Move on after 2-3 years and try again?
Yeah, thats incredibly short-sighted and very expensive.
Are you willing to increase all your MU sports related fees in order to do this?
"Momentous announcement" during Homecoming football game?
- Thread starter RhinoD
- Start date
Move on after 2-3 years and try again?
Yeah, thats incredibly short-sighted and very expensive.
Are you willing to increase all your MU sports related fees in order to do this?
Yes. It’s only expensive if you offer long term contracts. 3 years should be the max for us. I feel like it’s not crazy rocket science either. There’s definitely no such thing as a sure thing but too many teams are more worried about getting an alumnus or someone with other ties to the university in hopes they will stay longer. Me? I’m fine with being used. Give me the best guy available in our price range.
Geez, are those the only two options, being happy with one championship in a decade, or expecting to win the league every year? OF COURSE NOT. I don’t expect us to win the league every year, but I expect us to be one of the dominant teams in the conference. I expect us to compete for a division title every year and win the division 4-5 times a decade. And then 2-3 championships. Our AD has publicly stated that we want to compete for the access bowl slot and be as good as Boise. I completely accept that may never quite happen since Boise is a big city with major corporate money and they have already won major bowls, and we are cash poor and can’t even renovate the restrooms. But our conference is really bad and the numbers I quoted should be realistic expectations. I don’t consider Doc a failure... to the contrary. He built a championship and access contender in 5 years. And he wins his bowl games. We could have done a LOT worse, Hats off to him. But he hasn’t done anything in 5 years since, and he has developed one QB in a decade. Simply time to move on if he doesn’t at least win the division this year, if not the league.
Run the risk of being WKU or USM? USM played for a championship 3 years after their disaster hire, and WKU’s disaster lead to a season almost as bad as 2016 but they are in 1st in the East two years later...
USM 2011- Wins CUSA title. Fedora leaves.
2012 0-12...and had to sign back a home game with Nebraska in order to afford the coach's buyout.
2013 1-11
2014 3-9
2015 9-5 lost in CUSA title game. Coach left.
2016 7-6
2017 8-5
2018 6-5
By the standards set here (supposedly influenced by the majority of fans) that is failure.
Due to time I've only been able to list USM.
However, the records are pretty bad by what eveyone demands here...and the carousel of coaches makes the consistently very tough to maintain.
That, and you sacrificed a very large bump in your school's economy by selling back a home game to probably the best traveled fanbase in college football...because your coaching hire was bad.
MU and schools like it, cannot afford to have this kind of inconsistency on a regular basis.
Thank’s for posting those records, I was hoping you would. The difference between those results and Doc’s are indiscernible, yet you’re trying to use them to prove how much firing Doc could backfire. Well done
So basically there are two camps here:
1- The Keep Doc crowd who is happy with the success of the program since he has been in Huntington, and should realize by now what it's going to look like with him on an annual basis (somewhat overachieving in recruiting and somewhat underachieving in performance).
2- The Fire Doc crowd who thinks that success is defined by competing for CUSA championships on an annual basis and therefore Marshall needs to find the coach that is not only going to do that, but will remain in Huntington loyally because it's by far the best gig in CUSA.
1- The Keep Doc crowd who is happy with the success of the program since he has been in Huntington, and should realize by now what it's going to look like with him on an annual basis (somewhat overachieving in recruiting and somewhat underachieving in performance).
2- The Fire Doc crowd who thinks that success is defined by competing for CUSA championships on an annual basis and therefore Marshall needs to find the coach that is not only going to do that, but will remain in Huntington loyally because it's by far the best gig in CUSA.
I don’t care about loyalty. Getting coaches that use us as a stepping stone would be great... that would mean they kicked ass while here.
And believing 2 CCG appearances in 10 years isn’t enough doesn’t automatically mean I think Marshall should win CUSA every year. The lack of championships isn’t even my biggest gripe with Doc. That would be the fact that he’s rewritten the book on embarrassing losses in the Joan. Not sure another coach has one in the top 10 anymore.
There you go again, trying to paint in only black and white. There is also a large crowd out there that realizes to be successful in the G5 you may not get loyal coaches. If they do their job well, they are going to become highly sought after by bigger programs. If they are below average, they will be loyal. Funny how that works.
Marshall needs to be more aggressive with their coaching hires. Stop with the "good ol boy network" and go out and find the best guy. If it works out we reap the rewards. If it doesn't at least I can say they are shooting their shot and doing what they can to win.
Funny you should mention Southern Miss. They had a coach named Jeff Bower back in the day, who lead them to four C-USA championships (and a fifth title game appearance), 14 straight winning seasons, and a 6-4 bowl record.
Anyway, in 2007 Southern Miss had the bright idea to tell Jeff to hit the road so they could hire Larry Fedora and take their program "to the next level." in the 12 years since, USM has had a .523 winning percentage, only one conference title, and three losing (and one winless) seasons.
Jeff bought a boat and has never returned to coaching.
Anyway, in 2007 Southern Miss had the bright idea to tell Jeff to hit the road so they could hire Larry Fedora and take their program "to the next level." in the 12 years since, USM has had a .523 winning percentage, only one conference title, and three losing (and one winless) seasons.
Jeff bought a boat and has never returned to coaching.
You're right...in fact, I may have actually helped the MU fanbase complain a little more about how bad their AD and football program would be if it were USM's.
They'd have 3 years to reference terrible seasons over just 2016.
They'd have bought out home games to say why hiring ______ was such a bad idea.
They'd have zero C-USA titles between 3 coaches in a shorter span and less appearances.
Sorry for trying to help.
Funny you should mention Southern Miss. They had a coach named Jeff Bower back in the day, who lead them to four C-USA championships (and a fifth title game appearance), 14 straight winning seasons, and a 6-4 bowl record.
Anyway, in 2007 Southern Miss had the bright idea to tell Jeff to hit the road so they could hire Larry Fedora and take their program "to the next level." in the 12 years since, USM has had a .523 winning percentage, only one conference title, and three losing (and one winless) seasons.
Jeff bought a boat and has never returned to coaching.
"That's mah boat..."
Marshall University will break ground this weekend on a baseball stadium. After decades of waiting, the team is finally getting a stadium on campus.WSAZ
A 9-5 record and blowout CUSA title game loss and bowl game loss sure is "kicking ass."
A lack of loyalty does go far...because the coach is looking out for himself, not you or MU.
Has anyone heard a G5 coach deny a P5 job and elect to stay with the program because "I didn't get enough wins and I owe it to the fans to win more" ??
If MU wants to lower itself through the identity of being a stepping stone then prepare to be stepped on constantly.
MU can become the new "Cradle of Coaches" and become a program of such prestige like Miami (OH)...and their constant MAC titles and sold out crowds and winning recor--
Oh wait...
Taking a team from winless to a championship game in 3 seasons is kicking ass. He also built the program to a vaunted Doc Holliday floor. And easy with the blowout talk. If Doc hadn’t gotten blown out even worse the week before it would have been Marshall playing Southern Miss for that championship.
Sooo...
Its no longer about titles themselves but being in the title game?
Because USM hasn't been back since.
In all fairness...they have been there since the last time we were.
All you do is deflect and build straw men. It’s pathetic. Nowhere have I said anything to make you think it’s entirely about championships to begin with. If you could read you’d see I’ve mentioned the opposite:
“And believing 2 CCG appearances in 10 years isn’t enough doesn’t automatically mean I think Marshall should win CUSA every year. The lack of championships isn’t even my biggest gripe with Doc. That would be the fact that he’s rewritten the book on embarrassing losses in the Joan.”
I don’t think USM has been a bastion of success, but they are a terrible example to use as a warning of what could happen if we fire Doc. You might recall that that’s the way this started... with you trying to use USM as an example of why firing Doc is a big risk and I pointed out that their record since firing Elllllllllllis is very Doc like.
Personally, I can’t wait to be stepped on. I’ll gladly take a meteoric rise that takes us to the peach bowl and is over in 3 years rather than just never being able to get my hopes up against a mediocre P5 team or any team with a pulse.
When only about 10% of MU students attend games, and you are a small school, then you are going to have trouble getting donations for the athletic department and will likely have a small donor base. Unfortunately, MU has always been a suitcase school where the most of the students go home for the weekend instead of staying on campus. It leads to minimal interest in MU sports as adults and is a big reason for the difficulty in expanding the Big Green.
Getting an additional 6,600 members will not make a big difference unless those donors are on average donating about $1K per year, and even if that were the case, the extra $6.6M per year would only stabilize MU athletics. We would still have a very low budget in comparison to most schools from the AAC or MWC, and we would still have to do more with less as our rabid group of fans has always expected.
Sooo...now its Win/Loss records?
It went from the consensus saying, "one title in nine years isn't enough" to people like yourself hoping someone would hopefully come in and use MU to elevate their career and bolt at the last second.
I referenced USM to show why this is not a good idea and why it has potential to backfire.
You then said MAKING THE TITLE GAME AFTER A TERRIBLE 3 YEARS IS 'KICKING ASS' AND NOT HAVING BEEN BACK SINCE, WHEN EVERYONE COMPLAINS DOC NOT WINNING A TITLE IN 9 YEARS IS 'MEDIOCRITY'?
Somehow I'm the one "deflecting and building straw men"?
You have literally gone from number of conference titles, to conference title game appearances, to now, W/L records.
While this sort of strategy is good for seasonal foreign kiosk sellers at the mall, starting at the top and trying to sell something, anything, on down the ladder, it doesn't work on actual people and records.
USM and MU are very comparable in many aspects. I'd trust you to figure that out through looking it up but given your current frame of mind and recent bout of insanity, I doubt you would.
Note that Boise St and NIU only have 2 conference titles in the last 6 years, and Appy has done very good since moving up, but they only have 1 outright conference title while sharing 2 others. All of the G5 conferences have parity with the potential for 2-3 in each conference to become an alpha dog.
Last edited:
Hmm, from 2013-2018 we have the following record under Doc:
Overall Rec: 53-26 (67.1%)
Conf Rec: 32-16 (66.7%)
Conf Titles: 1
Div Titles: 1
Winning Seasons: 5
Compared to other G5 programs over the same period we are roughly a Top-10 program. One conference title in 6 isn't great, but we have only had one bad season since he completed laying the foundation for the program. Hell, we are currently in position to win the division if we beat WKU this weekend. What if we win the conference this year? Does your perception change?
Yeah, I have never seen a school or AD turn on the fan base like Marshall. They even get the local media involved. It’s not a good look and sure as hell doesn’t make fans or donors feel all warm and fuzzy.
Man.... it sure would be nice to play in a conference where there are loads of weekday game (on national TV to boot) to combat the problem of suitcase students.... Hmmmmm
Indiscernible? S. Miss has gone 34-53 (24-32) with 4 winning seasons and 1 Division title, while MU has gone 58-33 (36-20) with 5 winning seasons, 2 Division titles, and 1 CUSA title. MU has been far superior.
Maybe make the games a more enjoyable experience and then draw more students into staying during football season?
They're doing that...AKA revitalization projects around the city.
There are always weekend events scheduled and not just athletic events either.
Good... then we should see less kids going home and more coming to games.
And what did Southern Miss do when their coaches didn’t live up to standards? They let them go. On the other hand, Marshall grants extensions when a coach fails to live up to standards.
That’s the difference.
Message boards are fantastic. Shows how stupid half our fan base has become. Just enjoy the win folks. It was a great week for Marshall University.
Stuff that was pretty much already known. Big fireworks display to tell us they're doing a campaign for campus improvement including a baseball stadium. They've raised 105 mil of their 150 mil goal and now it's out turn to pitch in.
After the fireworks everyone thought something big was going down then everyone was like "what???".
I mean it was all out to announce they want donations.
Last edited:
This would have been much better if left unannounced. I thought the video, the fireworks, and presentation were pretty well done. The problem is, by announcing this as momentous, it set the stage for a letdown because there was literally nothing announced that wasn’t already known. When you don’t know whether the announcement was THE announcement immediately after it was presented, I’m guessing it doesn’t fall in the “momentous” category.
So the momentous moment was an open palm and a checkbook request video? How appropriate as nothing says Happy Homecoming and Welcome Back Alums like an “ ask!”
