(11-27-2021 11:18 AM)Charlie Broadway Wrote:  The schools with the best chance to succeed over multiple coaching changes are the schools with the biggest budgets.

sorry, Charlie but this is false.

It isn't the size of the budget that matters, it's what you do with it. If the amount of money mattered, South Carolina, Nebraska, Cal, Texas, Stanford, et al wouldn't be where they are.

(11-27-2021 05:36 PM)vick mike Wrote:  

(11-27-2021 02:32 AM)fanhoodtheocho Wrote:  I had assumed SMU would be the standard of the new conference, as my thoughts were that Sonny would stay, and continue to grow the program to be one of the top three G5 programs year in and year out. Furthermore, I had thought that Memphis had proven they were built to last due to the sustained success over multiple head coaches.

However, with Dykes leaving, and Memphis regressing slightly, who do you think will be the best two or three teams in the American over the next five years? Will Lashlee be able to sustain the success Dykes was having? What was the reason for Memphis' regression this year?

Who are the new standard bearers of the MW? San Diego State, Fresno, San Jose come to mind.

Well, If SDSU wins this weekend, since the modern MW started in 2012, SDSU will have four championships, Boise has four, and Fresno has three. The SJSU win last year appears to be a an aberration. So I would say it continues to be SDSU, Fresno, and Boise.

I think Boise's best days are certainly behind them, and that has been the case for years. Utah State is a good middle class program, that certainly can have a years like this year. Nevada is a high middle class.

Colorado State is the strange case, that can never seemingly string it together, or have not been able to consistently since Sonny Lubick, one impressive year under McElwain, where they still finished second in their division.

Hawaii will never be consistently at the top. Nor will New Mexico, or Wyoming.

UNLV is odd to me. They should be good, based on investment, location, etc, but they are the MWC version of SMU. A generational bad program. The difference is, UNLV has not hired its version of June Jones, who got them out of the cellar, or a Sonny Dykes who brought them to new heights. We'll see.

In all, I hope they all suck, so SDSU goes 12-0 every year.

(11-27-2021 02:32 AM)fanhoodtheocho Wrote:  I had assumed SMU would be the standard of the new conference, as my thoughts were that Sonny would stay, and continue to grow the program to be one of the top three G5 programs year in and year out. Furthermore, I had thought that Memphis had proven they were built to last due to the sustained success over multiple head coaches.

However, with Dykes leaving, and Memphis regressing slightly, who do you think will be the best two or three teams in the American over the next five years? Will Lashlee be able to sustain the success Dykes was having? What was the reason for Memphis' regression this year?

little baby Jesus, please let us get out of the AAC and into the Big 12...amen

(11-28-2021 10:14 AM)TheOriginalBigApp Wrote:  

(11-27-2021 11:18 AM)Charlie Broadway Wrote:  The schools with the best chance to succeed over multiple coaching changes are the schools with the biggest budgets.

sorry, Charlie but this is false.

It isn't the size of the budget that matters, it's what you do with it. If the amount of money mattered, South Carolina, Nebraska, Cal, Texas, Stanford, et al wouldn't be where they are.

The programs that best survive multiple coaching changes are the programs who hire and retain great athletic directors. All it takes is one idiot who gets to hire the next coach to put your program back 5-7 years minimum.

(11-28-2021 10:40 AM)rath v2.0 Wrote:  

(11-28-2021 10:14 AM)TheOriginalBigApp Wrote:  

(11-27-2021 11:18 AM)Charlie Broadway Wrote:  The schools with the best chance to succeed over multiple coaching changes are the schools with the biggest budgets.

sorry, Charlie but this is false.

It isn't the size of the budget that matters, it's what you do with it. If the amount of money mattered, South Carolina, Nebraska, Cal, Texas, Stanford, et al wouldn't be where they are.

The programs that best survive multiple coaching changes are the programs who hire and retain great athletic directors. All it takes is one idiot who gets to hire the next coach to put your program back 5-7 years minimum.

ECU raises its hand.

UC went through it too with the goon we hired who brought his buddy Tubberville in without so much as an interview or a coaching search.

He’s now at Virginia Texh screwing up their program. Just fired Fuentes who he hired. He’ll likely screw up the next hire, too.

(11-27-2021 08:58 AM)ncbeta Wrote:  If utsa can go undefeated every year I figure it will be them.

Well they can't.

(11-28-2021 10:14 AM)TheOriginalBigApp Wrote:  

(11-27-2021 11:18 AM)Charlie Broadway Wrote:  The schools with the best chance to succeed over multiple coaching changes are the schools with the biggest budgets.

sorry, Charlie but this is false.

It isn't the size of the budget that matters, it's what you do with it. If the amount of money mattered, South Carolina, Nebraska, Cal, Texas, Stanford, et al wouldn't be where they are.

notice how you names P5.. and all but texas are big budgets compared to conference mates

in the g5 every top team in thier conference are the big budget teams..

g5/p5 dynamics are not the same... budge matter more becuase p5 cant keep coaches ..the ability to hire (and retain) expensive coaches is crucial

(11-28-2021 10:14 AM)TheOriginalBigApp Wrote:  

(11-27-2021 11:18 AM)Charlie Broadway Wrote:  The schools with the best chance to succeed over multiple coaching changes are the schools with the biggest budgets.

sorry, Charlie but this is false.

It isn't the size of the budget that matters, it's what you do with it. If the amount of money mattered, South Carolina, Nebraska, Cal, Texas, Stanford, et al wouldn't be where they are.

With all due respect, you can’t just chop and screw my post like that man lol. The sentence before I specified that was talking about G5 schools. I get why you feel that way though. App St has done a great job with less and would absolutely thrive with some of the money that the schools you named have. You have every right to be proud of your school and I’m happy for all the success y’all have had.

The best sports schools in the AAC will be the ones that hire people like Sampson and Fickle who know how to build a program, recruit, and who's school supports by building facilities.

There is a reason why Houston and Cincinnati have been in both basketball and football AAC championships recently and are moving to the Big12. Their schools have a lot invested into their teams.

The next schools other than SMU and Memphis have to do the same to get to that level.

(11-28-2021 12:36 PM)legacygt777 Wrote:  The best sports schools in the AAC will be the ones that hire people like Sampson and Fickle who know how to build a program, recruit, and who's school supports by building facilities.

There is a reason why Houston and Cincinnati have been in both basketball and football AAC championships recently and are moving to the Big12. Their schools have a lot invested into their teams.

The next schools other than SMU and Memphis have to do the same to get to that level.

SMU and Memphis are both trending down... especially SMU, I don't see Rhett Lashlee being that much better than Dykes... We'll see.

For those who remember, who won the first AAC chamionship. A no brand team that came from CUSA. UAB and UTSA along with Memphis are my picks.

(11-28-2021 05:41 PM)sierrajip Wrote:  For those who remember, who won the first AAC chamionship. A no brand team that came from CUSA. UAB and UTSA along with Memphis are my picks.

1. Memphis
2. ECU
3. USF (with planned investments)

(11-28-2021 06:29 PM)bearcat29 Wrote:  

(11-28-2021 05:41 PM)sierrajip Wrote:  For those who remember, who won the first AAC chamionship. A no brand team that came from CUSA. UAB and UTSA along with Memphis are my picks.

1. Memphis
2. ECU
3. USF (with planned investments)

I can add ECU. USF with their future schedules, not so much.

If ECU keeps Houston for an extended period we will be in that conversation. I have no doubt he will win year after year given the time. This year showed the culture at ECU has changed. I see nothing to stop us from improving but him leaving abruptly. ECU need to do whatever it takes to incentivize him staying as long as possible. If he wins long term... it is inevitable that he will make a jump. Thats just the coaching game. Hopefully he can rebuild the program to the point that we can just rehire and move on.

We will continue to be mediocre in basketball due to having ZERO to offer any recruit. If I was Dooley Id go abroad and get kids that want to come to the States for an education. Im not optimistic at all about the BB program.

ECU will continue to be at the top of the conference in Baseball. We have a very good coach and good recruiting pipeline. Im happy to see Rice come in and welcome that series. I see the AAC actually being better with the new entrants despite losing UCF and UH. AAC baseball should be very competitive going forward.

We will be competitive in the non revenue sports..but...who really cares?

(11-28-2021 03:59 AM)fanhoodtheocho Wrote:  

(11-27-2021 05:37 PM)legacygt777 Wrote:  

(11-27-2021 04:50 PM)Fo Shizzle Wrote:  

(11-27-2021 11:37 AM)legacygt777 Wrote:  In football, SMU, Navy, Ecu, and Memphis. We'll see where UTSA when they have an American schedule.

The other C USA teams have a lot of work to do.

I think Navy and all the service academies will have problems going forward because of the portal..that they really cant use due to military commitments. They have no way to improve their classes through the portal like everyone else. Of course they still will have the most disciplined and physically fit teams on the field. That means a lot.

Navy will bounce back even without the portal through recruiting because they always have good coaching.

SLH could correct me if I am wrong, but I think that historically, there has rarely been a time when all three Service Academies are competing at a high level. I have been told by people familiar with Service Academy football that there simply are not enough players in the recruiting pool to support it.

As such, if this hypothesis is true, the Navy needs Air Force or Army to take significant steps back in order to be good again. You couple this with Navy playing in a conference, and not being able to pick their games, and I think it is unlikely.

The one thing that could work in their favor is a weakened AAC. However, if they are in a Division with SMU, Memphis, UAB, and UTSA, I think they struggle. If I were them, from a competitive standpoint, I would want to be in the Eastern Division.

Interesting. My perspective would be that no one in the Navy football program would agree with any of the bits I bolded.

It is true that you can't find big chunks of years with all three excelling, but you CAN find years with all three winning and bowling - a quick check shows as recent as 2016, and I was surprised that '17 and '19 weren't. I'll throw '96 out there too...which led to USMA having a bout of institutional over-confidence, joining the CUSA when they had been feasting on three-four DIAA cupcakes each year, and digging a 15- to 20-year hole for themselves.
(So I'm going to guess this hypothesis came from a West Pointer in your professional life, rather than a Zoomie in your mwc-fanboy life. Army sucked so bad for so long that Woops grab at any excuse. See cadets' Gameday signs "We'll watch your bowl on ESPN if you watch our war on CNN" signs, when more Navy football players had paid the ultimate sacrifice than USMA players as another example.)

You might say those single years are exceptions proving the rule, but I'll say that is still a hard argument to make because both Army and Navy have had looooong periods of sucking. I mean, AF is only 60 years old AS A SCHOOL, so the sample size is small. I laugh at johnny-come-lately schools who have only been playing DI football for a couple decades...AF ain't much older than them. AF did have a couple of decades of being the clear standard-bearer for the service academies. And all of that was post-Bellino/Staubach. Give George Welsh some credit for a few years...a Nap McCallum or a Phil McConkey was great on average teams...
But then after we sucked so long, you have to look at 20 years now of the Johnson-Niumatalolo era - this will be only our fourth losing season in those 20 years. And AF was also good in much of them, although our seven straight years of winning the CiC Trophy was above and beyond anything AF did even in those decades of darkness for both Army and Navy.
Army sucking for 3/4 of these last two decades, when both Navy and Air Force were pretty good, is about Army sucking, not any shortage of Academy guys nation-wide.

I don't have quotes to pull, but I know that Coach Niumat and others have said the opposite - there are enough recruits out there for all three of us. It's hard to find them, develop them, and retain them, but they're out there. And I know I have never heard any Navy coach say "Well, this is a bad year for the crop of scrappy, undersized, didn't get many DI offers linebackers due to that drought out west in aught-four." I have never heard the Navy coaches say "Dang it, the very last potential service academy recruit just came off the board!"
It's hard finding those guys who are interested in the service obligation and can handle the academic and military load, and that keeps the academies at the top of the toughest-coaching-jobs-in-FBS list...but they're out there.
And Navy coaches have definitely said that AAC recruiting has paid dividends in the intra-academy recruiting arena. Moreso vs Army, with AF recruiting getting some regional advantage (we have 31 states represented on our football roster, but yes, few from the mwc's sparsely populated states - out west we have 10 from California and 3 from Arizona plus some singles and some unrepresented states).

Navy is 4-3 vs SMU as AAC opponents. Navy is 3-4 vs Memphis as AAC opponents. Navy isn't worried about matching up against either of them. Navy isn't worried about matching up against UTSA, or UAB, or any potential division opponent in the next iteration of the AAC. Navy's AAC record since we joined the conference is now 33-22, fifth best in the conference over those seven seasons. Second best after the three quitters are gone. We've beaten everyone here, including all of those leaving for the Big12.
Navy would prefer a division breakdown that gives us the biggest national footprint -- love recruiting Texas (31 on the roster) but wouldn't want to be in a Texas+Navy only division, either. Personally, I would prefer a North-South, with a little cheating (majority of Boca Raton residents are from the North, for instance) to ensure EVERYONE gets a taste of Texas and Florida...but however the divisions break out, bring it on, *******, bring it on.
This thread asked about "standard bearers" not "flagships"...but the Navy actually HAS flagships, so...

(11-28-2021 08:29 AM)CLTPirate Wrote:  

(11-27-2021 08:23 PM)slhNavy91 Wrote:  

(11-27-2021 06:08 PM)PuddlePirate Wrote:  

(11-27-2021 05:37 PM)legacygt777 Wrote:  

(11-27-2021 04:50 PM)Fo Shizzle Wrote:  I think Navy and all the service academies will have problems going forward because of the portal..that they really cant use due to military commitments. They have no way to improve their classes through the portal like everyone else. Of course they still will have the most disciplined and physically fit teams on the field. That means a lot.

Navy will bounce back even without the portal through recruiting because they always have good coaching.

And they have the ability to oversign because everyone at the academy is on scholarship anyway. Doesn't mean they are all on the active roster. They have crazy depth to draw from.

I'm sure if I misstated that my friend slhNavy91 can help out. But I'm not far off the mark.

That's right - we have no athletic scholarships because every Midshipman student-athlete is on the exact same ride as non-student-athlete Midshipmen.
Without athletic scholarships, football classes end up being around 50 guys showing up on Induction Day, either direct admits or from the Naval Academy Prep School. We had 25 seniors walk with their families this Senior Day.
The football roster is about 150. We have a JV team (plays community college competition and such) and we run two full scout teams.
The normal result is that guys wait their turn and most of the starters are juniors/seniors. We usually have a lot of first-time senior starters. But they've spent time getting reps in practice giving us consistency. Coach Newberry's defense is kind of like the triple option in requiring reps and experience to be good in it - a lot of shifts and rotations and "hybrid" type guys all over.
We are incredibly young this year -- with injuries and other losses, half the three-deep on O and D right now are freshmen and sophmores. Bodes well for the future, but has meant rough sledding this year.

As far as the portal, we can lose guys to it but never gain. A positive spin would be that using the portal doesn't fit with the development model of the program as described above.
I think that the impact of the portal is more relative for Navy - other schools MIGHT have big jumps from a good year using the portal. We'll have the same consistency of development but might have more peaks and valleys in terms of record as numbers of other members have years of great improvement. Any given team might jump up in a given year, but the flip side is that no one will build a dynasty off of portal gains. Does that make sense?

The portal is a net negative for Navy, but not disaster.

Doesn’t Navy also have a community college they use to develop players?

The Naval Academy Prep School in Newport, Rhode Island exists to provide an extra year of preparation for Fleet Sailors and Marines as well as other potential Midshipmen who might need another year of academic/military prep for the academic course load and military requirements of the U.S. Naval Academy.
This is generally defined as "did your high school prepare you for college level calculus and physics?" That gets some athletics recruits (football and our other 32 varsity/intercollegiate sports) every year at NAPS, but also some non-athletes who are good candidates, but maybe their high school just didn't get them the opportunity to PROVE they could handle Calc, Chem, Physics, and Differential Equations in their first two years. About 250 NAPSters a year out of a class of 1000+ Maybe half of a given football recruiting class go this path, instead of already having the academic chops to come in as a direct admit...no athletic recruit gets pushed to NAPS for extra development if their HS academics support a direct admit.

This is far from a redshirt program. USNA coaching staffs can have no more contact with NAPSters than with any other recruit out of high school. They do have full seasons of multiple sports; the coaching staffs are Prep School instructors, mostly active duty. For football, this includes a handful of the previous May USNA grads on "stash" Ensign/Second Lieutenant duty before they move on to their careers - for perspective, six months after graduation, plenty of Ensigns/2LTs are still teaching sailing, or serving as the Second Deputy Admin Officer for a USNA academic department while awaiting flight school or nuke school or whatever. Personally, I did a year of grad school before getting to my first true training pipeline step of my eventual thirty-year career. The coaching staff can be in contact with the USNA coaching staff, and they do their best to run the offense, but Coach Niumat and Coach Jasper and Coach Newberry don't talk to any NAPSter until after they get to Annapolis.
Also, the flip side of that "no athletic scholarships" piece is that Navy recruits never actually sign a NLI. Any football or basketball coach in the country could recruit out of NAPS. On one hand, that's a little low class, especially considering that none of these guys/gals are five-stars. On the other hand, NAPS is an extra year for a young person to say, "man, I don't think I like this Navy, military thing," and I for one wish them the best at that point. And a year of high NAPS attrition IS noticeable within a given year for the USNA roster (and the COVID year of 2020 reportedly sucked at NAPS even worse than it sucked at USNA).

USAFA and USMA also have Prep Schools. USAFAPS has (I think) always been co-located with the Academy in Colorado Springs. USAFA playing a little fast and loose with their prep school (i.e. contact with future players at) has in the past gotten Congressional attention on all three. USMAPS was in Ft Monmouth, NJ for a long time, but when BRAC closed down Ft Monmouth a couple decades ago, they moved to adjacent to USMA. NAPS will likely remain in Newport for the foreseeable future.

There is also the Naval Academy Foundation - provides scholarships to post-HS prep schools for USNA candidates just missing the cut in the nomination/appointment processes. Roger Staubach was a Foundation scholarship candidate at New Mexico Military Institute, but I believe we have fully separated the Foundation Scholarships from any athletic recruiting in the last fifty years or so. Even in MY day thirty years ago, no one I can think of as a Foundation guy/gal was a varsity athlete, or at least not one of the big recruiting sports. But still have post-HS prep scholarships at "military" prep schools and others.
(To think, we missed out on Bill S. Preston)

(11-28-2021 05:30 PM)GoOwls111 Wrote:  

(11-28-2021 12:36 PM)legacygt777 Wrote:  The best sports schools in the AAC will be the ones that hire people like Sampson and Fickle who know how to build a program, recruit, and who's school supports by building facilities.

There is a reason why Houston and Cincinnati have been in both basketball and football AAC championships recently and are moving to the Big12. Their schools have a lot invested into their teams.

The next schools other than SMU and Memphis have to do the same to get to that level.

SMU and Memphis are both trending down... especially SMU, I don't see Rhett Lashlee being that much better than Dykes... We'll see.

6-6 one year is not a trend.

(11-28-2021 07:55 PM)TripleA Wrote:  

(11-28-2021 05:30 PM)GoOwls111 Wrote:  

(11-28-2021 12:36 PM)legacygt777 Wrote:  The best sports schools in the AAC will be the ones that hire people like Sampson and Fickle who know how to build a program, recruit, and who's school supports by building facilities.

There is a reason why Houston and Cincinnati have been in both basketball and football AAC championships recently and are moving to the Big12. Their schools have a lot invested into their teams.

The next schools other than SMU and Memphis have to do the same to get to that level.

SMU and Memphis are both trending down... especially SMU, I don't see Rhett Lashlee being that much better than Dykes... We'll see.

6-6 one year is not a trend.

esp when your QB is a freshman...