BillySee58

I think JJ Murray may be the starter but Perry will play more minutes. Sort of like how it was with Deng Geu and Thomas Bell.

They’re 16th in the Preseason AP Poll and 15th in the Preseason Coaches Poll. Not to mention made the Elite 8th and finished 6th in the Final Coaches Poll. To play these guys the way we did with so many new players and players moving up to new roles is very encouraging. They beat us by 15 last year and 23 the year before, which is honestly the range I was expecting this one to be. Feels nice to have a coach we can trust with handling roster turnover.

And somehow we still haven’t released our full non-conference schedule. Feel good about that showing at Arkansas this weekend though.

Yeah, I agree. Which is why Wren needs to make the decision based on more than just if he wins out. We could stumble to a few more wins while still playing sloppy and that doesn’t necessarily mean he has earned another year. And like someone else said, it depends on who is available as well.

JMU is going FBS, but with the Sun Belt instead of CUSA.

I think that’s on Baker to evaluate the things behind the scenes. Is Littrell’s message really getting through to his team? Is there real tangible development on the roster or are we just mostly beating teams that are bad by FBS standards? Is the fire still there to get us back at or above where we were in 2017/2018? We can win out and Wren can still have unfavorable conclusions towards those questions on Littrell. I’ve said this before, but the good thing about getting into the AAC now is that buys us some time. We got a seat in this game of musical chairs, whether Littrell is here next year or not. The urgency level has fallen off. If Littrell somehow gets to a bowl game, keeping him for next season still allows favorable options, as long as you raise the bar again for next season. If you do keep Littrell for 2022, the bar for staying in 2023 isn’t another 6-win seasons. It’s be a legitimate CUSA West contender or have a new coach heading into the AAC in 2023.

Yeah I think this is all very likely the situation we may face. If we played UTEP at home this week they’d maybe be favored by 3-5 points. Which is pretty much a toss up in college football. Also, have to wonder if there’s a psychological edge from beating them in Apogee each of the past two seasons.

Two typos in one post? Sounds like GP isn’t the only one who has taken a step back. /S

It’s funny how every time a player transfers people attribute it to the transfer portal, as if true freshmen haven’t been doing this forever. You’re pretty much guaranteed a true freshman quitting or transferring every year, as long as you’re signing normal-sized classes.

This offense hasn’t been an air-raid offense since Harrell left. And even then it was starting to transition. This offense is a Veer and Shoot offense, which is the offense Art Briles has popularized and we really fully adopted when we hired two of his understudies, Mike Bloesch and Tate Wallis. It is very similar to June Jones’ run and shoot but also uses the concept of the Veer offense. The Veer offense is what most people refer to as “running the triple option” like the service academies do. When you watch Army’s Veer, what’s the first handoff option for the QB each play? It’s the FB dive. Then if the QB doesn’t hand it off he generally runs the traditional speed option play where he can keep it or pitch. That’s obviously the meat and potatoes of the Veer. For the Veer and Shoot, instead of starting most plays with the FB Dive handoff/pull option, we do something similar with our running back. But instead of the options for our QB being handoff or run the speed option, our QB has an RPO (run/pass option) to either hand the ball off or pull the ball and throw. That’s the meat and potatoes of our offense. RPO with a RB dive type play, or pull the ball and pass, usually depending on the alignment of the defense. I’m sure I didn’t describe it perfectly, but that’s essentially the context to our offensive scheme and why we run the ball up the middle so much. Which a lot of fans complain about every game, often because many of us grew up with running the ball in defined gaps or holes, whereas this is a zone-blocking scheme anyways so it’s not designed that way to begin with. https://www.thedailystampede.com/2018/8/24/17775952/what-is-the-veer-and-shoot-offense-and-what-can-we-expect-usf-football-baylor-sterlin-gilbert-rgiii

This is a lot more valid than just saying “I don’t like that he was fired from his previous HC role.”

Very few coaches go their entire career without getting fired. And even some of those guys who do are kind of encouraged towards retirement to avoid firing a legend. We would’ve taken Justin Fuente out of Memphis or Scott Frost out of UCF in a heartbeat. Now just a few years later they’re considered scraps? Anyone we hire is going to be scrutinized for their resume. Whether they’ve been fired previously, only have success below the G5 level, have won at the G5 level but never graduated to the P5 level, or don’t have any D1 HC experience at all. The new coach is an almost 100% certainty to fit one of those molds.

Glad to see everyone on here so receptive. Would love Fuente, but I know we’d also see a lot of “do we really want a guy who just got fired?” or “if he couldn’t succeed with Va Tech’s resources are we he can make it work with ours?”

I think so but I’m just glad he no longer poses a threat to our ability to come out on top in conference re-alignment. 1-11 or 7-6, either way our performance hasn’t prevented us from the opportunity to move up conferences.

He’s really young but I would be happy with this. Belk is such a rising star that he seems to me like your options are either get him maybe a little earlier than you would’ve liked or be okay with missing the boat on him. We’re probably okay with missing the boat on him but again, I wouldn’t be mad at us being proactive and trying to nail down a rising star like this before his star shoots off too high.

One more game and Drummond gets to keep his redshirt, then I’m all for it

I always come back to that when SMU fans start talking about their Big 12 dreams. I just find it incredibly hard to imagine a school that clearly inflates its attendance numbers and still struggles to break 20K would have much viability in the Big 12.

I bolded our non-conference games below with our future conference mates. Curious to see how we fill these openings in our future non-conference schedules. Would think we keep the SMU and Memphis games next year but curious if there’s a possibility we scrap the Memphis game next year knowing there won’t be a return game. FUTURE NORTH TEXAS NON-CONFERENCE OPPONENTS 2022 09/03 - SMU 09/10 - Texas Southern 09/17 - at UNLV TBA - at Memphis 2023 09/02 - California 09/09 - at SMU 09/16 - Memphis 09/30 - Abilene Christian 2024 08/31 - at South Alabama 09/07 - SMU 09/14 - at Texas Tech 09/21 - Stephen F. Austin 2025 08/30 - Lamar 09/06 - at Wisconsin 09/13 - at SMU 09/27 - South Alabama 2026 09/05 - at Wyoming 09/12 - UNLV 09/19 - at Texas State 09/26 - Houston Baptist 2027 09/11 - Texas Tech 09/18 - Wyoming 2028 09/02 - at Baylor 09/16 - Army 09/23 - at Tulane 2029 09/01 - Baylor 09/08 - Tulane 09/29 - at Army

Where else would Memphis go? Looks like they missed the boat on the Big 12. ACC maybe if SEC gets Clemson and Florida State?

No clue but it checks.

It’s one thing to be saying that stuff during press conferences and interviews (very annoying as a fan) but if this is the message he is giving to his team, his coaches, and his superiors then Wren really does need to make the move in-season. We talk a lot about how important it is to start winning ASAP with major conference re-alignment looming, well even if it’s a new coach, a large portion of this roster is going to be needed to make that happen. This team and players need a new message and that shouldn’t wait to come until after Littrell is fired.

Yikes

What the hell happened to Jacob Brammer this year? He was great last year. Absolutely bad this year.