Hmmmm...

[hammb]

I've got some thoughts on the game I thought I'd share...

~For starters it may be fun to stack this all on the feet of the coach, but the players are culpable as well. Anytime you have 4 fumbles in the first half of a football game it's not purely the coaches fault. The players were tight and not ready to play. I want to feel bad for the seniors, but on the other hand I didn't see a whole lot of senior leadership either.

~That said, the coaching staff has to take some serious blame here as well. The team was not mentally (or physically?) prepared to play a football game last night. The entire offense just played scared in the first quarter of the game; playcalling was poor and the execution was tentative like they were afraid of something.

~Thanks to Roger Williams for helping us avoid the shutout. That was a very good individual effort on that play.

~I actually thought the defense came out pretty well early on, but the wind was clearly taken out of their sales shortly thereafter. They were not put into a position to succeed last night.


The real depressing part of the whole ordeal, at least to me, is that I don't find this stuff as a surprise anymore. For whatever reason under the current head coach we're good for at least 2-3 of these games every year. Games where we just don't show up at all and either lose a game we shouldn't or we get trampled by similar teams. I don't know what it is, but it's something that needs to be fixed, because it's preventing our program from moving forward.

What's more I don't like our history of laying down in the face of adversity. In 2005 Omar Jacobs got hurt and our team tanked. Now I know they weren't playing well before he got hurt, but when he went down it was like they just didn't see the reason to keep playing. In '06 our team totally mailed it in before the Temple game, and the players have admitted as much. This year they didn't mail it in on the season in its entirety, but they did mail it in against Miami and then again last night against Tulsa. In both games they didn't appear mentally ready to play (in 2 of the biggest 3 games of the year); and in both games they got down early. I really don't like seeing the team totally lay down in those games, and I must say that it reflects coaching.

The real kicker here is Brandon's status. After the rebounding season I was on board for a one year extension. I hate the thought of a lame duck season, but I thought that Brandon had earned the right to return next year. Now, however, I don't know how you can give him an extension. I just don't see how you can possibly give a contract extension after a 63-7 pummeling in a bowl game. At this point I think you either let him go or move forward with the dreaded lame duck year. I just don't think you can offer an extension right now, and if his agent has the balls to ask for one it'd be pretty incredible.

In the end it was just one very bad game. Things didn't go right from the get go and they snow balled. Our guys quit, which is discouraging, but it was still just one football game. We still return one of the most talented squads in the MAC next year, so hopefully we'll be able to step up and finally put a complete season together.

[Flipper]

Last night was a debacle from the top to the bottom...everyone, the coaches, the players, well not the band....should be ashamed of that performance.

Having said that, you either give Brandon an extension or you fire him. I do not want to watch another men's team wander through a lame duck season like the hoops rteam did under Dakich.

FWIW, I'm still on board for offering a another year or two because the overall results warrant it...but I agree that the tendency to tank it is really troubling. We lost 5 games this year, three of those were complete and total blowouts. BC had far better talent than we did, but I don't think Tulsa and Miami were that much more talented than we were...(hey look, Smith just completed another 15 yard throw to that #84 on the left sideline).

It will be interesting to see what happens in the spring. Is Sheeehan going into practice the unquestioned #1, or do Anthony Glaud and Nate Brown get legitimate opportunities to win the starting job? Should Mick McCall be the OC? He made some really curious play calls this year on 3rd and 4th and short (throwing on 3rd and one, deep hand off to Geter on 4th and inches when all the 6'-3" QB needed to do was get the snap and dive between someone's legs. I get feeling that Mick is dead set on disproving the notion that you need to be able to slug it out in short yardage situations. It's not a notion I agree with and if true, it's proved costly to the team in a few situations this year.

I will say one other thing in support of Gregg Brandon....We've had a number of teams in the same spot Tulsa had us last night during his tenure but he has never once shown the complete and total lack of class and sportsmanship that Tulsa's coaches did last night. We've hung 70 on a team or two, but we did it having the third string run between the tackles. We didn't have the starters in there throwing into the end zone and we didn't run a fastball offense on a short handed team when we had them by 50.

That was the worst display of sportsmanship I've seen since the Miami Hurricanes of the 1980's...there is no place for that in college football.

[Warthog]

good points hammb. I'm in agreement with most of what you said. It did bring one question to mind though. Under Brandon, how many games have we actually come from behind to win? I don't mean just 7-0 or something like that in the first quarter. Have we ever come back from a double digit deficit?

[BGSU33]

He made some really curious play calls........deep hand off to Geter on 4th and inches when all the 6'-3" QB needed to do was get the snap and dive between someone's legs.

Not to mention, we had an All-American center there to help us get a sneak on that play.

[JimmyZ11381]

I also agree with Hammb here.....this was horrible top to bottom. Not just the coaching staff not just the players....EVERYONE

[TUBULL]

that is funny. Worst case of sportmanship? Why? Because you were completely outmatched? This is the offense that we run all the time. Sorry if you feel like we need to play at your level but the only thing you need to do is play better. You know that after watching that game, Graham was very nice. He could have scored alot more than what he did. Anyway, congrats on getting to a bowl because that is what really matters.

[CapitalFalcon]

that is funny. Worst case of sportmanship? Why? Because you were completely outmatched? This is the offense that we run all the time. Sorry if you feel like we need to play at your level but the only thing you need to do is play better. You know that after watching that game, Graham was very nice. He could have scored alot more than what he did. Anyway, congrats on getting to a bowl because that is what really matters.

TUBULL is right...We had no problem running up the score on people a few seasons ago when we were one of the top scoring offenses in the D-IA! It just sucks when you are on the receiving side...

[Jacobs4Heisman]

The offseason just got a lot more interesting, that's for sure. It's sad to me that it looked like we were on our way towards correcting a lot of the recurring problems that have held us back during Brandon's tenure. Now we're left with a pretty bad taste in our mouths for the next 8+ months. I was pretty certain Brandon was going to get a short extension, but now? I honestly wouldn't be surprised if he were fired today. It probably isn't going to happen, but his future is definitely more up in the air than it was 24 hours ago.

It is what it is. Brandon is a decent coach with a lot of flaws, but we certainly won't do better for the price we're paying. If we don't start ponying up, we'll never do better in the coaching dept.

This is 3 straight years of our last game being an ugly/embarassing loss. That sort of thing doesn't gain you much favor as a head coach.

[Redwingtom]

that is funny. Worst case of sportmanship? Why? Because you were completely outmatched? This is the offense that we run all the time. Sorry if you feel like we need to play at your level but the only thing you need to do is play better. You know that after watching that game, Graham was very nice. He could have scored alot more than what he did. Anyway, congrats on getting to a bowl because that is what really matters.

TUBULL is right...We had no problem running up the score on people a few seasons ago when we were one of the top scoring offenses in the D-IA! It just sucks when you are on the receiving side...

MORON, HELLO? Our starting QB was not in for the whole game and we weren't still throwing the ball at the end in our blowouts. Do some research before making ludicrous comments!

[tiznow]

that is funny. Worst case of sportmanship? Why? Because you were completely outmatched? This is the offense that we run all the time. Sorry if you feel like we need to play at your level but the only thing you need to do is play better. You know that after watching that game, Graham was very nice. He could have scored alot more than what he did. Anyway, congrats on getting to a bowl because that is what really matters.

It may be the offense you run all the time. I don't have a problem with that. The question is why not play the backup QB more? Did Paul Smith need to be in the game late? Graham was very nice. Will he be nice when he leaves Tulsa like he did Rice?

[Peregrinner]

Look. I was pissed about Smith playing the whole game last night too, but the more I see and read about it, the less it bugs me.

JesseTU has hit the nail right on the head many times. Smith et al. were aiming for the record books in terms of individual categories and were pulled pretty much right after they got there. The fact that we didn't show up and couldn't score except for on special teams is nobody's fault but ours. Think about it. If we were playing on a national stage with a QB and his wide receivers so close to those sorts of records, would you be so quick to call for them to be pulled?

The bigger thing to me is that aside from the helmet-to-helmet contact on the hit on Smith on the punt return (which would have been remedied by calling for the obviously very necessary fair catch) and maybe (MAYBE) the hit on Sheehan, they played a clean game. During the whole game there were maybe two questionable plays that I saw, which is more than can be said for at least one other team we played this season (WKU).

I know overall it's pretty useless to try to talk sense on this board on a day like this, but really, some of the complainers on here need to can it.

[hammb]

Flip I'm with you on the total hatred of lame duck seasons. I thought it was horrendous that they did it with the basketball program, and I hate the thought of doing it again for the football program. I just don't see how you can offer an extension after what happened last night. The body of work on the season earned him one extra year, IMO, but last night was really bad. I'd have a real hard time saying, "Well we thought you sucked last time, but did well overall, so here's some extra money and and extra year of employment...now don't let it happen again." What kind of precedent does that really set? I, for one, don't think 8-4 in the pathetic MAC followed by a national television drubbing is acceptable as success at BG.

As to running up the score I thought Tulsa left their starters in longer than normal, but they were trying to get records. Don't know who gives a s**t about records, but if that's what floats their boat more power to them. I've pretty much always been of the school of thought that you should just shut up and stop them. It was a little tacky to be throwing the ball for TDs that late in the game, but hey, they clearly thought those personal records were important, so good for them.

This is a gut check time for the program. OSU got embarrassed last year on national TV and bounced back with a good season this year and earned a chance to exorcise that SEC demon. Hopefully our kids will take last night as kick in the teeth and use it as extra motivation to work twice as hard this offseason. At this point I'm not sure what the staff can do, because they are clearly doing something wrong. They need to take a long hard look at some things and find out why A) they come out flat in big games so often, and B) why their team consistently gives up when things don't look so good.


J4H, I agree wholeheartedly that what we pay our coaches is an absolute joke. IF there is money to build $8 million facilities then there should be money to pay at LEAST double or triple what we currently pay our coaches. I love being D1A, but how can we realistically hope to compete when we only pay our coaches a fraction of what their peers are making.

[It's the Journey...]

Since this is one of the more sane threads on the game I will post here. We either have to fire Brandon or extend him. No more lame duck seasons. That said, I will be dissapointed if the extension is more than 1 year. We have a A LOT of talent returning and expectations should be high. I want Brandon to go into 2008 knowing this is his second chance and a repeat of October 2007 will earn him $250.000 and walking papers. We won 8 games this year folks. Many of us thought we would have a good year with 6. The loss sucks, but the sun came up this morning.