The most important story written yet about this season

[Schadenfreude]

The Blade's David Briggs seems to get to the core of this lost football season with a column in today's paper. Here it is:

http://www.bcsn.tv/news_article/show/72 ... _id=986236" target="_blank

The question all along for me (and for many of us, I suspect) has been: How could a preseason pick for the MAC East title perform so badly?

Quoting Briggs:

What we didn’t fully appreciate was the roster’s staggering lack of depth. Babers did many good things in his two years here, but he also was an opportunist with one foot out the door and little interest in building a sustainable program. He won big with predecessor Dave Clawson’s recruits, then — save for landing four-star quarterback James Morgan and a couple of others — left the cupboard glaringly empty. His 2014 and ’15 recruiting classes ranked in the bottom half of the MAC and the pillaged 2016 class he left behind was rated 122nd nationally by Scout.com.

Tough words for Dino Babers. But if Briggs is right, then hope is alive for Bowling Green football.

This is not to let Jinks off the hook. He's made mistakes and his staff is inexperienced. Still, to again quote Briggs:

Regardless of the finish to the year, Jinks needs to take a hard look at every corner of his program this offseason, beginning with his staff. But at the least, he deserves the chance to finish the job.

I agree.

[Falconfreak90]

Agree 110% SF. This team could have packed it in like many do...but I've seen spirit and passion in all phases of the game the last two weeks. Yeah the turnovers are still maddening...my God we have THIRTY ONE TO's this year. But I like how the team kept fighting and really laid Kent State out to dry. Just two weeks ago, Kent State took WMU into the 4th quarter before the Broncos pulled away. Beating Akron at Akron was big as well and I don't give a sheet about their QB injuries. We have had a TON of inuries this year. 24 First time starters this year including 8 Frosh. That is tough...

I thought this line summed it up:

"Babers did many good things in his two years here, but he also was an opportunist with one foot out the door and little interest in building a sustainable program".

Coach Jinks can improve himself and staff quite a bit but I don't question his drive and determination. I thought the article was very good and pretty point on.

BEAT UB

[Beaker]

There are still a lot of mistakes being made and I think we have to temper our enthusiasm somewhat by considering the level of recent competition, BUT for the first time I'm now seeing guys play with some passion and putting forth a better effort than earlier in the season. I can't understand where it's been all year, but glad to see that kind of effort and desire to win finally showing up.

In addition, last night we looked like we had a competent game plan tailored to our opponent and were able to execute it. Yes, Kent's offense is extremely one dimensional right now, but at least we recognized that and were prepared to deal with it. Up until now, I wasn't seeing any evidence of real scouting and preparation. It was as if we just were just randomly running our plays and defensive alignments with little regard to what the other side was doing, or was expected to be doing.

I'm certainly not ready to pronounce us as next year's conference champions yet, but I'm encouraged that we are at least taking some positive steps these last couple weeks. Winning breeds winning, so hopefully we'll finish strong next week and carry some positive feelings into next year.

[BGSU33]

I have really enjoyed the few articles Briggs has written on BG this year. Mainly because he digs deep below the surface of the usual blah blah blah stuff that you read about anymore and targets the more important issues and topics. He doesn't sidestep the touchy issues and instead goes at them in a very direct and reasonable way, with both good and bad angles in his assessment. To me this is extremely refreshing and always worth reading. Reporters help bridge the gap between us fans and readers out there. We watch the same games as the reporters do, and we already know and see exactly what goes on with our own two eyes on the field during a game. Reading a recap article after watching a game for me is a total waste of time. But what we cannot do as fans is attend the press conferences, the post game interviews, speak with the coaches and players after practices, interview administrators, etc. I have watched every game this year. I know how good/bad we are, I know what games we played well/poorly in, I know what games we did well in certain areas in, I know what games certainly players did well/poor in, etc. As a fan, alum and reader, I want to read something beyond all of that stuff that I don't or can't get access to, like the pulse of the team or players, the answers to questions no one wants or will ask the coach, some sort of update on injuries (if able, this one varies from school to school for obvious reasons). Even the sometimes the smallest inside details would be good to know. For example, I'm watching the Kent State game last night and saw at least a half dozen low snaps that ended up at the feet or Morgan that affected plays, and I'm trying my best to see if Morgan is communicating this to McAuliffe. I would assume he is and does, but they keep happening over and over and there doesn't look to be any communication, so maybe not. Sometimes the answer to something like that is more interesting to know than reading about how we ran the ball down Kent State's throat, held Holley to next to nothing in rush yards, or that the weather was decent. Because we already know those things, we saw it ourselves.

[jpfalcon09]

I have really enjoyed the few articles Briggs has written on BG this year. Mainly because he digs deep below the surface of the usual blah blah blah stuff that you read about anymore and targets the more important issues and topics. He doesn't sidestep the touchy issues and instead goes at them in a very direct and reasonable way, with both good and bad angles in his assessment. To me this is extremely refreshing and always worth reading. Reporters help bridge the gap between us fans and readers out there. We watch the same games as the reporters do, and we already know and see exactly what goes on with our own two eyes on the field during a game. Reading a recap article after watching a game for me is a total waste of time. But what we cannot do as fans is attend the press conferences, the post game interviews, speak with the coaches and players after practices, interview administrators, etc. I have watched every game this year. I know how good/bad we are, I know what games we played well/poorly in, I know what games we did well in certain areas in, I know what games certainly players did well/poor in, etc. As a fan, alum and reader, I want to read something beyond all of that stuff that I don't or can't get access to, like the pulse of the team or players, the answers to questions no one wants or will ask the coach, some sort of update on injuries (if able, this one varies from school to school for obvious reasons). Even the sometimes the smallest inside details would be good to know. For example, I'm watching the Kent State game last night and saw at least a half dozen low snaps that ended up at the feet or Morgan that affected plays, and I'm trying my best to see if Morgan is communicating this to McAuliffe. I would assume he is and does, but they keep happening over and over and there doesn't look to be any communication, so maybe not. Sometimes the answer to something like that is more interesting to know than reading about how we ran the ball down Kent State's throat, held Holley to next to nothing in rush yards, or that the weather was decent. Because we already know those things, we saw it ourselves.

Sports journalism as a whole is dead. Most of the questions they ask are "talk about this..." so they can get enough quotes to fill their cookie cutter game recaps and call it a night.

[FalconTurf]

I don't completely see the emptiness of the cupboard just inexperience and youth.

I saw 4 nice running backs last night, some talent at receiver (yet not what we just lost), a young qb with upside and an offensive line that did enough in the run game to get 3 backs over 100 yards (something we haven't seen in BG since the 70's).

On defense we see some long, strong and fast athletes that are finally experienced.

I'm not sure the cupboard was bare, it just wasn't oven ready. We simply have to deal with the fact we are not going to the MACC every year.

[Flipper]

I was a balme Dino guy...but I think it's largely bullshit to blame Dino on recruiting...he had one full year. Off the top of my head..The top of that class..Morgan, Sotolongo, Bozeman, miller and Harris are really good. Even in his partial year sweeping up after Clawson he got Roger Lewis, Milton, Clint Stephens...the depth maybe isn't there and guys have blown out at a higher clip than under Clawson...but that's to be expected when two out of the last three years of recruiting were a shambles. I think we're a victim of circumstance...and our staff wasn't experienced enough to overcome circumstance.

If...and it is a huge IF...Mike Jinks pans out here, we should be sitting pretty. He seems to be a pretty decent recruiter and it's unlikely he's going anywhere in the next two or maybe even three years. I figure best case is we're a 7 win barely bowl team next year and then we're either legit MAC contenders or close to it. That may be the year he's snapped up..or not...maybe we're 8-4 and then we go all WMU on their MAC asses and he's the hot candidate.

Then he can take one of those 2-3 mil a year s**t sammich BCS jobs that chew good MAC coaches up ( I see you Tim Beckmann and Darrell Hazell) score a quick 5-6 million for the retirement fund before circling back into a lower profile HC gig or a BCS assistant job.

FWIW...if something happened to Jinks where he just up and quits or does something stupid with his hands at a bar...I'd hire Darrell Hazell in here in a flash.