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Yes, I do like many things about BG football, and with the overly negative tone today I will create a post to help keep the peace; maybe people will realize I'm not 100% negative.

1) For starters the wins. I love the wins. We are so far ahead of where we were 5 years ago its not even funny. Credit for this has to go to the combination of Krebs, Meyer, Brandon, and all their staff. The emphasis on strength and conditioning under the new coaching regime has likely been one of the biggest catalysts in this. I remember talking to John Mazur in the week or two following the Meyer hiring, he was saying that the new coach, Urban, was royally pissed because only one OL could bench 400 pounds. Mazur continued, with a smile, luckily I'm that guy! Make no mistake about it, I'm thrilled every time we win.

2) The way it has built some campus spirit. My first 3 years in school there were about 200 of us students that went to the gamesl. During Urban's first year here that changed, and the better turnout has continued through the past 3 seasons as well. Suddenly its cool to go to BG football games. Tailgating has become a weekly ritual, and is always a great time; we can eat, drink, and share falcon football stories in the hours leading up to the game. I remember when there were about 40-50 people tailgating before the games

3) Our offense. Philosophically its not in tune with what I like to see...smash mouth football. Still, I have warmed up to it, and I do believe we can run & pass with some balance in this system. It is, no doubt, exciting, and I think we can rack up points on anyone. I love bringing in exciting, mobile QBs to take advantage of the offensive scheme. I love watching our WRs & PJ Pope is the perfect fit at RB for us. I love that this gives our team an identity throughout the nation, and HS kids know that we can play some offense up here. I was lukewarm on it at first, but I have really warmed up to this scheme, and I think much of this is a testament to Brandon. Meyer drew up the strategy he wanted to employ, and Brandon (a master tactician & strategist) drew up the tactics to make it happen. Its one thing to say we want to spread the field and controll the game with misdirection running & short passes. It's another entirely to do so with the effectiveness we have done.

4) Recruiting. Meyer & Brandon brought in a new thought philosophy on recruiting. Suddenly we thought we could compete with some BCS schools on some recruits, and it has paid off. This new philosophy has brought us guys like PJ Pope, Omar Jacobs, Charles Sharon, Steve Sanders, the 5 blocks of granite, Pete Winovich, etc, etc. The current coaching staff, has been able to consistently sell kids that are capable of playing BCS football that BG is the place for them. In the end we are vastly more talented than all but the top few teams in our conference. It makes some of our games blowouts, and even boring, but it sure beats what we had before.

5) We take care of business. When we go up against a team that we are better than we have a tendency to smash them into submission immediately. We don't let them think they might have a chance against us, we pummel them early. We crush their spirits and let them know they just played Bowling Freaking Green. That's huge. So often you see quality teams that play down to their competition. We rarely, if ever, do that. Its a great testament to the staffs ability to get the team to not overlook the patsies.

6) We do all of the above with class. Our kids graduate. They go to class, get their degrees, and move on to more important things than football. When they are involved in wrongdoings off the field while they're still part of the team, they are punished, as they should be. They are not brushed off because they're star players. Our star DT sat for 2-3 games at the beginning of this season. We had another player kicked off the team. Sure you'd prefer if none of these incidents ever occurred, but these are college kids you cannot prevent it. What you can do is set precedent to ensure that everyone knows how this will be handled. The current staff has done a VERY good job handling discipline issues.

These are some of the things that jump out to me right now that I love about the BG football program. So yes, I've been quite down this week, and in general I will more likely harp on the negatives than celebrate the positives, but that's only because I think we need that perspective. I am a true fan, I do love BG sports, and I want more than anything for us to be the best. Not just great, but THE BEST. Period. I do think that we have made enormous strides in the past 4 years, I cannot just sit by the wayside and by happy with what we've got. There is always a bigger piece of the pie, and I want BG football to keep growing until we ARE the pie.

mmmmmm....pie....

hammb:

This post illustrates something I've been thinking about today. Some folks will think the program is a disaster until we go undefeated every year, with an average margin of victory in the 50 point range. Others will go to the other extreme of - my team right or wrong.

The rest of us fall somewhere in the vast middle part of that spectrum, some a little more disappointed than others. No perspective is necessarily right nor better, and being placed on a particular spot on that spectrum doesn't make you a good or bad fan.

well said

hammb, you really need to take off those brown and orange-tinted glasses once in awhile.

Hammb, you are right on the mark again. And let me say I see the positive side of our great team as well. But I feel like I am going to be taken out to the woodshed for mentioning any faults or for being pi$$ed off that we lost to Toledo. Is it not all right to be pi$$ed that we lost to Toledo?

It depends..it always depends...in this case it depends on what you think that this loss represents. On one end of the spectrum we have the folks who choose to view this as an unfortunate occurence that befell a team that they'll continue to unfailingly support. For them, this loss is like an accident or illness in the family. It's not a time to point fingers, it's a time to unite and make a casserole.

On the other end are the folks who view this loss in a larger context of past losses in similar situations. They view this loss not just as an indictment of the current coaching staff, but a conviction for the crime of being poopy-heads when it comes to football.

Where do I stand? I haven't given it that much thought. I follow sports as a diversion from my often confusing, problematic existence. I have problems, big problems that take a lot of mental effort and duct tape to deal with. I don't need my comfortable diversions sneaking into my uncomfortable life.

As a result, I'm probably going to start openly mocking people over this. Emotions are running dangerously high here and it's making me uncomfortable. I'm not trying to be a jerk, it's just my way of keeping things sorted out.

Duct Tape, more Duct Tape.
It will fix anything

I think that as long as the coaching staff is proactively analyzing and attempting to fix our problem areas as a team as discovered in our games against NIU, UT, et al, I can accept the outcome of this season as being the result of a rebuilding year.

We didn't even know if we'd have a decent enough quarterback this season to win many games. We are very fortunate to find out we do, and not only do we, he is so much of a decent quarterback that after watching him and the team he leads in operation, it may have forced delusions of grandeur in our fans, who may have expected the team to accomplish what it might not quite be ready to achieve.

Next year is our year. It needs to be our year. We need to prove we can get it done this time. No more excuses. Learn from our mistakes this year. Fix what's wrong. But next year, get it done.

I think the fans have a right to be disgruntled. Div I coaches are making big bucks --- some up in the millions. They are paid to produce, i.e., they are paid to nuture a healthy/productive football program, and they are paid to entertain 10s of thousands of fans. They are not on the same salary schedule as the faculty for that reason. They know when they go into this business that it's a gamble. We lost to Toledo because our coaching staff did not adjust to the second half onslaught. I can remember coach Brandon saying something about that when we lost to NI. "We didn't adjust." The difference was, Coach "Fatstutz" (as everyone was calling him) did, and it paid big dividends. So their stock-holders (fans) got their dividends, we didn't. And as far as this year being a building year -- well, I don't think so. We had a great nucleus of players. Fifty per cent of our starters will be gone, so next year is when we really gotta grow up in a hurry.

Dr. Bucko wrote: Fifty per cent of our starters will be gone, so next year is when we really gotta grow up in a hurry.

Fifty percent? On offense we have Jacobs, Pope, Sharon, Sanders, Warren and Lichtensteiger back. And Hart could get a sixth year of eligibility. So we could lose 5 of 11 starters, yes, but if you look at the skilled postions, we are going to be loaded next year.

On defense, we have our top 5 def lineman back. We get hurt at LB with the loss of Burkes and Sayles. My guess would be that Piepkow moves to MLB (he played there last year) and Terrell White steps in at one OLB. In the def backfield, we have Jordan, Mayberry, and Perry all back. Crumpler stepped up with 11 tackles against UT and he returns as well. Losing Newson hurts, but we still have lots of talent. I really think our defense will be much better next season. At least I hope so.

Oh, we are gonna need a kicker too.

No doubt, at the beginning of the season we had to think that it was a rebuilding year, and that would have been a fine outcome. Luckily, it wasn't a rebuilding year. We reloaded, and failed to perform up to our potential in two games. That's what is so frustrating.

Sure, we got lots of guys back next year. And we should have all the right games in all the right places, and everything should be fine.

Hart is probably not going to seek an extra year according to his mom at the Marshall game.