(09-15-2019 08:42 PM)Intellectual_Brutality Wrote: Thanks for engaging with it.
The underlying issue seems to me: what is the value of schemes and coaching vs. the value of talent?
The talent for this year is set. The schemes maximize the productivity of those schemes. You can be successful by recruiting 'poorly' (relative to the big boys) and then getting a lot out of undiscovered talents, or by recruiting really well and then just getting average performance out of great talent. While perhaps academically interesting as to which is better, it again requires defining lots of things like 'talent'.
The most important thing is getting the best TEAM on the field. A team full of 3 stars can easily outperform a team with lots of 5 stars and a few 2 stars on them. It doesn't happen often because the people who do the former get promoted away and the latter get fired.
Quote:If someone in CUSA (especially "lots" of them) can score on top teams, however defined, then that would signal strongly the value of good schemes. It would be a big indictment of Bloomgren.
Or it could simply be the penchant for lower level teams to concentrate on offense and hope to 'get by' on defense. The best defense is a good offense isn't always true, but it didn't become an idiom because it was never true.
Quote:If few or no one in CUSA can score on top of P5, well then recruiting/conference is key. It would mean Bloom's grand plan isn't *necessarily* broken. It may be broken, or it may be that we need 3-4 years of small steps, at which point we consistently win in CUSA and butt up against ultimate limitations of the conference.
As weak as the conference is, I'm disappointed in the 'small' steps we are taking. I expected a relatively quick turn-around to 0.500 in conference... which is a long way from consistently winning CUSA. This is my concern that we're sitting at the point where we have to make another decision and we've gone 1-7, 2-6, 3-5 and then maybe 4-4....
meaning we're still in the 90+ range and we're talking about extending a coach with what would likely be something like a 13-33
You're arguing two sides of the same coin. If the conference is so weak such that we will be pushing the limits of the conference, it shouldn't take years to be competitive with it. It should be a lot easier.
Now maybe if we're 2-6 this year and then 6-2 next.....
Quote:So it's empirically pretty important whether others in our poor conference can score consistently against the top, and I have yet to see it.
Why? You're arguing that we would be limited by our conference, why wouldn't they have the same limitations?
My point is that when you have an offense that can score, you have a chance. You could similarly win in CUSA with a stifling pass defense. What do you think the offs of that are?
Quote:I happened to be at the Michigan v MTSU game, and it wasn't even close. All the points came in garbage time or when Michigan turned it over in their red zone.
You might want to check your memory. The score at the end of the 1st was 10-7. It was 27-14 at half. Michigan scored I think 6 in the 3rd and 7 in the 4th while MTSU scored 7 in the 4th.
Michigan scored at the end of the first, otherwise MTSU would have had the lead.
I'm a bit bothered that you decide to nit-pick my OPINIONS and then you present false FACTS.
Quote:The size difference was probably 75% as large as Texas vs Rice, i.e. very large.
So the point us, I wanna see what the max is for pound the rock in CUSA. I'm not yet convinced it can't work in CUSA, and given what I see from CUSA in general I'm not yet convinced that *any other* would've worked against Texas.
This is you doing precisely what I knew you would.
- I couldn't care less about beating Texas this year... you're engaging in the competing vs competitive argument.
- I don't know (nor care) what you mean by 'size difference'. Smaller teams win every week.
- You put the caveat on there.... and we scored 13 (which is less than 21) in garbage time against UT... and again, you're wrong about MTSU/Michigan
I'm not trying to be competitive with UT. These are merely points of reference for 'capability'.
Pound the rock CAN be an effective offense, so long as it controls the clock... SCORES... and has a credible defense. See Hatfield, Ken for most of his career, including Rice. He started losing when he lost the DEFENSE, not the offense.
I wouldn't expect our defense to be anywhere near the defense of top 25 schools. Would you? I think that's an unrealistic expectation. If CUSA schools can score 21 against those schools, then they will be able to score a whole lot more on us. I repeat that I'm not sure that this offense can score enough to beat those offenses, and I wouldn't expect our defenses to be better than the average CUSA defense. Would you? If so, why?
If there were a better description of 'top 50' team, I probably would have used that... because we're a long long way from there as well... but there isn't.