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(03-07-2024 12:35 PM)DuelingDragon Wrote:  And having ANY kind of expectations in March for the fall, when you are a fan of a G5 program in the era of year round transfer portal and unleashed NIL collectives is kinda delusional in and of itself. Nobody has any clue who is going to be on your own roster or those you'll be playing.

To your point...
at this point last year, we were counting on three players to make a significant impact for us in 2023--who never put on a UAB uniform in the fall. (Jalen Key and Drew Tuazama who both transferred out, and Zaire Flournoy, a starter on the OL who got hurt in spring training and missed the whole season).

In this era, you have to expect to lose players, but those losses were very untimely and hurt us a bunch at three positions where we had serious needs.

(03-07-2024 12:22 PM)blazers9911 Wrote:  

(03-07-2024 11:24 AM)UAB Band Dad Wrote:  I know that the transfer portal changed things, but let's talk reality here. Last season was Dilfer's, and much of the staff's, first season coaching college football. Dilfer was hired late, and because he came from high school, he did not have any recruiting ties to lean on. That does not explain some of the glaring issues, but talent and depth were legitimate problems. I'm not saying to write off last season, but I *am* saying that this is his first season with something approaching having his guys.

Point two. It just plain takes a new coach a couple of years to get his schemes, his coaches, and his players in place and knowing what the plan is, what is expected. Sure, if you take over a talented team because their coach was hired away things are different, but a hire because things were going the wrong way will have issues to address. Dilfer had more than most.

This is functionally his first season with most of the pieces in place to succeed, at least on paper. Another five win season would be a disappointment and it would grate on me, but if it was another season with a number of close losses accompanied by legit progress on defense and special teams, I'd be ok with it. I want to see progress, need to see it, but another four to five win season isn't likely to have me hollering to flush the guy and hit reset.

I think the chances of a six to seven win season are good. That's my expectation... but it's not a demand or else hit the highway sort of expectation. That's next year.


If they go out and defense and special teams are as screwed up as they were last season, that's different. Above all I'm looking for progress, for the building blocks falling into place. I just think that in a functional way this is year one for Dilfer. I'm willing to give him a mulligan for last season, because he got handed a very flawed team and a screwed up situation as a complete rookie college coach.

Everything here is essentially what I’m trying to convey. There are ways this team can go 4-8/5-7 that I’ll be extremely upset with, and there are ways this team can go 6-6/7-5 that I’ll not be happy with. On the flip side, there are ways this team can go 4-8/5-7 that I wouldn’t lose my mind over.

I want to see real progress made on the field more than anything this year. The results may or may not show that, depending on how things go. I don’t want to see a repeat of a lot of the things we saw last year, that would be really concerning.

I mostly agree with what BD is saying. Maybe I didn't convey it correctly, or you think I'm some sort of irate troglodyte incapable of being reasonable lol.

I don't think there's any way, outside of major injuries, that I could be OK with 4 wins in year two. I understand Dilfer would be given at least another year in that scenario, but in my mind his seat would be very, very hot.

There are multiple scenarios where I'd be OK with 5 wins, but still likely wouldn't be overjoyed with only 5 wins.

I think 6 wins is a very reasonable baseline of expectations for the team in Dilfer part deux, given all of the reasons previously outlined.

I'm optimistic we could get to 7, maybe 8 wins. Anything above that would be a very good season and that variance was on our side, on top of everything going better than expected with coaching, player development, etc.