keith

We improved over the 12/31 FIU game last year by +157. Through first 6 home games we are +134 or +4.12%.

It's going to be harder and harder for programs like ours (and the rest of the G5 for that matter) to survive on the football side of things. In this age, our path to success will mean hitting on most if not all our transfers. They need to come in as starters or be on the 2-deep with considerable playing time. High school recruiting will need to focus on players ready to play as freshmen. We cannot sustain the expense of developing players in a large redshirt season class year after year.

Fifth home game last season was against FAU on 12/29 with 3,808 in attendance. We closed out 2022 with 2,934 on 12/31 against FIU. This year it will be LSU Shreveport on 12/30. Will we eclipse the FIU total?

Oh, they definitely got the memo....hahahaha.

Some gut punch losses that we aren't used to (wow, we've come a long way with the program). I'm in the C- territory. At some point this group needs to find their own identity because they one they have now isn't working.

The B1G is probably just waiting for the ACC to collapse as its eyes are likely on UNC and Duke and to a lesser extent Virginia. Pair these three up with Notre Dame and call it a day. Not sure how big is too big for these conferences, but there's no reason they cannot operate as multiple virtual conferences under a common "holding" conference. The big get bigger (no pun intended).

We had a "serviceable" QB in Aune last year. Ranked #28 in Team Offense. Ranked #110 in Team Defense. Finished 7-5 and played for a conference championship and played in a bowl game. We had a near record-setting QB in Rogers this year. Ranked #22 in Team Offense. Ranked #131 in Team Defense. Finished 5-7 and the season was over in November.

Not sure I'm following you. We've heard on a few recent decommitments, that our coaching staff pulled the offer and I was commenting on that. The impression given is that they really didn't "decommit," we did, so everything is OK. Perhaps it happens all the time and we're just being more transparent about it, but it seems odd to me that our coaching staff whose job it is to evaluate talent felt strongly enough to offer a scholarship only to renege on that offer a few weeks/months later. Did they re-evaluate and change their mind, did the recruit "do something," was the offer contingent on some obligation the recruit failed to live up to, etc.? Like I said we will probably never know unless someone decides to share the details. We've heard that relationships with HS coaches is important to the overall recruiting process. I can't imaging that pulling a recruit's offer does much for that relationship unless the HS coach has been consulted and is in complete agreement. This was another area that seems concerning if we are offering only to pull the offer at a later date. Are we burning bridges?

I did say we may never know the particular circumstances, but I don't think comparing the decisions of a 17/18 year old teenager to the decisions of adults who are professionals in the field and paid handsomely for their experience and expertise are quite the same. Maybe the coaching staff should post a red puzzle piece every time they pull an offer and we can all speculate who it is and what they did.

I guess we will never know the particular circumstances, but it does seem odd that our coaching staff would evaluate a player, think highly enough of them to offer a scholarship, have the player commit their acceptance (publicly/verbally) and then later that same coaching staff says, "ummm, never mind." What does this practice do to the relationships with HS coaches we're told are so important to our recruiting efforts?

That is an impressive haul....so far. 5 of 6 portal additions are from P5 schools. Who knows if it pays off on in wins, but the size of these players alone tells you all you need to know why we always seem to look small on the field.

Well, having a mega-billion donor isn't going to make a difference for Oklahoma State as they are going to be on the outside looking in like the rest of us, so who knows if having one would make a difference for us. In the history of college football (going back to the leather helmet days), a total of 44 schools can claim at least one national championship (14 can claim exactly one). Since 1869, 30 universities have won more than 1 national championship. Many years had multiple champions so I just counted one for each school in that year. My issue with this is that those currently in power have decided that based on recent history, the future of college football in terms of the haves and have nots should be set in stone with no real opportunity for material change. Why snap the chalk line now? If it was snapped at a different point in the history of college football, it would still be dominated today by Yale (18), Princeton (15) and Harvard (8). The point is, things change, but only if they are allowed to change.

And those 18 want to make sure it stays that way! Make no mistake about it, they will do whatever they can to ensure that the barriers to entry remain high and they secure their positions for the foreseeable future.

Exactly. We can also tell them about the ill-timed fumbles and holding on to the ball too long and taking way too many sacks. But hey screw the 5-7 record, we had a QB that completed more than 60% of his passes! Yea us.

Will the excuse next year be that he's only had "his players" for less than a year? They need time in "his system" to jell, then we will really start to see improvement.

What's the threshold? We currently have 6 decommits. Of those 6, they have recommitted to: Kansas State Houston UTSA Texas State ULM ? Kansas State and Houston? OK, it's a step up in conference, but the others? Jeez.

Uh oh, you said the quiet part out-loud.

Since they haven't landed anywhere, are these players in the portal Schrodinger's transfers? They are both transfers and not transfers at the same time.

What could possibly go wrong????

Not that the writing has not been on the wall for a while, but if the "wealthy" schools have been waiting for a signal of G5 capitulation, this may be it. A worthy and valiant fight.

The hits just keep coming.

I hear what you are saying, but I think the freedom here is really the freedom to choose to play football (or at least try to play if they have the ability and desire to) at a D-1 university or not with full knowledge of the conditions that may be placed on that choice. That freedom is not being constrained or taken away. I don't know if placing conditions on transfer is any different than requiring the athlete to enroll in school and meet certain academic requirements as a condition of participation, for example.

If only there were people in the world whose jobs were based on seeking answers to these questions of interest.

At least this excuse no longer exists.

I'm in favor of doing away with the red-shirt process. When a student-athlete enters school, the clock starts ticking and they have a total of 4 years of eligibility, that's it. How many are not doing it for the immediate NIL money (although that's obviously a bonus), but for a better chance to get drafted from a Px school than they do from UNT? I'd like to see some of the locker room interactions when a 6-figure (or 7?) QB berates linemen getting $20K for not protecting him better.