(09-20-2018 10:12 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(09-20-2018 07:42 AM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  Fisher did win a natty at FSU, but dadgum it, he also ran off all of the good assistant coaches (while retaining all of the bad ones) and he stayed one year too long! IMO it's way too early to judge his reign at Texas A&M - he started out good at FSU, too!

No question, we can't judge Jimbo at TAMU based on a couple games. I mean for crissakes, he's getting praised right now for a "moral victory" (e.g., a LOSS) versus Clemson.

We've seen how that goes: In 2005 Charlie Weis had a "moral victory" versus USC, the Bush-Push game, and parlayed that in to a massive contract that I don't think Notre Dame finished paying off until 8 years after Weis was fired for his ineptitude.

But on the other hand, I recall a weak 2007 Alabama team taking eventual national champ LSU down to the wire. It was a moral victory for Nick Saban, one that did turn out to be a harbinger of good things to come. You just don't know.

As for Fisher at FSU, when did he jump the shark? IMO, never. I mean remember, Fisher not only won the national championship, he also won two Orange Bowls, in 2012 and 2016, and took FSU to the Rose and Peach bowls as well. 2017 was the only bad year he had there, and that was an injury-riddled year.

FSU was going to struggle this year regardless of who the coach is because their problems have been brewing for quite a while and aren't something you fix overnight with a coaching change. They simply stopped developing players on the OL several years ago.

You could see the decline starting in Winston's final season as he took more shots then than the year before. In Francois' first season you knew it was just a matter of time before he took a shot that he simply wasn't going to get up from and it finally happened in the Alabama game last year. I feared that Blackman was going to get his slight frame cut in half at times last year with the shots he took.

Add to that the fact that in each of the first three seasons of "Last Chance U" the focal point QB was a highly rated QB who was forced to leave FSU for one reason or another leaving FSU with a talent deficit at QB when Francois went down last year.

(09-26-2018 08:16 AM)stever20 Wrote:  last year average team in 247 composite ratings from AAC got 156.60 points- only Toledo(174.00) and W Michigan(163.69) were higher than AAC average. Toledo would be 3rd and W Michigan 6th in AAC.
last year average team in 247 composite ratings from MAC go 125.74 points- only UConn(124.72) worse. UConn would be 6th in the MAC.

So it's still a pretty big advantage for the AAC.

If Toledo ever gets an AAC invite, that program will take off. They are as steady, reliable a CUSA/MAC/BELT program you could ask for with everything in place.

(09-26-2018 08:34 AM)AntiG Wrote:  Rutgers is the least happy.

Given that UConn has a not-insignificant portion of the fan base perfectly fine with dropping the sport altogether (I'm actually not one of those people. It's a fun thing to do on a fall weekend) I'm pretty sure we've got a stranglehold on that misery belt and aren't giving it up.

I'd say LSU fans are pretty happy so far....