The Band Wagon
- Thread starter MichiganHerd
- Start date
Also of note, we won the conference two years ago. But that championship must not have mattered because we were predicted to finish 7th.
I could probably write a short story detailing my opinion on this, but i’ll spare everyone. 1) because it will piss some people off, and 2) because I don’t feel like typing out numerous long paragraphs to only have to defend every minute detail.
I think our administration is very football leaning, which is fine. But I think some of them thought the hiring of DD was a joke and due to his brashness have probably been anticipating his demise. They can’t see the forest for the trees. They don’t understand why people have gravitated to basketball while developing a “meh” attitude toward football. It’s become a thing now that people love DD because he’s a Marshall guy and people hate Doc because he’s a wvu guy. That has nothing to do with anything.
I want both to do well. I want to dominate CUSA in both sports. I don’t want one to suffer so the other can be viewed as being superior. I prefer the game of basketball over the game of football, but my loyalties aren’t greater to one over the other. I wish we had a system and a brand in football similar to what we have in basketball (it looked like we were getting there 2012-2014) and I wish we competed for higher level recruits/transfers in basketball similar to what we do in football (it appears that recruiting is picking up).
I think our administration is very football leaning, which is fine. But I think some of them thought the hiring of DD was a joke and due to his brashness have probably been anticipating his demise. They can’t see the forest for the trees. They don’t understand why people have gravitated to basketball while developing a “meh” attitude toward football. It’s become a thing now that people love DD because he’s a Marshall guy and people hate Doc because he’s a wvu guy. That has nothing to do with anything.
I want both to do well. I want to dominate CUSA in both sports. I don’t want one to suffer so the other can be viewed as being superior. I prefer the game of basketball over the game of football, but my loyalties aren’t greater to one over the other. I wish we had a system and a brand in football similar to what we have in basketball (it looked like we were getting there 2012-2014) and I wish we competed for higher level recruits/transfers in basketball similar to what we do in football (it appears that recruiting is picking up).
still don't have a QB. Notice the team we beat had trouble with our run and the way to beat us on defense is to take advantage of our small line. It was a good match up which happens. When you stop Marshall's run game and force Green to make plays with his arm the offense is in trouble.
My family and I attend games when we can. My work and travel prevent me from attending many now.
We ate dinner with a group of 8 friends at MU Cafe Friday night to watch the FAU game. All Marshall grads, Huntington natives and current or former football season tix donors.
Sadly, we all agreed that the football games and stadium atmosphere had become incredibly boring and stale and that all the announcements, lack of enthusiasm has killed attendance.
I like Doc but I hope he resigns after next season, finishes his contract and goes out on a high note and we can start a fresh new chapter.
We ate dinner with a group of 8 friends at MU Cafe Friday night to watch the FAU game. All Marshall grads, Huntington natives and current or former football season tix donors.
Sadly, we all agreed that the football games and stadium atmosphere had become incredibly boring and stale and that all the announcements, lack of enthusiasm has killed attendance.
I like Doc but I hope he resigns after next season, finishes his contract and goes out on a high note and we can start a fresh new chapter.
Let me ask, would you rather want a high octane and exciting offense but you trade not as many wins?
How different is MU's aporoach than other teams'? Alright, MU doesn't have NFL players/talent but they do run some nice plays. Everyone wanted Legg gone, he's gone, Cramsey's coaching now. At least he runs a trick play now and then. You have the wildcat which he runs with pass plays (something somewhat rare). I'm not sure what you want MU to do to make them "more exciting."
I will say, MU plays more of a ball control game if they can, which slows the pace down significantly by running the ball and eating clock. It does get boring but the trade off is you'll score (hopefully) and they'll have very little time left on the clock.
Forgive the long response but I have actually sat and thought about this debate with more of a look at both.
Here goes...
It does have to do with Doc being a wvu guy.
Plenty of people hated the hire when he gave his presser because he's from wvu.
But that is only a part of it.
I have said this numerous times but DD is more fan friendly and the media loves his personality. That alone, can mask your record, and have people see another side of you, AKA the human side.
Dan's the kind of guy you'll have a beer with and will laugh and enjoy yourself.
Doc is very opposite. Quiet, reserved, kinda cold, and somewhat stoic even. He is very much showing us (by choice or not) he is a coach and its almost as though he doesn't exist outside of that identity.
With that, comes the criticism, which is far heavier for Doc because the fans have 1 side out of 2 that they see of him...the coaching side and thats it.
Dan's got both the personal and coaching side and the two blend together, which I think gives him some passes when it comes to criticisms that some on here feel he needs more of.
Doc goes and gives his usual low toned presser and everyone just groans...and it is evident in game threads.
Dan goes and gives another analytics story prior to a game and the threads are more sympathetic.
Also (reverting back to my initial statement) Doc becomes more of an outsider. Yes, he's from Hurricane, WV but he's a wvu guy who recruits heavily from Florida.
Dan's a Marshall guy from Mullens, WV and despite being further away, he "feels" closer. Even more so when Dan states he's looking at WV basketball players and recruits more from WV.
Football wants to do the "blackout" games which somehow still gets protested by people who claim black isn't a color.
Dan reverts back to a classical style logo (despite he wearing all black MU t-shirts at games) for the team, which keeps the whole "tradition" thing alive...and gives the old fans warm feels.
The two are very contrasting.
Finally, this does affect into the perceptions of the teams when they play.
Doc runs a slow and conservative style...granted, he can win with that, but it is a complete opposite of an up-tempo style that Dan uses.
Its why two equally awful blowout losses at home (Doc with Cincy and Dan with WKU) can be viewed entirely differently.
It also can explain why everyone goes nuts at Doc specifically in terms of coaching, be ause its all they have. Contrast this with Dan's coaching AND personality and its "well, I'm sure he knows what he's doing."
Should Doc open up to the fans more? Couldn't hurt. But his personal life is his own and nobody should make him. Should Dan be a little more serious at times? Probably, but everyone loves his pressers and his stories.
One is a coach and thats it.
Another is a coach and a human being.
The criticisms are going to be different based on those alone.
One thing is for sure, both were in tears when they put on that green jacket and were brought in to coach. Both have had tremendous loyalty to MU and I believe, both have the best intentions for MU in their respective programs.
PS
During the FAU game they showed a pic of Doc when he was at wvu...wearing wvu colors...and it was the most off putting thing I had seen in a while...the only colors I have ever seen Doc wear are green and white.
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Certainly this year we are destined to win via ball control. Historically our best teams had a high proficiency to score points and the crowds got into it.
Whether we want to admit it or not, fans like an exciting game day experience. As I watch much college football, I see crowds more engaged, lively and better music than what we have. MU officials need to get it through their thick skulls that it’s just as much about entertainment and the entire experience than just sitting in the stands for 3 hours watching a game. Welcome to sportsutainment!
I think that is where Coch Stowers gets his feelings. He hears it from somewhere. I think there are some egos down there in the Shewey and they don't like anyone taking the limelight from them. People gravitate towards Coach Dan because he connects to Marshall fans.
Wasn't there an AD somewhere that told Marshall fans it was time to check their ego's at the door?
And, the whole wvu Doc thing is horse hockey. That might have last until the first kickoff his first year with some people. It is all about winning and putting trophies in the cabinet. Championships. Fans don't care where he came from. We want championships and the program to compete at a high level.
Bo Schembechler was born and raised in Ohio and his mentor was Woody Hayes. Went on to be a legend at Michigan.
Get over the wvu horse crap. It is about winning championships!
Bo Schembechler was born and raised in Ohio and his mentor was Woody Hayes. Went on to be a legend at Michigan.
Get over the wvu horse crap. It is about winning championships!
That has nothing to do with it.
Hell, I’ve had dinner with Dan. He’s a fun guy to talk to. I can see why some people say and feel what they do.
Like I said, I have my reasons to dislike how things are done and I’ll leave it at that. It’s no different than how some of you feel about Doc, but I still support basketball nonetheless and want to see them win at the highest level.
Doc doesn't have the luxury of coaching against his mentor from college.
Bo's entire Michigan HC career had a very unique story to it because it was he coaching against his mentor for 10+ years.
It also happened to be against Michigan's biggest rival and he had success.
Very few careers have that kind of a narrative to them and Doc isn't one of those. As I said, you won't find many well known elements like that even today.
If Bo wasn't nearly as successful, do you think UM fans wouldn't crib "He's from ohio get rid of him!"
Well, let's hear it. How things are done. You now how some of us feel about Doc and I will gladly answer any questions.
What thing don't you like? Recruiting? System he runs? Game Management? What?
What I am saying is we fans don't care where he is from. We want to win championships. The whole wvu thing has no merit.
I agree. No one cares that Doc was at WVU before coming to Marshall. People care that he constantly underachieves. Along with the lack of Conference USA Championships.
Also, in case people don't remember, Snyder was a coach at Youngstown during the MU/YSU Championship games. That didn't matter either.
Look, it is what it is. We are going to win 7-8-9, occasionally 10, games a year and go to a minor bowl. Certainly not in my lifetime -- and the P5 won't allow it -- will we achieve a No. 10 (probably, it should have been a Top 5) ranking in football again.
Doc ain't gonna be fired. Might as well grin and bear it. Personally, I'm more concerned about carving out a couple of G-5 niches, when the playoff expands.
In about two years --once the baseball stadium is buit, both MH and DH will retire with bouquets. The new AD will be given the freedom to select the new coach, so the decision will not tarnish their legacy.
Doc ain't gonna be fired. Might as well grin and bear it. Personally, I'm more concerned about carving out a couple of G-5 niches, when the playoff expands.
In about two years --once the baseball stadium is buit, both MH and DH will retire with bouquets. The new AD will be given the freedom to select the new coach, so the decision will not tarnish their legacy.
Its past an offense. One coach in the same job for 10 years with average to just above results(and a boring offense) gets you lack of excitement. Its time to win big or make a change. btw, his choice of QB is not helping
Doc's ties with WVu is the last thing that ever passes through my mind when I see us blow a 1st half lead, or have the team's best RB sitting the bench 3/4 of the year, etc, etc. Doc's ties with WVu are irrelevant in comparison to his fvckups as a head coach.
Anyone who thinks Doc intentionally fvcks up because he somehow secretly hates Marshall and doesn't want them to succeed is a lunatic. Firstly, because no one would ever do this and secondly, because Doc spent too many years as an assistant to deliberately screw up. It comes quite natural to him.
I agree he is not getting fired but look for a lack of excitement and his contract to not get renewed in 21
IMHO,
- Yes, there is something to the WVU angle relative to Doc.
- More than that is simply that Doc has a odd personality and is not a “people person”.
- If you believe that football has “underachieved” you don’t know much about football.
- As to basketball, if you believe that making the real tournament, once, from 4th place on the year is “overachieving” then you are accepting mediocrity.
- Football vs. basketball, does not have to be a “thing”. Until the anti-Doc crowd makes it one. This is usually via delusional statements. I am proud to be a MU fan. One thing I love about MU fans is we have always lived in the real world. We know who we are and what we are. I contrast this to our northern cousins, whose fandom requires either outright ignorance or childlike suspension of disbelief, to buy into the pure idiocy needed to take WVU sports seriously. And, lately, the anti-Doc basketball crew has been showing similar delusional statements. “CUSA is a great basketball league” (No, its not.). “Pevena and Elmore are NBA talent.” (No, there not.). “We played for a championship” (Only technically, of a pay to play nothing featuring bus and gym kidding themselves by being Div I small colleges). This needs to end. CUSA should be decided among about 5 teams, EVERY YEAR. The rest either do not care or cannot keep up. That simple. The delusional crap has to end.
- MU fans are obsessed with the “local hero” meme. Some of this is local pride, and some is born of seeing our coaches leave us and believing a “Marshall Man” will never do that. That is all fine, until it isn’t. It has worked spectacularly (BP and MH), and it has failed totally (The Liar KOM and GW). The jury, to be fair, on DD is still out. If not for his 8 special days, two years ago, his seat would be very warm right now. But when his time passes, and, more importantly, when Doc’s does as well, finding some person with some connection to Huntington or Marshall (CP or BL) should be about 100000th most important. I would be glad to have a coach in either sport who really did not know that there were two Charlestons in the country, did not know that there was a WEST Virginia and has a cousin in Richmond, and who thinks Morehead State is either the punch line to a bad joke or in Minnesota, who gives us 3-5 good years and moves up to a better place.
- Yes, there is something to the WVU angle relative to Doc.
- More than that is simply that Doc has a odd personality and is not a “people person”.
- If you believe that football has “underachieved” you don’t know much about football.
- As to basketball, if you believe that making the real tournament, once, from 4th place on the year is “overachieving” then you are accepting mediocrity.
- Football vs. basketball, does not have to be a “thing”. Until the anti-Doc crowd makes it one. This is usually via delusional statements. I am proud to be a MU fan. One thing I love about MU fans is we have always lived in the real world. We know who we are and what we are. I contrast this to our northern cousins, whose fandom requires either outright ignorance or childlike suspension of disbelief, to buy into the pure idiocy needed to take WVU sports seriously. And, lately, the anti-Doc basketball crew has been showing similar delusional statements. “CUSA is a great basketball league” (No, its not.). “Pevena and Elmore are NBA talent.” (No, there not.). “We played for a championship” (Only technically, of a pay to play nothing featuring bus and gym kidding themselves by being Div I small colleges). This needs to end. CUSA should be decided among about 5 teams, EVERY YEAR. The rest either do not care or cannot keep up. That simple. The delusional crap has to end.
- MU fans are obsessed with the “local hero” meme. Some of this is local pride, and some is born of seeing our coaches leave us and believing a “Marshall Man” will never do that. That is all fine, until it isn’t. It has worked spectacularly (BP and MH), and it has failed totally (The Liar KOM and GW). The jury, to be fair, on DD is still out. If not for his 8 special days, two years ago, his seat would be very warm right now. But when his time passes, and, more importantly, when Doc’s does as well, finding some person with some connection to Huntington or Marshall (CP or BL) should be about 100000th most important. I would be glad to have a coach in either sport who really did not know that there were two Charlestons in the country, did not know that there was a WEST Virginia and has a cousin in Richmond, and who thinks Morehead State is either the punch line to a bad joke or in Minnesota, who gives us 3-5 good years and moves up to a better place.
I know I am not happy being 2nd East Divsion Tri-Champs. I want a new t-shirt.
But you consider appearing in less NCAA basketball tournaments, and winning less NCAA tournament games in the relevant period than Florida Gulf Coast, UNC Asheville, North Dakota State, Wofford, Middle Tennessee State, Rhode Island, and Virginia Commonwealth; “winning” the 4th choice pay-to-play tournament featuring such mega programs as 1172 student Presbyterian College from the awesome Big South Conference to cap off a year in which we were assreamed by 30 or more five times, including by 50, in conference, to a team that lost 13 games including to an NAIA preacher’s college; and being a preseason 11th (essentially last among programs that make an effort) to be “over producing”.
Got it.
I actually don't like comparing football vs basketball at MU. I like both, they both represent Marshall.. They are two different sports with two different histories and in two different positions. Right now I am concentrating on football because it is football season.
After going 30 years without being in the NCAA Tournament...yes. Winning any post season tournament AND winning a game in the NCAA Tournament is certainly overproducing when you consider it the context of the last 3 decades. Meanwhile the football team consistently has the highest ranked recruiting classes in CUSA and one of the highest in all of G5 yet we can't seem to see that talent through to championships. That definitely seems like "under producing" to me.
To you, and anyone else with a brain.
I guess that leaves Sam and ILikeMarshallYay out
OK. Got it. One tournament per 30 years is “over producing”. I won’t be around to see us “over produce” in 2048.
So what is it now?
In football, conference titles matter most but basketball it seems post season matters most?
Is football only to be measured by conference titles then?
If we're keeping it even in terms of achievement, both have 2 appearances in the title game and 1 title each.
Both have coaches who completely re-did the programs.
While basektball has had a much longer drought than football, MU has made the postseason tournaments before.
Fans tend to forget something...if anything that Herrion did that was good, he got MU 2nd in the CUSA tournament and the NCAA legit screwed MU out of the NCAA tournament that year.
MU made the NIT and lost the first round.
So there has been SOME success in MU basketball...yeah, not what many on here want or expect better, but basketball hadn't been a complete disaster for 30+ years.
That is against a legit Cincy team who's probably going to be in a NY6 bowl.
Yeah, what Sam knows to be factual but won’t admit to is the comparison between the two sports historically @ MU. Our recent success in football (late 80’s - ‘03) and the 1 conference title (‘14) and 6-0 bowl record ( the quasi pay to play, since we are on the hook for x # of tickets or else we pay the difference) are coming in the most recent 30 years of a time period spanning well over a century of organized college football participation. Basketball, which began right @ 100 years ago, saw much greater success in the first 55 years and is arguably coming back into a successful run since DD took the reigns of the program in 2014.
No one will ever convince me that Huntington is more of a football town than it is a basketball town. Partly because truth be told we have a much deeper tradition with round ball vs pigskin, and mostly because of the entertainment factor. Basketball is much faster paced, the emotional swings in the stands are more frequent, and being indoors all of that noise just washes over the fan! Basketball holds the attention better, you take in the entire playing area more easily, and you read the emotions of the players faces and the momentum swings better. + it doesn’t take but about 1/2 the time from start to finish. I love our football team, but the fan experience with the b-ball team is more valuable. Just my 2 cents, but relevant to this discussion. Go Herd!!
No one will ever convince me that Huntington is more of a football town than it is a basketball town. Partly because truth be told we have a much deeper tradition with round ball vs pigskin, and mostly because of the entertainment factor. Basketball is much faster paced, the emotional swings in the stands are more frequent, and being indoors all of that noise just washes over the fan! Basketball holds the attention better, you take in the entire playing area more easily, and you read the emotions of the players faces and the momentum swings better. + it doesn’t take but about 1/2 the time from start to finish. I love our football team, but the fan experience with the b-ball team is more valuable. Just my 2 cents, but relevant to this discussion. Go Herd!!
There is nothing there to “admit”. MU had several periods of solid basketball, first at the NAIA level and for the first 30 plus years in Div I. The they ran Huck off on trumped up charges, and we went through a succession of racist, incompetent, looking for the next job, retread, and just plain not very good coaches. Including a lost decade of Greg White, another “local hero comes home” story that everybody wanted to have turn out well, but didn’t.
MU football has, prior to 1985, a much less stellar history. We almost lost the program several times. Not just after the crash, but in the mid 80s when the stadium was falling down. Then came a succession of great coaches, with one exception who destroyed all that had been built.
As to what sort of “town” Huntington is, every town is a football town. Think of the most basketball centric places you can. Lexington, Durham, Chapel Hill, Bloomington, West Lafayette, Lawrence. Wherever. The football team still out draws the basketball team. Football is just more of a part of the fabric of college life. It just is.
Which is not to say that basketball and football are incomparable. There not in competition. Except among those who, in their anti-Doc extremism, want to paint a basketball picture that does not reflect the reality on the ground.
that struggled to beat a sub 500 Tulsa team at home Saturday. There is never an excuse for Marshall to lose at home like that. Cincy will not be the G5 representative. SMU will beat them in the AAC championship game and they will lose at least once more before then.
Sam - are you really just grooving one down the middle so I can belt it out of the park? First you agree w/me about the periods of success in each sport, then you ask all of us on here to dispense with reality and compare the seating capacity of a football stadium to that of a basketball arena? I appreciate the kind gesture, but that dog won't hunt...…….(+ extra credit for inserting a baseball phrase!)
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