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This program is dead (long and soap-boxy)

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RaiderDoug

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Jul 26, 2005
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This program is not moving forward. It's actively getting worse.

1. This program should not be at a talent disadvantage to anyone outside of the top 25.

I'm tired of the talent excuse. This wasn't Bama or FSU we were playing. We have 10+ years under the same staff, recruiting all their own players with a full roster. There should be no "we need more talent". There's should be no more "Let's wait to rebuild the OL, or we need to add more talent at this other position" - 10+ years in, we need to have a pipeline of players ready to step in immediately.

I know, it's hard to do when your roster is 40% wide receivers who don't play and JUCO's who can't find the field.

We're not recruiting at a level that will move this program forward.

Where's our NFL guys? The Hilltoppers have all sorts of guys playing on Sunday. Other CUSA teams regular show up on draft day. We have one guy from the last 9 years that was drafted and still on an NFL roster, Byard, and our school's rep is so bad at developing players, he couldn't even get a combine invite. The rest of our NFL guys are from years ago. This isn't a program that's recruiting top talent and developing them.

It's almost incomprehensible that a program with a 10+ year old staff has that few players in the NFL.

2. Effort. There is none.

Watching this team leaves me with a pit in my stomach. I don't think we as fans can demand results, but we can demand effort. I didn't see any last night. There wasn't a lot of give-a-crap going on out there.

They played like a team that simply wanted to fast forward to the next sad sack CUSA team to roll in here so that we can hang 50+ on them and point and say "hey, hey, look at this offense, look at how great we are!"

AND WE ALL SAW IT COMING FROM A MILE AWAY!

It's the same story - Vandy, WKU, any bowl game that anyone might give a crap about, any game that might generate any level of excitement. We roll over. It's embarassing.

This lack of backbone is so deep ingrained in the program, it's not going to turn around. You can see it in the "meh, whatever, nothing we can do about it, time to move on" statements we see after every single one of these, multiple times a year.

3. The fans deserve better.

I'm sick and tired of people complaining about the fans. We show out when you give us a reason to. This is a program that can be one of the best in G5. There's money out there, we don't need to prostitute this program around college football.

But not only does this program feed us all a steady stream of gut-punch disappointment after another, it's disgustingly condescending about it, as well.

Whether it's tweets from any number of mouthpiece accounts, staff complaining about not having a full stadium, or the players social media whine-fest about the lack of attendance, "Raider-Traitors" - well, you know what, guilt-trips only work when there's something to feel guilty about.

I didn't come last night. You know what, I feel good about sitting home and flipping between FSU/Bama and a few dead-on-arrival series from MT/Vandy.

Every program gets the fan base it deserves - and this one has earned nothing. And squandered any goodwill from anything good it might do once a year.

I know, we don't need me as a fan. Go put on my Orange. Who cares about fair-weather fans like me.

You're absolutely correct. You don't need me. You can be completely happy with your 6-7 seasons, and 2/3rds empty Floyd's, and patting yourselves on the back about how loyal you all are as this team punches you in the face for the 13th, 14th, 20th seasons, whatever.

4. The Future.

What does the future hold for this program? Well, IMHO, it's dead. Murdered by mediocrity.

I know that seems harsh, but the way I see it, CFB is entering a phase where it's going to be sink or swim for a lot of programs. This is where we need to be building a solid foundation of a fan base that sustains the program and sees it through tough times. It's there. It's not like we don't exist. We see it from time to time, like last night.

There's going to be a separation here, probably sooner rather than later, and we're watching our opportunity to get in the lifeboat squandered away by "competing" instead of winning.

We continue, year after year, to drive fans away. And, incredibly, the Big Cheese's don't even seem to understand why!

Again, I'm asking any one of you to give me a single reason to come back to an MT football game this year, or even next year - that doesn't include "because you're alumni". I bet you can't do it.

Why is our fan base dwindling? We can lament the state of college football - too many HD games on TV, people don't like football, but that's all BS that keeps us front the real problem, and keeps this program from looking at itself in the mirror. All those fans from last night - they're not coming back. They and their $$$'s are gone, probably until next year, at least. Mostly likely, not then either.

I don't have an answer for it.

Maybe, just maybe, if McPhee/Massaro starting demanding more, starting actually holding this program accountable, starting trying to win championships instead of just being bowl eligible - visible striving for excellence, not just above average.

That'll never happen. Because that would cause some self-assessment that maybe the M&M boys are not doing their jobs to the best of their ability.

Much easier to blame bad fans, or changing college football landscape, than admit that maybe what you're doing isn't working.


Rant over.
 
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Great post, Doug. Sadly, I predicted this after the 2014 season when Stock got the "contract". Three additional years automatically rolled over for mediocrity. He is now under contract until 2024 with little incentive to improve. Just maintain the status quo.

Thanks, Chris.
 
Amen Doug. The truth hurts, and you laid it out well. Most are not willing to accept the truth and would rather rationalize it all away (oh it's just game 1....oh Vanderbilt has a good team....oh we are young.....etc). Everyone wants to give Vanderbilt credit for destroying us and think they're some great team, but I guarantee they're just the same ole Vandy who will be fighting for bowl eligibility to end the year and blowing games in the 4th quarter like only Vandy can do. They're nothing special. Never have been, never will be. We were just unbelievably bad, specifically on the offensive line (Hence our 6 points). Our defense holding Vanderbilt to 28 should have been enough to win, but our OL literally couldn't block Santa Claus (who doesn't even exist). The problem with what happened last night is that it fits a pattern of mediocrity, a pattern of underperforming in big games, a pattern of not meeting expectations. If we lost on a last second FG, that's one thing. That isn't what happened. We flat out got embarassed by a cellar dwellar SEC school who traditionally loses to G5 and sometimes even FCS teams.

I'm not sure I've ever seen a more pathetic pair of right tackles in my history of watching CFB. No hyperbole there either. What the F have Carlos Johnson & Amir Luckett been doing all off season? Working on flattening their feet? Do we seriously not have anyone who can do better at RT? I've never seen such a slow, unathletic bunch of linemen since I started watching MT football in 2003. Those 2 are, in the words of Andy McCollum, "eating for free" (and they're probably eating too much). Both appeared to be grossly out of shape and overweight which greatly hindered their ability to do their damn job. Does Jason Spray know these 2 are on the roster?

And I agree about the team as a whole. We do have some decent players on our roster, and I'm pretty impressed with our defense. I still think we can be a top 50 defense despite last night. Once we get the nerves out and cut out the mistakes, our guys were easily going toe-to-toe with Vandy (Not saying much considering it's Vandy, but at least they quit giving up huge plays). I said our DL was going to be so much better, and they were. We have 6 legit LB's on the roster. Our only weakness is our secondary, but that can be greatly ameliorated by a strong front 7. And with more and more games the secondary will get better. I fully expect this to be a lights out defense towards the end of the year.

The problem with this program is we can never put it all together. There's always some big, glaring weakness that ends up being our achilles heel. Last year it was our defense as a whole, this year it's going to be our offensive line. Our OL is a dumpster fire and we havn't even started taking injuries there yet. OL inherently gets injured throughout the season so if you think it's bad now, it's likely only going to get worse. We need to seriously consider putting James, Lee, or somebody very athletic back there to try and compensate for this. But really, at the end of the day, who cares. It's the same ole song & dance with this group of coaches.

Like you, I have a massive problem with the way our numbers have been managed from a roster standpoint. When Stock first got here, I remember him commenting (can't remember if it was publicly or in the football class I had that he would teach sometimes) that it's extremely difficult to win games with 17 WR's on scholarship yet here we sit with 15 WR's on scholarship and it would be 16 if Reginald Henderson remained at his recruited position (he was moved to safety). I'm sorry but that's too many. I'm not sure we even have 15 OL on scholarship and there's guaranteed 5 out there every play and they get injured a lot. Our numbers have been so badly mismanaged and like you said, we've done an absolutely terrible wasting scholarships on JUCO players. I'd hate to go back and count how many JUCO players actually ended up contributing. I'm guessing it's close to 20-25%. Everyone know's that you need to hit on 50% of your JUCO players to make it worthwhile. Our continued JUCO recruiting is killing us. Only take a JUCO if you, with at least 50% certainty, that he's actually going to contribute. Why even bother otherwise, unless you're just desperate at the position. I'm just rambling at this point, but you get the idea. Stop F'ing recruiting the JUCO ranks unless you know the kid can play. We bring in so many JUCO players who still need further development or never contributed much where they played. If they can't ball out by the end of their sophomore years then piss off.

But continuing with the numbers. Why do we have 13 LB's on scholarship? I love my LB's as much as anybody, my second favorite position group, but we only play 3 of them at a time on defense. We should have max 11, and probably 10 on scholarship. NOT 13.

I just fundamentally have problems with the way this program is ran from a numbers standpoint and staff standpoint. Tommy West has been eating for free for far too long now and whoever is in charge of evaluating and bringing in good OL is most certainly eating for free too. I hate to call people out because I understand they make a paycheck to feed their families but there's gotta be some accountability which this program has been sorely lacking and it starts at the top with McPhee, Massaro, and Stockstill Sr.

The lack of championships, the lack of accountability, the lack of success, it's all very unnerving. And when Massaro and his cronies start boasting about bowl eligibility I get the red-ass. Of course we are F'ing bowl eligible. When you're playing the weakest schedules in the country year-in and year-out (no hyperbole, We consistently rank 110+ as the weakest schedules in the country. One year we had THE weakest schedule in FBS) getting bowl eligible is truly meaningless. Our lack of results in these bowls are a true reflection of the facade and sunshine pumping from this athletic department.

At this point, I don't know what to say or do. I'm in a truly powerless position to really impact any change within the program. At the end of the day, it all comes down to recruiting. Franklin & Schafer can get it done, no doubt in my mind, but when the program is only bringing in fringe D-1 talent, the results are always going to come up short. Always. The blind squirrel will find a nut on occasion (see 2009), but there will be no meaningful results or progress ever made, and that's going to be the Stockstill legacy unless he really shakes things up, gets bold, and starts changing his ways.

If it were me, I'd start by firing a ton of assists. We've got a lot of assists on staff who have been here a long time and had their opportunity to put together many recruiting classes, and they've not got the job done. I'm not impressed with Mike Polly, Tommy West, or Steve Ellis. I'd start by firing those 3. Most of the others are too new to pass judgement on, but it's time to send a message that the status quo is not acceptable. We must move forward. I want blood thirsty assistants who are willing to outwork, outlearn, and flat-out beat the $hit out of the other guys to get the players we need to be successful.
 
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blueraiderJT said:
After 1 game and most of you said we'd lose too. SMH.
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JT, you have been making early season excuses for this shit show for the past three years. Then you change your tune at year end. At least we call our shots and stick to them even if it means bailing. I've talked to four guys since last night who, like me have had enough. We used to make every game together including several road trips. You go ahead and keep throwing good money after bad but please don't call us out for airing our disgust. Yes, it was the first game, just like McNeese and others. It begins and ends with a stubborn head coach who refuses to make a complete staff overhaul and is content to merely "compete" because he has been given an ironclad golden parachute at the expense of the program.
 
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We will bounce back, not having a running back is tough. We can run the wild James offense from the fau game and be bowl bound. Hopefully we will, at least that was fun to watch.

Maybe hold open tryouts for the student body RB, has to be better idea than having stockstill run the draw until he gets hurt and the season is completely shot again.
 
Wasn't the RB fault. They had nowhere to run. OLine sucked!
 
FranklinRaider315 said:
JT, you have been making early season excuses for this shit show for the past three years. Then you change your tune at year end. At least we call our shots and stick to them even if it means bailing. I've talked to four guys since last night who, like me have had enough. We used to make every game together including several road trips. You go ahead and keep throwing good money after bad but please don't call us out for airing our disgust. Yes, it was the first game, just like McNeese and others. It begins and ends with a stubborn head coach who refuses to make a complete staff overhaul and is content to merely "compete" because he has been given an ironclad golden parachute at the expense of the program.
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Shut your pie hole. You don't stick to anything. You're still on here b!tching like a woman. You're not bailing. The second we win a big game, you'll be right back on here talking about how you were high fiving the mayor in the stadium club or whatever other BS you've pumped out over the years. I can't keep up. When is Memphis getting that Big 12 invite again? LOL.
 
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AustinLewis said:
It's not the loss, its the way MT lost that has most fuming
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I get that but it's not a one game season and we played them even worse last season. I was there in the stands pissed off too. However, you take it for what it is and you move on. 11 more bullets in the chamber. If they have a losing season, then I'll grab a pitchfork with the rest of you and run Stock's butt out of town. Until then, I'm hoping we do what we need to do to get Brent time to make plays and stop putting him in empty back sets against teams with huge defensive lines. Wish we had Jimmy Ray Stephens again. He would just have had us cut block em.
 
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blueraiderJT said:
Shut your pie hole. I wait to the end of the season to judge and we have a lot of corrections to make and think we will. It was the first game. I didn't like it either but I ain't "bailing" after one game. Besides, you're not bailing. You're still on here like a woman bitching about every damn move we make. I swear. Every damn year, I have to read your dumb a$$ posts and lose precious brain cells trying to parse through your moronic ramblings. Like you ever tackled a dude who runs a 4.3 in his sleep and is one of the best RB's to play in the SEC. Get the hell out of here with that crap. BTW, I'm running out of the tunnel with Tom Brady looking forward to starting at RB. LOL. You played for Memphis but you criticize us losing? Hell, you should be a pro at it if you played for that craptastic program.

When is Memphis getting that Big12 invite again? Idiot.
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It doesn't speak well of man who is reduced to nothing but profane personal attacks during a civil debate. But it's late and I guess you've tossed down a few. Have fun.
 
Oh I'll have fun. Keep shutting down that wheel route like you did when you went 2-9 at Memphis or when you dined with the president after you got your 15th degree at your 87th college and went to space. What a moron.
 
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Wow! I had been grumbling about various disappointments and shortcomings with the Vandy game in other threads and have somehow missed this doozie of a thread.

Amazingly, I really can't argue with the vast penetrating overarching points of the main large posts in this thread. When it comes to your favorite team and especially your alma mater, one can usually find a few points to debate or challenge. Typically when fans are venting at this level about the overall status of the program, many can and will find arguments with others' entire perspective. I have to say, not really any of that here. Even if some of the minor points weren't high on my priority list, I still get where they are coming from.

I actually appreciate people cutting to the chase and getting to the heart of the matter. It needs to be dealt with no matter how ugly or uncomfortable because clearly the football program and resultantly the athletic dept has a major problem that is becoming heavy weight on the other programs i.e. basketball. Not that I want to pit football vs basketball, not at all. It's just the realities need to be openly discussed and dealt with.

A huge red flag at least for the regular fan, student, alumnus, etc, was the sudden change in scheduling this past year. For years, the athletic dept focused efforts to give the program decent chances for development and success by scheduling winnable ooc games especially the home openers vs FCS cupcakes. After about 5 years of this seemingly failed proposition, MT athletics appears to no longer be able to afford such arrangements. While coach stock has been struggling to get "bowl eligible" with these favorable schedules, it is about to be a rude awakening for most involved as MT returns to playing 2 or 3 money games in the ooc schedule. That "bowl eligible" point of pride is about to be a thing of the past barring some sort of miraculous turnaround.

At the same time, fellow C-USA programs appear to be making moves and investments in football in improve individual programs and the performance of the conference in general. UNT has a new coach that appears to have the potential to field an improved and competitive team. MT was fortunate to come away with a win when MT last played down in Denton when the 1st year coach had a bunch of young new players. LaTech--Skip Holtz. A proven steady winner who will likely only get better as he continues to build his program down there in Ruston. WKU, they are more than proving their rise to high levels of competitiveness. ODU and Coach Wilder, they're a sleeping giant. They have decent success getting a program up and running and getting to C-USA in a few short years. Their recruiting region, new facility on the way, they are going to be a force in C-USA. UTSA, they are in a prime location for recruits and fan support with a great home facility already in place. They are going on their way to being highly competitive team. Rice & UTEP--both have been around, have some tradition. Have ups and downs, and while up they get good support. Marshall & Southern Miss-- any given season it would seem that either or both of these programs can rise to be the class of the league with potential for huge turnouts in their good sized stadiums. Lastly on my incomplete brief list, FAU & FIU: Both of these just this offseason have made big investments in a HC to turnaround their programs. With their locations, newer facilities, hot local recruiting grounds, they could become contenders and then some in a few short years. I'll close this post by saying that in all likelihood, MT's schedule is about to become immensely more demanding and difficult. Conf cupcakes will likely be reducing in number on the schedule. The upside, MT just might be in a rising C-USA that is gaining in success, respect, and national recognition.
 
dukewayne said:
Wow! I had been grumbling about various disappointments and shortcomings with the Vandy game in other threads and have somehow missed this doozie of a thread.

Amazingly, I really can't argue with the vast penetrating overarching points of the main large posts in this thread. When it comes to your favorite team and especially your alma mater, one can usually find a few points to debate or challenge. Typically when fans are venting at this level about the overall status of the program, many can and will find arguments with others' entire perspective. I have to say, not really any of that here. Even if some of the minor points weren't high on my priority list, I still get where they are coming from.

I actually appreciate people cutting to the chase and getting to the heart of the matter. It needs to be dealt with no matter how ugly or uncomfortable because clearly the football program and resultantly the athletic dept has a major problem that is becoming heavy weight on the other programs i.e. basketball. Not that I want to pit football vs basketball, not at all. It's just the realities need to be openly discussed and dealt with.

A huge red flag at least for the regular fan, student, alumnus, etc, was the sudden change in scheduling this past year. For years, the athletic dept focused efforts to give the program decent chances for development and success by scheduling winnable ooc games especially the home openers vs FCS cupcakes. After about 5 years of this seemingly failed proposition, MT athletics appears to no longer be able to afford such arrangements. While coach stock has been struggling to get "bowl eligible" with these favorable schedules, it is about to be a rude awakening for most involved as MT returns to playing 2 or 3 money games in the ooc schedule. That "bowl eligible" point of pride is about to be a thing of the past barring some sort of miraculous turnaround.

At the same time, fellow C-USA programs appear to be making moves and investments in football in improve individual programs and the performance of the conference in general. UNT has a new coach that appears to have the potential to field an improved and competitive team. MT was fortunate to come away with a win when MT last played down in Denton when the 1st year coach had a bunch of young new players. LaTech--Skip Holtz. A proven steady winner who will likely only get better as he continues to build his program down there in Ruston. WKU, they are more than proving their rise to high levels of competitiveness. ODU and Coach Wilder, they're a sleeping giant. They have decent success getting a program up and running and getting to C-USA in a few short years. Their recruiting region, new facility on the way, they are going to be a force in C-USA. UTSA, they are in a prime location for recruits and fan support with a great home facility already in place. They are going on their way to being highly competitive team. Rice & UTEP--both have been around, have some tradition. Have ups and downs, and while up they get good support. Marshall & Southern Miss-- any given season it would seem that either or both of these programs can rise to be the class of the league with potential for huge turnouts in their good sized stadiums. Lastly on my incomplete brief list, FAU & FIU: Both of these just this offseason have made big investments in a HC to turnaround their programs. With their locations, newer facilities, hot local recruiting grounds, they could become contenders and then some in a few short years. I'll close this post by saying that in all likelihood, MT's schedule is about to become immensely more demanding and difficult. Conf cupcakes will likely be reducing in number on the schedule. The upside, MT just might be in a rising C-USA that is gaining in success, respect, and national recognition.
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Uh, We owned UNT last year and it was never close. They went 5-8 last year. I mean it's better than 1 win in 2015 but let's not give them the title just yet. They still don't have what they need and may not get it anytime soon.

LaTech is a great team but yeah, we beat them last year too.

WKU is the best. Can't argue with that. We'll see what happens when they play Vandy. They lost to them last year too and lost to the very LaTech team we beat. We lost to them by a point only when TF called a pass play on first down with 2:30 to go when WKU had only one timeout.

RICE and UTEP suck and shouldn't be in our conference. MTN West can have em.

Marshall is 3-2 against us. They beat Miami of Ohio.

USM has yet to beat us. They've had like 2 good years in the last 7. Great tradition.

FIU. I was hoping they would beat UCF but a unicorn showed up instead.

FAU. Lane Kiffin is the pinnacle of non excited drunk coaches who grabbed players off of a reality TV show. Looked awesome against Navy. DeAndre Johnson can throw picks to anybody. Amazing.

So losing to Vandy in the first game with a new defense and OLine is an indicator that everyone has passed us by? Let's see if WKU can shut them down then we can talk. Yes, are things great at MT? Obviously not but better than they are at just about all of those schools you mentioned.
 
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More to the focus of the administration and leadership of MT football as is the primary focus of this thread.

Both coach stock and AD Massaro have to know they are facing big problems. Despite coach stocks lengthy contract which MT simply does not have the money to buyout, it's hard to see them two trying to push coach stock's tenure to end of this contract that goes to 2225, er, somewhere in mid 2020s. Frankly, I would be surprised if coach stock were still coaching MT the year after Brent's eligibility expires. I'm guessing that if coach stock can't turnaround the program with Off Coord Franklin, Def Coord Shafer, and Brent's r-JR and r-SR season, coach stock might just retire at about that time.

He has to know the program is struggling mightily. An amicable retirement at that point would be more than reasonable. He could have these last 2 years with his son living football together. He'd have two more years of decent income to save for retirement, and he would have had a couple quality coords to give it a good try. On Massaro's side, the coach finally leaves without having to buyout the lengthy and expensive contract which MT cannot afford. Plus from a PR angle, everyone can make nice-nice over coach stocks years and how restored discipline and academics back to the program. A new HC coming in would inherit a program in decent shape, i.e. a full roster, no scandal, good APR.

If this isn't worked out or doesn't happen, I suspect the Blue Raider community would essentially revolt and demand a change even it it means firing the HC. With more difficult ooc schedule and improving C-USA, coach stock may not make one or both of the success levels to trigger even further contract extensions. Hopefully, this would help keep down the price of a buyout if it came to that.

Bottomline, I think he has until the end of next season to achieve a miraculous turnaround. If not, and he's still HC, MT's current attendance problems will seem like a walk in the park compared to what would be to come.
 
Yes, Massaro made a dumb move with that contract. I agree with that. We still beat all of the "awesome programs" you mention. What if we do again this year? Then it's working better than it isn't. No FBS team is firing it's coach after another 8 win or better season. It just not gonna happen. If he loses, he's gotta do it like 3 years in row for a change to happen. So instead of us going forward, you gotta hope we go way backwards for multiple years. That kinda defeats the purpose of what you're saying. We are stuck but let's say you hire a hoshot coach. He coaches a year and then he's gone. What then? if not, now you spend 4 years of sucking to get to the 8 win mark. We're there now. Just don't see it happening until he loses a lot.
 
blueraiderJT said:
Uh, We owned UNT last year and it was never close. They went 5-8 last year. I mean it's better than 1 win in 2015 but let's not give them the title just yet. They still don't have what they need and may not get it anytime soon.

LaTech is a great team but yeah, we beat them last year too.

WKU is the best. Can't argue with that. We'll see what happens when they play Vandy. They lost to them last year too and lost to the very LaTech team we beat. We lost to them by a point only when TF called a pass play on first down with 2:30 to go when WKU had only one timeout.

RICE and UTEP suck and shouldn't be in our conference. MTN West can have em.

Marshall is 3-2 against us. They beat Miami of Ohio.

USM has yet to beat us. They've had like 2 good years in the last 7. Great tradition.

FIU. I was hoping they would beat UCF but a unicorn showed up instead.

FAU. Lane Kiffin is the pinnacle of non excited drunk coaches who grabbed players off of a reality TV show. Looked awesome against Navy. DeAndre Johnson can throw picks to anybody. Amazing.

So losing to Vandy in the first game with a new defense and OLine is an indicator that everyone has passed us by? Let's see if WKU can shut them down then we can talk. Yes, are things great at MT? Obviously not but better than they are at just about all of those schools you mentioned.
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I'm not going to try to enter into a major refutation of all points. Maybe I didn't explain myself clearly enough. My highlights of C-USA was not comparison list of MT vs each other school. My main point was to point out that there are changes and developments across the conference to suggest that a number of the football teams in C-USA will likely be improving over the next couple/few years. It's also a point that suggests MT's conf schedule just might start to be increasingly more difficult over the next few years. I'm suggesting that if MT isn't getting reasonably better, a harder schedule might make it more difficult to get that last 1 or 2 wins on the season. The 1 or 2 wins that typically means bowl eligibility or not for MT in most any season. On the positive side, it will be good for the conference to improve across the board.

I'll mention the UNT game since it was at the top of the list and I just don't remember it the same way. Of course, my main point is that UNT seems to be improving. You even mentioned their improving record season over season. I just recalled that they seemed to be an improving team that I'm glad MT was able to win. I wouldn't say MT dominated the whole game. IIRC, UNT led 7-0 after Qtr 1. MT led 13-7 at the half which is a fairly reasonable score of a competitive game. In the 2nd half, gladly MT pulled away to win 30-13. A good win, but questionably dominating. IIRC, MT dominated the ground game, but UNT's brand new young QB with hardly any experience came out and threw the ball all over the field. To me, they struck me as an improving team that I'm glad MT beat especially since they used to own MT for so many years.
 
blueraiderJT said:
Yes, Massaro made a dumb move with that contract. I agree with that. We still beat all of the "awesome programs" you mention. What if we do again this year? Then it's working better than it isn't. No FBS team is firing it's coach after another 8 win or better season. It just not gonna happen. If he loses, he's gotta do it like 3 years in row for a change to happen. So instead of us going forward, you gotta hope we go way backwards for multiple years. That kinda defeats the purpose of what you're saying. We are stuck but let's say you hire a hoshot coach. He coaches a year and then he's gone. What then? if not, now you spend 4 years of sucking to get to the 8 win mark. We're there now. Just don't see it happening until he loses a lot.
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Hey my friend, with it getting late perhaps you are getting tired. I know I sometimes am still online past the eyelids getting heavy. I mention this because it appears you might be drawing or inferring things from my comments that I did not say or mean.
 
You mentioned UNT and they won 1 friggin game in 2015. Of course they improved. LOL. They had no where to go but up. They still couldn't fill our jock strap but now since we lost to an SEC team, although we did last year too and allowed way less points this year, they must be headed in the right direction and we must be taking a nose dive. They played frigging Lamar.

Out of all of the teams you mentioned, only one has beaten us for 2 years in a row. WKU.

I honestly don't know the point of any of this when we've played one game. Do we look good right now? No. Will we be better by week 12? I'm willing to stick around and find out. That's all I'm saying.

I don't like saying this at all. Vandy is a much better program than us right now. They've showed it last year and this year and honestly, they should be. They have Many millions of dollars more than we will ever have. Their DL this year and their entire D is actually better than last year and I think they will only get better. Shurmur is really improved and they have more weapons than Webb now. I didn't want to admit it and I trashed them but they are a much better team and were dialed in. Plain and simple. They kicked our butt.

I'm sorry guys. We are never going to be perfect. We are never going to have bigger players than a SEC team. We just won't unless they get kicked out of a SEC team and end up here. We don't have the money or the prestige to get em here. So we are in a lane and it's a G5 lane. Every now and then, we jump up and beat a team folks say we shouldn't and that's fun. But to say or think that we are gonna do that every game and go undefeated ain't gonna happen and guess what? WKU doesn't do it either. They dropped a couple games last year too. It's life. Do we play under our potential more than we should? Probably. But are we North Texas? Please. This is the lane we are in. Don't like it? I understand. It's D1 ball and can be pretty cruel. There's plenty I don't like and I have grievances too.

I thought Tony Franklin called this game much like he did vs. 2009 Troy. Horrible game plan and no adjusting at all. Shafer called a much better game and our guys missed 2 major assignments that caused 14 points outright. To be expected. However, TF should be up in the box. I also think Rick Mallory probably needs another job if our line doesn't improve and that we should go get Glen Earlabee back and throw some cash at him. That doesn't mean I hate the program and everyone should be fired right now and I'm done. BTW, I'm not saying you said any of this either. LOL. But some have and they say it every game every year even when we win, they say it. You could go back and look at posts from the last 5 years and this is really a broken record. "I'm leaving and I'm done." They're back the next week.

Vandy is a good team. They are. We got the team that beat UGA at their house and totally destroyed UT. I actually think they could win 8 games now and that does mean something in the SEC. They'll be 2-0 after this week already and K-State is now winnable for them. Bama will kill em but they're killing everyone. However, I do think we will get better as a team and will improve a good bit from week 1 to week 2.

Good luck folks. I hope we do some good things this year. I'm sorry y'all are upset.
 
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Did anyone see what UCLA did to Texas A&M last night, or more accurately, what Kevin Sumlin did to himself?

BTW, for those who don't know, our former DC is a "Senior Analyst" for their defense.
 
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I get all the frustration, I feel it too. I want so much more for the program. Ideally, I want major changes, as much as I like CRS, I think we see our potential with his leadership, we might sneak in a CUSA championship in the next year or two, but I don't thing we will be much more than a contender. But this is my bottom line. I am an MT grad. I love my school. I have two kids that are going to MT now. I live in the Boro and will probably for the rest of my life. This is a family tradition. I will be there for every home game, enjoying tailgating and cheering on the team. There is no other team I would rather support, even if we go 7-5 each year and lose games with big crowds. I know in the 2nd half I saw a D that grew up and got better and played the run well. I saw our offense get in the red zone 3 times (and self destruct) but if we can get better in the next few weeks, the season is far from over.

For us as fans, this is recreation. I hope you guys will reconsider. I believe MT can have everything it needs if "MT" folks will support the program. We have 4600 season ticket holders, we need 10,000. I am asking you to come back, focus on the things you can control and lets have fun.
 
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Our O line looked awful. I have no idea how we keep Stockstill upright with this crew. Someone mentioned this earlier in the tread as well but why the hell do we have so many Juco kids on scholarship that aren't on the 2 deep??? No excuse no to sign and develop kids that can block in this scheme. NONE
 
Hey FranklinRaider315. Dude, I apologize for my behavior. I know we've locked horns a few times over the years but you're still here just like me and if you weren't a fan you wouldn't be. I think we're all on the same side and we can forget that sometimes. I know I can. Hell, there ain't that many of us so I'll go clean slate on this and we can move forward.

I think we will improve this week and Cuse won't have a D surge up front like Vandy. I really do think Vandy is a much improved team. While it did hurt to watch, we did actually play them better than last year in every way except in the pass game. We gave up 19 less points, 2-3 less turnovers, contained their return game on special teams, stopped the run game, and tackled much better . Shurmur did light us up but he did vs. Ole Miss and UT last year too. He is already better this year. We may and will probably lose this game but the matchup will be better and think we will score more points.
 
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Stockstill's teams ALWAYS start slow and seem to lose season opening 1A games. Extremely frustrating and doesn't appear that it will change anytime soon.
 
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No need for apologies. I really enjoy the late hour posts after an ugly loss. It's better than Jerry Springer and Live PD.
I'll continue to root for MTSU because it's my school but I told y'all this was coming three years ago. It's exactly like watching the last five years of Tommy West at Memphis all over again.

High preseason emotions annually killed by ugly losses.

Lazy recruiting

Weak conference wins to pad the record for meaningless bowl eligibility,

Dwindling crowds due to apathy.

It is what it is.
 
MTLynn said:
Stockstill's teams ALWAYS start slow and seem to lose season opening 1A games. Extremely frustrating and doesn't appear that it will change anytime soon.
Click to expand...

That really is true. It's interesting though. When we've lost that first game, we've usually won the second. 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012. 2007, we lost the first but played No. 8 UL to the wire. It was a much improved game regardless. 2013-2016, we started off with FCS opponents and won those but we lost the next game which were all P5 opponents. However, we won the following games all 4 years and played much better as well. It was like week 2 was week 1 for us.

They always say that you improve the most between week 1 and week 2. We'll see if that holds true.
 
Um....I think we have been recruiting some talent along the OL and DL but am not happy with how they are developing in the offseason. I know we have a couple of very talented Freshman that I guess Stock is trying to redshirt on the OL. He may have to break them. Why is Redshirt Sophmore Josh Fannin only at 268? He was supposedly our most talented incoming freshman OL 3 years ago. I knew we might be in trouble with the OL when we were talking about 5th year senior, never started, Connor Trent to be a coveted left tackle. That is when I really started to worry.

I would imagine we will see a few changes this week. We may have to run some formations that have a tight end present in order for them to stay in and block. I sense more bubble screens coming in order to take a way the DE's aggressiveness. I think Franklin got a realistic whiff of where exactly we are on the OL and now he is making up his scheme accordingly. We have some good co-ordinators folks. Lets see what they come up with. Go MT.
 
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