(12-26-2018 01:19 PM)Rabid Squirrel Wrote:  

(12-26-2018 12:05 PM)MaddDawgz02 Wrote:  

(12-26-2018 10:56 AM)Rabid Squirrel Wrote:  

(12-26-2018 01:17 AM)VegasHuskie Wrote:  

(12-25-2018 10:08 PM)Huskie_Jon Wrote:  Rod Carey could be NIU's version of Marty Schottenheimer. Marty Schottenheimer took the Browns to the playoffs five years in a row. And then they would lose. They never made it to the Super Bowl. So they fired him. It took them five more years to get back to the playoffs.

Kansas City picked him up and he took the Chiefs to the playoffs 7 times out of 10. They lost each time, so they let him go. The Chiefs did not go back to the playoffs for six more years.

Hiring Marty Schottenheimer means losing in the playoffs. Firing him means staying away from the playoffs.

Having Rod Carey as a head coach means making regular apearances in the MCC and multiple wins over B1G teams, but losing bowl games. Getting rid of him could mean staying out of post season play.

Hi Jon. You illustrate the precise reason NIU should be on the hunt for a new coach. The Chiefs and Browns both realized that they had higher ambitions than simply making the playoffs. Both organizations parted ways with a semi-successful coach because they felt he couldn't take the team one step further.

On our smaller scale, that is where we are at. We have a coach that has proven he can be good in our conference, but completely ineffective post-season. Coach Carey has built a program that is solely designed to defeat MAC competition, but can't compete on a national scale.

Coach Novak, Kill, and Doeren all had teams that were nationally ranked. There is virtually no chance whatsoever that NIU gets back to that level under Coach Carey (not counting the team Carey inherited from Doeren that was nationally ranked). I don't think even the staunchest Carey supporter would argue that.

So for me, Jon, to respond to your comment; I would definitely risk the potential of missing post season play with a new coach if it meant there was the possibility of getting back to being a nationally ranked team.

Think about the teams from the MAC who were nationally ranked. 2003 NIU, 2012 NIU, 2003 Miami, 2009 CMU, 2015 Toledo. What did they all have in common? Superstar players. There is a top half and bottom half to the Mac. Take just about any team in the top half and add a superstar player, usually at qb, and they run the table in the Mac. That’s what it takes For national attention more so than the coach. Put lynch, Big Ben, Lefouver, Turner, Hunt, Nate Davis, Pennington, Leftwich, Harnish, etc. on any top Mac squad and you have the team everyone so desperately wants here. Coach at that point just needs to be good. Not great.

I think what draws great offensive talent is not so much winning MAC championship in down years for the conference, but instead systems which allow players with great offensive skill sets to display what they can do. Signing up to play an offensive skilled position at NIU would be like a baseball player signing up to play T-ball, or a football player signing up to play flag football. Rod Carey simply does not require the traditional offensive skill sets in this program right now. Success on offense is protecting the ball, get your 3 and out, don't turn it over and set the defense up to give the opposition a long field to work with. The idea is to have the opposition make a mistake before you, not pushing the issue. You are not going to draw offensive talent in this system right now, when an offensive skill set is not required for the job.

Real elite offensive talent at Mac level recruiting is just dumb luck. Harnish, Lynch, Matt Johnson, Zach Terrel, Logan Woodside, Dan Lefouver....these guys all had just one offer. The next mac heisman level qb would more likely come from a Jiya Wright level recruit rather than a Kaleb Eleby.

Several of the highest level qb recruits NIU has ever had are all on the roster right now under Carey. But the best QBs NIU has ever had were all unwanted by any other school.

I completely agree with this. MAC schools just won't get highly regarded high school kids for obvious reasons. I also respect your comment when you say you are not necessarily pro-Carey, but pro-NIU. I would like to think we are all pro-NIU, even if we don't always act like it (my fellow Carey detractors).

MD is correct, though, that our anemic, conservative offense will limit our recruiting possibilities even further on the offensive end. While we will never get that blue chip kid no matter what we do, what second tier skill position kid at the high school level would choose NIU over similar offers from schools with more advanced offensive systems?