App1990 wrote:The swings in rhetoric is amazing. Lose to Liberty. The world is ending. Beat some bad teams. The world is perfect. Let's get real. First, I never suggested firing Satt. I think he has been far from solid, but also I think he deserves time. But if we want to be honest with ourselves, the jury is still out on this year and our trajectory.
Yes, ULM is a better win than GSU and Troy, which isn't saying much because both GSU and Troy are simply horrid. Both would likely be at the bottom of the SoCon (GSU is 0-2 against he SoCon since joining the Sun Belt, and Troy lost to Abilene Christian this year). I point that out because ULM had a hard time beating Troy and the equally horrid Idaho. They did play TAMU tough, which certainly deserves consideration, but that was more TAMU who suspended their QB for this game and kept things simple for the new QB. Simply put, ULM is not a great team. A middle of the pack Sun Belt team. A notch above the horrid GSU, Troy, Idaho and NMSU. The win only shows we are in that range ourselves, which we already knew from our previous two wins. And the wins do not show that we have improved because there is no way of knowing whether we look better because we are better or because the competition was so much worse. Yes, Liberty could beat GSU, Troy, Idaho and NMSU.
Of course the schedule is the schedule, but of course strength of schedule matters. Heck, the experts had us favored, so ULM wasn't a great team and the win isn't a statement of any kind. So, let's not get ahead of ourselves on either side of the debate. The jury is still out. A win against either ULL or Ark St, or even a close loss, will be a reason to believe we are getting better. I hope so, and partly I expect we will show well. But even if we pull that off, taking the momentum to next year is not a given. As this past year showed.
The story from Saturday is that, despite coming off two wins and having awesome weather, and attendance was beyond disappointing. I've been at every home game, and it has been well below announced attendance figures--even half. It is the worst (actual) attendance in a decade, and the Thanksgiving weekend game will not help. Winning will help, but I worry that the people that were brought in with the transformative events (national championships and UM win) may not be drawn back with a few more wins. Need to get the AD office set so this and other things can be addressed quickly and effectively.
I'm a little ambivalent about this post. Factually, I agree with almost everything you say. (The exception being that I think it's beyond obvious that we have improved - by a lot - since earlier in the season.) But your tone is so negative that it seems like you are trying to be pessimistic, whereas I am definitely feeling optimistic about the program's direction.
I guess it comes down to this - yes, we are currently a middle-of-the-pack Sun Belt team. So what does one make of this?
-You could say "The bottom of this league is terrible, so we haven't shown we can beat good teams, and just look what Georgia Southern is doing."
-Or you could say, "In our first FBS season, with a starting 22 that includes only 2 seniors and 14 freshmen and sophomores, we're already in the middle of the pack in our new league, and we've dramatically improved since just a month ago. And by the way, we were coming off a 4-8 FCS season, and a team actually improving its record from its last FCS year to its first FBS year is virtually unheard of." This is the view I take at the moment.
