sWiley said:

You keep saying this but Mason himself said MTSU was not a rebuild job. This is on record. His words. Not mine. He took it a step further and said this program has good bones.....


????

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I personally viewed that statement as a PR thing. He knew some questioned his hire and didn't want to get rid of Stock so he rode the neutral train to not insult anyone at all.

Acceptance is the final stage of grief.

I'm honestly there. We tried. We had some good times and decent seasons. We put some good players in the NFL and graduated nearly every kid who came through our football program. But the game has changed, the rules have changed, and the landscape has turned programs like ours into glorified JUCO's/farm teams. This can't be acceptable.

I think it really is time to consider just hanging it up, accept what we are (and what we are not), and pour all resources into Men's Basketball. It's not what I want, but I also don't want to just be a glorified JUCO masquerading as something it clearly isn't.

At least with Men's Basketball we would have a better chance of buying some talent since you don't have to pay as many guys, and the tournament format will likely always have a door ajar for mid majors like us. We've made the round of 32 before, twice actually. We can do it again and maybe go further.

MidTennMtneer said:

I've been fully against them. But I admit, after seeing their facilities, I'm impressed. They have put major $ in and are part of the A&M system. Plus they are a ranked FCS team right now. Their admin had a vision and they've put their all into it. Gotta respect that.

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Tarleton has significant $$ coming in but what's impressed me the most is their community/fan support.

Stephenville is in the middle of nowhere and only has a population of 20k itself but the University has remarkable support despite that.

They were #4 in attendance last year in the FCS averaging almost 19k per game despite their crappy location. Their stands are actually full too it is not a bullshit number.

They will easily approach 25k per/game with the FBS transition and all that $$$ investment. They already have a pretty good basketball program as well. They would whip our ass if we played them.

Maybe they're already ahead of us and I just don't realize it yet. If they join the MWC I'd say that's probably the case.

RaiderDoug said:

Indiana was not nearly the rebuild job that MTSU is (which was the comparison made). Indiana was a fixer upper. MTSU is a smoking hole in the ground.

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You keep saying this but Mason himself said MTSU was not a rebuild job. This is on record. His words. Not mine. He took it a step further and said this program has good bones.....


????

MidTennMtneer said:

We've got to get out of CUSA. Somehow someway. Package deal with WKU & Delaware to the MAC to get them to 16 or if TX St leaves a deal to bring us, WKU, and LU with the Flames offering SBC a $ deal of somesort. Ask the AAC to take us and WKU for $1m/yr. I mean do something. Please. We all rolled our eyes at Tarleton yet another conference gets them? To me that says something about Judy and CUSA.

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I've been saying what they are building there is remarkable. It looks like a professional facility or something that would be built for a professional team.

I said they will pass us by in 10 years but looking like it might be even sooner than that.

We are on track (really already are) to be bonafied farm teams for the P4. It wouldn't surprise me if at some point they are allowed to buy/steal our players mid-season if they are desperate for a QB or something.

RaiderDoug said:

But UL Monroe's wins are against an FCS and 2 G5 progams. They were annihilated against the one P5 team they did play.

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Yeah, texas is 5-0

vs Colorado St W 52-0
@ 10 Michigan W 31-12
vs UTSA W 56-7
vs UL Monroe W 51-3
vs Mississippi St W 35-13

MTLynn said:

Well, there you go.

If Bryant Vincent were here, MT may very well be 4-1 or 3-2.

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Possibly.

But UL Monroe's wins are against an FCS and 2 G5 progams. They were annihilated against the one P5 team they did play.

RaiderDoug said:

If you guys want to see a guy who is doing really well at a comparable program - Bobby Vincent has UL-Monroe at 3-1.

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Well, there you go.

If Bryant Vincent were here, MT may very well be 4-1 or 3-2.

JohnDavidBlue said:

Derek Mason wasn't even coaching when hired. He was in a broadcast booth. Food for thought.

Also, what about Tarleton. Two years ago, I would have confused them as a pack of ciggs.

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I've been fully against them. But I admit, after seeing their facilities, I'm impressed. They have put major $ in and are part of the A&M system. Plus they are a ranked FCS team right now. Their admin had a vision and they've put their all into it. Gotta respect that.

Derek Mason wasn't even coaching when hired. He was in a broadcast booth. Food for thought.

Also, what about Tarleton. Two years ago, I would have confused them as a pack of ciggs.

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Gonzaga to the Pac 12...

MT01 said:

Coaching matters.

The good ones taking over a losing program make an immediate impact in year 1. That can be improving the previous year's record or even getting to .500 and bowl game. Year 2 they take off and are competitive across the board but just can't get over the hump of the top couple of programs. Years 3/4 competing for conference championship.

But if you don't get year 1 right you're playing catch up to that timeline.

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I don't disagree here.

I just think that with the schedule the way it was, we were never set up for a fast start. The things you're looking for, if they come, were always going to come in the 2nd half of the season.

Now that we're here, we need to see some progress.

MTLynn said:

If Cignetti were here, I believe MT would be 3-1 or 2-2, while Mason would have Indiana at 3-2.

UCLA is 1-3 right now. Indiana defeated them easily. If Cignetti were coaching UCLA right now, they would most likely be 4-0.

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I don't think Cignetti could have landed the MAC player of the year quarterback or 13 JMU players to MTSU. You don't recruit guys anymore, you buy them, and we don't have any NIL money.

If you guys want to see a guy who is doing really well at a comparable program - Bobby Vincent has UL-Monroe at 3-1.

He is literally the only coach in the G5 level out of 17 who took over a losing program and is off to a winning record. The other G5 coaches with winning records are at Tulane, Fresno, SJ State, and JMU, and they took over programs that were winning before and their coaches left for promotions. Everyone else has a losing record.

Most of the G5 newcomer coaches are struggling. It's just a different world down here, made worse by the recent changes to the sport.

Coaching matters.

The good ones taking over a losing program make an immediate impact in year 1. That can be improving the previous year's record or even getting to .500 and bowl game. Year 2 they take off and are competitive across the board but just can't get over the hump of the top couple of programs. Years 3/4 competing for conference championship.

But if you don't get year 1 right you're playing catch up to that timeline.

RaiderDoug said:

These men were not handed comparable tasks. There was no coach, not Cignetti, not Nick Saban, that would have been able to walk into MT and accomplish the same thing.

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If Cignetti were here, I believe MT would be 4-1 or 3-2, while Mason would have Indiana at 3-2.

UCLA is 1-3 right now. Indiana defeated them easily. If Cignetti were coaching UCLA right now, they would most likely be 4-0.

MTFAN61 said:

All of these things about Indiana & its conference affiliation, & NIL power as a program building inducement are true, but Cignetti should also get credit as an absolute home run hire. Looking at what he accomplished at JMU as a fcs program is remarkable. He brought in tremendous talent some of which is now at Indiana, & definitely knows his X & O's.
It was a perfect combination of things that Cignetti & Indiana both brought to the table to give Indiana its start. Guarantee there's a lot of good coaches that could have gone there, & IU probably wouldn't be undefeated at this time. They needed a great, & somewhat unheralded coach to help put them on the map again. And that's what they got.
Unfortunately for IU that means Cignetti will probably be moving onwards & upwards in another year or 2, & the Hoosiers will be back at 4-8 before you know it.

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For sure, I think Cignetti just might be the next big thing. But if you're using Indiana to somehow compare it to the challenge at MT, it's not comparable.

You said it perfect about how a P4 team can rebuild - Cignetti can show up on day 1 and use Indiana's war chest to buy the MAC player of the year and 13 of his former players from a JMU team that went 11-2. Couple that with an early season schedule against losing teams, and you get what you get.

These men were not handed comparable tasks. There was no coach, not Cignetti, not Nick Saban, that would have been able to walk into MT and accomplish the same thing.

All of these things about Indiana & its conference affiliation, & NIL power as a program building inducement are true, but Cignetti should also get credit as an absolute home run hire. Looking at what he accomplished at JMU as a fcs program is remarkable. He brought in tremendous talent some of which is now at Indiana, & definitely knows his X & O's.
It was a perfect combination of things that Cignetti & Indiana both brought to the table to give Indiana its start. Guarantee there's a lot of good coaches that could have gone there, & IU probably wouldn't be undefeated at this time. They needed a great, & somewhat unheralded coach to help put them on the map again. And that's what they got.
Unfortunately for IU that means Cignetti will probably be moving onwards & upwards in another year or 2, & the Hoosiers will be back at 4-8 before you know it.

MT01 said:

Doug, this is one you're definitely wrong about. You said no one could have done it. Now, maybe you could restate that to say no one that MT could have actually gotten, but what Cignetti has done there already is nothing short of incredible. There's not much left from prior recruiting classes...

Curt Cignetti is tasked with building Indiana into a respectable college football program as the competition level in the Big Ten increases with expansion in 2024. The new head coach of the Hoosiers seemed to clean house upon his arrival in Bloomington after five successful seasons at James Madison. Indiana witnessed another wave of transfer portal departures during the spring window, pushing the total number of losses to 39. Starting quarterback Brendan Sorsby, top running back Trent Howland as well as starting safeties Phillip Dunman and Louis Moore are among the notable departures from the portal cycle. Indiana has 29 incoming transfers for the 2024 roster. -247

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We're going to have to agree to disagree again here. Indiana was not nearly the rebuild job that MTSU is (which was the comparison made). Indiana was a fixer upper. MTSU is a smoking hole in the ground.

Again, Indiana in the last 4 years has found itself in the top 10, so it's not like they've never been good. There are players still on the roster from that team. They've had success. They also have all the benefits of the big 10 and a budget of 166 million dollars and an infrastructure that was built including all the facilities, NIL, media, etc.

Cignetti lost some players, but he was able to bring in a 4 star QB, Edge, and WR transfers. He's also had a chunk of a top 25 recruiting class from 2022 on campus, and he was able to bring in 13 guys from JMU to ease the transition.

And, frankly, we can't overlook the soft schedule. Indiana hasn't played a team that I would consider to be better than Indiana. Their opponents have a losing record, only Maryland is 3-2, and i'm not sure Maryland is a better program overall than Indiana anyway (they certainly operate at a fraction of the budget overall)

All credit to Cignetti for starting out how he started out - but this is an apples to oranges comparison. He didn't exactly have to pick up a bucket of paint the day he got to Bloomington.

Everyone criticizing CUSA for considering Tarleton State, but apparently they are a desirable school for the MWC as well. They must be doing something right.

We've got to get out of CUSA. Somehow someway. Package deal with WKU & Delaware to the MAC to get them to 16 or if TX St leaves a deal to bring us, WKU, and LU with the Flames offering SBC a $ deal of somesort. Ask the AAC to take us and WKU for $1m/yr. I mean do something. Please. We all rolled our eyes at Tarleton yet another conference gets them? To me that says something about Judy and CUSA.