Why Guts?

untjim1995 · July 30, 2013

There is a reason we are ranked preseason between UTEP and UTSA in CUSA/West,and in the bottom 10% in the nation and it's not because of below average QB play or just average O line play.It's because we are a bad TEAM .Orr and Lemon may be stars for the Eagles,but didn't even make 2nd team all conference..I see little difference in the 2a, 3a& 4a kids coach Mac is bringing in than those recruited by coach Dickey.And if Thompson is so bad,how come we have no one who can take away his starters role ? .Mac is in his 3rd year, and we are hoping for 4 to 6 wins. I have been following Eagle football since 61', and while we are certainly better than when coach Dodge was losing games,we are not nearly as good as when coach Dickey was winning them.Bottom line: are we as good a TEAM as we were when we won 4 Sun Belt championships in a row,because that is my gold standard.

I tend to agree with you wardly. I think the level of talent that has made its way here is just not up to par with even most SBC schools. The recruiting rankings show this.

Development and coaching can make recruiting rankings useless, though, so you have to hope and pray that Coach Mac does here what he did at Iowa State.

Those Dickey teams were more talented than their SBC brethren, built on the one stealth class that brought in some solid talent. I'm still amazed Dickey pulled that off, sice we were in the middle of absolutely sucking, and he himself wasn't a guy that exuded personality. But he got that talent here and he coached it well enough to know that beating SBC teams was all he needed to do to keep the folks happy around here. For that, he deserves the accolades he received. His approach to OOC games and his interactions with the fanbase/medai seemed very poor to me, but there are some who don't feel that way about him, which is fine, too. DIckey just will never represent a high bar for me to want our head coach to match.

I think the big things for this season are to see continued development from a strength and development stanpoint, especially on the defensive line and at QB. I believe DT will start the season as the #1 QB, but I think Berglund will be playing by the middle of the season. He is the future and Mac knows that his only chance to have anything built successfully here is to have BB turn into something great. Otherwise, Coach Mac's tenure here will be over after the 2014 season wihtout a solid QB in place. Then, although CUSA is supposedly a steup in conference affiliation and competition, the schedule this year and probably next year is made up of a lot of schools that are beatable--very beatable in some case. We have to win at least 5 games this season to let everyone know that we are improving as a program. In 2014, Coach Mac knows that we have to win 7+ games or his tenure here is over. BB is who he will groom to be ready to finish stonger in 2013 and be ready for a successul 2014, which would get him an extension.

Edited July 30, 2013 by untjim1995