six years of losing is enough. RV should then do the right thing at that point and start calling real pros at the college football game.

We're using the U-back more as a blocker now because Mosley's injury. I don't think we've seen, here, what a U-back can do...if the intention is to run it the way schools like Tulsa do. If that's not the intention, just call the position what it is when you don't use it as a potential offensive weapon - fullback.

There goes my hero. Watch him as he goes.

You're overthinking it, Nova. Football is a game where men hit each other hard while running, jumping, twisting, and turning. No matter what you do, there are going to be some injuries. We're unlucky so far this year... ...or, are we? Could it be that this weekend will be the unveiling of the Derek Thompson Dynasty of Sun Belt titles? It could be. Let's see what this kid can do before we throw all of the playbook, and our hopes, out the window.

I predicted we'd beat them both...handily. And, if my tea leaves a right, I still think the defense can stop the option this weekend. My only concern is that whatever good the defense does, it may be undone by crappy special teams play and questionable play calling in key situations.

Illinois has squeezed one winning season (2007) out of Ron Zook since he took over in 2005. They don't seem to mind not challenging for the Big Ten title year in and year out.

Nova Scotia! Wow! I once saw your Anne Murray in concert. She was very chatty between songs and talked a bit about New Scotland. I never knew Nova Scotia was New Scotland until I went to that Anne Murray concert. She's very engaging.

Yep, McCarney for sure. Although, as DL coach at Florida, you wonder if he'll tire of piling up rings enough to come help pull us out of a ditch. One thing I'll say about McCarney is he did recruit Texas pretty good, and Florida. I went to law school with a kid that played for him at Iowa State and had nothing but good things to say about him.

Really? So, bring in Thompson to hand off the Dunbar...or Hamilton. Anyone else here think the 6-1/220 pound Jeremi Mathis might have been helpful in this situation? Did that kid maybe see some things in the gameplan before he left that we are now seeing on the field?\ Anyway. Saturday is a new day. We'll see how it all shakes out.

Believe it or not, Locksley was the offensive coordinator at Illinois. They had exactly one winning season the four years he was there. By some freak of nature, they went to the Rose Bowl in 2007...and got waxed by USC. Frankly, I'm not sure Illinois gives a damn about their football program. Ron Zook has been there for five seasons, and has only one winning campaign to show for it, the mystery 2007 season. He opened this season with his fourth consecutive loss to Missouri in that border battle. The truth is Locksley sucks just as much as the Illinois program he left. How New Mexico got suckered into that hire after having former player Rocky Long lead them to heights they'd never seen before in football is surely one of the greatest current football mysteries. We've got to be sure we're not flummoxed into the same type of hire - a guy who was part of a staff that had one winning season in four (Darrell Dickey/SMU, anyone?). That's why I say the next hire should be not just a known entity, but a well known entity. Everyone listed so far pretty much fits that description. I'd surely welcome Dirk Koetter as well as Glen Mason. Or, anyone cut from the same mold - proven winners, but unable to satisfy BCS fanbases. Folks, when Mason was fired, he had just led Minnesota to their fifth consecutive bowl game! Minnesota had never been to five consecutive bowl games in their history. Even now, they've only gone to 14...and Mason led them to seven of those, and has three of the school's five all-time bowl wins. And, that wasn't good enough? Look, there are some underappreciated guys out there...sitting in TV booths, standing on other schools' or NFL teams' sidelines, or sitting at home. If Dirk Koetter and the like are "scraps"...give me scraps! Anything is better than perpetual losing with no end in sight. Pull one of these scraps off the heap and lets get back to winning.

Okay.

Maybe RV didn't think we were being outcoached again - on this thread or the other.

I saw Mason on the Big Ten channel this weekend, that's why I thought of him. He's a commentator. What a waste of football knowledge. The guy had Kansas winning 10 games in the mid 90s after being Big 8 patsies for years. He brings Minnesota back to respectability and gets shown the door for it. I can't recall off hand, but I think he had Minnesota at 10 wins for a season or two as well. But, that's the thing at the top conferences, you just piddle around and make bowls, maybe jump up and win 9 or 10 every once in awhile, and it ain't good enough. It's crazy. We can't get anything but high school coaches and iffy position coaches. These big schools are tossing winning coaches out by the wayside. The thing is, you've got to think Dave Kingman here with this next hire - strike out or knock it out of the park. Rick has got to hit for the fence this time out. And, I mean really swing big. Look, Terry Bowden is at DII Northern Alabama or somesuch! WTF? I mean, some of these guys just want to coach again. We've got to find one. If this season tanks...just look at our roster! Look at everyone we lose off the two-deep. We can't just hire anyone in here, opening a new stadium, and have some unproven entity wanting us to "wait" for yet another rebuilding job. A guy like Mason or Barnett or Smith...they may never get another crack at it. You can't get me to believe they wouldn't pour everything they had into it to show their peers that they still have it in them.

Guys, Mike Leach will be the next head coach of Arizona State, Washington State, or UCLA - whichever tanks the hardest in 2010.

I'm beginning to have some doubts. The next two games will tell. As posted in other threads, the two things concerning me: (1) we're still not throwing to tight ends, (2) we're still using Riley Dodge at QB. Both represent huge problems to me. I feel good in this knowledge - there are many good college coaches out there who have won at this level, but who are currently unemployed for one reason or another (generally, six and seven win seasons didn't cut it at the schools they left) or are assistants in the collegiate ranks or NFL who might want another chance - Glen Mason, Jim Leavitt, John L. Smith, Gary Barnett, Steve Logan...those guys all come to mind. So, if things fall totally off the cliff, there are guys out there to be had. And, believe me, if this thing is in shambles again at the end of 2010, we'll need a big name to revive it. We can't gamble again. Ever again.

Corrected version of the answer. There is no way to polish what doesn't work. Very disappointed in Canales. My football weenie was very soft after that play, given the field position and the constant iffy-ness of our punt squad.