keith

We went from 7-5 to 5-7. Our defense was the laughing stock of FBS football. We did not beat a team with a winning record. While we played the top 4 teams in the conference, the AAC, overall, was a very weak conference this year. What was our signature win...over a 4-8 Tulsa or a 4-8 UAB? 🤮 Getting really tired of being the home of on-the-job training for college football coaching staffs. We wasted a season, but hey, there's next year to look forward to. I didn't take the time to grade the different aspects of the team, but gave coach Morris a D in another thread based on the the results he delivered.

Final grades with the exception of Navy that has one more regular season game to play. At the end of the day, it's all about results on the field, wins and losses. As I said at the start, every team has a story and unique situation. Some found new coaches because they had to, others because they chose to.

On the front page at ESPN.com. Anyone we know? Currently slotted in at #14.

Back from traveling over the last couple of weeks. Through the first 4 home games, we are at an 8.6% increase in average attendance (+275). We are entering our seasonal lull, but a home game against UT Arlington on 12/23 may help us through it until we start our home conference slate on 1/6. Hoping for a strong run in conference play and a solid increase in attendance to go along with it.

What happens when we want to encourage these players to “explore other opportunities?”

You know what else they say in the business world? People don't leave jobs, they leave bosses. We only have the lens of social media posts (and some occasional "inside" information) to go on, so we really don't know what's going on behind closed doors.

That's probably happening at every school to some extent. That means we'll be picking through a portal made up largely of players who were recommended to leave by their respective schools/coaches. Keep that in mind.

Updated. Along with the W-L % change I've added the # of wins change from 2022. With one regular season game to go (Navy has two), of the 25 schools with 1st year staffs: Ten are guaranteed to have more wins in 2023 than in 2022. Nine are guaranteed to have fewer wins in 2023 than in 2022. These 19 have set their fate. Of the remaining six can, four can improve their y-o-y win total and two can hold serve equalling their 2022 win total. Only four will go from winning records in 2022 to losing records in 2023 (Mississippi State, North Texas, Purdue and Cincinnati). Welcome to the B12 Bearcats!

Perhaps it was a mistake in evaluating the DC.

Scheduling gods certainly were not kind to us this year. Sometimes, however, you need to step up and beat a team you weren't supposed to or at least beat a team with a winning record. The inability to do that has been a theme around here for too long.

Here's a grading scale based on my simplistic methodology of comparing the final 2022 regular win % (no championship or bowl games considered) to the current 2023 win % through 10 games. There are still two games to go, so the grades are not final and can still change. Tulsa is coming off a 5-7 record in 2022 and we are coming off a 7-5 record. They are only down 2 wins from last year while we are down 4...so far for both of us. Since we play each other this week, one of us will improve our grade and the other will be graded lower.

At the time of the hire, I thought everyone was giddy and expectations were high. I don't recall anyone (at the time of the hire) say we're doomed and won't win more that 3 games in 2023 because he wasn't hired a week earlier. I think that feeling probably crept in after witnessing the exodus of a significant amount of talent to the portal *after* he was hired. I'm not sure the timing has made a material difference anyway. Excluding the November hires and interim or internal promotions, all the first year coaches were announced within a two week period. It's hard to say that where a new coach fell within that two week period, by itself, had the most significant influence on his 2023 outcome. There are just too many other factors involved. I suspect Mosely already knew he was going to fire Littrell if he didn't win the conference championship game (at least I hope he already knew) and had a short-list handy that he was already working. He may have even had preliminary discussions (if given permission) to assess the potential interest from his short-list. Anyway, we don't know when the initial offer was made or formally accepted. I'm sure there was some back-and-forth involved. The announcement of firing Littrell was on 12/4. If Morris was always his guy, it could have happened on 12/5 or anytime before the 13th, if timing was going to be the ultimate deciding factor between improving on a 7-5 record or regressing to a losing record. Here's the list again sorted on the date the hiring was officially announced.

I assume you are using Safari. I can’t really tell if that’s a pop-up ad or something else. Check to see if Safari is configured to block pop-ups. Settings > Safari > Block Pop-ups. If that is already set, check to see if any Extensions have been installed. It’s right under Block Pop-ups.

I don't see that on my screen. Can you share a screen shot to show exactly what you see?

Not in the AAC. I shared that in another topic. See above. As I said a lot goes into the success or lack of success of a head coach that he may not have any control over. It would be exceedingly difficult to factor everything in so we are left with wins and losses as the ultimate barometer.

I'm not sure it does get the highest G5 in. Didn't the 6+6 model guarantee a G5 champion a spot in the playoff? It was the conference champions of the B1G, SEC, ACC, B12 and PAC conferences plus the highest ranked G5 champion. That's the 5+1 guaranteed to make the playoff. I don't think the 5+7 guarantees a G5 champion a spot. Assuming OSU and WSU keep the PAC together by pulling in most or all of the MWC and maintains its "P" status and either OSU or WSU win the conference for a few years, they will most assuredly be ranked higher than any of the G5 conference champions. In the 5+7 model it's just the 5 highest ranked conference champions regardless of conference (P or G) designation. It will always be B1G, SEC, ACC, B12 and probably the PAC-whatever. Then the next 7 will come from some combination of teams from the B1G, SEC, ACC and B12. The 5-7 will effectively lock-out all current G5 schools from the playoff except those that either join with OSU and WSU to keep the PAC afloat or are lucky enough to move up into one of the other 4 conferences.

I tracked this the last couple of years, so thought I'd do it this year as well. I find it interesting (hopefully others do to). It may be a decent gauge of growth in the program. A couple changes. I'm only considering regular season home games and eliminating any post-season games we may have hosted in the past two seasons. I'm also including a comparison of our first x games compared to the previous full season average along with a year over year comparison through the same number of games. None of this takes other factors that may influence attendance into consideration (day of week, time of day, opponent, traffic, hazardous driving conditions, etc.).

I'm going with the combined final score X 100. Final answer.

Every school is different and had their own unique circumstances surrounding hiring a new head football coach for 2023. Lots of things go into how successful (or unsuccessful) a coach is during his first year at the helm and many of them are completely outside of his control. However, he is the captain of the ship and is ultimately held accountable for both the good and the bad. How has the decision worked out so far for each school that has a new head coach for 2023? Here's a grading scale based on my simplistic methodology of comparing the final 2022 regular win % (no championship or bowl games considered) to the current 2023 win % through 10 games. There are still two games to go, so the grades are not final and can still change. So far, some have significant "turn-around" seasons, some are sort of, meh, treading water while others have had disastrous seasons. I think I have identified all the first year coaches. Some coaches were listed as interim. The Michigan State coach is a good example and only has 8 games (1-7, ouch) under his belt. Navy has only played 9 games so far. I will update this at the end of the season, but here are the trending grades. How would you grade these first year head coaches?

D needs to bail us out.

Wasted possession after the defensive stop. Still in this at the half. So far, so good.

Come on D! Need a stop.

Need a score here. Any score.

Nice stop by the D to force the FG.

BS on the non-PI call. He was absolutely tackled before the ball got there.