Early Lines for August

[mbenecke]

Babers won, no doubt about that. But he left at the right time, because he did NOT recruit well while he was here. Just gotta look at the numbers.

The class he signed when he first got here (mostly Clawson guys, but he finished the cycle) finished 7th in the MAC in 2014. Bottom half.

The only full cycle class that he recruited start to finish in 2015 finished 8th in the MAC. Bottom third.

And the class that he mostly recruited but turned into Ninks finishing the class after he left for Syracuse, the 2016 group, finished 5th in the MAC - but almost half the class committed after Babers had already bolted, so you can’t really give him credit for that. Even then, we’re not gonna say middle of the pack is anything great.

It was natural to expect a step back after the run from 2013-2015. Babers made a smart decision to leave when he did. Jinks was the wrong hire at the wrong time, and we’re just now MAYBE getting back to being competitive again. My hope is that last year wasn’t a fluke, but I don’t think we’ll know until we get this season underway. I don’t think the recruiting right now is particularly strong compared to the rest of the MAC either, just for the record.

[Flipper]

In his one full season..Babers recruited Miller and James Morgan along with a number of other contributors. Babers left because someone offered him a ton of cash to leave. If Loeffler were even a half way decent coach...he would have left for something better.

[guest44]

It will be interesting to see if Loeffler retires the Clawson narrative for good now that this is year 5 and it isn’t really close. BGSU over under on wins is 4.5. Continuing the Clawson comparison now should hurt Loeffler. A 4-8 record this season would get Loeffler to 17-37 at BGSU. Under the Moosbrugger standard, BGSU might allow him to start looking for work while telling him they don’t want him to coach in 2024, but still holding the position until he finds new work.

Did anyone notice a Van Der Merwe on the football roster?

[BPardonMyTake]

It will be interesting to see if Loeffler retires the Clawson narrative for good now that this is year 5 and it isn’t really close. BGSU over under on wins is 4.5. Continuing the Clawson comparison now should hurt Loeffler. A 4-8 record this season would get Loeffler to 17-37 at BGSU. Under the Moosbrugger standard, BGSU might allow him to start looking for work while telling him they don’t want him to coach in 2024, but still holding the position until he finds new work.

Did anyone notice a Van Der Merwe on the football roster?

+135 over 5 wins on DK which I believe opened at 4.5 as well? I can see hammering the over 4.5 just based on the fact there's no way this team is 2 games worse than last year even with the brutal OOC schedule, right? Assuming (which might be dumb?) we handle Eastern Illinois, hard to imagine finishing 2 games worse in conference than last year. I'm still in golf/baseball mode so I honestly don't know but aside from OU who is loaded, who else are we really sweating in conference?

That being said, we don't bet for pushes and if we think there are already 4 auto losses, over 5 is a tough button to press.

[Flipper]

I think it's quite possible this team is 2 games worse than last year's team.

[BillyLP]

Did anyone notice a Van Der Merwe on the football roster?

Yeah, that's the AD's kid. Was actually a pretty decent high school player but decided not to play college ball. He's on the roster as a walk-on. Wouldn't view it as an Elsasser type thing, though with his genes, who knows what kind of talent he might have.