Welcome to Rock Bottom

[Roll Along!]

People have wanted to run each of our last 3 coaches out of here. Just give it time. They wanted Clawson gone during the 2-10 season. They wanted Dino gone after some early bumps a couple of years ago (remember his "train is pulling out of the station" rant). Everyone will come crawling back in a year or two when we are back in the MAC Championship game again.

This "sky is falling" crap is crazy. This is the nature of the MAC. Get good for 3 or 4 years, get a new coach, turn over the talent, and rebuild. Look around the MAC. It happens everywhere. It happened at Central Michigan about 6 years ago, it's happening at Northern Illinois now, it's happening here. There's not ever been a program that's dominated the MAC for decades, or probably even for a full decade. We will be back.

At least we're one of the programs that can rebuild and get back. Eastern Michigan's never really done it, Buffalo hasn't. Akron, Kent State, few and far between. Ohio, meh. We're at least one of the handful of programs that can claim the ability to have cyclical dominance.

[apollo]

People have wanted to run each of our last 3 coaches out of here. Just give it time. They wanted Clawson gone during the 2-10 season. They wanted Dino gone after some early bumps a couple of years ago (remember his "train is pulling out of the station" rant). Everyone will come crawling back in a year or two when we are back in the MAC Championship game again.

This "sky is falling" crap is crazy. This is the nature of the MAC. Get good for 3 or 4 years, get a new coach, turn over the talent, and rebuild. Look around the MAC. It happens everywhere. It happened at Central Michigan about 6 years ago, it's happening at Northern Illinois now, it's happening here. There's not ever been a program that's dominated the MAC for decades, or probably even for a full decade. We will be back.

At least we're one of the programs that can rebuild and get back. Eastern Michigan's never really done it, Buffalo hasn't. Akron, Kent State, few and far between. Ohio, meh. We're at least one of the handful of programs that can claim the ability to have cyclical dominance.

Since Clawson we have put a lot of money into football be it budget, facilities, staffing, etc. Playing the way the team is playing should never happen. I thought we'd be down a little...5 or 6 loss season...but this is clearly a coaching issue. BG can't financially afford to put this much into football and then draw 3000-6000 fans to games. Buyout may not be the answer....but I'd bet there's research being done to see what the options are.

[FalconTurf]

People have wanted to run each of our last 3 coaches out of here. Just give it time. They wanted Clawson gone during the 2-10 season. They wanted Dino gone after some early bumps a couple of years ago (remember his "train is pulling out of the station" rant). Everyone will come crawling back in a year or two when we are back in the MAC Championship game again.

This "sky is falling" crap is crazy. This is the nature of the MAC. Get good for 3 or 4 years, get a new coach, turn over the talent, and rebuild. Look around the MAC. It happens everywhere. It happened at Central Michigan about 6 years ago, it's happening at Northern Illinois now, it's happening here. There's not ever been a program that's dominated the MAC for decades, or probably even for a full decade. We will be back.

At least we're one of the programs that can rebuild and get back. Eastern Michigan's never really done it, Buffalo hasn't. Akron, Kent State, few and far between. Ohio, meh. We're at least one of the handful of programs that can claim the ability to have cyclical dominance.

Since Clawson we have put a lot of money into football be it budget, facilities, staffing, etc. Playing the way the team is playing should never happen. I thought we'd be down a little...5 or 6 loss season...but this is clearly a coaching issue. BG can't financially afford to put this much into football and then draw 3000-6000 fans to games. Buyout may not be the answer....but I'd bet there's research being done to see what the options are.

It would be nice to think we've invested enough for a consistent winner but I would suggest the expenses for football are only enough to get the cycles of good football at BG. Fortunately we have 2 recent MAC titles on our 50-year-old press box while Akron recently invested a whole lot more and does not have similar decoration on their box. Money helps, but we will never fund this program enough to keep a long term head coach or assistants. That in itself assures we will see the ups and downs in this program.

[Roll Along!]

People have wanted to run each of our last 3 coaches out of here. Just give it time. They wanted Clawson gone during the 2-10 season. They wanted Dino gone after some early bumps a couple of years ago (remember his "train is pulling out of the station" rant). Everyone will come crawling back in a year or two when we are back in the MAC Championship game again.

This "sky is falling" crap is crazy. This is the nature of the MAC. Get good for 3 or 4 years, get a new coach, turn over the talent, and rebuild. Look around the MAC. It happens everywhere. It happened at Central Michigan about 6 years ago, it's happening at Northern Illinois now, it's happening here. There's not ever been a program that's dominated the MAC for decades, or probably even for a full decade. We will be back.

At least we're one of the programs that can rebuild and get back. Eastern Michigan's never really done it, Buffalo hasn't. Akron, Kent State, few and far between. Ohio, meh. We're at least one of the handful of programs that can claim the ability to have cyclical dominance.

Since Clawson we have put a lot of money into football be it budget, facilities, staffing, etc. Playing the way the team is playing should never happen. I thought we'd be down a little...5 or 6 loss season...but this is clearly a coaching issue. BG can't financially afford to put this much into football and then draw 3000-6000 fans to games. Buyout may not be the answer....but I'd bet there's research being done to see what the options are.

I'd love to see the breakdown that shows that we are funding football at a higher level than other schools in the MAC to the point that we should be demanding success based on that. I don't know what the breakdown is for football alone, but I know we have the 12th largest athletic department budget in the MAC and our head coach salary is in the lower half of coaching salaries in the MAC (if not at the very bottom). And we are supporting a nationally ranked hockey program with that athletic department budget, something only Miami and Western Michigan has to deal with. Where are you seeing us outpacing other schools in the conference in financial investment in football?

[apollo]

People have wanted to run each of our last 3 coaches out of here. Just give it time. They wanted Clawson gone during the 2-10 season. They wanted Dino gone after some early bumps a couple of years ago (remember his "train is pulling out of the station" rant). Everyone will come crawling back in a year or two when we are back in the MAC Championship game again.

This "sky is falling" crap is crazy. This is the nature of the MAC. Get good for 3 or 4 years, get a new coach, turn over the talent, and rebuild. Look around the MAC. It happens everywhere. It happened at Central Michigan about 6 years ago, it's happening at Northern Illinois now, it's happening here. There's not ever been a program that's dominated the MAC for decades, or probably even for a full decade. We will be back.

At least we're one of the programs that can rebuild and get back. Eastern Michigan's never really done it, Buffalo hasn't. Akron, Kent State, few and far between. Ohio, meh. We're at least one of the handful of programs that can claim the ability to have cyclical dominance.

Since Clawson we have put a lot of money into football be it budget, facilities, staffing, etc. Playing the way the team is playing should never happen. I thought we'd be down a little...5 or 6 loss season...but this is clearly a coaching issue. BG can't financially afford to put this much into football and then draw <a href="tel:3000-6000">3000-6000</a> fans to games. Buyout may not be the answer....but I'd bet there's research being done to see what the options are.

I'd love to see the breakdown that shows that we are funding football at a higher level than other schools in the MAC to the point that we should be demanding success based on that. I don't know what the breakdown is for football alone, but I know we have the 12th largest athletic department budget in the MAC and our head coach salary is in the lower half of coaching salaries in the MAC (if not at the very bottom). And we are supporting a nationally ranked hockey program with that athletic department budget, something only Miami and Western Michigan has to deal with. Where are you seeing us outpacing other schools in the conference in financial investment in football?

I'd love to be able to show you real numbers...anything that is released can't be trusted because they all these MAC programs try to hide how much money they lose sponsoring FBS football. All I know is that football has more than enough to be a top 3-4 program in the conference yearly.

[WTXFalcon]

What was the expectation for this group going into the season? What kind of attrition did you guys see? I haven't looked at this roster compared to last years, other than seeing the last QB and top WR go. I was there for Memphis and Ohio State, obviously seeing this group at their worst. Hard to imagine such a big drop off from last season unless they were just starting from scratch in a lot of spots. I can understand growing pains under a new regime but the dropped balls in the Memphis game were borderline unbelievable, and buried the offense before they really had a chance to get going. Morgan looked promising in spurts. Not suggesting that the only problem is the contents (or lack thereof) of the cupboard, just wondered what the feeling was amongst you guys going into the year.

[jpfalcon09]

What was the expectation for this group going into the season? What kind of attrition did you guys see? I haven't looked at this roster compared to last years, other than seeing the last QB and top WR go. I was there for Memphis and Ohio State, obviously seeing this group at their worst. Hard to imagine such a big drop off from last season unless they were just starting from scratch in a lot of spots. I can understand growing pains under a new regime but the dropped balls in the Memphis game were borderline unbelievable, and buried the offense before they really had a chance to get going. Morgan looked promising in spurts. Not suggesting that the only problem is the contents (or lack thereof) of the cupboard, just wondered what the feeling was amongst you guys going into the year.

QB - lost Matt Johnson
WR - lost Roger Lewis, Gehrig Dieter, Ryan Burbrink, (Darrion Landry did not qualify)
RB - lost Travis Greene
TE - lost Derek Lee

You lost a significant amount of offensive talent this season. One thing about this system I don't like is the lack of tight end use. Derek Lee was an effective player last year in Babers' system and I think Jinks is missing the boat big time on not having someone fulfill that role. Everyone else is self-explanatory. Ronnie Moore has been extremely disappointing this season. He's not being used correctly at all.

On defense it's pretty bad too...with injuries and suspensions, the coaches are playing either true freshmen, R-Fr or sophomores. Last year you had Hardy and Turner at the safety spot who were both seniors and some depth at corner with Stephens and Mack. Stephens got hurt, Watson is suspended until the Toledo game, so there's another mess on that side of the ball that will need to sort itself out.

[Schadenfreude]

I haven't been this down about Bowling Green football since Sept. 23, 2000. That's when Buffalo beat Bowling Green, getting its first ever win against an FBS program since moving up from Division III. I was there in person, and it was an embarrassing loss. I was angry about what would become a sixth-straight losing season, the only time this has ever happened at Bowling Green.

That Buffalo loss was awful. In some ways, though, this feels worse. At least in 2000, a few days after losing to Buffalo, Gary Blackney relieved the tension by announcing he would be leaving the program. WIth that settled, everyone was able to focus on the future and find some hope.

But now? We are tethered to Mike Jinks for four more years after this one, and I'm not sure he knows what he is doing.

I've been following the program for more than 25 years, and I'm not sure I can recall a more hopeless moment.

Sure, we had some bad teams under Clawson, but everyone knew that the cupboard was going to be bare a year after he arrived, and he was able to sell us on a long-term plan.

Sure, the Brandon era had some ugly moments, but at least the teams were fairly competitive. As late as 2008, the Falcons were just an overtime against Buffalo away from winning the East again.

This is worse. This time, I don't know who or what to believe. Remember: The media looked around the conference this summer and thought Bowling Green had the talent to win the East again. Now everyone seems to be emphasizing how talentless this bunch is.

Which is it? How is it possible that a team picked to win the East could be playing this badly?

I'm still struggling with that.

At this point, I'm not sure who or what to believe and I'm having a hard time finding reason for optimism or hope.

[hammb]

This is worse. This time, I don't know who or what to believe. Remember: The media looked around the conference this summer and thought Bowling Green had the talent to win the East again. Now everyone seems to be emphasizing how talentless this bunch is.
.

It's obvious, didn't you hear? The former coach who led us to an 18-8 record over the previous 2 seasons, including wins over Purdue, Maryland, and Indiana set us up to start failing as soon as he left. He apparently built a culture that could win for 2 seasons, but then was ripe to fall apart. He wasn't even coaching the guys that weren't starting last year, don't even think about the fact that he was able to put together a reasonably good season with our Senior QB 2 years ago when he was a Sophomore with no experience.

This team has some talent. It was very short on experience, but there is/was talent. It was going to be a tougher year than our previous couple, for sure, but it should not have gotten this bad. What I see is a coach in Jinks who wants to be "Falcon Fast" like Babers and has no clue how to do so. Be it coaching or players or what, this team has no business trying to push tempo, because they cannot put up the 40-50 point games that it takes to win with that style of football. You'd have to go back to the MAC championship game of '14 to find a game that we failed to put up 28+ points. This season we've yet to accomplish that feat a single time, and that includes games against EMU & a FCS school.

The defense is struggling, but when you're constantly trying to push the ball downfield and don't have the horses to do it, when you're trying to hurry up, and don't actually gain first downs, when you struggle to score TDs at all....how does anybody expect the defense to be anything less than horrid?

Dino's style of football will always make defensive statistics look bad. Extra plays, extra possessions will lead to that. What you ask for though is a couple key stops, a couple turnovers, and the offense to pile up points. When the offense DOES NOT pile up points you get exactly what we are seeing this year which is just brutal. It seems to be the cool thing to do to just blame Dino for building this culture. He never was loved here, despite the fact he produced 2 good seasons with some of the most exciting football we've had since Urb/Brandon. Now Jinks is laying a complete turd and gets the benefit of blaming it on the previous guy. It's like BGSU football is the presidential race...

Mike Jinks will be the coach here for at least another couple seasons. I hope like hell he takes a step back and realizes where he's made mistakes, and can improve upon them. This team, with this coach, doesn't have the horses to be going "Falcon Fast" so I really think he should start by slowing things up a bit and feeding the ball to our RBs who have been one of the lone bright spots this year. At this point we need to slow the game down and help our defense. Focusing on the run more should also make our RS-FR QB's job a lot easier by opening up some playaction opportunities.

If I didn't know better, it almost seems like he was hired with the caveat, "You have to keep this uptempo high flying offense we've had!" even though he seems to have little idea how to accomplish that goal.

[Class of 61]

Hambb,
Generally agree w/ your post... Not so sure Jinks per se is the problem, EXCEPT his choices of staff seem very weak. Too many guys w/ little or NO actual coaching experience position wise. ( still trying to figure out what exactly a " quality control" guy does- sure isn't coaching LB's for example).
Too many Texas buddies w/ little Ohio ties or even knowlege doesn't help either. Some D-3 or NAIA experience is better than nothing I guess, but not FBS or even FCS background.

[footballguy51]

Coach has a lot of work cut out for him when it comes to team attitude and discipline. Clawson had the guys shaped-up, and Babers wants things to be a little bit looser around the place. That started to show itself both on and off the field in a negative way. Now Jinks has to get that mess cleaned up. When you start to put the screws to people that want to joke around rather than work, they tend to fight back. Knowing how things were in the locker room under the old coach and how the new coach wants to run things, it's no surprise we're having struggles currently.

[hammb]

Hambb,
Generally agree w/ your post... Not so sure Jinks per se is the problem, EXCEPT his choices of staff seem very weak. Too many guys w/ little or NO actual coaching experience position wise. ( still trying to figure out what exactly a " quality control" guy does- sure isn't coaching LB's for example).
Too many Texas buddies w/ little Ohio ties or even knowlege doesn't help either. Some D-3 or NAIA experience is better than nothing I guess, but not FBS or even FCS background.

True, '61. In fact of any mistakes Jinks has made I'd say a relatively inexperienced coach bringing in a staff of equally, or less, experienced assistants was foolish. Urban was a young coach that had never been a coordinator (still more college experience than Jinks), and hired coordinators that were long time college assistants to help him out; one of whom was a holdover from Blackney. Jinks did nothing like that with a bunch of GREEN buddies or what have you.

Jinks said after taking the job that being a HC wasn't yet on his radar. Well, this is one place that will REALLY turn up. Most coaches that are prepping for a HC gig will have a notebook of EXACTLY who they want for their staff. They're ready to make those calls and use their years of networking to put the staff together. We hired a coach who admitted HC jobs weren't on his radar, so I'm betting he didn't have a list of staff ready either. He just didn't think he was in that place yet career-wise.

That's not to say he cannot grow. He's going to get every opportunity to do so. I hope that we'll start to see some signs of turning this thing around as MAC season goes on.

[jpfalcon09]

Hambb,
Generally agree w/ your post... Not so sure Jinks per se is the problem, EXCEPT his choices of staff seem very weak. Too many guys w/ little or NO actual coaching experience position wise. ( still trying to figure out what exactly a " quality control" guy does- sure isn't coaching LB's for example).
Too many Texas buddies w/ little Ohio ties or even knowlege doesn't help either. Some D-3 or NAIA experience is better than nothing I guess, but not FBS or even FCS background.

True, '61. In fact of any mistakes Jinks has made I'd say a relatively inexperienced coach bringing in a staff of equally, or less, experienced assistants was foolish. Urban was a young coach that had never been a coordinator (still more college experience than Jinks), and hired coordinators that were long time college assistants to help him out; one of whom was a holdover from Blackney. Jinks did nothing like that with a bunch of GREEN buddies or what have you.

Jinks said after taking the job that being a HC wasn't yet on his radar. Well, this is one place that will REALLY turn up. Most coaches that are prepping for a HC gig will have a notebook of EXACTLY who they want for their staff. They're ready to make those calls and use their years of networking to put the staff together. We hired a coach who admitted HC jobs weren't on his radar, so I'm betting he didn't have a list of staff ready either. He just didn't think he was in that place yet career-wise.

That's not to say he cannot grow. He's going to get every opportunity to do so. I hope that we'll start to see some signs of turning this thing around as MAC season goes on.

The million dollar question is then why was he hired if he admitted himself that we wasn't prepping for a HC job? Was Kingston that much enamored with the "Falcon Fast" concept that he panicked and hired Jinks solely because he would keep that going? There were surely numerous other candidates out there who would operate under the same offensive philosophy that would entertain becoming a head coach with a much better resume. That to me is the biggest red flag in all this. How many times in life does a job just happen to fall into your lap as it did with Jinks?

At this point we're stuck with the hope that he and the staff grow into their roles. I'm bitter that Kingston took off and doesn't have to answer any difficult questions regarding his decision and instead has stuck Moose with the unenviable position of riding this out until his buyout becomes manageable, or Jinks proves himself to be fit for the job.

[gmartin]

As I mentioned during the game Saturday I have either attended, watched online, or back in the 90s before Internet or tv feed I listened to Dave Horger on the radio. For 28 straight years I haven't missed listening, watching or attending a game. I been to every bowl game. I have followed every single game, over 335 straight games. I've worked around Falcon football. Missed weddings. Missed parties. Scheduled vacations around football. Well after 28 years I may miss a game. For the first time since I graduated from BGSU in 1991 I didn't make it back for homecoming. I wasn't a fan of the Jinks hire. Then I really became less interested with the assistants he hired. And now 5 weeks in I'm even more less interested. I find watching Carmel High School and Indianapolis High School football more entertaining than Falcon Fast.

[kdog27]

This is worse. This time, I don't know who or what to believe. Remember: The media looked around the conference this summer and thought Bowling Green had the talent to win the East again. Now everyone seems to be emphasizing how talentless this bunch is.
.

It's obvious, didn't you hear? The former coach who led us to an 18-8 record over the previous 2 seasons, including wins over Purdue, Maryland, and Indiana set us up to start failing as soon as he left. He apparently built a culture that could win for 2 seasons, but then was ripe to fall apart. He wasn't even coaching the guys that weren't starting last year, don't even think about the fact that he was able to put together a reasonably good season with our Senior QB 2 years ago when he was a Sophomore with no experience.

This team has some talent. It was very short on experience, but there is/was talent. It was going to be a tougher year than our previous couple, for sure, but it should not have gotten this bad. What I see is a coach in Jinks who wants to be "Falcon Fast" like Babers and has no clue how to do so. Be it coaching or players or what, this team has no business trying to push tempo, because they cannot put up the 40-50 point games that it takes to win with that style of football. You'd have to go back to the MAC championship game of '14 to find a game that we failed to put up 28+ points. This season we've yet to accomplish that feat a single time, and that includes games against EMU & a FCS school.

The defense is struggling, but when you're constantly trying to push the ball downfield and don't have the horses to do it, when you're trying to hurry up, and don't actually gain first downs, when you struggle to score TDs at all....how does anybody expect the defense to be anything less than horrid?

Dino's style of football will always make defensive statistics look bad. Extra plays, extra possessions will lead to that. What you ask for though is a couple key stops, a couple turnovers, and the offense to pile up points. When the offense DOES NOT pile up points you get exactly what we are seeing this year which is just brutal. It seems to be the cool thing to do to just blame Dino for building this culture. He never was loved here, despite the fact he produced 2 good seasons with some of the most exciting football we've had since Urb/Brandon. Now Jinks is laying a complete turd and gets the benefit of blaming it on the previous guy. It's like BGSU football is the presidential race...

Mike Jinks will be the coach here for at least another couple seasons. I hope like hell he takes a step back and realizes where he's made mistakes, and can improve upon them. This team, with this coach, doesn't have the horses to be going "Falcon Fast" so I really think he should start by slowing things up a bit and feeding the ball to our RBs who have been one of the lone bright spots this year. At this point we need to slow the game down and help our defense. Focusing on the run more should also make our RS-FR QB's job a lot easier by opening up some playaction opportunities.

If I didn't know better, it almost seems like he was hired with the caveat, "You have to keep this uptempo high flying offense we've had!" even though he seems to have little idea how to accomplish that goal.

I think you are only reading what you choose to. Plenty of people here, myself included are very displeased with what Jinks has done so far and it is littered across several topics here. But I think some hold onto hope that Babers is somewhat to blame because the next few years sure are going to suck if this is all on the shoulders of the new coach.

Personally I think he is awful and is by far the worst hire of any sport since I came to BG in the late 90s. It is quite a reach to hire a coach 3 years removed from high school. Still I hope he can get better. It's one thing to lose but BG has been a total embarrassment since it was 7-0 at the horseshoe.

I also think you give Babers a bit too much credit. It's no secret that you are in love with his offensive philosophy.
I don't dislike him or anything but it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows. The 2014 season (8-6) was a bit a disappointment for what we had coming back. He talked all summer about how amazing of a defense he had then the next thing you know Western Kentucky is hanging up 60 points and 700 yards.

Clawson handed him down a program in excellent shape by MAC standards and I don't think he left it nearly as good as he found it. Not all of that is his fault either by the way.