keith

In all fairness, Ms. Hancock attended UNC and has only been at the DMN since 2005. She probably isn't aware of UNT. 🤪

This statement about the new ideal college football fan is sad: "It's instead a bored, distracted, unaffiliated gambling aficionado who doesn’t really care about college football but will look up from his phone when the television is showing a game with a brand-name team he recognizes." Unfortunately it's true and I know many that fit this description. They are betting on everything, every day.

We are up slightly +78 average or 2.36% compared to the first 7 home games of the '22-23 season. We have a strong slate of home contests coming up headlined by SMU, Memphis and the season finale against FAU. Not withstanding some horrible weather conditions there really is no excuse not to be in the mid-to-upper 4K and 5K+ range the rest of the way.

You could say that what Liberty got in return was a 13-0 regular season, top-25 ranking and the opportunity to play in a new year's bowl. Not bad for giving a kid a chance. Obviously things didn't work out in the bowl game, but they never were going to work out. The selection committee knew it too. They will now be able to say, "look, we gave a 13-0 G5 team a chance and this is what happens against a superior P5 team. There's really no argument going forward that a 13-0 or 12-1 G5 team should be in the playoff over a 9-3 Kentucky or 10-3 Penn State or any 9 or 10 win P5 team for that matter."

We improved over the 12/31 FIU game last year by +157. Through first 6 home games we are +134 or +4.12%.

It's going to be harder and harder for programs like ours (and the rest of the G5 for that matter) to survive on the football side of things. In this age, our path to success will mean hitting on most if not all our transfers. They need to come in as starters or be on the 2-deep with considerable playing time. High school recruiting will need to focus on players ready to play as freshmen. We cannot sustain the expense of developing players in a large redshirt season class year after year.

Fifth home game last season was against FAU on 12/29 with 3,808 in attendance. We closed out 2022 with 2,934 on 12/31 against FIU. This year it will be LSU Shreveport on 12/30. Will we eclipse the FIU total?

Oh, they definitely got the memo....hahahaha.

Some gut punch losses that we aren't used to (wow, we've come a long way with the program). I'm in the C- territory. At some point this group needs to find their own identity because they one they have now isn't working.

The B1G is probably just waiting for the ACC to collapse as its eyes are likely on UNC and Duke and to a lesser extent Virginia. Pair these three up with Notre Dame and call it a day. Not sure how big is too big for these conferences, but there's no reason they cannot operate as multiple virtual conferences under a common "holding" conference. The big get bigger (no pun intended).

We had a "serviceable" QB in Aune last year. Ranked #28 in Team Offense. Ranked #110 in Team Defense. Finished 7-5 and played for a conference championship and played in a bowl game. We had a near record-setting QB in Rogers this year. Ranked #22 in Team Offense. Ranked #131 in Team Defense. Finished 5-7 and the season was over in November.

Not sure I'm following you. We've heard on a few recent decommitments, that our coaching staff pulled the offer and I was commenting on that. The impression given is that they really didn't "decommit," we did, so everything is OK. Perhaps it happens all the time and we're just being more transparent about it, but it seems odd to me that our coaching staff whose job it is to evaluate talent felt strongly enough to offer a scholarship only to renege on that offer a few weeks/months later. Did they re-evaluate and change their mind, did the recruit "do something," was the offer contingent on some obligation the recruit failed to live up to, etc.? Like I said we will probably never know unless someone decides to share the details. We've heard that relationships with HS coaches is important to the overall recruiting process. I can't imaging that pulling a recruit's offer does much for that relationship unless the HS coach has been consulted and is in complete agreement. This was another area that seems concerning if we are offering only to pull the offer at a later date. Are we burning bridges?

I did say we may never know the particular circumstances, but I don't think comparing the decisions of a 17/18 year old teenager to the decisions of adults who are professionals in the field and paid handsomely for their experience and expertise are quite the same. Maybe the coaching staff should post a red puzzle piece every time they pull an offer and we can all speculate who it is and what they did.

I guess we will never know the particular circumstances, but it does seem odd that our coaching staff would evaluate a player, think highly enough of them to offer a scholarship, have the player commit their acceptance (publicly/verbally) and then later that same coaching staff says, "ummm, never mind." What does this practice do to the relationships with HS coaches we're told are so important to our recruiting efforts?

That is an impressive haul....so far. 5 of 6 portal additions are from P5 schools. Who knows if it pays off on in wins, but the size of these players alone tells you all you need to know why we always seem to look small on the field.

Well, having a mega-billion donor isn't going to make a difference for Oklahoma State as they are going to be on the outside looking in like the rest of us, so who knows if having one would make a difference for us. In the history of college football (going back to the leather helmet days), a total of 44 schools can claim at least one national championship (14 can claim exactly one). Since 1869, 30 universities have won more than 1 national championship. Many years had multiple champions so I just counted one for each school in that year. My issue with this is that those currently in power have decided that based on recent history, the future of college football in terms of the haves and have nots should be set in stone with no real opportunity for material change. Why snap the chalk line now? If it was snapped at a different point in the history of college football, it would still be dominated today by Yale (18), Princeton (15) and Harvard (8). The point is, things change, but only if they are allowed to change.

And those 18 want to make sure it stays that way! Make no mistake about it, they will do whatever they can to ensure that the barriers to entry remain high and they secure their positions for the foreseeable future.

Exactly. We can also tell them about the ill-timed fumbles and holding on to the ball too long and taking way too many sacks. But hey screw the 5-7 record, we had a QB that completed more than 60% of his passes! Yea us.

Will the excuse next year be that he's only had "his players" for less than a year? They need time in "his system" to jell, then we will really start to see improvement.

What's the threshold? We currently have 6 decommits. Of those 6, they have recommitted to: Kansas State Houston UTSA Texas State ULM ? Kansas State and Houston? OK, it's a step up in conference, but the others? Jeez.

Uh oh, you said the quiet part out-loud.

Since they haven't landed anywhere, are these players in the portal Schrodinger's transfers? They are both transfers and not transfers at the same time.

What could possibly go wrong????

Not that the writing has not been on the wall for a while, but if the "wealthy" schools have been waiting for a signal of G5 capitulation, this may be it. A worthy and valiant fight.

The hits just keep coming.