Or has there been some really bad football this season? I have tried to watch games on Saturday for three weeks now and have had a hard time finding good games. Is the talent level down or has the constant coaching changes ruined college football? Outside of a few. I haven't seen very many good teams.
Honestly, our game with Troy may have been the best one I've seen this year.
Look at how many wins the FCS have over FBS teams. I think this is the most ever. Also look at all the winless FBS teams. There has been some really bad teams this year. Sucks when you want to sit on the couch and watch a good game and can't find one.
There have been some really crappy games. That was one reason the Troy -vs- stAte game was
good to sit down and watch. Change of coaching could have to do with some cases. Believe a lot
of colleges have missed out on some good recruits recently. Could partially be reason FCS teams have
done as well as they have in some cases.
A lot of FBS coaces are recruiting these kids with speed. They may not be able to catch a ball or tackle anyone, but that is what is in right now. The NDSU team impressed me. They weren't very fast, but the played sound football. Those players play the game it was meant to be played.
I think the talent level is down a little. I just don't see the usual talent that I am used to when watching football on Saturday's. I do agree that the coaching is just not as strong either.
The gap between FCS and bottom of FBS wasn't that wide to begin with, so if FBS was going through a lull period where there was not as much top talent coming out of High School, then it would make sense that the FCS schools are starting to gain ground. This past Saturday it seemed the only good games were the ones that you couldn't find on TV around here.
Even the big boys are looking bad. Programs like Texas, USC, and Florida are playing some bad football.
Mostly just a lack of compelling non-conference scheduling.
(09-18-2013 12:11 PM)statefanatic Wrote: [ -> ]A lot of FBS coaces are recruiting these kids with speed. They may not be able to catch a ball or tackle anyone, but that is what is in right now. The NDSU team impressed me. They weren't very fast, but the played sound football. Those players play the game it was meant to be played.
Nail on the head. Combine this with NDSU and many others being a flagship schools (Delaware, Maine, Vermont, NH, Mont etc) and or the biggest thing going in the state with the fact there is less turnover due to kids leaving early for the NFL. Not to toot GaSou or App's horn anymore than our other overzealous posters on this site have, but for teams like App and GSU to do what they have done, being at best third down the totem pole in the state, going against state flagship institutions makes it that much better. There are about 10 or so solid consistent programs in the FCS that can beat and hang with the majority of the FBS on any given day. I wish GaSou had played less elite FBS teams throughout our history. Outside of FIU seems like when we played a beatable FBS team we were not very good ourselves.
(09-18-2013 12:19 PM)statefanatic Wrote: [ -> ]Even the big boys are looking bad. Programs like Texas, USC, and Florida are playing some bad football.
No excuse for those teams with the talent they have. All those teams will likely have new coaches soon, if not by the end of the year. Throw in Nebraska as well.
(09-18-2013 12:41 PM)JCGSU Wrote: [ -> ] (09-18-2013 12:19 PM)statefanatic Wrote: [ -> ]Even the big boys are looking bad. Programs like Texas, USC, and Florida are playing some bad football.
No excuse for those teams with the talent they have. All those teams will likely have new coaches soon, if not by the end of the year. Throw in Nebraska as well.
Texas has an open door to every kid in the state. There is no reason they should be losing. It all goes back to recruiting the right kids. FBS coaches are recruiting speed and not talent. I would rather have a WR who can catch every pass than one who runs a 4.4 40 and might catch half the balls thrown his way. Same thing with the QB. Seems everybody wants a running QB. I would rather have a accurate passing QB any day of the week.
(09-18-2013 12:33 PM)WinstonTheWolf Wrote: [ -> ]Mostly just a lack of compelling non-conference scheduling.
Bingo! I think you just hit one of the big factors. Lots of programs trying to schedule early season wins (whether it pans out or not).
I wouldn't discount the impact of all the recent realignment activities. Conferences like CUSA and the AAC have contracts based on standards that no longer apply. They broadcast a contracted number of games, but the number of really good teams in each conference has decreased.
(09-18-2013 01:10 PM)Yosef84 Wrote: [ -> ] (09-18-2013 12:33 PM)WinstonTheWolf Wrote: [ -> ]Mostly just a lack of compelling non-conference scheduling.
Bingo! I think you just hit one of the big factors. Lots of programs trying to schedule early season wins (whether it pans out or not).
I wouldn't discount the impact of all the recent realignment activities. Conferences like CUSA and the AAC have contracts based on standards that no longer apply. They broadcast a contracted number of games, but the number of really good teams in each conference has decreased.
Has nothing to do with it. I'm not talking about blowouts. I'm talking about bad teams. Teams like Texas, USC and Florida shouldn't be as bad as they are. The LaTech vs Tulane game was awful to watch because of how bad they were. Look at FIU as an example of a team that is awful in every aspect of the game when just two years ago they were a bowl team. I've seen more mental mistakes this season than any other.
(09-18-2013 01:31 PM)statefanatic Wrote: [ -> ] (09-18-2013 01:10 PM)Yosef84 Wrote: [ -> ] (09-18-2013 12:33 PM)WinstonTheWolf Wrote: [ -> ]Mostly just a lack of compelling non-conference scheduling.
Bingo! I think you just hit one of the big factors. Lots of programs trying to schedule early season wins (whether it pans out or not).
I wouldn't discount the impact of all the recent realignment activities. Conferences like CUSA and the AAC have contracts based on standards that no longer apply. They broadcast a contracted number of games, but the number of really good teams in each conference has decreased.
Has nothing to do with it. I'm not talking about blowouts. I'm talking about bad teams. Teams like Texas, USC and Florida shouldn't be as bad as they are. The LaTech vs Tulane game was awful to watch because of how bad they were. Look at FIU as an example of a team that is awful in every aspect of the game when just two years ago they were a bowl team. I've seen more mental mistakes this season than any other.
Sorry. In your original post, you talked about not being able to sit down on the couch and find a good game on TV. My point had to do with TV Contracts obligating the broadcasters to show games from a worse pool of teams. How is that not related to the topic?
I completely agree that there is no excuse for teams like Texas and Florida playing like they have so far. There is no single reason that drives declines for everyone: La Tech issue (Skip Holtz) vs. the Texas issue (who knows?) or the FIU issue (no big surprise...their bowl years were the anomaly).
(09-18-2013 12:50 PM)statefanatic Wrote: [ -> ] (09-18-2013 12:41 PM)JCGSU Wrote: [ -> ] (09-18-2013 12:19 PM)statefanatic Wrote: [ -> ]Even the big boys are looking bad. Programs like Texas, USC, and Florida are playing some bad football.
No excuse for those teams with the talent they have. All those teams will likely have new coaches soon, if not by the end of the year. Throw in Nebraska as well.
Texas has an open door to every kid in the state. There is no reason they should be losing. It all goes back to recruiting the right kids. FBS coaches are recruiting speed and not talent. I would rather have a WR who can catch every pass than one who runs a 4.4 40 and might catch half the balls thrown his way. Same thing with the QB. Seems everybody wants a running QB. I would rather have a accurate passing QB any day of the week.
On your WR requirements you can add one who knows how to run his routes. He doesn't have to be a burner. Run the routes right and you'll get clear 80% of the time, no matter how fast the defender is. Heck, if the receiver can block he can be more valuable than just catching the ball. Not seeing a lot of that this year.
Yosef is correct. There is not a single answer.
Among the problems I see and most of these are changes in my lifetime.
1. Contract length and size. Arkansas State is a "low paying" job. Our household income is just barely inside the dreaded 10 percenter category of oppressing the working poor. Bryan Harsin pays his own cable and internet bill and ASU pays every other utility expense and provides him a home in a gated golf community and I could live about three years on his income and I have a house payment and electric and gas bills. It's very easy to become content. Some people are self-driven. There is a common statement about people like Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett, and Bill Gates that they have little interest in wealth except that it is a way of keeping score. They want to win. I suspect Mrs. Saban is far more interested in what Mr. Saban's contract pays than he is. Those who know him tell me that if Alabama fired him and no one else wanted him, he'd coach junior high football before he'd give up coaching. Coaches driven by salary will have a harder time staying on task. I've joked before that Mack Brown was a lot better coach when Texas was paying him a few million less. Coaches in FBS don't work on year-to-year deals other than most assistants and most of them know they have a landing spot if things go south.
The guy who isn't consumed by coaching and winning doesn't live in sufficient fear to stay driven any more. A friend once remarked that Steve Roberts could have done what Freeze did had ASU given him the chance. Before I could respond MY WIFE set him straight by saying Steve didn't have the passion to have done it, if he had the passion for coaching, he'd be coach somewhere else rather than a high school AD. She nailed that better than I could have.
2. Players day-dreaming about the NFL. When I was a pup wolf, stAte had a player that every NFL team was interested in and scouted. He told them all, don't waste a pick on me, I won't sign. Today if anyone projected top 5 rounds told teams to not draft them it would be the focus of dozens of stories. People would say he is crazy. But the money was different. Today a run-of-the-mill player who can last long enough to vest in the NFL retirement plan if he's prudent isn't set for life but he's got a nice little nest egg with more saved than most of us would hope to have saved by age 45 or 50. The money is crazy and because the reward for making it to the NFL is so big there is an "I" usually several "I"'s on every team. The guy who projects a possible NFL safety, doesn't want to be a run-stopping linebacker even though that's the position that gives the team the best chance to win.
3. For many players, failure is an option. When Larry Lacewell was trying to get A-State going again in the 80's he went through a phase where he didn't want to ever sign a player from a losing high school. He would take the lesser player who was used to winning. Today you don't see players taking a loss hard nearly as often as you used to.
4. Administration. Used to be the athletic director was a fomer football coach (or basketball coach if that was your school's bent). Today's athletic directors mostly have a long history of administrative experience and that experience is usually in marketing and fund-raising. Arkansas State has sort of bucked the trend by having an AD who is not only a former player but a former assistant football coach. If your 20 years of athletic experience has been in figuring out a great skit for the mascot or plying some rich old fart with drinks and compliments to get a check, chances are pretty good that all you know is whether the team won or lost and have no idea if that 14 point win was actually a terrible coaching job or your coach pulled off a great job keeping that loss within 14 points. You might know that #67 looks like a mountain and assume he is a good offensive lineman and not realize that not only does his footwork suck, after five years with these coaches they've not done much to improve it.
5. Me too disease. Rather building an offense and defense around the type of talent the school can get, coaches follow fads and if they don't the fans want their sorry a$$ fired because obviously coach doesn't understand football. One of the guys I'm impressed by is Brian Kelly spent most of his career spreading the field gets to Notre Dame has gone to a scheme much more similar to Bama. He knows he get talent there that he never could have at Cincinnati or Central Michigan. Gee poor ol Saban doesn't understand high tempo fling the ball a bunch is the future. Kelly and Saban know most of the times they line up against can't win the trenches. Control the football. Punch it down the field wearing out defenses and don't let the other offense stay on the field long. Ole Miss can't win doing what Bama does. Good coaches understand what their team can't do and spend a lot of time trying to hide that by making you worry about what they can do, they don't pick a scheme because it's so hot right now. Boise State has amassed a number of conference titles and a couple BCS appearances being a power rushing team that everyone seems to think is a passing team.
Actually thinking more about it.
I think THE biggest problem is administrative. There are way too many AD's that just don't understand what they are looking at on the field and don't have the first clue about coaching candidates other than their impression of the school they are at and what sort of personality the coach has. They know whether there was a winning season or not and they know what the donors are complaining about.
I'll take coach who is socially stunted like Malzahn if he can recruit and coach.
(09-18-2013 03:42 PM)arkstfan Wrote: [ -> ]Actually thinking more about it.
I think THE biggest problem is administrative. There are way too many AD's that just don't understand what they are looking at on the field and don't have the first clue about coaching candidates other than their impression of the school they are at and what sort of personality the coach has. They know whether there was a winning season or not and they know what the donors are complaining about.
I'll take coach who is socially stunted like Malzahn if he can recruit and coach.
I believe that is it. To many AD's hiring a name instead of a coach. It is hard to find a great coach when you follow a trend. Malzahn is a prick but he knows how to coach. ASU took a chance on Freeze when when everybody else thought he was just a highschool coach. Freeze won at every level an is now winning at the highest level.
(09-18-2013 11:38 AM)statefanatic Wrote: [ -> ]Or has there been some really bad football this season? I have tried to watch games on Saturday for three weeks now and have had a hard time finding good games. Is the talent level down or has the constant coaching changes ruined college football? Outside of a few. I haven't seen very many good teams.
You have more 1-A teams than ever before so I guess you are in a way spreading the talent around. The LA Tech vs. Tulane game was one of the worst I've ever seen.
Obviously, it's not just you.