All team goals still attainable

[Flipper]

They were undefeated in the regular season...they did not have an undefeated season. Do some research

[Globetrotter]

Undefeated season. Ranked. BCS bowl.

Never been done by a MAC program...if your expectation is to do something no one else in your conference has done...hell comparatively few teams in the history of college football has done...if that is what you expect to do...you aren't being realistic.

I never said they had to get all three at the same time, but that should be the teams goal anyway. If they are shooting for the best team in a bad league that's fine, and certainly an accomplishment and an improvement, it's also not good enough IMO.

Are you telling me that if they won out and went 11-1 people wouldn't look back and say "shoot if we hadn't lost to Indiana we would have been undefeated."

[Globetrotter]

They were undefeated in the regular season...they did not have an undefeated season. Do some research

That's semantics. They had an undefeated regular season. That's what we should shoot for. That should be a goal.

[MarkL]

Did either BSU or NIU set season goals as going 12-0 or to the Orange Bowl? Or did they set their goals as winning the MAC? I bet the latter.

This is a very weird argument. I feel like you are just arguing to argue at this point. I assume most teams want to go undefeated and go to a BCS bowl. That should be Every teams goal. I think that anything lower then that is just admitting you don't belong amongst the best teams. Why play if your goal is less then that?

Please allow me to finish laughing after you of all people just accused me of arguing just to argue.

Nobody sets going 12-0 / BCS bowl game as a goal. Would you love to win all 12 games? Of course. Our guys prepare and expect to win every game. However .... what are the team goals? Win the MAC East, win the MAC, go to an win a bowl game, beat the team up north and down south, and graduate. If your expectation is to go undefeated every year, go buy a PS3 and NCAA Football 2014.

[Globetrotter]

Did either BSU or NIU set season goals as going 12-0 or to the Orange Bowl? Or did they set their goals as winning the MAC? I bet the latter.

This is a very weird argument. I feel like you are just arguing to argue at this point. I assume most teams want to go undefeated and go to a BCS bowl. That should be Every teams goal. I think that anything lower then that is just admitting you don't belong amongst the best teams. Why play if your goal is less then that?

Please allow me to finish laughing after you of all people just accused me of arguing just to argue.

Nobody sets going 12-0 / BCS bowl game as a goal. Would you love to win all 12 games? Of course. Our guys prepare and expect to win every game. However .... what are the team goals? Win the MAC East, win the MAC, go to an win a bowl game, beat the team up north and down south, and graduate. If your expectation is to go undefeated every year, go buy a PS3 and NCAA Football 2014.

Expectation v goals. I think you guys are struggling with the difference here mightily. Your doing it within your own paragraph.

EVERYBODY sets winning every games as a goal. Regardless of whether or not that's an expectation. When you start a season that should be the goal of every single football team in the country. We want to go to a BCS game and go undefeated. That's our goal. 60 of them get that goal dashed in week one.
"Our team prepares and expects to win every game"....."nobody sets going 12-0 as a goal".........

[MarkL]

Did either BSU or NIU set season goals as going 12-0 or to the Orange Bowl? Or did they set their goals as winning the MAC? I bet the latter.

This is a very weird argument. I feel like you are just arguing to argue at this point. I assume most teams want to go undefeated and go to a BCS bowl. That should be Every teams goal. I think that anything lower then that is just admitting you don't belong amongst the best teams. Why play if your goal is less then that?

Please allow me to finish laughing after you of all people just accused me of arguing just to argue.

Nobody sets going 12-0 / BCS bowl game as a goal. Would you love to win all 12 games? Of course. Our guys prepare and expect to win every game. However .... what are the team goals? Win the MAC East, win the MAC, go to an win a bowl game, beat the team up north and down south, and graduate. If your expectation is to go undefeated every year, go buy a PS3 and NCAA Football 2014.

Expectation v goals. I think you guys are struggling with the difference here mightily. Your doing it within your own paragraph.

No not really. Goal is to win the MAC. You'd shoot to win every game, sure. But the goal at the beginning of the season is MAC champs. Everything else is the berries. Yes you expect to win the individual game but you also look at big picture. The goal of winning the MAC title is far, far more important than the goal of winning any individual game.

[Globetrotter]

Did either BSU or NIU set season goals as going 12-0 or to the Orange Bowl? Or did they set their goals as winning the MAC? I bet the latter.

This is a very weird argument. I feel like you are just arguing to argue at this point. I assume most teams want to go undefeated and go to a BCS bowl. That should be Every teams goal. I think that anything lower then that is just admitting you don't belong amongst the best teams. Why play if your goal is less then that?

Please allow me to finish laughing after you of all people just accused me of arguing just to argue.

Nobody sets going 12-0 / BCS bowl game as a goal. Would you love to win all 12 games? Of course. Our guys prepare and expect to win every game. However .... what are the team goals? Win the MAC East, win the MAC, go to an win a bowl game, beat the team up north and down south, and graduate. If your expectation is to go undefeated every year, go buy a PS3 and NCAA Football 2014.

Expectation v goals. I think you guys are struggling with the difference here mightily. Your doing it within your own paragraph.

No not really. Goal is to win the MAC. You'd shoot to win every game, sure. But the goal at the beginning of the season is MAC champs. Everything else is the berries. Yes you expect to win the individual game but you also look at big picture. The goal of winning the MAC title is far, far more important than the goal of winning any individual game.

Are you drunk? This is the strangest discussion I have ever been a part of on here. I don't know why you think a team wouldn't shoot for the MAC champs and an undefeated season. These things aren't mutually exclusive.

[MarkL]

Big picture vs individual game. No I'm not drunk.

[Flipper]

They were undefeated in the regular season...they did not have an undefeated season. Do some research

That's semantics. They had an undefeated regular season. That's what we should shoot for. That should be a goal.

No...it is not "semantics"...winning all your games is the definition of the term "undefeated season". Winning all your games except for the final two is not.

This will end my contribution to this discussion. Rather than just admitting that you are wrong, you are trying to redefine reality to fit your argument. It's like saying the sky is orange...and then redefining "orange" to include several shades of blue. I'd rather watch Dragnet on Netflix until I can sleep.

[Globetrotter]

Then apparently I should have written undefeated regular season and then that would have oddly not gotten your ire

[Globetrotter]

Big picture vs individual game. No I'm not drunk.

This isn't me saying I have a goal to beat usain bolt in the hundred. This team has 12 winnable games on the schedule. Their goal should have been to go undefeated.

[MarkL]

Like Flipper I am done here in a completely worthless argument with you. Watching ASU / Wisconsin instead. Much better use ofy time.

[footballguy51]

Big picture vs individual game. No I'm not drunk.

This isn't me saying I have a goal to beat usain bolt in the hundred. This team has 12 winnable games on the schedule. Their goal should have been to go undefeated.

But if you were a sprinter, wouldn't that be your goal? According to your argument, the high school senior on the local track team should have that goal because he's a sprinter.

Even teams like Purdue or Northwestern do not list a goal of BCS game and undefeated season on their list. Everybody has goals, but you list the goals that are realistic and attainable, and the other goals are kept in the back of the mind. It's how you don't look at a season and get drastically disappointed.

For example, if this team were to run the table the rest of the way in the regular season, going 11-1, and getting to the MAC title game, I would probably look back on the Indiana game and say, "Wow, that game really sucked." But, do you know how THRILLED everybody on here, everybody on the team, everybody at the University, and everybody in the community (that cares about football) would be with 11-1 and a chance at a conference title? Then, say we win the conference title and pull a Northern Illinois and go to a BCS bowl. Remember, they lost 1 game as well.

I guess my point is that this team has the ultimate goal of winning the conference title this year. They also have goals of having a winning season, winning a bowl game, and beating our rivals. An undefeated season and a BCS appearance are dream scenarios that nobody wrote down because, as has happened before, if the BCS has an option we would get shafted out of a spot anyways.

[BGorDeath]

I would like to personally thank the NCAA, BCS and large money-grubbing schools for ruining college football for the majority of fans. At one time, winning your conference and going to a bowl game in beautiful Detroit was a successful season. Now, if your team does not go undefeated, is not ranked by bunch of fools who do know who you played that day when they vote and make it to a bowl game whose criteria for playing in it was created to keep schools of your size out, your team, my friend, has just had a failure of a season.

Since BG is not going undefeated, not going to be ranked or be playing in a BCS bowl game, let's just cancel the rest of the season because no one in their right mind would ever want to be associated with such a gawd awful program that plays a fun to watch brand of football at an affordable price that makes it accessible to just about everyone.

[Flipper]

An "undefeated regular season" is a meaningless construct with no intrinsic value. I'm willing to bet a limb that Ball State would have gladly traded out their first two wins for their last two losses (conference title, bowl win)