Greendylan

Umm, what exactly makes you believe that?

So, I've heard a lot about the strength of your DL and the relative weakness of your secondary. How do you feel about your LB corp? We know that Josiah is a stud, but what about the rest? I suspect that their performance could be the difference.

For what it's worth, ESPN's "Matchup Predictor" gives us only a 27.8% chance to win. They consider this the least likely of all our remaining games to be a win.

"Half-mast" is the preferred expression, globally speaking, to "half-staff" regardless of the setting being at land or sea. I assume that is the basis of your wit, good sir.

Can we put it at half-mast until we win another game?

Respectfully, I think you are missing the bigger point behind what I'm saying. 1. I did discuss free agency in the NFL and not just the draft. Of course there is going to be a bit of an apples-oranges comparison problem when examining pro and college football side by side. In this context, however, the draft is relevant, because my point is that no team on any level can survive by only acquiring players that their opponents don't want. It really doesn't matter one bit if it's teams choosing players or players choosing teams. If we can't make our peers at least a little envious of our recruiting class each cycle, then we are in trouble. For the life of me, I can't figure out why this is a controversial opinion on GMG these days. 2. I don't feel comfortable saying anything more about Kason Martin, as he really isn't the object of my ire anyway. I'll just say this: It's not about WHAT school a recruit would ideally prefer over North Texas. It's about the attitude/enthusiasm the player has when committing to us--an attitude that we should be instilling through our recruiting pitches. Really this all just goes back to (1) above. If we are rarely ever winning head to head recruiting battles against ANY other FBS teams, and are forced to build a roster comprised of guys who had no other opportunity to play D1 FBS football, then we are ALWAYS the backup plan. 3. I think you proved my point by mentioning, correctly, that the past doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot to teenagers. Thus, regarding UTSA, it's a wash because both schools' current coaches have only completed a single season--with similar results. Neither one can realistically claim to be a better springboard to NFL stardom. The bottom line is that we have a lot to sell both as a football program and an educational institution. If we are consistently losing head to head recruiting battles with schools like UTSA, then we probably aren't doing a good job of selling. And, while we will undoubtedly accrue some awesome players with no other scholarship offers, losing the argument every single time we say to someone "hey, come play for us instead of those other guys" is a big problem. Can we at least agree on those two points?

Let me put it another way: If we sign a whole class of guys who had virtually no other FBS offers, then that would be like an NFL team opting out of the draft and then waiting for every single free agent (veteran or rookie) to sign with other teams before seeing who still was available to offer a minimum contract. Fans might love the players who ended up slipping through the cracks and ending up with that team, but they would be outraged by the strategy. Doing that for a single year would be disastrous. Doing that year after year would would at some point result in the worst team in the history of the league. Also, it's not like we're applying some weird standard of loyalty that privileges players who immediately want to sign with only North Texas. Take Kason Martin (our big QB get for the class of 18) for example. He felt comfortable publicly proclaiming in his first interview with Vito that he desperately wanted to play for Texas Tech and only committed to the Mean Green when his Red Raider dream died (and he had no other place to go to play D1 FBS football). Then, he basically stated that he was happy to come here where at least he could play under a Red Raider offensive coordinator. I don't blame Kason Martin for having this attitude. He's a high school student just figuring out his life and learning how to best interact with the media. But, I do blame North Texas for somehow giving young recruits the idea that we're essentially a backup plan destination. Also, this odd rationalization that we're losing recruiting battles to UTSA because of our lack of recent NFL draft picks is just preposterous. They have, what, a grand total of one player in their history taken in the draft? Meanwhile, we have NFL Hall of Famers to our credit. But, none of that matters, because it has nothing to do with either team's current coaching staff. Is it not possible that the simplest explanation in this case is the correct one? Our coaches, when going up against UTSA or most other G5 schools (hell, even lower tier P5) just aren't controlling the narrative. They aren't able to sell our potential vs other programs. I have confidence that they will fix the problem, but right now, we should be deeply troubled.

There absolutely can be players who look good on film, seem to be an ideal fit for our system, and/or actually have relatively high ratings/position rankings yet no other FBS offers. Kason Martin comes to mind here. Could there be some anomalies about that player or his recruitment that have resulted in so few opportunities? Sure, on occasion. So, when a new commit surfaces with no other offers, we all know there is a chance he might be awesome. However, receiving a verbal from that player does nothing to quell the fears that we have about losing recruiting battles. Surely we can all agree on this one point: If every single time another coach wants a recruit we are after, the player goes with the other guys, then that's not a sustainable path to building a team. It is a sign that we are getting slaughtered in the PR battle. And, it suggests that if late offers come around for our recruits, they will bolt.

So pumped that his dream school never offered.

Really? Even after Rock & Roll Sushi?

I hope Clayton comes here. But, for the love of God, can we first construct a Mean Green Village Doggie Daycare so that no more pets go missing during games? The Tune family has suffered enough.

Arikawe's hometown is listed simply as "Nigeria." Lolz

In fairness, all I did was copy from an actual scam letter and change the names. The real credit belongs to the indomitable spirit of the global crime syndicates based out of West Africa.

FROM THE OFFICE MR WREN BAKER AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK (ADB). OUAGADOUGOU BURKINA FASO. WEST AFRICA. DEAR MR. ARKSTFAN: I AM WREN BAKER, THE AUDITOR GENERAL OF AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK HERE IN BURKINA FASO. DURING THE COURSE OF OUR AUDITING, I DISCOVERED A FLOATING FUND IN AN ACCOUNT OPENED IN THE BANK BY MR JOHN KOROVO AND AFTER GOING THROUGH SOME OLD FILES IN THE RECORDS I DISCOVERED THAT THE OWNER OF THE ACCOUNT DIED IN THE (BEIRUT-BOUND CHARTER JET) PLANE CRASH ON THE 25TH DECEMBER 2003 IN COTONOU (REPUBLIC OF BENIN). AND NOBODY HAS OPERATED ON THIS ACCOUNT AGAIN, THE OWNER OF THIS ACCOUNT IS MR JOHN KOROVO A FOREIGNER, AND A TRADER WHO TRADE ON GOLD AND MINING, HE DIED, SINCE 2003 AND NO OTHER PERSON KNOWS ABOUT THIS ACCOUNT OR ANY THING CONCERNING IT, THE ACCOUNT HAS NO OTHER BENEFICIARY AND MY INVESTIGATION PROVED TO ME AS WELL THAT MR JOHN KOROVO DIE ALONG WITH HIS TIRED FAMILY. THE AMOUNT INVOLVED IS (USD 25.2 M) TWENTY-FIVE MILLION, TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND UNITED STATES DOLLARS ONLY , I AM CONTACTING YOU AS A FOREIGNER BECAUSE THIS MONEY CAN NOT BE APPROVED TO A LOCAL PERSON HERE, BUT CAN ONLY BE APPROVED TO ANY FOREIGNER WITH VALID INTERNATIONAL PASSPORT OR DRIVERS LICENSE AND FOREIGN ACCOUNT BECAUSE THE MONEY IS IN US DOLLARS AND THE FORMER OWNER OF THE ACCOUNT MR JOHN KOROVO IS A FOREIGNER TOO, AND THE MONEY CAN ONLY BE APPROVED INTO A FOREIGN ACCOUNT. ON THE CONCLUSION OF THIS TRANSACTION YOU WILL BE ENTITLED TO 30% OF THE TOTAL SUM AS GRATIFICATION, WHILE 10% WILL BE SET ASIDE TO TAKE CARE OF THEEXPENSES THAT MAY ARISE DURING THE TIME OF TRANSFER AND ALSO TELEPHONE BILLS, WHILE 60% WILL BE FOR ME. SO ON THE INDICATION OF YOUR WILLINGNESS I WANT YOU TO FORWARD TO ME YOUR FULL NAME: SEX: COMPANY: IF ANY FULL CONTACT ADDRESS: PHONE: CELL: FAX: CITY: STATE:ZIP CODE: COUNTRY: OCCUPATION AND ALL THE NECESSARYINFORMATION WILL BE SENT TO YOU ON THE ACCEPTANCE TO CHAMPION THIS TRANSACTION WITH ME. THANKS YOURS TRULY WREN BAKER

I hope I'm wrong, but I have a hunch I'll be reading, "Breaking News: Combs to LSU" in the next few days.

TCU is at home. Regardless, your point still stands.

Steve Lutz--a recruiting-focused assistant coach from the Big East. Sound familiar?

What I expected when I began reading this thread: "Wow, Eric Jenkins is awesome!!" What I actually read: The grumpy old curmudgeon thread of the year.

I don't know where Wren Baker learned to evaluate, but Missouri just completed their own evaluation of Kim Anderson after ONLY THREE SEASONS! And they still have to play in the SEC tournament--those heartless, student-athlete hating miscreants! Prepare for chaos, Show Me State!

Yep, and to me this game also proved that we are clearly the worst team in CUSA. Thus, next year when we are struggling under a new coach, we will hear the company line of "This thing is going to take 3-4 years to fix. Consider what a disaster Benford left him with."

So, is the strategy behind this lengthy "evaluation" to just let us become as terrible as possible so that the next coach will look comparatively decent no matter what he accomplishes next season?

Well, this should (presumably) mark the final time I will attend a Benford-led Mean Green game. For the sake of our players, I would love to see this bleak era end on a nice note with a string of wins.

Five years ago it was one of the better mid major jobs. Today it is below average (even among just the mid majors) and getting a little worse every day.

The evaluation continues. #manofhisword

The irony is that if it weren't for JJ's success prior to the last half-decade dumpster fire, no one could possibly mount an argument that we should aspire to greater heights than the very coach who made us believe that we deserve nice things in the first place.