untjim1995

Enjoy the Middle of Nowhere, Canada, Art...that's as close to Siberia as we can send your sorry ass...

That was Seth Littrell's first thing to figure out when he got here. Who were the guys on the team that weren't quitters and were there any actual players here that could play for him and fit the system. I feel confident that this game tape did a lot of that for him.

The better way to look at this is that there are 32 G5s ranked ahead of us (not counting BYU, who is quasi Power). We are 33rd out of 64. A year ago, we were either considered the worst or 2nd worst team in the country, for all of FBS...that is quite a leap in just one season. But on the other side of the coin, WKU, La Tech, ODU, USM ,and UTSA, are all ahead of us. This link also reminds us of how much easier this schedule is than we have probably ever seen since we became FBS again in 1995. Toughest games are at Iowa and La TEch, rated 45t and 46th in this poll.

You've been disgusted A LOT then...

They really don't care because they don't want to lose the golden goose. Baylor will get theirs, in due time. The others won't because they matter to the networks and to fans. The NCAA cannot lose the Basketball tournament, as it provides something like 97% of their revenue. Because of that reality, they have ceded control of football to the networks, bowls, power conferences and the mega NFL-Lite and NBA-lite programs.

For this year, losing to Lamar or UAB is just flat out embarrassing. Overall, losing to SMU or Rice doesn't irk me like it does to lose to UTSA or UTEP. They have the SWC and private money to keep them higher than us with recruits. UTEP and UTSA don't. They have bigger cities with little collegiate competition in their area. But losing to UTSA hurts because they literally had no issues with setting up their program and have really taken advantage of their resources. It's a constant reminder of the lack of care our university has had with the program here, as well as the mistakes we made that UTSA has used to their advantage. It's a miserable reality that each loss to them provides to those of us who have followed the program for over 25 years.

True, but the SL thing seemed more because of the AD changes going on--it was basically a year added on as appreciation for improving us from the worst team in FBS to making a bowl game. The DMac extension was after that HoD Bowl win and nobody was really clamoring for him to become their coach. I think he deserved an extension for that season but it would have been for an extra 2 years, 3 at the max. Starting over with a guy that couldn't get recruits here when they had other options was going to catch up to us if things went wrong...and they went epically wrong within two years. I'm just glad we bought that whole mess out, from him to the lazy ass AD that we were saddled with for too long.

This could be their McCarney moment, though. If he doesn't succeed, that buyout is going to be very steep...

I think our CUSA West setup is a very nice affiliation for us. I wish we would also play SBC West schools in an even more regionalized conference setup, as well, since that is about as good of a conference situation as we will ever have. Since I don't expect to ever get into the AAC or MWC, but assuming the Big XII leftovers fill those conferences up and we don't lose any CUSA members to them, I think a conference setup like this would be solid: UTEP, NMSU, UTSA, Texas State, Rice, UNT, La Tech, ULL, Arky State, ULM, USM, and UAB ODU, Marshall, WKU, Appy State, Charlotte, Coastal Carolina, MUTS, Troy, USA, FIU, FAU, Ga State, and Ga Southern

Always...and yet, tomorrow almost always delivers something worse. Although I will say that I don't believe you can go lower than having your team completely quit on you on Homecoming against a FCS school and lose by 59 points., but if we suffer another loss to replace the Portland State fiasco as the worst loss in modern college football history, I think we should just close up shop as a FBS program. I remember completely believing that the loss in 2008 at Rice, when David Bailiff called off the dogs after they went ahead 77-20 in the 3rd quarter, was the ultimate low point for us, since it was freaking alltime SWC dreg, Rice, who decided to not score 100 points on us when they easily could have. But that Portland State loss seems insurmountable to me--that we could lose another FCS game at home by 60 points just seems too horrible to imagine for any FBS program.

There's a lot of reasons to feel optimistic--we just improved by 4 games last year with a roster mostly full of people who weren't recruited by the current coaching staff and were running an offensive scheme that is 180 degrees from what we run today. Our lazy ass AD finally left and we have replaced him with someone who SAYS the right thing ad seemingly likes being here right now. We didn't bring back the colossally inept Tony Benford and paid a good price for a coach who has shown the ability to win at each place he has coached at and wanted to be our coach. And the university's President cares about sports and the funding has improved. On the other side of the coin, recruiting here for football is simply horrendous. Fan interest and media interest is terrible for a university of our size and location. Our home schedules rarely bring us an opponent that a win could move the program upward significantly. In the end, its still all about wait and see for me. We should be better as the years progress--but that's the eternal cry for the few folks who stick around here to follow our teams.

GH and SL will be better this year, just because Fine and the OL SHOULD be better. They have a year under their belts, they have a solid running back in Wilson, and receivers that should now know what routes to run. The schedule is easier than it has been as far back as I can remember. Heck, our bodybag game is against an unranked Big Ten team that has struggled and lost to G5/FCS teams in the past during OOC play. If we cannot at least get to at least 5 wins again, I'll be really surprised.

This was the low point of our uniform history. It was the equivalent of losing 66-7 to Portland State or losing to Rice 77-20 in the 3rd quarter.

I don't disagree with both points, but UTSA is more prepared to test the limits than we will ever go. No problem with that, either, but there's also no doubt that they wanted football to succeed right from the start. They hired Larry Coker--anything with Miami ties back then was just shady. Frank Wilson coming from LSU and hiring that Bama assistant with the sketchy background doesn't dispel this thought. But that's what UTSA decided they would use to promote their university. It's certainly been a good start for them. But it won't surprise me if they start winning and beat a few big name P5s along the way that the NCAA comes knocking. I do know we will never have this to worry about here as it's not the primary window to our school.

No matter what he's doing there, he's getting out-worked/coached...

Whether testing the limits of the NCAA rules is smart or not, we will never test them. We don't have the mindset to win at the sport like FAU or UTSA decided they wanted to do when they started their programs up.

To me, a better word to describe the entire situation is desperate--as in desperately trying to draw in any kind of sustainable fan interest, desperately seeking to be mentioned in any media besides the DRC (no offense, Vito--its the reality of the situation), desperately trying to connect with TX HS Coaches and parents to give their sons a chance to play here when they have other options at the FBS level, and desperately attempting to catch up lost ground in the arms race that is college football, even at the G5 level. We are beyond thrilled when we have attendance that is near 20k at Apogee or near 3k at the Super Pit. Those numbers must dramatically increase or we have to recognize that this is the highest we will ever go, which will eventually be lower than the current FBS setup, which is a ticking time bomb for a lot of teams, especially in the lower G5s. Wren Baker HAS to be better than RV or this thing is just a sinking ship that is taking on more money. Seth Littrell and Grant McCasland HAVE to be better than their predecessor(s) or we are staring at the real possibility of having paid out more than we ever have before for no visible reasons. That sense of desperation amongst the fans that are here and those that are coaching/leading here is very real. What we don't know, and nobody knows for sure, is if winning here would change things here in the way that we on gmg.com want it to change, from an increase in fan and media attention, to just a higher place on the college football totem pole. It didn't when Fry was here and it didn't when Dickey ran thru the SBC. Maybe the third time is a charm for football, but in the previous 40 years, attendance and interest has always been the issue, even during the very few periods of winning we have seen in football or basketball. If that cannot be fixed and we do get dropped down again a level for football, distraught will then be a good word to describe the fans that did stick around over the last few decades since we moved back up to 1-A in 1995.

It was very well done. Most of those 30 for 30 documentaries are, but this was just so easy to watch. SMU and the entire SWC were built on sand after the OU/UGa case changed TV and college football. As for June Jones, he accomplished exactly what they wanted him to do when they hired him, which was turn them around and win again. It took him two years to go from 1-11 to winning a bowl game. His problem was that he thought Arizona State was gonna hire him away and they didn't at the last second. After that, he lost the entire program. When we clobbered them here in 2014, he just resigned before they fired him later that year. They had gone full circle and became the worst FBS team in the country. We followed them down the next season and we can only hope SL gets us to whereJune Jones got SMU to in his second year.

I think we will win, but it won't surprise me at all if we let them hang around for a half or more. The guys are thinking about Game 2 and playing a FCS spare at home isn't going to get anyone all that excited. I won't be surprised at all if we have people ready to jump off the cliff here because we only beat Lamar 38-23 or something like it. Believe me, the absolute best thing that can happen in one of these games is that you win, don't get anyone hurt, don't show off anything special in terms of schemes, and just pay the check. I'd feel great if we didn't win by a ton, got nobody hurt, showed basic schemes, and see SMU just pound SFA. Then, go to Dallas for our alternate home game and just pound the Ponies all night.

I guess the guy liked to play football that kept his attention and didn't bore him to sleep...

We have beaten SMU twice in the last 12 seasons, while losing to them 4 times. In both games we won, it cost SMU a bowl bid and then it cost them the coach that finally got them bowl bids after the Death Penalty. It did exactly nil for recruiting here. In four games with UTSA, all as CUSA West games, they have beaten us in 3 of them, 1 of which cost us the Division Championship, while the other 2 were huge wins for helping them recruit against us (as if that was really that hard...) In the one game we won, it was because they had to use their 5th string QB in the second half against us and our late 4th quarter TD won the game for us. So, to me, the biggest win we need right now isn't over SMU, its over UTSA. We don't really recruit head-to head with SMU as we would like to believe, but UTSA, UTEP, Rice, and Texas State are our main competition on the recruiting front. We need those wins a lot more. Because UTSA wins help them immensely on the recruiting fronts--yes, fronts, as in HS/JUCO recruiting and from conferences recruiting teams to join them in the future. The AAC/MWC would be a very likely landing place for them if they keep building up their program to be one of the best in CUSA. That TV market, bowl connection, and a successful team would be a great deal to either of those conferences. And if that happens, they will have permanently jumped the other SBCUSA schools in Texas and Louisiana. We have got to beat these guys...or else we are gonna watch them literally zoom right by us to a point where we won't even see them in front of us. They are already ahead of us now.

The Alamodome point may be the biggest advantage they had in getting the program going and getting San Antonio's citizenry onboard. They have had a lot of things go right, but mostly because they had an administration that wanted this to happen and alumni/citizens that were ready to support it. And, yes, I'm jealous as hell of them. I don't care how much longer we have played or that we have a college town and they don't or that they have KFC helping them get butts in seats. Everything that we have done wrong, they have done right...

The Power conferences woukdnt even let the MWC join the party back when they had Utah, TCU, and BYU and were easily performing better than the old Big East. There's no way they are taking the AAC into those ranks...

UTSA just has so many advantages that nobody else in the conference has--only FBS school in a big city that has shown support to them. They get really solid coverage from the SA media. They have quality OOC teams that want to play them in home-and-home series because their city is viewed as both a tourist spot and as a hotbed for recruiting. And the biggest of all is that they don't have a history of apathy and lots of losing to get rid of. I said it back in 2010 when they were getting ready to start their program up--they have the most potential we have seen from a startup since USF. Whether they can fully take advantage of it remains to be seen, but so far, they have done almost everything right in becoming a solid G5 program. It won't surprise me at all to see them getting a spot in the AAC or MWC down the road.

I've still got worries that Tech will never play here in 2027--that they will either be in the top level of Power League Football that doesn't play us anymore (since this will be after the Big XII dies off in 2025) or they will just buy out the game. I think what this series--and the ones that Baker has scheduled for us besides Tech--is that these OOC games against teams like USA and Liberty will be the type of teams that we are going to be on the same level with after that Big XII implosion by 2025. I think that the Big 12 Haves will find spots in the other power conferences (UT, OU, OSU, Tech, KU, KSU, and WVU) and the others (TCU, Baylor, and ISU) will be left behind in a conference setup with the AAC and MWC schools. Those AAC/MWC schools will keep the bowl spot against the power conferences and will be allowed to play them in OOC games, but the MAC, SBC, and CUSA are going to be "dropped" down to a level that the bigger FCS schools will also play at, like Sam Houston, SFA, NDSU, Montana, Eastern Washington, etc... I think the future schedules sort of show this. Our last bodybag game on the schedule is at MIzzou in 2021, with the first game of the Tech series being in Lubbock in 2024. I mean, that tells me something, when we can schedule games with USA for 2024 and 2025, but have no bodybag game scheduled yet beyond 2021. Now, I'm sure that Wren can get those bodybag games scheduled for 2022 and 2023, but I also bet that the Big XII's looming demise has something to do with this, when we always had those games scheduled out for years ahead. Tech could easily be a bodybag game in 2024 with a buyout of the game in Denton. Now, a spot in the AAC/MWC could change all of this, but SMU ain't letting us in the AAC even if we didn't share a TV market, and the fans here have made it abundantly clear that they don't want to go out West to the MWC, which may not have any interest in us anyway, seeing how UTEP, Rice, and UTSA are the CUSA teams we would be contending with for a spot out west. If the MWC got TCU and Baylor, for example, they would have this area covered anyways, so its kind of a moot point on the MWC thing--we don't want them and we know that they have a lot of Texas choices that probably would take their offer before we even got one.