Athlon rips BG with brutal outlook in 2021preseason mag

[Schadenfreude]

I agree. Fall 2020 was a disaster, and I will give a Covid pass. The QB was a disaster and I will give an injury pass, although I know that happened later in Fall.

If this season looks anything like 2020, coaches have to go. The thugs/lazy/fail outs are gone. There are focused, tough “locals” in place, the numbers are close to right..... all that’s left is a good schemes and game execution. They have to get 3 wins and be in another 3 games late, to get another season. Talent is there, to their credit.... but W’s are now necessary.

I think this sets the bar quite high.

The team is full of youngsters. The first class wasn't even really Loeffler's. He only had a few weeks to put that first one together. So his first real class is, at most, the true sophomores on this team, and they didn't really get a full season in last year. This is one of the youngest teams in college football, and that's by design.

Loeffler and Moosbrugger seem to have been aligned from Day One that this is a full rebuild to be done the right way, class by class, without taking a bunch of JUCO upperclassmen transfers or cutting corners. It would be unfair for Moosbrugger to now pull the rug out from Loffler because he isn't moving fast enough when a full methodical rebuild was the plan all along. (And if Moosbrugger pulled a heel turn like that, how would he be able to get a great coach to replace Loeffler? )

So I expect to take lumps this season. I do hope the team learns and gets better, but progress may be hard to see and it may take time. We may not get three wins while still showing progress. (Last year's team was probably the worst we've ever had in Division I, so we are crawling out of quite a deep hole here.)

I can't imagine replacing Loeffler after this season, no matter what happens, absent a Chris Jans-type situation.

Now if the football team is still flailing this badly in 2022? That would be different.

[hammb]

Loeffler and Moosbrugger seem to have been aligned from Day One that this is a full rebuild to be done the right way, class by class, without taking a bunch of JUCO upperclassmen transfers or cutting corners.

Can we please retire this bullshit phrase? There is no "right way" that favors taking a billion freshmen over utilizing the portal. You don't get bonus points for having 18 year olds on your team rather than 20 year olds. This isn't the NFL where the salary cap makes building through the draft long term advantageous vs building through FA.

MAYBE 4 years down the line you'll be in a slightly better place by having guys that have been in the program for 4 years rather than 2, but if you're taking lesser talent I find that VERY hard to believe. I also fully believe winning begets winning, losing begets losing.

Times have changed (tough to believe given our staff, I know). You should be recruiting all angles and all ages to add talent. If you're adding quality talent that can contribute to the program both on and off the field there is no WRONG way. Just DO IT. Start winning and build a culture of winning and your future classes will be better.

Unless your goal is to keep a perpetually built in excuse for being awful...


I'm just really sick of justifying s**t coaching all in the name of being a young/thin roster. First it was Baber's fault. Now it's Jinks's fault. How many years before it can possibly be Loeffler's fault? 3? 4? 8? Dude has shown zero ability to actually COACH and we keep giving him a pass because his "plan" was to coach with one hand tied behind his back?

[kdog27]

Amen Hammb

[Flipper]

I think there's a validity to the POV that molding a player from a freshman into an upper classman is the "right way" because you're not having to unlearn any bad habits someone else taught them...you have the opportunity to..in a manner of speaking, build them. I think our perceptions of the transfer portal may be skewed by the fact that the current staff has vomited out a number of players from the previous staff from the program.

The portal and the one time transfer has created a different reality...it remains to be seen if the chaos of the Jinks era has exacerbated it or not and if a certain level of chaos is going to be part of that new normal so many people are talking about

[jpfalcon09]

Things are going to get worse before they get better. The free covid year along with the one-time transfer rule is going to create a huge backlog when it comes to recruiting. Either coaches are going to retain their players and recruit a smaller class, or push out their guys and proceed like business as usual. I think the smaller schools are better off pushing out guys.

Next point is, the romanticizing about the portal is fools gold. How many of those players in the portal are actually going to have an immediate impact at their next destination? The top players are all going to get wooed by the bigger schools with the resources to bring them on. G5 programs are going to be left with the scraps. Most of the guys in the portal are going to end up out of football. You only get 25 scholarships a year. You recruit as many to fill those because it's like throwing darts. The more shots you have, the better the odds of getting a bullseye. Then, supplement where you can, which Loeffler has shown a penchant for doing, especially this year.

The transfer madness is going to die off in a few years once players realize the grass isn't greener for a majority of players who are going to end up out of football, or wind up playing at a lower level. There's simply not enough open spots across all the FBS programs.

[TommyG]

It benefits Loeffler and Moosbrugger to say they are building it the right way and it’s going to be a long rebuild.

Obviously you need talent to win, but I’ve seen very few signs that the team is even close to well coached.

Loeffler isn’t going anywhere until after the 2022 season at the earliest, but I’d be shocked if he turns this around.

[hammb]

It benefits Loeffler and Moosbrugger to say they are building it the right way and it’s going to be a long rebuild.

Obviously you need talent to win, but I’ve seen very few signs that the team is even close to well coached.

This was EXACTLY my point, said more succinctly and with less swearing.

Nobody is arguing that you can go to the transfer portal and find 25 guys to come in, make an impact, and be competing for MAC championships. My issue is with losing transfers left and right while taking on so few so that you have the built in excuse for 3 straight seasons that you're "too young to win".

To top that off, my biggest issue, that I've always harped on is that there have been zero signs this group has a clue how to coach. I don't care if you give them 10 years of 25 HS kids coming in, if they can't coach it'll never work. And if somebody can find an example, please share, but I cannot think of any worthwhile MAC coach that consistently got their doors blown off for 2 seasons. No matter how much we want to have pride in this conference the overall quality of football here isn't that good. A good coach should IMMEDIATELY show off being a good coach. It may not result in wins if the talent isn't there, but you'll see signs that they know what they're doing. In 2 seasons this staff is 2-11 in MAC games. Those 11 losses are by an average of 35 points per game.

No, we're not firing Loeffler. No, I don't have an immediate solution. But, I can't sit here and pretend that everything is all roses and honey just because he's "building the right way." The painfully obvious truth is that all signs show we again effed up the football hire, and unless some new evidence surfaces to drastically change things we're again just riding out the days until we can afford to move on and try again.

[Schadenfreude]

Loeffler and Moosbrugger seem to have been aligned from Day One that this is a full rebuild to be done the right way, class by class, without taking a bunch of JUCO upperclassmen transfers or cutting corners.

Can we please retire this bullshit phrase? There is no "right way" that favors taking a billion freshmen over utilizing the portal. You don't get bonus points for having 18 year olds on your team rather than 20 year olds. This isn't the NFL where the salary cap makes building through the draft long term advantageous vs building through FA.

MAYBE 4 years down the line you'll be in a slightly better place by having guys that have been in the program for 4 years rather than 2, but if you're taking lesser talent I find that VERY hard to believe.

It isn't just four years versus two in the program. (And let's not undersell the value of that in fully learning a system and a playbook.) Student athletes in the portal are there for a reason, and many of these reasons are risks. Some got bad grades in high school and needed community college to straighten them out. (This raises the risk that the student could struggle academically at BGSU). Or, perhaps the player is a hothead or a discipline problem, and that's why they are leaving their current situation for a new one. This raises the risk that the young man could cause similar problems here.

Dude has shown zero ability to actually COACH and we keep giving him a pass because his "plan" was to coach with one hand tied behind his back?

In fairness, COVID was a pretty big impediment last year. He didn't get a full spring practice with them and he wasn't in the same room with them again until, when, September?

Look, we'll see what happens. You can argue that BGSU should have used the portal more than they have, but the fact is they haven't, and we have a extremely young team, so I think we all need to be careful about expecting too much.

I would hope these guys are competing for an East title in 2023. That should be the goal. (If we are sooner: Even better.)

[Flipper]

It benefits Loeffler and Moosbrugger to say they are building it the right way and it’s going to be a long rebuild.

Obviously you need talent to win, but I’ve seen very few signs that the team is even close to well coached.

Loeffler isn’t going anywhere until after the 2022 season at the earliest, but I’d be shocked if he turns this around.

I would argue that trying to build with raw materials...so to speak...is going to be a longer haul. Does that benefit the current coach and AD when our society in general is growing more impatient and manic? If they like abuse...maybe. Maybe there's a better way...maybe there isn't but there's better coaches t o attempt it with. I really don't know

I think they have to show us SOMETHING this year or they will risk losing even the few die-hards they have left.

[roguewarrior]

I’ve said it before.... most in the portal are there for a reason, and mostly not good reasons. There are a very few gems in there, but most were cast aside for a reason(s). It is not NFL free agency. It’s comical how everyone assumes it’s a smorgasbord of top talent to grab! What they were ranked by a guy who never met him on 247 in HS, does not translate to being cast from their team and picked up elsewhere two years later. Coaches have to look....and should grab a few to fill holes with educated knowledge of them. To operate otherwise is foolish. It’s really this simple .... if we get good QB play, we will be out of this soon.

[guest44]

If McDonald takes the first snap in Tennessee, you will know all you will ever need to know. Then again, a coach who hasn't left on his own terms for a decade, was probably enough to tell you how this would go.

[MarkL]

Nice false dichotomy there. Someone other than McDonald starts at QB OR Loeffler stinks. Alternative reasons why McDonald could start the season ...
- McDonald without shoulder injury is far better than McDonald with shoulder injury
- he worked harder than anyone else and runs the offense better
- he makes better decisions with the ball than anyone else
- better offensive line play allows him to play better as he's the type of QB who needs a certain amount of talent around him to be effective
- the whole QB room except for McDonald got food poisoning

[guest44]

Wait so Bowling Green opted to play an injured qb last year by choice? Why didn’t they have a healthy quarterback? I thought it was a rebuild. How didn’t BG have a functional quarterback to develop that wasn’t hurt in year 2 of a rebuild?

Better offensive line play? I’d say it’s very likely it will be worse.

McDonald somehow becomes a good quarterback after a full season of terrible decisions and the worst completion percentage in college football?

I thought this was a rebuild? From the ground up. If you are going to be 128 of 130 you might as well find out what you have with the young guys. Remember he needs to recruit high school kids and develop them. Jinks and Babers left Scot in such a bad place.

A 3-14 record speaks for itself. If Vegas is correct about 2021, that record will become roughly 5-24 or 5-25 if BG had played Miami last year.

[Flipper]

Jinks left a dumpster fire behind him. He was...without question...the worst hire I can recall in my 40 years of following BGSU sports. Hiring a HS coach with almost no collegiate experience and zero contacts within the midwest was an incomprehensibly stupid decision.

Rushing a freshman QB out there to get fustigated would have been an equally stupid move. McDonald got killed and took the hits...are there major issues with his play? No question, but I'm glad we have healthy backups with a year or so in the program ready to go if he wins the job in camp and the same issue are present

[MarkL]

If you listen to press conferences and are informed about the status of the team then you know that McDonald was cleared to play last year, but he had a shoulder problem. Throwing shoulder. Playing though hurt is part of the sport. He had surgery on it since.