FOOTBALL Where does MT go from here?
- Thread starter SpaceRaider
- Start date
Not everybody loses most of their WR corps before the season starts and then their star QB with three games left to play.
You'd be surprised. There are loads of teams out there with injury situations as bad or worse than ours. UCLA, Ole Miss, Navy, UNLV, Colorado State, Illinois, Kentucky, Florida, Oregon State, UL-Monroe.....shall I continue?
I'd love to see the teams that have lost their star QB for the remainder of the season and nearly the entire WR corps before the season started. Every team has players that get injured but we have lost players essential to our team, no one more so than Brent. Injuries to your core player (yes, core player singular) hurt.
The only college team that has had the injury bug as bad as MT this year is UTK (and they may have it worse).
I haven't seen anything like it since the Titans had their ACL year around 2002 in which they had 6 or 7 players tear ACLs
I haven't seen anything like it since the Titans had their ACL year around 2002 in which they had 6 or 7 players tear ACLs
What are your excuses for these two seasons?
2014: 6-6 (no bowl)
2015: 7-6 (blown out by the MAC again)
Again, everybody sustains injuries, it's part of the business. We've gone 11 seasons now without an outright conference championship. I stayed loyal for nine straight. Now 21,000 empty seats last Sat. are screaming at Stock that something is not right and it needs to be fixed quickly. But with an 8-year golden parachute contract courtesy of CM, I'm afraid there is no longer a sense of urgency. It is what it is. JMHO.
2014: 6-6 (no bowl)
2015: 7-6 (blown out by the MAC again)
Again, everybody sustains injuries, it's part of the business. We've gone 11 seasons now without an outright conference championship. I stayed loyal for nine straight. Now 21,000 empty seats last Sat. are screaming at Stock that something is not right and it needs to be fixed quickly. But with an 8-year golden parachute contract courtesy of CM, I'm afraid there is no longer a sense of urgency. It is what it is. JMHO.
It's ok folks!
We've already met our season goal of bowl eligibility.
2016 MT Blue Raider Football - Mission Accomplished!!!!!!
We've already met our season goal of bowl eligibility.
2016 MT Blue Raider Football - Mission Accomplished!!!!!!
Bowl? Who said anything about actually going to a bowl?
I'm not sure the previous MT teams even showed up for their bowls - 1-4 with a average margin of loss of like 16 points.
It's just about being eligible for a bowl.
Why don't we cheer on the team this weekend...Where do we go from here? Well, its simple, they try to win next week. I am kind of excited to see how the new QB will do with a week of focus.
Some of you guys are depressing, we get it. The team is average, doesn't win any games that matter. Instead of repeating the same thing over and over why don't you do something about it with something you can control.
Some of you guys are depressing, we get it. The team is average, doesn't win any games that matter. Instead of repeating the same thing over and over why don't you do something about it with something you can control.
Yes, it's football. Yes, everyone has injuries (and some have it worse than others). At this time, I'm addressing 2016 and not years past.
Stay tuned to GoMiddle.com. They'll be stuff coming in the near future that address the issues at hand!
Real trolls would not have sat through Vandy / WKU games last year and this year until the final gun. I did.
Serious question, would you rather:
A program that has peaks and valleys, has multiple bowl wins/rankings/conference titles but also has at a year or maybe more lean years or years with no real success
or
One that is consistently average, never really bad, but never reaching anything more - no bowl wins, no wins of note, no titles/rankings/etc - but never finishing at the bottom and never being really bad?
Give me the peaks and valleys. A couple of great championship seasons and a couple of off years to rebuild. But I think the first thing may enhance recruiting efforts and reduce the number of rebuilding years.
I'd rather never have a losing season. We had a 2 win season 5 years ago and I enjoy football now a lot more than then.
I think the problem is we are so close to being a good team. The reality is things can get worse and quick, look at Marshall.
If you're not first you're last. There's no difference between us and Marshall right now. Neither is going to win the CUSA Championship which is all that matters.
This really is a fair opinion.
But, as you and I have discussed before, there is an equally valid differing opinion.
Personally, I wish CM expected more out of our coaches. IMO, MT coaches should have an expectation of competing for C-USA championships and if you don't win your division/conference after 5 or so years, we go a different direction. This is with the full understanding that the new coach may fail miserably. At least we are not settling.
I applaud UGA for moving on from Mark Richt. Even if Kirby fails miserably, at least UGA tried to shake things up and not settle.
But this is not CM's MO. You can see that in Stock's contract. So for those with a differing opinion, the current situation leads to frustration or apathy.
Just my 2 cents.
To me, I would like to see an outright championship every 6-8 years as a minimum expectation. It's been 10 and 15 years, respectively that the Blue Raiders won a co-championship. Our last outright football championship was won in the OVC in 1992. That's 24 years ago! And counting. Long periods without meaningful championships really weight the outlook of the program, as evidenced with the number of empty seats (even with a 6-2 team on display last weekend, before the UTSA loss was final).
I would like to think MT could achieve championship play at least once every four years. I'm looking at the fact we are midway through the best QB we've had here, and what are the chances we will even win one championship in his four years? Not looking so good with the sorry defense we have.
My take is apathy has set in. I believe we have seen as far as this coaching staff can take us and that is not to a level of winning conference championships. It is frustrating to see WKU, and Arky State, going through their coaching changes and still kicking our butts winning the conference. Some may say it's bad luck. I say it's a culture of rewarding mediocrity. It will take a major shakeup, hiring the right staff and a few years to restore the fans interest and confidence. Folks, welcome to apathy.
I think everyone wants us to win more. We are in this no mans land, not unlike MT BB program was a few years ago.
But all of you are talking expectations, the question is where do we go from here.
But all of you are talking expectations, the question is where do we go from here.
I wish I still cared. One thing that I've learned these days is that folks can argue til infinity about nothing. Either support em or not. I'll keep rooting for em if that's ok with y'all. 
We have to make two decisions:
First, decide what we want this program to be. We have a good program. It's not great. It's not competing for any sort of championship. It's rather irrelevant in CUSA. It has no personality nor does it generate any real excitement. It doesn't win big games or rivalry games. It does achieve bowl eligibilty, which is something i'm sure some other teams at our level would kill for. It's a high character program, it graduates it's players.
Are we fine with this? If so, nothing more needs to be done.
If we want something more, than I think we have arrived at the point where we have to decide whether or not the current coaching regime can get us to where we want to be.
Personally, after seeing the program for 10+ years, I don't think this regime can win a title or put together a team that is anything more than .average, and speaking for me, I'm ready to see some new blood give this a shot.
Where do we go from here? We need to thank Stock for 10 great years, putting our program on solid foundation, and bring in someone else to take a crack at having this program live up to it's potential.
I agree 100%.
I will support MT no matter what we do, but I would prefer we go a different direction. Better to take a chance and fail than go through this same thing every year. I applaud schools like UGA and LSU. Even if Kirby and Ed fail, at least they are trying.
I think Stock will be here at least through Brent's SR year. If we could buy out his deal, are you advocating making the change now?
I am. I've seen enough to honestly believe Stock is not a championship coach.
My expectations for this program is to play for a conference championship at least once every 4 years, and no less than a .500 record in rivalry and bowl games and to go to a bowl 2 of every 3 seasons.
We're not making the grade, IMHO, and the above is not a very high bar.
With a top 50 defense and Brent at QB I think it is a top 25 team.
With the current defense and Urzua at QB the team ranks around 100
I hate to burst your bubble but, with this offensive line, Brent wouldn't get off a decent throw against a Top 25 defense. He wouldn't even have time to set his feet. We managed only 17 points in the first half against Vandy and 7 in the 2nd half.
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If you recall the offense was putting up lots of points before Brent got hurt and the defense was allowing lots of points.
Don't you think that MT would have gotten many more votes and possible a top 25 ranking if the defense had been decent when Brent was playing?
Don't you think that MT would have gotten many more votes and possible a top 25 ranking if the defense had been decent when Brent was playing?
A loss to Vanderbilt really precludes a AP or Coaches Poll top 25 ranking, unless we had finished rest the season undefeated to close at 11-1 and in C-USA championship game. Look where Boise or Western Michigan is with their current record. Two losses gets some votes, as we were at 6-2. But, we still did not receive any in one poll. At 10-2, we are probably in the 30-40 vote range floating around 28-30 in poll, maybe ranked if there are numerous four loss teams jockeying for the poll. Troy's only loss is to Clemson by 6, that gets them #25 in AP, still no 25 in coaches, but receive votes.
Good post Doug.
I think a lot of the problem is also what appears to be a lack of commitment from the AD and coaching staff to improve and reach that next level of winning championships and moving the program forward. If Stock was serious about turning this into a championship program he would have fired Nix and West. He instead appears content with where are and doesn't seem to have much interest in striving for that next level.
I'm OK with failing and having bad teams if I know every effort was made to the best we can be.
I'm NOT OK with having mediocre teams that don't do everything in their power to reach for that next level and keep improving.
We don't pass the eye test to be ranked even if we were 10-2 our schedule is weak and the only team we really trounced is FCS. Margin of victory is important with our schedule
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