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It's just a fact. .500 would be an accomplishment.

Brandon and Company will go one of two ways. First, and hopefully this is the way we go. We rebuild. We get the QB situation figured out and overhaul, blow-up, demolish special teams and start from scratch and recruit well for O and D and two years from now we're competing for the MAC title.
The second and obviously least desirable as we continue the tailspin. Player behavior goes back to the pre-UM days, which I already worry about, Brandon doesn't figure out how to build a team vs. take over a team and three years from now we have a new coach and start the re-building process then.

It's going to be a tough season for Falcon Fans and that's okay, as long as there is continuous improvement and the coaching staff and players stay positive and work together, and we continue to support them.

ZuluWarrior wrote:It's just a fact. .500 would be an accomplishment.

Brandon and Company will go one of two ways. First, and hopefully this is the way we go. We rebuild. We get the QB situation figured out and overhaul, blow-up, demolish special teams and start from scratch and recruit well for O and D and two years from now we're competing for the MAC title.
The second and obviously least desirable as we continue the tailspin. Player behavior goes back to the pre-UM days, which I already worry about, Brandon doesn't figure out how to build a team vs. take over a team and three years from now we have a new coach and start the re-building process then.

It's going to be a tough season for Falcon Fans and that's okay, as long as there is continuous improvement and the coaching staff and players stay positive and work together, and we continue to support them.

Oh please. Contending for the MAC in two years?! We're contenders this year, all we have to do is go 5-2 in conference the rest of the way. There isn't a team in the conference that isn't a contender right now, except for Eastern Michigan and Kent State. Get off your bump of negativity, who won the game yesterday huh?

bgsufalcon24 wrote:

ZuluWarrior wrote:It's just a fact. .500 would be an accomplishment.

Brandon and Company will go one of two ways. First, and hopefully this is the way we go. We rebuild. We get the QB situation figured out and overhaul, blow-up, demolish special teams and start from scratch and recruit well for O and D and two years from now we're competing for the MAC title.
The second and obviously least desirable as we continue the tailspin. Player behavior goes back to the pre-UM days, which I already worry about, Brandon doesn't figure out how to build a team vs. take over a team and three years from now we have a new coach and start the re-building process then.

It's going to be a tough season for Falcon Fans and that's okay, as long as there is continuous improvement and the coaching staff and players stay positive and work together, and we continue to support them.

Oh please. Contending for the MAC in two years?! We're contenders this year, all we have to do is go 5-2 in conference the rest of the way. There isn't a team in the conference that isn't a contender right now, except for Eastern Michigan and Kent State. Get off your bump of negativity, who won the game yesterday huh?

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Are you kidding me? We went to 3 OT's vs. Buffalo, BUFFALO!! AT HOME!!! A team that barely, barely beat Temple, TEMPLE!
I really wasn't trying to be negative just realistic. I don't think there's anything wrong with realistic. Talk to me when the season's over. If I'm wrong, I'll admit it.

Good teams spot trouble even when they win. That was the song last year when we struggled against Buffalo and OU--"Hey, who won the game."

Fact: we struggled to beat a team that went to OT against Temple. And it was on our home field.

I'm not as negative as the Zulu Warrior was. On our overall schedule, .500 will be an accomplishment, since was play at OSU (that's two losses), and have tough road games against CMU, OU, Akron and Toledo and yesterday's game proves right now we have no gimmees.

I still think this is a rebuilding year, due to our extreme youth. And I worry about the trend our program seems to be taking, which is not up.

But I get your point entirely. If we can get through to November with one MAC loss, we're right in the hunt. Let's hope we can fix the special teams, and that the offensive and defensive units continue to play as well as they appear.

We are as good as any team in the MAC. That statement might not be as meaningful as it was in 2003, but I think it's true. We have a great Oline, an improved defensive front 7 and three guys who can put 100 rushing yards up on just about anybody. We might not be as good as we're going to be next year or the year after when these guys are more experienced, but we are more than good enough to win this conference.

Of course the same can be said of Akron, OU, and a mes of other teams....

Flipper wrote:We are as good as any team in the MAC.

I just don't think that will end up playing out that way.

Clearly this isn't going to be one of our stronger years in recent history, and I am more concerned now than I was after the WI game.

Still, I haven't completely given up hope that there will be some positive things to come out of this year. I wasn't expecting much coming in. The offense seems to be doing okay. They have adjusted to the fact that they are not going to throw for 400 yards a game and realize that the line and the running game are our strength this year. The defense is playing better than it has in several years, granted they still have alot of improvements to make. Special teams is absolutely killing us right now. If they can somehow bring that around, then we should see a reasonably good season considering we're mostly looking at it as a rebuilding year. If you look at the stats from yesterday's game, we dominated every area except the score. Special teams almost gave it away again. We will lose at least 3-4 games this year due to special teams if they don't turn it around fast.
Buffalo seems to be improving, but until they really prove themselves, I won't buy that as an excuse for they way this game went. I think the problems rest squarely on the special teams and their coaching and preparation. The offense and defense are playing 'good enough' to win alot of games if we don't give them away on silly mistakes.

I got to say that I am still very positive. Our offense looks pretty good and we haven't even opened the playbook yet. We have a ton of young guys on the defensive side, but they are playing well. (Dozier had 19 tackles yesterday! ) The only and I repeat only reason that game was even close yesterday was the atrociousness of our special teams. Special teams should be the easiest unit to fix. If the offense or defense was that bad, then I would agree that .500 would be an accomplishment. But they have both looked decent with room to improve even more. We just have to concentrate on straightening out our STs and I think this team will definitely compete for the MAC title.

orangeandbrown wrote:Good teams spot trouble even when they win. That was the song last year when we struggled against Buffalo and OU--"Hey, who won the game."

Fact: we struggled to beat a team that went to OT against Temple. And it was on our home field..

Why does everybody bring up home field advantage as another knock on the team yesterday? If you look at our recent track record in conference play, you'll see that we have fared MUCH better on the road, as evidenced by our 4-0 road record in conference this season. Anything less than at least a road split against CMU, Akron, Toledo, and Ohio would be a huge shock to me. That means we would have to protect the Doyt the rest of the way against Kent, EMU, and Miami. Even though those teams are all bad, arguably worse than each of the 4 we play on the road, I'm more concerned about that than I am about us playing well on the road. I don't know what it is, but we seem to play with much more energy and guts on the road than we do at home. It was vainly obvious in how the teams came back out on the field after the first weather delay yesterday. Buffalo's guys came out several minutes before BG's and looked like a team ready to rumble in warmups, while our guys were simply going through the motions. I bet they thought the game was over already, then BAM! kickoff return for TD. This stuff just doesn't happen to us much on the road.

Last year's win over Miami was our first win in the MAC aganst a team that finished with a winning record since Blackney was the coach.

CORRECTED: ROAD WIN. (leaving now)

This isn't a rebuilding year. A rebuilding year means you have players who make mistakes and frustrate the coaches because they don't have experience and they don't do the right things. For example: a new starting WR running a wrong route leading to an INT. A QB calling a wrong blitz protection leading to a sack. A kicker missing a pressure kick late in a game. A DB with a blown assignment leading to an a big TD pass. I haven't seen any of those problems from this very young "rebuilding" team and it is certainly not why we got drilled by UW and took UB to triple OT.

orangeandbrown wrote:Last year's win over Miami was our first win in the MAC aganst a team that finished with a winning record since Blackney was the coach.

I'm assuming you're referring to road wins?

I think we all know the team has many young players. And I think rebuilding is an OK term to use to refer to this team.

I said it before. We have alot of young players, but our conference schedule is setup nicely for this. We have the weak section up front and can learn during this time. This will give the young players time to gel and learn their positions, it will give our QBs time to get comfortable. Time to fix special teams (maybe). The real meat of our conference schedule is late Oct. and Nov. We will be vastly improved by that point and will contend for the MAC East. Our trip to Akron this year will be the deciding game.

We just need to continue to improve and avoid any upsets. We won last night and that was good. I don't care that we went to 3 OTs with Buffalo, we won. We avoided one of those losses and our young players will be better because of what happened. Take it one week at a time and keep winning even if it is ugly.

Good news is Corey will be back next week. This may help us throw the ball down the field a little more. Which we will need to start doing to compete with the better teams.

Great news about Corey. We'll need him to help open up our passing game and get downfield. Thanks for the update.

Any news on Big Bird? It would be a shame if he had to miss his homecoming game.

Spart43 wrote:I think we all know the team has many young players. And I think rebuilding is an OK term to use to refer to this team.

I said it before. We have alot of young players, but our conference schedule is setup nicely for this. We have the weak section up front and can learn during this time. This will give the young players time to gel and learn their positions, it will give our QBs time to get comfortable. Time to fix special teams (maybe). The real meat of our conference schedule is late Oct. and Nov. We will be vastly improved by that point and will contend for the MAC East. Our trip to Akron this year will be the deciding game.

We just need to continue to improve and avoid any upsets. We won last night and that was good. I don't care that we went to 3 OTs with Buffalo, we won. We avoided one of those losses and our young players will be better because of what happened. Take it one week at a time and keep winning even if it is ugly.

Good news is Corey will be back next week. This may help us throw the ball down the field a little more. Which we will need to start doing to compete with the better teams.

I cannot wait for that game against Akron, it's not far away from my hometown of Strongsville and I'll be there for sure. We could put more of our fans in the Rubber Bowl than Akron fans given their horrific attendance. How much would that fire up our guys?!