FOOTBALL Good To See

[dukewayne]

All of the talk and struggles of the season aside:

It was good to see the players and Coach Stock happy and celebrating the bowl win on the field. Those guys needed that. Heck, the whole program needed that. The whole atmosphere surrounding MT football seems to be the least toxic or negative in a long time. It's kind of nice. Bowl wins for the team, the whole program, are good accomplishments.

All of that while still stinging from the bball loss to Auburn. Argh! I imagine the team would love to have another shot at Auburn. Just about everything went wrong in the 1st half, and most ref calls seemed to add insult to injury. It was pretty impressive to see them fight back into the game in the 2nd half. And that with 4/5 starters fouled out on the bench! I never did find out where those refs were from. Makes me wonder if they were $EC?? Oh well, hopefully they can carry that fight from the 2nd half into the coming games.

 

[Blueraider_Mike]

The negatively is gone for the moment and that is good; we desperately need to get some "energy" back in the FB program.

 

[arg3b]

It’s been a good while (2009) since the football season has ended on a good note. We won’t have to spend 9 months thinking about a bad bowl loss.

 

[RaiderDoug]

The whole problem with this program has been 1 step forward, 1 step backwards - over and over again. The program's results haven't been bad, they been frustrating. And that's sometimes worse than bad - at least with bad you can blow it up and start over new. Frustrating is like being kicked in the balls over and over again.

Saturday, we took that step forward.

Can we avoid taking that one step backwards?

The next step is to parlay this good finish into a top recruiting class. Checking 247 and Rivals, we're coming up on early signing day and have the 2nd from the bottom ranked signing class in CUSA. That's unacceptable recruiting for a program with this level of success relative to it's peers, our good location, and budget.

 

[Hop45]

On the drive home from Mobile after the game (yes, I drove all the way home, didn't feel tired so didn't get a hotel) I had time to think. It wasn't too long ago that we went bowl-less even with a good season record. This year was a struggle and very frustrating at times, but we still were able to play in a bowl and also bring home the victory. We have not progressed as much as most of us on here feel we should have, but I feel that we are in a much better position than we were 4-5 years ago.

 

[SpaceRaider]

Was happy to see to see the joy of the players and emotion from CRS after the bowl during the trophy presentation. Despite everything that went on this season with injuries was happy with the bowl invitation though I dreaded the thought of MT losing to a sun belt team. If we were going to play a belt team in a bowl I thought we really needed to win it or it would almost be worse than being snubbed and left out of the bowls. The fact MT won and did it with the lead for most of the game was sweet, especially with the crap on social media from ark state fans over the years since that last game.

Now Massaro and Stockstill have something to sell and build on. There is hope and good feelings after a football season. The fan base really needed that.

 

[MTLynn]

On the way back home, right after the game, we stopped at Whataburger and saw an ASU couple in the restaurant looking like zombies. My son spoke to the wife and she just ignored him... Ahhh, better them than us

 

[JohnDavidBlue]

We are next to last in recruiting?

The bowl drought loss streak is over. Thank goodness. The last bowl I attended was 2009 and it was a blast. Hope all had a good time.

 

[RaiderDoug]

We are next to last in recruiting?

The bowl drought loss streak is over. Thank goodness. The last bowl I attended was 2009 and it was a blast. Hope all had a good time.

Yeah, we're at the bottom of both services rankings for CUSA.

Granted, we only have 7 commits listed (WKU has 20+), so we'll rise up in the rankings as we get commits/signees, but early signing day is Wednesday.

So, we either have a bunch of guys committed that we don't know about, or we have a lot of hay to get into the barn and a short time to do it.

 

[Blueraider_Mike]

I wouldn't worry about the recruiting rankings...not sure how much they really mean at our level.

 

[sWiley]

Staff could be waiting to see who doesn't sign in December. This is the first year with the early signing period so there will be different strategies involved.

 

[Sommy]

What is the change this year? I'm not up to speed on it. Are the early signees binding or can they still back out?

 

[sWiley]

What is the change this year? I'm not up to speed on it. Are the early signees binding or can they still back out?

Binding. It's just like the February signing day.

 

[AustinLewis]

What is the change this year? I'm not up to speed on it. Are the early signees binding or can they still back out?

Previously, only JUCO signed in December. Now (this is the first year), HS and JUCO can sign on Dec 20th

 

[RaiderDawg78]

Previously, only JUCO signed in December. Now (this is the first year), HS and JUCO can sign on Dec 20th

It’s going to be very interesting to see how this early signing plays out. A lot of P5 programs are losing the ability to dangle a scholarship carrot out of some guys we may could sign only to pull the greyshirt card on them on signing day. Saban’s pissed, so it has to be good for G5 schools.

I’m expecting we see more 3/4 star guys end up at G5 schools because of this.

 

[sWiley]

Yeah I feel like this has to benefit G5 schools. G5 schools in general have always played a waiting game to see what trickles down. Now, that trickle process starts earlier and a lot of prospects get taken off the table in December so we know who to focus on. I'm OK with being light on commits right now as long as we have some big, obtainable targets for February. I know the staff is after a ton of JUCO players right now (ugh) so we'll see how that goes as well.