What if?

[NT93]

I know we can’t go back and change things, but how differently would you feel about the season if we had beaten FIU?
 

The Navy loss would still be disappointing of course, but I think the losses to Tulane, Memphis, and UTSA were pretty much expected, though I think many expected a larger margin of defeat in those games.  
 

I haven’t looked at it closely, but are we the only team in conference that had to play Tulane, Memphis, UTSA, and SMU?  Not only play them, but do so in consecutive weeks.  The schedule did us no favors.

Edited November 6, 2023 by NT93

[untbowler]

FIU sucks, but Memphis was a kick to he junk, knowing the defense only had to stop them for 45 secs

[Glory to the Green]

The FIU loss was terrible.  Winning the last these games for a bowl game is not impossible, but it’ll be tough.  We continue to shoot ourselves in the foot. I saw a recent poll that shows our 4 recent opponents in the G5 top ten. We’re right there, but we’re not. You know?  

[GMG_Dallas]

54 minutes ago, NT93 said:

I know we can’t go back and change things, but how differently would you feel about the season if we had just beaten FIU?
 

The Navy loss would still be disappointing of course, but I think the losses to Tulane, Memphis, and UTSA were pretty much expected, though I think many expected a larger margin of defeat in those games.  
 

I haven’t looked at it closely, but are we the only team in conference that had to play Tulane, Memphis, UTSA, and SMU?  Not only play them, but do so in consecutive weeks.  The schedule did us no favors.

If we're going to be ok with losing games we should "expect" to lose, bring back Littrell or just do away with the program (again).

[NT93]

23 minutes ago, GMG_Dallas said:

If we're going to be ok with losing games we should "expect" to lose, bring back Littrell or just do away with the program (again).

Show me where I said I was okay with losing.  I’ve just made it clear that I’d rather lose by 7 than by 20+.  
 

My point of the thread is that had we beaten FIU, we would have won all of the games that we were supposed to win.  That’s what SL did, except we got wiped out in several games a year in the games we weren’t supposed to win.  We lost 4 games by 21+ points last year.  I don’t enjoy losing, but I’d rather lose close, competitive games than get my ass kicked.  My hope is that some of these close loses are wins next year.

[GMG_Dallas]

34 minutes ago, NT93 said:

Show me where I said I was okay with losing.  I’ve just made it clear that I’d rather lose by 7 than by 20+.  
 

My point of the thread is that had we beaten FIU, we would have won all of the games that we were supposed to win.  That’s what SL did, except we got wiped out in several games a year in the games we weren’t supposed to win.  We lost 4 games by 21+ points last year.  I don’t enjoy losing, but I’d rather lose close, competitive games than get my ass kicked.  My hope is that some of these close loses are wins next year.

I can understand why losing by 7 feels better than losing by 21 but for me, saying we'd have won the games we were supposed to win just feels like more of the same .500 football we had with SL.

[NT93]

4 minutes ago, GMG_Dallas said:

I can understand why losing by 7 feels better than losing by 21 but for me, saying we'd have won the games we were supposed to win just feels like more of the same .500 football we had with SL.

I gotcha.  With lots of people down on Morris, I was just trying to say that minus the inexcusable loss to FIU, things seem better this year to me as a whole.

[emmitt01]

21 minutes ago, GMG_Dallas said:

I can understand why losing by 7 feels better than losing by 21 but for me, saying we'd have won the games we were supposed to win just feels like more of the same .500 football we had with SL.

The difference is that it is in year 1 of Morris as opposed to year 7 of Littrell.  
 

And, while I recognize that a loss is a loss regardless of point spread, I also recognize that there is more fight in this year’s team than I saw for the last 3 under Littrell.

[meaniegreenie]

1 hour ago, GMG_Dallas said:

I can understand why losing by 7 feels better than losing by 21 but for me, saying we'd have won the games we were supposed to win just feels like more of the same .500 football we had with SL.

The other difference is that SL could only beat teams that were worse and better teams didn't just beat us, they destroyed us.  I'm not happy with the situation, but we are playing better and against better teams.  Still, there's no excuse for the defense being as bad as this and w/o a DC change, I'm not sure it gets much better next year.  EM needs to recognize this and make changes.

[GMG_Dallas]

10 hours ago, emmitt01 said:

The difference is that it is in year 1 of Morris as opposed to year 7 of Littrell.  
 

And, while I recognize that a loss is a loss regardless of point spread, I also recognize that there is more fight in this year’s team than I saw for the last 3 under Littrell.

Yes I get it's year 1 vs year 7. Go back to year 1 under Littrell and you find a team that beat an 8-win Navy and a 7-win Southern Miss. We can argue about C-USA vs AAC all we want but SL took over a 1-win team and beat 2 teams with winning records the following year. Morris took over a bowl team who lost to Boise State by 3 and has yet to beat an FBS team with a winning record. La Tech and Temple each have 3 wins.

Yes, this team has incredible fight. I'll give Morris that. Morris picked Earle over Rogers which tells me he got lucky just like SL got lucky with Fine. I'm looking forward to Morris proving this fan wrong but this looks all too familiar. Take away the incredible come backs and it's the same.

[Cr1028]

12 hours ago, GMG_Dallas said:

If we're going to be ok with losing games we should "expect" to lose, bring back Littrell or just do away with the program (again).

The difference is Littrell would’ve beaten FIU handily. He was frustrating but better than those before and after him.

Edited November 6, 2023 by Cr1028

[RBP79]

So for those who are comfortable with the direction of NT football...how many rebuilding years will this program take to get beyond a 6 win season AND be competitive in the AAC?

[GMG_Dallas]

2 hours ago, Cr1028 said:

The difference is Littrell would’ve beaten FIU handily. He was frustrating but better than those before and after him.

Kind of my point. If what we're aiming for is beating the teams we should beat and losing to the teams we should lose to then what are we doing?

The question asked how differently would we feel if we'd had beaten FIU and still lost the other games. Well, I'd feel the same as previous years. Margin of loss means little to me once the game is over. A loss is a loss. The only thing we have more this year than years past are moral victories.

[NT93]

1 hour ago, GMG_Dallas said:

The question asked how differently would we feel if we'd had beaten FIU and still lost the other games. Well, I'd feel the same as previous years. 

Thanks for answering the question.  Akin to the "Pulse of the program" thread, I'm interested to see how people are thinking and if changing the result of one mind-boggling loss would change their perspective given our results against the best teams in the conference.  

At this point in the season, I disagree, but that's ok.  Now, if we lose to Tulsa and/or UAB I'll probably jump on board with you.

[GMG_Dallas]

1 hour ago, NT93 said:

Thanks for answering the question.  Akin to the "Pulse of the program" thread, I'm interested to see how people are thinking and if changing the result of one mind-boggling loss would change their perspective given our results against the best teams in the conference.  

At this point in the season, I disagree, but that's ok.  Now, if we lose to Tulsa and/or UAB I'll probably jump on board with you.

Winning one of Tulane or Memphis would have had me feel differently even if that meant still losing to FIU. Yes, we want to beat the bad teams but we moved on from Littrell because we wanted to beat the good teams as well. At least I'm assuming that's why since I'm not in the AD. If all we do is keep beating the bad teams and keep losing to the good teams then what did we really change?

Edited November 6, 2023 by GMG_Dallas

[diehardUNTfan]

Definitely a lot of what ifs. The FIU loss was inexcusable. But a lot of close games against good teams, that a lot of us probably thought weren't going to be close. Obviously a loss is still a loss at the end of the day but we have what it takes to compete in the American. Just need to be consistent. 

[NT93]

32 minutes ago, GMG_Dallas said:

Winning one of Tulane or Memphis would have had me feel differently even if that meant still losing to FIU. Yes, we want to beat the bad teams but we moved on from Littrell because we wanted to beat the good teams as well. At least I'm assuming that's why since I'm not in the AD. If all we do is keep beating the bad teams and keep losing to the good teams then what did we really change?

My hope is that we improve each year so that the number of teams we should beat keeps increasing.

[Cr1028]

6 hours ago, GMG_Dallas said:

Kind of my point. If what we're aiming for is beating the teams we should beat and losing to the teams we should lose to then what are we doing?

The question asked how differently would we feel if we'd had beaten FIU and still lost the other games. Well, I'd feel the same as previous years. Margin of loss means little to me once the game is over. A loss is a loss. The only thing we have more this year than years past are moral victories.

I agree