2014...good year or no?

[Critical Thinker]

Negatives:
I have never seen a coach make more boneheaded mistakes in game and player management in my life.
Off field issues: I know people want to say gambling is no big deal but it is a huge deal. 4x a week is an absurd amount. If Andy Dalton was doing this the Bengals would freak out. If I was doing this my boss would have red flags come out. If any of these guys want to get drafted and this comes up it's a red flag no question.
I don't like the hubris. Just win games, don't talk about winning games.
Terrible defense for much of the year.

I'll add:

Lost a winnable game to Toledo by dropping/over-throwing at least 4 passes for touchdowns
Let WKU set their passing record and Wisco set their running record
Lost embarrassingly in a championship game

[kdog27]

I'd say it was very up and down. Happy it ended on an up. Ending the year on a 4 game losing streak and another bowl loss would have been bad news.

[jakehovs23]

One word: survived. We didn't succeed a ton, but we survived.

[Falconfreak90]

One word: survived. We didn't succeed a ton, but we survived.

Good point Jake...

[Falconwriter]

Many positives and negatives.

Positives:
We won the MAC East or West or whatever side we are on to be honest I don't really care about this.
We beat Indiana
We won a bowl game
Successful season with a backup QB


Negatives:
I have never seen a coach make more boneheaded mistakes in game and player management in my life.
Off field issues: I know people want to say gambling is no big deal but it is a huge deal. 4x a week is an absurd amount. If Andy Dalton was doing this the Bengals would freak out. If I was doing this my boss would have red flags come out. If any of these guys want to get drafted and this comes up it's a red flag no question.
I don't like the hubris. Just win games, don't talk about winning games.
Terrible defense for much of the year.

This is a good summary for me. Although, in a way, I felt they did well by winning the division and getting to the title game after losing our MVP QB, I was very disappointed with how the coaching was handled most of the season. This group took the core of a good defense and turned them to utter crap. I think a really good coaching staff doesn't do that.

They seemed to be so focused on offense, that the defense was left wanting, and it showed. Oh how it showed, in record-setting (for the wrong teams) fashion.

They almost managed to blow the bowl game, too, after losing to UT for what seems like a record time; and getting blown out in the title game. There just wasn't much about this coaching staff that stuck me as outstanding as the year went along. Most good coaches have their teams peaking by the end of the year, not tanking. And yes, the bowl win was nice, but I honestly think that was more about luck and one very superior talent than it was coaching.

I am curious to see how this staff does in Year 2. If they fail to get back to the title game and lose to UT again, then the season will be a complete and total failure. My expectations are high with the talent returning, and it being the second year for the system.

[Schadenfreude]

This was a good year. it was not a great year. But it was a good year. We won the division, we beat a Big Ten opponent, and we finished with a bowl game win.

Do I want more out of this program? Of course. But we won our division. Any time we do that, it's a good year. I'm not going to dwell on the strength of our division. Complaining that our division is weak -- well, that's a sour grape talking point from TSUN.

A thought experiment. Would you rather:

1. Win the division, beat a Big Ten, opponent, win your bowl game, but lose to your archrival and finish 8-6?
2. Be an also-ran in your division, get your butt kicked in nonconference play, beat your archrival, and finish 8-5 or 9-4, depending on how the bowl game turns out?

I'll take (1). That's what our team did. (2) Is what TSUN accomplished. They can have it. I'll take (1) over (2) every time.

[Falcon137]

A thought experiment. Would you rather:

1. Win the division, beat a Big Ten, opponent, win your bowl game, but lose to your archrival and finish 8-6?
2. Be an also-ran in your division, get your butt kicked in nonconference play, beat your archrival, and finish 8-5 or 9-4, depending on how the bowl game turns out?

I'll take (1). That's what our team did. (2) Is what TSUN accomplished. They can have it. I'll take (1) over (2) every time.

Option 2. I would rather beat Toledo than Indiana. Never apologize for winning the division. But when you play 4 teams from the west and lose by an average of 17.5...it doesn't feel all that special. It especially hurts when one of them is a loss to your rival for the 5th straight year.

It was a decent year. WKU and Wisconsin were historically bad performances. Indiana was a good win and one of the most fun games I have attended at the Doyt.

Conference play wasn't all that fun. Went 2-2 at home. NIU was an absolute beat down. The 5th best team in the West trucked us. Lost to Toledo for the 5th straight year.

Ended with a bright spot in winning a bowl game that was basically a road game.

8-6 for a MAC team is never a "bad" year. But, with the expectations going in, it wasn't a good year. I also don't think it's fair to blame Babers for everything. With all the injuries a Clawson coached team probably goes 9-5 (flip the Ball State game, maybe?) with the exact same schedule.

[Dayons_Den]

Miffed by the disdain for the defense and the thought that it didnt get attention from coaching staff. The ad improved throughout the season and even made in game adjustments. We were one of the top TO creating Ds in NCAA football. Four years ago Jude and Ryland played out of necessity (depth) this year Stephens and Johnson played because of their talent.

More often than not this defense kept us in games and pulled more than its fair share of weight especially considering the talent and pedigree and philosophy on the other side of the ball.

This was indeed a good year when the dust settles.

[mscarn]

This was a good year. it was not a great year. But it was a good year. We won the division, we beat a Big Ten opponent, and we finished with a bowl game win.

Do I want more out of this program? Of course. But we won our division. Any time we do that, it's a good year. I'm not going to dwell on the strength of our division. Complaining that our division is weak -- well, that's a sour grape talking point from TSUN.

Agreed. There's going to be a degree of disappointment in almost any year. There were achievements left on the table that could have been attained, but absolute perfection can't be the standard. Seasons like this was what the 2-10 year was building towards and there's a bunch of other major college football programs that would have loved to have had the season we just did.

We lose some excellent players but we also welcome many excellent players back (including some that didn't play like Colvin, Rhodes, etc.) and the future is bright. The biggest impediment to success next year is the self-inflicted wound of choosing to play the toughest FBS non-conference schedule in the country.

[hammb]

I said earlier it was a good, but not great year. Schad laid out a couple scenarios so I thought I should break my grade down to the goals I have for the program (and I know they vary wildly from others').

In order of my priority:

1. Get into the top 25 rankings (nowhere near it)
2. Beat P5 teams (1 win, 1 terrible loss; still at our budget anytime we beat one of those teams it's a win...can't expect to beat more than 1 per year).
3. Beat UT (fail)
4. Win a bowl game (success)
5. Win the MAC Title (fail, but made the championship game...lost in bad fashion).
6. Play entertaining football that I actually want to watch (most of the time yes, but that 3 game stretch to end November was brutal).

#1 on my priority list is a rarely seen thing for BG, so I never EXPECT it...just wish for it. If we discount that the team accomplished 2.5 of my 5 goals for the BG program, and did it with their backup QB playing the entire season. I want more, of course, but I'm not jumping off a rooftop or crying about our coaching hire at this point.

[Flipper]

Dino isn't stupid...he justs like to challenge the odds...roll the dice...gamble a little here and there...

[zete]

Looking at the big picture it seems our f'ball program is just floating along. I was excited last decade with some of the big wins, big crowds, and coaching staffs that came along. But it always disappears soon after it arrives putting it back to square one. Not much momentum.
Seriously - a bowl opponent that just started football a few years back. It rings hollow with me.

[Schadenfreude]

One way to look at this is to look at the way Dino Babers' contract scores things. Based on that, you'd have to say he had a good year. All my information here is from Newsday.

http://sports.newsday.com/long-island/d ... no-babers/" target="_blank

Base pay: $400,000

Incentives Babers presumably will receive:
-- Non BCS bowl bid: $10,000
-- Non BCS bowl win: $5,000
-- Five MAC wins: $3,000
-- Win vs BCS opponent: $5,000
-- Game vs. BCS team that guarantees school $400,000: $10,000 (I assume Wisconsin falls into this category)

(Total: $33,000)

Incentives he did not receive:

-- Conference championship: $15,000
-- BCS bowl appearance: $10,000
-- BCS bowl win: $5,000
-- Conference coach of the year ($5,000)
-- Six or more MAC wins: $10,000

His contract also includes several academics-based incentives.

One incentive I'm not sure about is $10,000 for winning the "conference regular season." If that's based on overall record, then he won't get it. If the division title counts, he will.

[Siborg]

My main difficulty this year was with my lofty expectations even though I knew we lost most of our best players on D. I hoped our O could overcome that but they really could not this year, especially after losing Johnson. I know we returned a lot of D players that had starts but most were complimentary players, not our best ones. The two exceptions might be Thomas and Martin but Martin was not 100%. We lost both our cover corners and I doubt many of us realize how good they were for the MAC. How often does BG have two CBs as UDFAs? We lost our entire middle of the D line and our middle backer and then lost arguably our best returning interior D lineman in Colvin. Add to that BooBoo, arguably our best athlete. 5 guys went the UDFA route from our D last year.

Then add in the the changes in our O that meant our D will be facing more plays per game. So in many ways our D was set up for failure. On a positive side we saw several new players emerge and that should help us over the next few years. Schwieterman, Sanford, Johnson, & Stephens all seem to be really good players and all had what I would call break out years. Locke & Valdez may turn out pretty well too and I'm sure there are some others that wil surprise us.

So minus my crazy expectations (10-2 worst case), it was not a bad year given the circumstances. I was certainly hoping for more on O even though Babers repeatedly said its a work in progress until the middle of next year. Knapke certainly had his ups and downs but which games would having Johnson at QB turned loss into victory? Perhaps WMU and Toledo but you could argue we may not have won over Indiana given I think it was Knapke's best game. Our winning margins may have been bigger and our losing margins may have been smaller but I doubt our overall record would have a lot different....of course that is only a guess.

Oh, well, its good to end on a win even if its over a bad team. I hope for a lot of improvement for next year. Whomever wins the starting QB position, I hope its due to being really good rather than being "valedictorian of summer school". There's a story behind that last phrase. My father always pushed me to do better in class and to inspire me, he would say he was co-valedictorian of his class. He was not lying but it was many years later that he admitted there were only 9 kids in his class.

[daspollak]

For everyone ripping the defense, they did have 34 turnovers this year. Leading up to the bowl game they were 7th in the country.