Focus people...focus!

[cowboyjoe]

I've said it a million times since Saturday. These kind of losses happen to the best of teams in college football. Example Pete Carroll of USC 2 horrific losses in back to back years knocking them out of the national title picture. 24 point favorite against Oregon State this year (27-21 losers) and last year 41 point favorites to beat Stanford and lost. (24-23). How about the Trojans and their fan's reactions to games like those? Urban Meyer and Florida 22 point favorites at home 2 weeks ago against Ole Miss and lost. (31-30) It's all relative with these losses. We can still win our league--that's our goal. Those losses by USC and Florida knocked them out of contention for their goal--which is a national championship.

Remember people hang in there and hold on to the bandwagon. Remember what we have here. We have Coach Brandon who is 105th out of 120 Division 1 coaches in salary at $275,000...remember....

What The Falcons Have Done Since 2003 (Brandon Era)
• 39-25 overall record, best in the MAC
• 12-12 versus non MAC opponents, best in the MAC
• 27 conference wins, best in the MAC
• Three bowl appearances, best in the MAC
• Two bowl wins, best in the MAC
• One MAC West crown (2003)
• Two MAC East crowns (2005, 2007)
• National rankings in 2003 and 2004

[Jacobs4Heisman]

And the under still holds.

[transfer2BGSU]

You need to STOP making realistic posts and then backing them up with facts. That is not the proper purpose of an Internet message board.

[Warthog]

Quit comparing Brandon to coaches that have won league and NATIONAL championships. Brandon hasn't even won a MAC championship. If he ever would take us to a BCS game, I swear I will not say one bad thing about the man for the next five years. Until then, I'm entitled to bitch about losing to shitty teams like EMU when we are supposed to be the favorite in the East.

[Dayons_Den]

Price per victory Brandon is still the best value in the M.A.C.

That said, price per gallon the Smart car is the best value on the market. GB is our Smart car.

Would we like to drive a flashier car that still gets good mileage? Maybe one of those hybrid Explorers? The fact of the matter is we have committed and are entrenched in sticking with the best value even if we give a little as far as flashiness (i.e. M.A.C. championships_ is concerned.

I hope this analogy makes sense if not just carry on.

[Jacobs4Heisman]

Price per victory Brandon is still the best value in the M.A.C.

That said, price per gallon the Smart car is the best value on the market. GB is our Smart car.

Would we like to drive a flashier car that still gets good mileage? Maybe one of those hybrid Explorers? The fact of the matter is we have committed and are entrenched in sticking with the best value even if we give a little as far as flashiness (i.e. M.A.C. championships_ is concerned.

I hope this analogy makes sense if not just carry on.

How many times a year does the smart car burst into flames during your daily commute?

[michhiker28]

What have you done for me lately?
--MH

On Edit:
I see a LOT of 2003 and 2004 in there which pads the stats and helps with things like winning percentage, conference wins in that time, etc. And that 2007 east championship....remind me again why we weren't playing CMU for the championship?

So once again. What have you done for me lately?

-MH

[Rollo83]

What have you done for me lately?
--MH

On Edit:
I see a LOT of 2003 and 2004 in there which pads the stats and helps with things like winning percentage, conference wins in that time, etc. And that 2007 east championship....remind me again why we weren't playing CMU for the championship?

So once again. What have you done for me lately?

-MH

Agreed. Lets look at Brandon's record from 2005-2008 after the bounce from the Urban Meyer years has gone away. Not all that pretty.

[Jacobs4Heisman]

since 2005 we're 20-21...with *ahem* ZERO "MAC East crowns". The teams that won the MAC East played in the MACC game. To further revise the list:

1 bowl appearance, and most of us probably wish it were zero.

No bowl wins, worst in the MAC.

No national rankings.


Brandon of course deserves credit for the awesome 2003 season, and the very fun 2004 season. However, I believe the last few years when the program was truly all his making tells us more about his abilities.

[cowboyjoe]

Nice job Dayon well put... per victory Brandon is still the best value in the M.A.C.

That was my point. If you want to up the ante and pay a coach $375,000 a year then you have to expect results like the "big man" produces up there in Toledo---31-0 beatings at home with 166 total yards of offense. Or maybe we could look to buy out Kirk Ferentz's contract at Iowa and pay him $3 million a year to be be 15-16 over the last 3 years with losses to Northwestern twice, Indiana, and Western Michigan.

Let's take what we have--you know the motto 'You get what you paid for'

I think we are getting way way more than what we paid for.

[NWLB]

He works cheap, should make a buy-out cheaper.

He hasn't won the MAC, he just proved a precious bowl game can be worse than nothing, last season could as easily been a losing one with only a few plays going wrong, and the same struggles that went in favor of BG last year haven't this year.

I think he rode Meyer's coat tails, got a couple of bonus years off of that buzz, and this may be as good as it is going to get.

Here me now when I type this, I'm not calling for his head. Not at this time.

However, I would say Brandon's supporters, you would do well to find newer arguments to back him with. Stats are fine, but as we all know, they can be used for or against him.

The main reason many of us, (some of which would rather he never have been hired) feel the way we do is because of how they feel about the games as we sit in the stands.

If this were about raw numbers alone, we could all skip the games, come back and have dinner at the end of the year, and cheer the good times. If we were all able to totally suspend reality and somehow watch the games with the blissful ignorance my little daughter does, sure, it would be easy to "just support the team." The fact is most people can't. They may not be experts, but they sure as heck know things are going so smooth out there.

This is about sitting in the stands for Minn. or EMU, or watching the bowl, or any of the losses against UT, and feeling almost sick to the belly at how terrible they struggle entirely too often. And to do so against entirely lousy teams is even worse. Even when they win, there are too many times you leave feeling like it was an act of god or pure luck they didn't lose. It isn't the same as cheering for an underdog who overcomes. It isn't the same as cheering a truly hard fighting, focused, driven team that drops the occasional game. We had the latter with Meyer, and that made every game of his two years an event.

It is the pain of backing a team that perpetually underachieves, loses focus, or whose coaches spend 12 weeks crying mea culpa in the Sunday papers. THAT is why I didn't like Brandon getting the gig, didn't like him when was winning at first, didn't like him as the decline started, and don't like him now. It is why I won't invest the faith in him or his staff to ever do more, I've seen enough to know it is a lousy bet.

Even if he wins the bloody MAC, at best it is a bromide for a sore spot. I have seen enough, and I don't think he is as good as BGSU could do. I don't know if BGSU will ever spend the money to do better, certainly with enrollment down it is unlikely. At the very least, just winning a single precious title would end the drought that is nearly 16 years long. It would make the struggles, if still lousy to live through, at least tolerable enough until he eventually goes away.

[TG1996]

Even if he wins the bloody MAC, at best it is a bromide for a sore spot. I have seen enough, and I don't think he is as good as BGSU could do.

Well at least you're not calling for his head.

[Jacobs4Heisman]

This is about sitting in the stands for Minn. or EMU, or watching the bowl, or any of the losses against UT, and feeling almost sick to the belly at how terrible they struggle entirely too often. And to do so against entirely lousy teams is even worse. Even when they win, there are too many times you leave feeling like it was an act of god or pure luck they didn't lose. It isn't the same as cheering for an underdog who overcomes. It isn't the same as cheering a truly hard fighting, focused, driven team that drops the occasional game. We had the latter with Meyer, and that made every game of his two years an event.

It is the pain of backing a team that perpetually underachieves, loses focus, or whose coaches spend 12 weeks crying mea culpa in the Sunday papers. THAT is why I didn't like Brandon getting the gig, didn't like him when was winning at first, didn't like him as the decline started, and don't like him now. It is why I won't invest the faith in him or his staff to ever do more, I've seen enough to know it is a lousy bet.

This sums up pretty well how I feel about the matter. I feel like we lose way more often than we get beaten. That's the frustrating part. We know we have the ability to do great things, and we just can't muster any consistency.

Yeah, we don't pay him much. That doesn't make it any easier to take.

[Rollo83]

This is about sitting in the stands for Minn. or EMU, or watching the bowl, or any of the losses against UT, and feeling almost sick to the belly at how terrible they struggle entirely too often. And to do so against entirely lousy teams is even worse. Even when they win, there are too many times you leave feeling like it was an act of god or pure luck they didn't lose. It isn't the same as cheering for an underdog who overcomes. It isn't the same as cheering a truly hard fighting, focused, driven team that drops the occasional game. We had the latter with Meyer, and that made every game of his two years an event.

It is the pain of backing a team that perpetually underachieves, loses focus, or whose coaches spend 12 weeks crying mea culpa in the Sunday papers. THAT is why I didn't like Brandon getting the gig, didn't like him when was winning at first, didn't like him as the decline started, and don't like him now. It is why I won't invest the faith in him or his staff to ever do more, I've seen enough to know it is a lousy bet.

This sums up pretty well how I feel about the matter. I feel like we lose way more often than we get beaten. That's the frustrating part. We know we have the ability to do great things, and we just can't muster any consistency.

Yeah, we don't pay him much. That doesn't make it any easier to take.

+1 What he said.

[ZuluWarrior]

At first I paused and sort of agreed with the first post in this thread, however, while many programs have letdown games and lose games they should not, good programs don't lose to one of the 10 worst programs AT HOME!