look at those Motor City Bowl crowds. That is when MU football was exciting. We are the 2nd best mediocre team in our division.
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It's Official: Gasperilla Bowl vs USF
- Thread starter BleedsGreen33
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look at those Motor City Bowl crowds. That is when MU football was exciting. We are the 2nd best mediocre team in our division.
You have more "Fans" then who?
Or; they didn't live in the Huntington area in the first place. Search on my post about the Demographics of Marshall. After they Graduate they "Go Home", don't stay in the Huntington area for the above mention reasons. When I was there I met a lot of Floridians and students from New York.
Do you have any proof of that? or are you just assuming?
How come everything is so Black and White with you locals? If your not
a Marshall fan you must be a WVU fan. Didn't I just give you a heads-up on the Demographics of MU? Do you think students from out of state (like myself) give a rats ass about WVU? In fact, my years at MU we didnt play WVU once. It just didnt matter. Only matters to locals.
Then OSU then, or UK, or the universal bandwagoners team, Notre Dame.
I get it, MU sports is not for you. Walk away.
And anybody that does not realize that MU has probably more fans than any four other CUSA teams added together, is not paying any attention.
I get it, MU sports is not for you. Walk away.
And anybody that does not realize that MU has probably more fans than any four other CUSA teams added together, is not paying any attention.
Southern Miss laughs at your nonsense
johns.....you left out pickle ball! There are a lot of alums down in Fla. Should be a good matchup. Only bowl game that entire day! Will any of ESPN's earlier programming give this game a sniff of attention?
IF we have so many fans, why can't we sell out the Joan every home game? Even during our heyday, the Joan wasn't sold out every game.
I'm happy with going to the Gasparilla Bowl and playing USF but I would've been happy with the bowl game in Dallas too. Plenty of recruits in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and perhaps we need more recruits from places not in Florida. Then again, if we were headed to Texas to play we'd have to listen to the excuse about how 'Marshall doesn't play well in Texas.' That whine gets old pretty fast.
I'm happy with going to the Gasparilla Bowl and playing USF but I would've been happy with the bowl game in Dallas too. Plenty of recruits in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and perhaps we need more recruits from places not in Florida. Then again, if we were headed to Texas to play we'd have to listen to the excuse about how 'Marshall doesn't play well in Texas.' That whine gets old pretty fast.
At the rate we are going and at the rate you want people to leave we may soon be on FIU level.
Your attitude is the problem with Marshall right now. Happy with a bowl. Happy with 2nd or 3rd places in a division and saying if you don't like it then leave. That permeates from the school as well right now.
Well, some of us want a winner again. We are tired of 2nd or 3rd and a conference championship ever 16 years.
Mediocrity is ruining it.
Who says I, or anybody, is "happy" about anything? The problem is this football anhedonia crowd is going to run off a good coach, and the best AD we have ever had. And, boys and girls, Jim Donnan (73) or Bobby Pruett (75) ain't walking in that door. We are going to get some assistant from some mid-pack ACC or B10 school, who will also fail to meet the football anhedonia crowd's unrealistic expectations, and some no passion for the school functionary AD, who will take the next job in a couple of years.
This isn't the 90s, when we were just plain better than everybody we played. We were in conferences that were beneath our talent level. We moved up, we found a challenge.
Guess what, there are exactly ten conference championships. You cannot win every year.
If you want something where the good guys always win, get into WWE.
This isn't the 90s, when we were just plain better than everybody we played. We were in conferences that were beneath our talent level. We moved up, we found a challenge.
Guess what, there are exactly ten conference championships. You cannot win every year.
If you want something where the good guys always win, get into WWE.
I hate to think that schools that didn't have a football program 7-8 years ago are now better than us.
Yes, when we moved to CUSA in 2005, we did step up in competition. But when the AAC was formed, all teams that were good left except USM and Marshall. No way we should be struggling with these teams.
Most don't have a fan base and quite frankly it's pathetic to walk into stadium after stadium in this league and see maybe 10,000 at best.
I know we are in this league and have no options but for gosh sake, we should totally dominate it.
And that is the core of football anhedonia. The dual idea that we should "dominate" a league, but such a disregard for said league that doing so is meaningless. It is a place from which no joy can be derived.
I was a firm believer that "fans build programs". MU rose due to the fanbase. Other schools were and are what they are because of disinterest. There is no particular reason that destined us to go from I-AA to the MAC, or from the MAC to CUSA, while other were left behind. Other than we had the fanbase to do it, and others did not.
I was wrong. The AAC none of which are the most popular college team in their own towns, in many cases not even on their own campuses; and the new teams from supersized new colleges in booming towns in CUSA, have shown that if you have a big enough student body, you can student fee your way into having a nice program. Even if nobody really cares.
I was a firm believer that "fans build programs". MU rose due to the fanbase. Other schools were and are what they are because of disinterest. There is no particular reason that destined us to go from I-AA to the MAC, or from the MAC to CUSA, while other were left behind. Other than we had the fanbase to do it, and others did not.
I was wrong. The AAC none of which are the most popular college team in their own towns, in many cases not even on their own campuses; and the new teams from supersized new colleges in booming towns in CUSA, have shown that if you have a big enough student body, you can student fee your way into having a nice program. Even if nobody really cares.
I remember a ton of joy in 2013 & 2014. I'm not sure another school in CUSA history had fans tear down the field goal post (with people hanging on them) after a title win and carry it through town/campus. This town loves a winner. Always have, always will. We don't have to win CUSA every year. But we should win the division half the time. And then win the title in half of our appearances. In a 10 year period, I don't think winning the east 5 times and bringing home a CUSA title 2-3 times is too much to ask for.
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Perhaps you mean “indifference” and not “anhedonia”? People are tired of the status quo and do not want to support a program with mediocre expectations. Offensively, the product on the field isn’t exciting.Fans DO have the ability to get enjoyment from Marshall football and certainly can and will, but they expect a much better result than what is currently happening.
If we were in the running for championships more often than not, in the running for a NY6, and played some style other than Nehlen 2.0, you’d see more of an interest and enjoyment from fans.
If we were in the running for championships more often than not, in the running for a NY6, and played some style other than Nehlen 2.0, you’d see more of an interest and enjoyment from fans.
You're a fool. Winning more than one championship per decade in a conference that Marshall has significant advantages over just about every team is not "unrealistic expectations."
Marshall is in the worst conference, in terms of competition on the field, in the country. Marshall is one of the top two schools in the conference in best chances to succeed for a head coach. Winning once per decade is not good.
Besides having what appears to be an unlimited number of non-qualifiers they can take, which on its own is a bigger advantage than any on this list?
Besides having absolutely no restrictions, academically, on who you can get in school?
Besides having one of the top two best all around facilities in the conference?
Besides, at least before dropping under the current staff, having the biggest fan base (at least in terms of attendance) in the conference?
Besides having a top-third assistant coaches salary pool in the conference?
Besides being only one of a few other schools in the conference that can show recruits that ANY coach has had any success at the FBS level at their school?
The only negative Marshall has is being located in a non-fertile immediate recruiting region. That makes it tough to build a solid walk-on program.
Based on all factors, Marshall is one of the two top chances to establish a winner in the conference.
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Good coach? Well, we can find the same level of winner that what we have seen. Not worried about that. And, if the AD is too stubborn to deal with it then, that is on him.
The table is completely set for a football coach at Marshall. There is no reason not to win more championships. Ducks are on the pond. We need somebody to knock us home. The question has been answered. We have advantages over most of the schools in this league.
When Marshall does dominate the league, everyone says it doesn't count because the league is horrible.
So MU can either lose 4 games a season and everyone complains about the lack of progress and titles MU has or MU wins the conference and everyone complains about how bad CUSA is and how little progress has been made by everyone else.
Its like people wanted CUSA to be better and when it got better, people complained about that since MU actually has some competition.
Which one do you want?
Minus 3 years or so under Doc, MU has been in the East hunt the entire season.
Under Snyder, MU was eliminated from the East much earlier in the season.
The East basically came down to the last 2 weeks of the season for MU and MTSU and FIU this year. In prior years, MU was right there and the East had come down to a game or so.
Can MU do better? Of course they can. But I am glad MU is at least contending for the division every season...something, as I said earlier, MU didn't have before.
Good info! So how do we look in terms of athletic budget? Gotta be near the top. If not on the top.
When did Conference USA get better?
It got worse when it lost Houston, SMU, Memphis, and UCF.
It got worse again when it later lost ECU, Tulsa, and Tulane.
It got worse again when it added FIU and FAU.
It got worse again when it added Charlotte and Old Dominion.
At what point did Conference USA get better?
You're usually better than this.
If one school sponsors 24 NCAA sports and has a budget of $40 million, and another school sponsors just 14 NCAA sports and has a budget of $38 million, your attempt would mean that the first school has a bigger budget, thus gives its football team a better chance. In reality, the budget is spread a lot thinner for that school.
If that first school allocates just 10% of its budget to football and the second school allocates 90% of its budget to football, which football team has a better chance?
If that first school is located in UTEP where you have to fly everywhere for every single conference game in every single sport . . . yeah, you should be understanding the point by this time.
Your attempt that having a bigger budget in Conference USA, especially when so many of the schools are clumped together closely in athletic budgets, really holds no water when there are so many unknown variables associated with an overall athletic budget.
Who claims Marshall dominating the league “doesn’t count”? It’s not Marshall Fans.
CUSA hasn’t gotten “better”. It’s a shitty league. Period.
Thanks guys - all this evidence is very clear, irrefutable, not at all based on opinion, and completely damning. Marshall should never lose a game, we're just on another level.
It’s not an opinion that Marshall’s acceptance policy and allowance of non-qualifiers is as lax and beneficial as anyone’s in the conference.
It’s not an opinion that Marshall’s fan interest, at least before the decline under the current staff, was as good as any school still in C-USA.
It’s not an opinion that the assistant salary pool is in the top third of the conference.
Those things can all be supported by logical, verifiable statistics.
Sure, one could argue that Southern Miss’ campus is prettier than Charlotte’s, but the overwheloming majority of people would disagree. Likewise, one could argue that UTSA has a better football tradition than Marshall, but the overwhelming majority would disagree. One could argue that FIU has better football facilities than Marshall, but the overwhelming majority would disagree.
Many of the things listed are fact based. Many of the others are common sense based with little opposition.
Nobody is arguing that Marshall should win every game. But to claim that Marshall isn’t set up near the top of the conference in terms of best places to win is delusional.
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USF just lost its OC to become a head coach at an FCS. That will hurt them. He is also taking at least two guys from that staff to join him, so it should have a pretty major impact on their bowl game.
In the last 10 the following teams have won their division five times (or been 1st or 2nd for non division leagues) and their league three.
Alabama, Clemson, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Northern Illinois (which you despise us playing in 2014, so they don't count), Boise State, and Fresno State.
That is 7 out of 124. Every other coach should be fired.
To compare the original CUSA that Marshall joined to the current CUSA is foolish. The level of talent at the beginning is night and day better then now. Try again.....
I didn’t despise us playing NIU. Thought it was the right decision and have given it back to the idiots who think we would have gotten anything by beating Illinois. So get your facts straight.
And I don’t see anything wrong with us being the NIU of CUSA. That should be an obtainable goal in CUSA.
As for the 2014 bowl game, that will continue to be debated forever as to which team would have been a better opponent. I think fans knew we finally had a team good enough to take down someone from a bigger conference and wanted to see that matchup instead (regardless of who).
We ended up absolutely dominating NIU to the point it really wasn't much of a challenge. Would Illinois have given us a better game? Maybe. They did beat Penn State, #24 Youngstown St, and a very solid Western Kentucky team (that also beat us) that year.
*than
Nobody can really say how Doc would have done had CUSA stayed where it was. He dominated ECU in their final year there and took us to the CUSA title game as well.
I'm curious about this - what schools in our conference refuse non-qualifiers? What schools have an expressed limit that they will allow their coaches to take? More surprising: what schools require their athletes to have better grades and tests scores than what is required by the NCAA?
Links to articles would be great.
Being the 12 year veteran that you are, I'm assuming you're either extremely bored at work today, or worse yet, out of weed. Otherwise, there's simply no other explaination I can think of that would allow someone as distinguished as yourself to waste valuable time arguing with Saint Yags. Which is it?
I dunno. Its rhetorical sadism, if I'm being honest. I'm just popping in from time to time to keep the balloon in the air.
Since you're doing nothing but blowing hot air, the balloon is in good hands when you're around.
But I am glad you found just one point you felt you could argue against me about. So let's look at it:
Almost all of them either restrict it outright as a policy or have gone so long without accepting one that it is basically an unwritten rule.
Granted, this was four years ago, but it shows that MTSU has an unwritten rule not to accept them (haven't in a decade as of this article). It goes on to say that FAU, FIU, ODU, UAB, and Rice don't allow them. As of this article, UTEP hadn't accepted one in football in 4 years. UTSA had never accepted one in their first 4-5 years of football (not sure if they have since). That means at least 8 schools had/have a policy, written or not, where they didn't accept them. Southern Miss allows it, but rarely grants it:
https://www.dnj.com/story/sports/co...-on-signing-non-qualifiers-outdated/11673535/
Well over half of the fan base no longer live in Huntington. If the Huntington economy was good with a bunch of jobs and twice the population like back in the old days then most MU football games would be sold out or close to it. I do agree that attendance wasn't even great during our late 90s early 2000s run with attendance being somewhat consistent over the years. I'm happy we landed a bowl we have never played in against a solid opponent that we battle against in recruiting. You throw in the ties between Doc and Strong and it makes for an interesting matchup. As for Texas recruiting, I don't believe we will ever have much success there and should focus on the South and mid-Atlantic in our recruiting outside of FL. We have expanded our recruiting areas quite a bit with the 2019 class, and have offered over 300 recruits from 22 different states with 12 states have 5+ recruits offered in the class. We have even offered 11 recruits from WV in the class.
There is not a single new football program that is better than ours in terms of the total product and wins.
There is nothing unlimited about taking NQs. We take no more than 5-6 per year, which does gives us the opportunity to get some players we normally wouldn't, but we aren't exactly fielding a team full of former NQs with those plays only making up 10-15% of our roster in most years. Academically, even NQs have to meet the minimum admission standards for students. We can't just take anybody, and we have lost some signees in the past that could not meet the minimum requirements for admission.
Middle of the pack now as some of the bigger schools have been adding student fees to fund their AD growth.
Some rumors from the USF boards were that they wanted to the OC gone and he was on the hot seat. It sounds like he got out while the getting was good.
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