MeanGreenMailbox aka TFLF

That piss poor AD hired the current head coach whose staff is doing the recruiting. So, RV's last, parting gift to us as a fanbase: a $1 million head coach whose staff pilfers recruits from NW Oklahoma State and Texas A&M-Commerce? Sushi all around!

Since 1995 call up to big league we're four winning seasons and 22 losing seasons. So... ...coaching and scheming seems to be more about wishing and dreaming. There is nothing different about our spread than the other 100 schools running some form of spread. It's 2017, not 1997; so no defensive coordinator is surprised to see it anymore. Throw into the mix that the offensive coordinator and WR coach hired weren't very experienced in the first place, and we're that much more not really starting off at the same level as everyone. But, we are paying more in salaries now for the whole ball of wax; so, we've got that going for us. Which is nice.

Well, which is it?

The latest commit had an offer from us and Texas A&M-Commerce...a Division II school. Again, if we are an FCS school, I don't see this a so much a problem. However, we are an FBS school that is now paying its head coach $1 million and has given raises all around to the assistants. It's a problem. We don't have anything personal against the kids, inasmuch as they are just kids and, of course, are going to take their best offer. That's smart of them. But, that doesn't change their talent level. What's not smart of our coaching staff is sticking the next coaching staff with a roster full of kids who were not good enough to complete at the FBS level.

You mean, this kid who couldn't break into Northwestern La.'s lineup, then went to a non-football JUCO for a couple of years? Whose last game time snap was in 2014 during a high school game? He's in the depth chart? Starting even? It's okay, though, because he can bring fans. It does get hot during the September games. Even in the evening. I know, I know...complain about recruiting elsewhere. If this is the best Littrell & Co. can do, it's worth a raise in many fans' - and, administrators' - books. Can I request that if Littrell & Co. never win more than five games here that a documentary called, "The Great Train Robbery, 2017" be made in honor of the renegotiated contract?

Yeah, I know. I was just fudging on 75. Also, the fight over prior #1's. Jonas Buckles? Andrew Power? To go along with Turner Smiley. You do have a good idea, though...so, it probably won't be done! This guy on #71 day with Jordan Murray: https://www.bclions.com/players/antonio-johnson/161577/

For Mayweather and McGregor's bank accounts. Mayweather will control the fight. McGregor has a "puncher's chance." But, if you've seen enough Mayweather fights, you know he's too smart to get too close to "puncher's chance"-type boxers. I don't think Mayweather will knock out McGregor. I think he'll withstand whatever early (two, maybe three rounds) stamina/adrenaline McGregor will bring, they spend the remainder of the fight toying with him for a scorecard win. Maybe a TKO if he has done enough damage to McGregor's eyes/cheeks by the late round. One of my wife's Mexican wife's husband will order this fight, anyway...so, it'll be a good night to drink beer, eat real Mexican food, practice a little Spanish, and listen to a room full of immigrants to the U.S. complain about the U.S. I would do as advised earlier in the thread an save your money for Golovkin v. Alvarez. I love Canelo Alvarez's style, but believe Golovkin has a bit more in the tank. And, hey...what's not to love about a pale, redheaded Mexican? When he fought Cesar Chavez Jr. half the Mexicans in the house thought he was Puerto Rican. (SIDE NOTE/REQUEST: Also, can we get some of those Hispanic, Tecate ring girls to work as ushers at Apogee Stadium? That might help with the attendance issue. It might even help the frat boys decide to actually go into the stadium and watch the game from kickoff. Who has Wren Baker's e-mail address handy?)

Yes. I'd add to a player from the past who also wore that number. So, when there are 75 day until opening game, showcasing Mean Joe and ... wait ... there's not a #75 on the current roster. Hmmm.

This guy? http://www.nsudemons.com/roster.aspx?rp_id=3289

My first wife's younger brother had a friend who was an OL at Plano East back in the mid-to-late 1990s. Texas Tech strung him along to the end. He stopped talking to other schools because he was sure he was going to Tech. Well, singing day rolled in and...nothing. Nobody, Spike Dykes, assistants, no one called him. Needless to say, no LOI was faxed (as things were done back then). Truth is he was a fall back all along, and he got played. Unfortunately, he wasn't bright enough (nor were his parents) to keep contact with other schools. I don't know what advice his coaches gave him. But, I have to doubt his high school coach would have told him to shut down everyone just because Texas Tech sent him a weekly letter or gave him a weekly call. Recruiting is a tough game. These days, a kid gets offered, and its easier for other programs to pick up on it - kids twitter it out five minutes later! This kid Jyles who committed to Colorado. Two-star, Texas prep athlete. Got one FCS offer before the start of his junior year, and one right after. Then, boom! Colorado in January. Then, it seems like everyone wakes up to the tune of West Virginia even coming in with an offer. It's crazy. I know you can tell who can play college football, and at what level. I mean, the Men versus Boys guys are the FBS guys...and, they are few and far between. I respect you for what you do. I've watched pro and Division I college football for so long that it's hard for me to sit through an entire high school football game. The speed is so much different. If there's a guy out there who is FBS ready, he's dominating a normal high school game, week in and week out. We're in the part of Frisco where the neighborhood is split between Wakeland and Reedy. And, I've got to be honest when I say, it does surprise me that some of the Wakeland kids have gotten FBS looks. None surprised me more than Will Second scoring Arkansas and Florida State offers. I don't think he even played a down at FSU. We've go to a couple of Wakeland games a year, and I just never remember seeing any really dominant player for them. I mean, so dominant that the other team just doesn't have an answer for him. Anyway, there's a million recruiting stories, I know. I'm just always of the opinion that very few guys who are FBS ready truly do "slip through the cracks." These days, you've got so many people watching film beyond just coaches - recruiting services, kids posting their own stuff on youtube and hudl and whatnot. Plus, camp after camp after camp from the time they are in ninth grade on. it just doesn't seem very likely that many true FBS ready kids get "missed."

Most of these kids don't know they are pawns. Yes, some schools "show interest," but it's normally to prod some other higher up recruit to commit. Texas Tech got their higher up WR commit, so they don't need Gage anymore. Colorado returns its five leading receivers, so they can toy with Gage all they want, but they don't really "need" him. The problem for us is the vicious cycle: you have to win to recruit well; but, to win consistently, you have to have great recruits. Few have really broken the cycle. Bill Snyder did it at Kansas State. A series of coaches has done it a Houston, beginning with Art Briles. Gary Barnett did it at Northwestern for a while. Other than that, you don't really have any huge stories of perennial losers being turned into perennial winners. It's a tough nut to crack, for sure. The best thing a tweener recruit like Gage can hope for is something like happened to this Colorado commit: http://247sports.com/player/josh-jynes-91904 A two-star recruit from Texas, Jynes had two FCS schools offer him in 2016. In January of this year, Colorado offered. A week later, UTSA offered. The first week of March, Rice offered. He committed to CU, his best available offer in April. Last week of May, West Virginia offered. Gage, perhaps, tried to use his commitment to us to build interest. I never have no problem with that because the coaches also use the kids that way. Tech and CU already played Gage. He's now playing us. If nothing bigger and better offers him, he'll be back.

According to Comey, who spontaneously became a "meticulous note taker" late in his career, said that Trump said he hoped something about the Flynn fellow. Does that count? If not, WTF are they doing? I think they know it's nothing - except fodder for fundraising. So, we are never going to hear the end of the nothing. Republicans did it to Clinton and Obama to tune of thousands of legislative seats flipping parties. Can the Democrats do the same? If so, they will have to become more like the 2016 Republicans and support people who don't really seem to fit the traditional, national party mold.

After two recruiting classes with McCarney, I began to post concerns about the supposed defensive line guru not landing quality defensive tackles. QB for sure. But, for a guy sporting a national championship ring as DL coach for the Florida Gators, I expected more. And, there's nothing wrong with that. We're told to expect more, and for good reason: when a coach is fired and another guy is hired, you expect better results, not wheel spinning. It became evident, though, after two McCarney classes that he was not going to land us any better DTs than Dodge or Dickey had. Well...so, at that point, to me, you have to start wondering aloud about what you've been sold. I'm getting there pretty rapidly with this crew. And, moreso because the school and athletic department have upped the ante rather quickly with a new contract for $1 million a year after a 5-7 regular season showing. To me, you have to call it like you see it. Littrell has two largely unimpressive classes signed. Unimpressive to the degree, anyway, that they are not much different that what we've seen in here before. UTEP is one thing - remote, as you say - and I agree. It's just a hard sell out there. Your rival is New Mexico State, and it's just not convenient for either other schools - or, even your own players' family and friends to just hop in the car for a weekender to see you play. UTSA is a completely different animal. They are outrecruiting us and beating us on the field. It didn't bother me before. It is now getting bothersome. There is no reason they should be signing 10 3-star recruits to our four, as happened in February. There is no way we should be piling up recruit after recruit with no FBS offers, when they are getting recruits with multiple FBS offers, G5 though they may be. Something's not right. And, the two obvious answers are the most controversial: (1) either they are cheating, or (2) our coaching staff is completely lost on the recruiting trail; well paid, but lost. When the current respective hires were made, we laughed at UTSA for only getting a position coach, whereas we were getting a coordinator. So far, looks like the position coach is way out ahead.

The question is, why would they want Littrell now? We had the same number of TD passes in the 2016 regular season as we did in 2015. Nothing earth-shattering happened with the offense that would draw OU's attention (or, anyone else on that level) to put him at OC. We won five games - three when Jeffrey Wilson bailed out the offense in the second half of games. You think OU would be sniffing around the door for that? So, relax. He'll be here. The only way he leaves is if we do have a couple of winning seasons in a row, then a Tulsa/San Diego State-type program opens up. If we fart around at three to five wins, year after year, we will simply eat a very expensive contract at some point.

I wouldn't be telling them anything they don't already know. Some of you act as though the player don't know which players are better than others. They know. In fact, they know better than you do. The practice against their own teammates and play the games against the opponents. And, that is why, you do not have heavily-recruited FBS-type athletes committing here. I wish that it weren't that way for the majority of our recruits; but, it is.

Recruiting. We are already recruiting at the FCS level. If we can't win in the C-USA.... FBS recruits are already not what we're selling. Another losing season and we are selling what to recruits? More hoping and wishing?

UTEP has a returning starting QB on offense, and that's about it on that side of the ball. Their defense returns all starting LBs, three of the four DBs, one DL. That's seven of 11 starters returning. Not sure what that will mean. Willy Ivery ran for 98 and a score against them starting in place of Jeffrey Wilson, who played injured for a bit. Alec Morris started due to Fine's injury, threw for 197 and a couple of scores, no INTs, and was only sacked once. Our problem is our defense couldn't stop Aaron Jones. As you've pointed out, he's gone. Still...we're not much better on papaer than they are all the way around. I'd say Jeffrey Wilson is better than anything they've got on offense, for sure. After that, I think it's (sadly) a toss up on offense and defense.

We open the season at home against Lamar. I'm going to say that if we don't beat them by two or three TDs, we're going to have major problems this season because it's not going to be any easier than Lamar. Are there other easy schools on the schedule after that? Yes, in theory. SMU shouldn't be difficult. But, if we can't handle Lamar well, we won't do well on the "road" against SMU. Iowa...forget it. With no reason to keep the score down due to coaching pal McCarney being on the sideline, Ferentz will name the score in this one. (Maybe because Ferentz, Stoops, and McCarney were all Iowa guys, Ferentz has some mercy on Stoops' old FB Littrell. But, Ferentz is under a sh*t ton of pressure to not choke again this season...even moreso now that his buddy Stoops has retired and he carries the mantle of longest tenured coach. He has much less to show for it than Stoops...and, Hawkeye faithful remind him of it constantly.) UAB...again, like Lamar, this one should be a cake walk because it is their first year back to football. If they are within single digits of us, the road gets really, really long to even five wins. With a schedule that screams 2-2 or 3-1 to open the season, because of talent issues, we realistically could also be 1-3 before September is over. And, that's pretty sad. Remember the post that showed how we came back in three of our five wins in 2016 when Jeffrey Wilson went on second half tears to tie or win games? That is where we are. It's on Jeffrey Wilson at this point. He wore out at the end of last season. Can his body handle the stress of being The Man all year long? Everything else we have is just based on hope. We hope the QB play will be better. We hope some WRs will emerge. We hope the OL will gel quickly. We hope the defensive can muster a pass rush and stop the run. We hope a secondary can be cobbled together and gel. We hope the linebackers can stop the run and cover when necessary. We even hope a new punter can be found! We hope all of these things because there wasn't really much consistency last year. And, the off season hasn't really changed much in the way of talent at any position.

Yeah...that kind of thing probably never happens in Norman.

So, King back down to Lamar or A&M-Commerce: http://www.scout.com/player/203714-junius-king/recruiting?year=2016 Tibbs to Central Arkansas, Southern, SFA, Tennessee State, or Texas Southern: http://www.scout.com/player/214619-devon-tibbs/recruiting

6-6, maybe 7-5 if we have a QB who can make the offense work. Hell, not just QB, but also OLs and WRs. Many, many questions on that side of the ball outside of Jeffrey Wilson. The above posts are correct...any small thing results in a three or four win season. People talk about Fine being injured. If Wilson is injured we are in even bigger trouble because he's really the only consistent offensive threat we have. At this point in history, another three or four win season would be disastrous for us as a program. I'd even say another five win season is bad. We are already not competing well for FBS-level recruits. Throw in the 19th losing season over the past 23, and it will get worse.

At the current rate over half of our roster will be full of guys who were choosing between FCS and Division II schools and us. It's not going to be pretty for us for the next two or three seasons if the recruiting doesn't begin to match the paychecks we are cutting coaching staff. If we are going to recruit FCS, then drop back down to FCS. Paying FBS money to a coaching staff to recruit an FCS roster isn't acceptable.

Yes. This all day long. At least in San Marcos or Las Cruces you'd have a shot at some decent Mexican food for enduring the trip.

Mayfield is a fraud. Without Perine, Mixon, Sterling Shepherd, and Westbrook, he doesn't have a pot to p*ss in. F'ing middle aged Fayetteville cops ran him down easily enough. I honestly don't know how the Fayetteville cops didn't win an ESPY for that takedown. It was great!