kreed5120

The basketball program actually has enough donor support to cover a healthy chunk of its bills. Without people like Bud Wentz it probably would be whored out like CMU and several other MAC basketball programs. It's much more expensive to run an FBS program, especially given that we're still paying on that monstrosity. I know Kaulig gifts a lot for football, but you need a much larger pool of large financial backers to be competitive in football. Especially in this day and age of NIL.

I think you're more optimistic than I am. This is an entirely new roster and very few of these guys have previously played together. It's going to take time for this team to hit their stride.

Ohio, the preseason MAC favorite, now sits at 1-4. This is a borderline low-major conference now. About on par with the Horizon League. Crazy to think 5 years ago this was a borderline top 10 conference.

We got ran off the court against St. Mary's. What do you think would happen if we played Indiana, North Carolina, Kentucky, etc.?

Some people are impossible to please. They say football schedules too tough and then complain basketball doesn't schedule tough enough. The reality is we already lost the 2 measuring stick contests we had. At this point OOC only value is to sort out rotations and build chemistry. This is a completely new group of players. It's going to take time before they peak. Also, these schools are as good, if not better, than several of the schools that we'll play in MAC play.

If we beat Toledo next week then I'd say a corner might have been turned. Beating a team that might be the worst team in all of division 1 (including FCS) that we were double digit favorites against doesn't really mean much. It's too early to predict what our record would be next year. I'll make a guess once the transfer portal period is over.

Kenni probably bet the under.

They lost to St. Francis who lost to non-scholarship Dayton. They aren't just bad by FBS standards. They would be near the bottom of FCS as well.

Kent has a way of making a lot of teams look good...

Yes, not to mention the Big 10 pays out $60M+ to each school alone. A number that will only continue to increase. Also, ticket prices will be considerably higher compared to Akron. The main difference between the schools is Northwestern is flush with cash to spend. Akron can't even afford training tables for its program...

For those of us not in the know, what background does George come from?

Coming into this season I felt the MAC would be improved in the middle and bottom of the conference, but weaker at the top compared to last season. It's still early, but so far that appears how it's shaping up.

He clearly hasn't been the same after the injury. I'm not sure if it's physical, mental, or a combination of both.

We need to do better as a team of rebounding. They missed a total of 35 field goals. Of those St. Mary's got 20 offensive rebounds on their misses. That's just not a winning formula. Even if it means sacrificing fast break opportunities, we need all 5 defenders crashing the glass.

I didn't watch the game so I didn't want to comment, but that's how I imagine it played out. Teams generally get very conservative in the 4th quarter on both offense and defense to protect a big lead. Getting away from the things that built them that lead in the first 3 quarters. Allowing easy underneath completions and blitzing less on defense. On offense instead of taking shots down field, they look to run the ball or high percentage completions to both keep the clock running and to avoid costly turnovers that might allow the opposing team back into it.

Feed the hot hand. Draw a play for Scott.

Interesting to fire an OC in year 1 of a rebuild. We'll have to see what his next endeavor is. https://www.nfl.com/news/raiders-fire-oc-luke-getsy-following-blowout-loss-to-bengals-2-7-start-to-season

This reminds me of the Ralph Kiner story about his negotiations with the Pirates as a player. If we can finish last (or next to last) with them, we can certainly finish last without them. There isn't a player on this team I'd lose sleep over losing.

Turnovers have been a common theme that has plagued this team all season. The ability to deliver accurate passes, make good decisions under duress, and protecting the ball as a carrier are also skill sets. We are clearly less skilled than our opponents in those facets.

I didn't previously respond as I didn't want to feed the troll. Two bowl appearances in 7 years would get any coach fired from any program in the country. Heck, Louisiana Monroe canned him after 3 seasons.

I don't really think television money is a big factor at the MAC level to matter in this discussion. The MAC TV deal pays like $800k a year per school. A few years ago, if I recall correctly, there was a quote from Larry Williams saying we spends $10 million annually on football. I'm not even sure if that figure included the cost of Infocision financing. There is more revenue in football, but there is also a considerable amount of more overhead. Most mid-major programs are spending between $1.5-$4 million on their basketball programs. You also play 12-15 home games in basketball vs only 5-6 in football. Let's say you spend $3 million on basketball and play 15 home games. You would need to generate $200k revenue per home contest to hit your breakeven. If you play 6 home football games and need $9 million to breakeven (10 million-1 million for TV), you need to average $1.5 million in revenue per home game. Edit: This is a simplified version. Obviously there are other factors, like NCAA tournament credits, bowl payouts, etc that can reduce the real breakeven number. The point I was more trying to illustrate is that even though football is immensely more popular, it's very costly to run. That's why you see spring football leagues constantly fail. Even when the ratings are fairly decent. If you add NIL into the mix, the gap between funding a football team vs basketball team grows even further. It's much more manageable to pay 7-8 basketball players than it will be to pay 20-30 football players.

I'm not as optimistic. As I understand it ASU returns the core of their team and added a few key contributors. I'm not saying we can't win, but it will be an uphill on the road and being the first real game this core has played together.

I assumed that quote was from the Buffalo coach since his team was terrible and he's only been in the MAC for a season.

An interesting read from the article is that it sounds like top MAC players are fetching offers between $200k-$400k to play elsewhere. The MAC will likely remain top heavy moving forward as only about 4 schools seem to care about investing in it.

If we were running it back returning our starters, I'd understand this more. This is virtually an entirely new team in a sport where chemistry can overcome talent. It's going to take several months before this team realistically "peaks". These early season OOC games are when Groce needs to evaluate what rotations work and don't work.