keith

I don't see that on my screen. Can you share a screen shot to show exactly what you see?

Not in the AAC. I shared that in another topic. See above. As I said a lot goes into the success or lack of success of a head coach that he may not have any control over. It would be exceedingly difficult to factor everything in so we are left with wins and losses as the ultimate barometer.

I'm not sure it does get the highest G5 in. Didn't the 6+6 model guarantee a G5 champion a spot in the playoff? It was the conference champions of the B1G, SEC, ACC, B12 and PAC conferences plus the highest ranked G5 champion. That's the 5+1 guaranteed to make the playoff. I don't think the 5+7 guarantees a G5 champion a spot. Assuming OSU and WSU keep the PAC together by pulling in most or all of the MWC and maintains its "P" status and either OSU or WSU win the conference for a few years, they will most assuredly be ranked higher than any of the G5 conference champions. In the 5+7 model it's just the 5 highest ranked conference champions regardless of conference (P or G) designation. It will always be B1G, SEC, ACC, B12 and probably the PAC-whatever. Then the next 7 will come from some combination of teams from the B1G, SEC, ACC and B12. The 5-7 will effectively lock-out all current G5 schools from the playoff except those that either join with OSU and WSU to keep the PAC afloat or are lucky enough to move up into one of the other 4 conferences.

I tracked this the last couple of years, so thought I'd do it this year as well. I find it interesting (hopefully others do to). It may be a decent gauge of growth in the program. A couple changes. I'm only considering regular season home games and eliminating any post-season games we may have hosted in the past two seasons. I'm also including a comparison of our first x games compared to the previous full season average along with a year over year comparison through the same number of games. None of this takes other factors that may influence attendance into consideration (day of week, time of day, opponent, traffic, hazardous driving conditions, etc.).

I'm going with the combined final score X 100. Final answer.

Every school is different and had their own unique circumstances surrounding hiring a new head football coach for 2023. Lots of things go into how successful (or unsuccessful) a coach is during his first year at the helm and many of them are completely outside of his control. However, he is the captain of the ship and is ultimately held accountable for both the good and the bad. How has the decision worked out so far for each school that has a new head coach for 2023? Here's a grading scale based on my simplistic methodology of comparing the final 2022 regular win % (no championship or bowl games considered) to the current 2023 win % through 10 games. There are still two games to go, so the grades are not final and can still change. So far, some have significant "turn-around" seasons, some are sort of, meh, treading water while others have had disastrous seasons. I think I have identified all the first year coaches. Some coaches were listed as interim. The Michigan State coach is a good example and only has 8 games (1-7, ouch) under his belt. Navy has only played 9 games so far. I will update this at the end of the season, but here are the trending grades. How would you grade these first year head coaches?

D needs to bail us out.

Wasted possession after the defensive stop. Still in this at the half. So far, so good.

Come on D! Need a stop.

Need a score here. Any score.

Nice stop by the D to force the FG.

BS on the non-PI call. He was absolutely tackled before the ball got there.

Hahahaha. I thought somebody posted this, but it I was just an ad.

It is appropriate and fitting that UNT should be the team to ruin SMU's last chance to win an AAC conference championship in football. We are finally facing the ponies after we have been battle tested during the season and know our strengths and weaknesses. All the pressure is on SMU, no pressure on us. Play freely and have fun. Let's Goooooo!

This is great news. Anyone know what the value of the PUF is that UT and A&M share?

I believe the attendance number in the story is a typo, with two numbers transposed. I've seen 4415 in the box scores and that's the number I'm going with. Last night was the 3rd highest attended regular season game of the last 2+ seasons. LaTech had 8,522 two seasons ago and WKU had 5,002 last season. Off to a good start.

Do tell. The one guy that committed to ULM. Who else?

There is no long-term strategy for schools like us in the modern era of college football, unless you are defining long-term as 1 or 2 years. Recruit a HS kid, red-shirt him the first year, maybe he plays in a few games, but minimal production when all is said and done. Year two, may or may not play much. If he lights the world on fire, probably goes to the portal. So we invest 2 years and get 1 year in return. Year 2 he makes the 2-deep. We got a good one. Not a starter, but plays a lot. High potential player. Year 3 has a monster year, but goes to the portal. Invest 3 years and get 1.5 in return. We never get over the hump.

Correct. As a whole the AAC is fairly weak this season and scheduling or luck of the draw has helped the current top teams in the conference. The scheduling gods, on the other hand, were not kind to us. Taking the current top 4 teams of Tulane, SMU, UTSA and Memphis, we play all 4. Tulane plays 2 (Memphis - won and UTSA). SMU plays 1 (Memphis). Hoping they look past us to that game. UTSA plays 1 (Tulane). Last regular season game. Memphis plays 2 (Tulane - Lost and SMU). I'm not even sure Tulane is really that good this year. Their top-25 ranking is partly due to the reputation of the AAC being a strong conference. If UTSA can get by Rice and South Florida and Tulane can win out, it will make for a nice end of season matchup for the AAC.

I don't think we should get too excited about the UTSA game. They are not really that good this year. Their signature win is the 20-13 victory over a 6-3 Texas State at home the second game of the season. UTSA's 6-3 record so far is due mostly to playing a weak schedule. They have only 1 win against a team with a winning record (Texas State). Other wins over 3-6 Temple, 3-6 UAB, 4-5 FAU, 1-8 ECU and 3-6 UNT. They are playing a schedule that is almost inversely proportional to ours. They also have losses against 4-5 Houston and 3-6 Army. Besides Texas State, the only other team they played with a winning record is 7-2 Tennessee. They are not a juggernaut this year.

Be honest, how many of you had Eric Morris circled as your number one target for our head coach? How many of you knew who he was before he was announced as our head coach? He wanted to get back to Texas and we were kind enough to pay his relocation expenses. Regardless of how you feel about him, his hire was a big risk and with that comes the potential for huge returns. If he flames out, he'll be gone in three years. If he orchestrates a massive turn-around, he'll also be gone in three years. Hopefully it's the latter and he gets hired away instead of fired away.

SMU - 95.6 UNT - 4.4 Oh, wait....never mind.

Historically it seems we always played SMU early in the season (first game or two). Playing later in the season will help us and this could be a trap game for them as they look ahead to their game against Memphis next week. I don't know if any of this will actually make a difference, but this is the best setup for us in a long time.

I could tell you, but I need $475,000 first. Hahaha. Seriously, while I don't think this season was supposed to be a "rebuild," it is now. At this point, I think you have to find out what you may have to work with next year (assuming they don't hit the portal). We're young in spots, but need to get even younger these next three games. Live game experience will help next year and the staff needs to find out if we have any gamers or playmakers on the defensive side of the ball that have not have seen significant playing time so far this season.

Interesting. So, students didn’t show up at all or left early? Or maybe both. Hmmm.