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[EIUFan]

Hello, EIU alum and current EIU employee here:

Congratulations on landing Babers as your new HC. I know the MAC and OVC are very different, but I will say I didn't think Babers would be able to turn a team around as quickly as he did. EIU was dreadful the last two years prior to Babers. We were slow, out of shape, and weak. He took those same softies and turned them into good players in one Spring/Summer and built them up to studs in just over a year with them. I originally hoped my first alma mater, CMU, would fire their current coach and hire Babers. Obviously that didn't happen, and if there were a school in the MAC that I dislike the least it would be BGSU.

As far as offensive scheme, Babers was able to mold Jimmy Garoppolo into what he is today. Granted, Jimmy had talent but nobody imagined he could be this good. He was dreadful the year before Babers even though he had decent receivers. Don't mistake Babers' system as a pass-first offense. He LOVES to run the football! Look for your RBs to make some tremendous noise next year. Babers is excellent at taking what the defense gives him. If you have a QB that can run, teams better beware. A couple caveats: His pass plays rely on precise timing and accuracy (you could argue that all pass plays do, but I will argue his do even more). With 5 receivers lined up, your QB MUST be able to go through his progressions in perfect time. Defenses will sell out on 2 receivers on nearly every play, but there will always be somebody open or a running lane for the QB and he must recognize it. Another thing is that Babers will want to spread out the D with deep balls that do require a great ability to throw a fade. Jimmy will be in the NFL because of his ability to drop buckets on the reg. Can your QB do that? Finally, WR blocking is crucial. Dink and dunk is part of the game. Towson beat us because our WRs decided that blocking wasn't important that night, not just because our defense got pushed around. We should have put up 60 that night but made too many mistakes on 3rd down.

I can't speak to the defense as well. Our defense was pathetic when he arrived and he did his best to turn them into a salvageable unit. He didn't have time to get his recruits in, and his true Freshmen did make an impact. He is very big on strip drills in practice. I hated how the players never tackled low, though. That is the other main reason Towson beat us. We'd have the RB wrapped up high behind the line of scrimmage many times but his strength allowed him to push forward for 4+ yards because nobody would wrap up the legs/ankles. Many of our blowout wins followed this formula. Win toss, receive kick, score a TD in less than two minutes, force fumble, score in less than 2 minutes, force punt bc other team's QB is inept, score in less than 2 minutes, force turnover, score a TD. By then, the opponent was demoralized and was mentally already on the bus back home. When we faced a good QB/RB combo (Northern Illinois, Southern Illinois, Towson) our game plan was less effective. I wish you the best of luck and hope Babers can get the defense in order, because we know the offense will be just fine.

[factman]

Good stuff! He really doesn't have to rebuild anything here, but as he said, "put a little frosting on the cake"!

[EIUFan]

Very true, I forgot to mention that I am excited to see what he does with a cabinet that is 3/4 of the way full in terms of talent!

[jpfalcon09]

You hope that bad habits like poor tackling don't creep in after this year. Our defense has been successful the last two seasons because of sure tackling and limiting extra yards. It concerns me a little to hear that as we all have fond memories here of the defenses Gregg Brandon used to field.

[EIUFan]

I was at CMU during the Brian Kelly and Butch Jones eras. I have come to the conclusion that having a lights-out defense in a non-power conference is very hard to find. Kelly and Jones were outstanding coaches and recruiters. (Before I make this argument, I understand that recruitment star-rating is not the end-all, be-all of college football, but it is a good rule of thumb) Kelly and Jones had a full list of 3-star players on the offensive side of the ball, but couldn't lock down many on the defensive side. I assume this is because defensive 3-star recruits are more heavily sought by the power schools because those 3 stars will most likely fill a role. They will take about 6-10 snaps per game when they are at their peak so the 4-5 stars can get a breather. Therefore, there are less 3-star defensive players available at the end of the day than offensive players. I could be wrong, just my observation in 8 years of following MAC and OVC football. Replace 3-star athlete with 1-star athlete in the OVC obviously, those are good recruits for us down here.

[hammb]

I was at CMU during the Brian Kelly and Butch Jones eras. I have come to the conclusion that having a lights-out defense in a non-power conference is very hard to find. Kelly and Jones were outstanding coaches and recruiters. (Before I make this argument, I understand that recruitment star-rating is not the end-all, be-all of college football, but it is a good rule of thumb) Kelly and Jones had a full list of 3-star players on the offensive side of the ball, but couldn't lock down many on the defensive side. I assume this is because defensive 3-star recruits are more heavily sought by the power schools because those 3 stars will most likely fill a role. They will take about 6-10 snaps per game when they are at their peak so the 4-5 stars can get a breather. Therefore, there are less 3-star defensive players available at the end of the day than offensive players. I could be wrong, just my observation in 8 years of following MAC and OVC football. Replace 3-star athlete with 1-star athlete in the OVC obviously, those are good recruits for us down here.

It is also much harder to play defense based on scheme/savvy than raw talent. At the end of the day defense requires athleticism and skill. On the DL a freakish mix of size, skill, and athleticism.

It is VERY difficult to build a solid defense at the MAC level, and when you do, it rarely translates to being good against upper echelon opposition. Our defense has been awesome in recent years (by MAC standards) but it's still really struggled when we've gone up against BCS opponents, even mediocre ones. We just cannot possibly stock up the athletes to build a truly great defense.

[mscarn]

force punt bc other team's QB is inept

That's half the MAC every year. Thanks for the insight...does EIU have a message board?

[EIUFan]

No we don't have a forum that I can find. The apathy among this fan base is sad and extremely frustrating. That's probably another reason Dino was happy to get away. In our quarterfinal game last weekend the stadium was only half full (approx. 5,000 people came). It was pathetic. The student section was solid but still not good enough. I trust BGSU doesn't have too much trouble getting 20K into the stadium when they are having a good year.

[Flipper]

When things are going good, we're usually drawing about 15-20k.

[Globetrotter]

No we don't have a forum that I can find. The apathy among this fan base is sad and extremely frustrating. That's probably another reason Dino was happy to get away. In our quarterfinal game last weekend the stadium was only half full (approx. 5,000 people came). It was pathetic. The student section was solid but still not good enough. I trust BGSU doesn't have too much trouble getting 20K into the stadium when they are having a good year.

BGSU 2014 #ENDTHEAPATHY

[Flipper]

That's why the bowl game is a big deal...the program is building momentum. We've sold over 6,000 tickets to that game...there's home games we don't sell 6,000 tickets for. Hell..Michigan has only sold 4500 to their Bowl. Take out Pitt...maybe get ranked in the top 25 and go into 2014 with the league's top returning RB and QB.

[kdog27]

A bowl win will really help momentum and drive ticket sales for next year. However, if we have an Indiana type game people are going be turned off.

[mscarn]

Babers specifically mentioned the number of tickets sold for the bowl game in his opening remarks. Of all the things he could have said it's interesting that that was something that was on his mind.