mrelegazna

This is going to expose me as a filthy casual, but I see that the below scholarship players (according to the chart on the recruiting board) did not play tonight. Can someone tell me which of these guys are injured, redshirting this year, or DNP-CD? Zachary Halligan Cody Head Halil Barre Rich Brisco Eric Mahaffey Tai Perkins Josh Henderson

I just wanna say this: I think college football will be fine, and I don't think NIL is ruining college football; I actually think it's good. First and foremost to my "college football will be fine" claim is that I believe that kids want to play. That is to say, I think the number of kids who are happy to sit on the bench, get that sweet NIL $, and jeopardize their potential pro dreams is negligible. I also think schools willing to pay benchwarmers just to keep them away from other programs is also negligible. So while we hate that the big $ schools seize the best g5 and poor p5 players, the opposite also happens: players not getting a shot at Blueblood U are transferring to smaller programs because they want to play, first and foremost. So I think that the talent transfer works both ways in a way that basically makes it not very different than it was before NIL, or at least before the advent of the transfer portal. It might even create more parity, because making it harder to transfer, well, made fewer kids transfer! Kids that, hypothetically, might've busted out in a different/better situation. Finally, just on a philosophical level, I think players should be renumerated for being the core component of the multibillion dollar beast that is college football. These are young adults, but they are adults, and I don't hold them with cynicism ("these are just a bunch of spoiled, entitled punks!") or contempt. We wouldn't tell a programming whiz kid looking at options that he oughta be happy with a free education, or that his options for profiting off his talents should be limited until he is a bit older. That's because a lot of us inherently respect a college-age computer programmer more than a college football player, and therefore are more comfortable giving him options and more independence than a college football player. I don't think that's right, though.

You're right. And we finally have a tip time (7PM) and network (ESPN+).

Jay Norvell at Colorado State is another preposterous one. 6-1 in conference last year, best they've done in 22 years. 8 wins total, best in 10 years. Starts this year 2-5, 1-2 conference, gets fired. GMAFB.

Hello!

So Billy Napier was just fired after a WIN over Mississippi State, which considering I don't have any fandom or feelings for Florida (except slightly negative ones), has me pretty angry. First of all, while I'm sure UF fans and brass feel you need to blowout teams like Mississippi State, they are in fact pretty significantly improved, with a win over #24 Arizona State and taking #17 Tennessee to OT. Second of all, Florida's results, while disappointing, aren't DISASTROUS. Every team they lost to is in the top 20. They beat Texas worse than the consensus #1. Because no one can think for themselves, everyone is now following the lead of Penn State (and I mildly disagree with Franklin's firing too, but will absolutely concede their season had turned disastrous) and now there's been this whole slew of mid-season firings. Maybe they see what happened at UCLA (which is dumb; the plural of anecdote is not data) and think they too might be world-beaters after firing their coach mid-season. Mid-season firings IMO should be reserved for on-field disasters or off-field inexcusable stuff. I don't want to hear a single Florida mucky-muck complain about it being too easy for kids to transfer. The one bulwark you have against that is coaching stability. You CANNOT have an itchy trigger finger when it comes to firing coaches.

Maybe too much of one, considering what he's done in all other seasons post Kansas State? He did it as a #7 seed too, which on one hand, is more impressive than doing it with a #1 seed, but on the other hand, if you're saying it means he's an elite coach still, you're saying the four games he won in the 2017 speak more to how good of a coach he is than the the other 408 games he's coached since leaving KSU.

Well, my concern is for the availability of MAC games as a whole. All MAC homes games, except some against D2 or lower teams, have been on ESPN+ (or cable TV stations) on ESPN+ for a few years now. Most games in this MAC vs. SBC challenge do not feature top programs and as such, I would hope would already be on the ESPN+ "schedule," but they are not yet, which makes me nervous, like some contractual thing still has to be hammered out or resolved, and what if it doesn't? That's why I'm asking if anyone knows the length of the MAC agreement with ESPN. As far as this game specifically goes, I think you're overselling how much interest this is going to get from cable TV networks. If it's on ESPNU, it will have to work around Florida Atlantic at Boston College at 7 (already on the schedule), and if it's on CBSSN, it will have to work around Lehigh at Houston at 8 (ditto). I actually think ESPN and CBSSN both actually do a pretty good job of giving mid and low majors some love, but not really until conference play is underway and they have some idea who are the top dogs in each conference. Until then, they want games that involve at least one high major for the most part. I would be shocked if this game landed on ESPN2.

Speaking of which, it sure is making me nervous that we're in the eleventh hour here and MAC home games STILL aren't being listed on ESPN+ on sites that track that stuff, in contrast to similar and worse conferences. The MAC's deal with ESPN properties is still active, right? I sure would hate it if we couldn't find a streaming home, or worse, ended up on FloSports.

Not sure I agree with the bolded part. In ten years at South Carolina and three at UMass, he has zero NCAA tournament appearances outside the 2017 Final Four run, and he he's 26 games under .500 in league play in those 13 years. My feeling is, he gets more hype than others because he's a Bobby Knight-esque tough guy (minus serious transgressions like choking players). A lot of people love that type, a lot of people hate that type, and so the media is eager to cover him; he drives eyeballs.

Correction, and trivia: There's at least two other country outside of North American that do: The Philippines, and South Korea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-League_(basketball) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_basketball_in_the_Philippines

I was so confused by this post, and was going to ask for clarity on it, and then I got the joke just in time.

Good to know this is simply all Joe's fault, because it means once he's gone, and we hire a decent replacement, poof! Problem solved! I love easy answers! Sarcasm aside, unfortunately like most problems this big they are also complex, with no easy answers (I watch a lot of docs and shows about plane crashes and other man-made disasters, and it is almost NEVER a single cause or issue, it's always a chain or series of them) or single scapegoats. Not just with respect to Joe, but Nemer - I don't think that just because he made a PR statement that contains PR instead of details and wonk means he doesn't care about the problem and/or is ill-equipped to fix (or is secretly fine with it because it will help him cut or drop down the program). Maybe time will tell that he IS incompetent and/or anti-football, but let's give him the benefit of the doubt until we have a lot better reason to feel otherwise. We're just gonna have to be patient, because this isn't getting fixed overnight nor does it seem Joe will be out the door before the season starts.

(First, sorry to dredge up something 4 weeks old and 3-4 topics ago) You know who else did this last year? IU Indy. Brought in the successful coach of the University of Indianapolis. Had ten new guys, 5 of which were from his last UIndy squad, 4 others from DII/Jucos, and a lone D1 transfer. The result? An improvement in league play from 2-18 to 6-14. I find this fascinating, and telling. With the right coaching, you can even do decently in D1 with quote-unquote D2 guys. It's made me pull for them.

Came here to say this. That's what makes this so g_d d_mn embarrassing. I guess no other school has done this poorly on APR since Idaho in 2014? (and miss me with arguments amounting to, "Everyone cheats but us"). And in spite of this, we're also among the worst teams ON the field too, post-Bowden! This all points to not just badness, but downright incompetence. We can only hope Nemer, Goodrich and any other relevant newbloods are competent. What a fun thing to root for. Just be competent. Yay. And despite all this, I do too. Even if we get some serious miracle workers in place, it'll still take a long time. In the meantime, my goals as a fan for this season and the ones in the foreseeable future are "don't be in the conversation for worst team in the MAC" and "Don't be so bad academically that were banned from post-season." Again, yay.

Is this, like, a "if I have no expectations I can't get disappointed" type deal?

Most of you guys are better than X's and O's stuff than I am, but in looking at form and expectations: BAD: Arizona was T3rd in what I think was the second toughest conference in the country, beating their preseason expectations. BAD: Made the finals in the conference tourney, too. GOOD: Finished the regular season 3-5 in their last 8. 5-6 in their last 11 if you include the conference tourney. GOOD: Failed to beat single high major or tournament team in their non-conference schedule.

CBS: How did UNC get into the field? Committee Talking Head: Well, because Memphis beat UAB. If they hadn't, UAB and Memphis would both be in and UNC would be the first team out. CBS (Jay Wright): Great answer. LOL, what an absolute cop-out of a non-answer, which of course gets him a pat on the back from his TV bedfellows. So gross. Just go ahead and declare the 20 or 30 teams that the richest conferences, schools, and TV execs want and call the winner of that tournament the national champion.

in 2019, Buffalo made it all the way up to a #6 seed from the MAC with THREE regular season losses, although their OOC resume included beating two high majors, including to-be-#9 seed Syracuse.

That would mean only one loss all year, right? Even as much as the committee hates mid-majors, I think that would get us all the way to an 8 or a 9.

According to bracket aggregator bracketmatrix, who is currently tracking 111 brackets, 9 have us as a 14 seed. The other 102 all have us as a 13 seed. I think I know what seed we're gonna get! http://www.bracketmatrix.com/

Came here to post this. Unbidden, too. He wasn't asked, "who are some dark horses to look out for?" He was just riffing in general. 👍

They think the refs and announcers we're against them. Of course, every fanbase thinks that, but we're the only ones correct about it.

The Zips held Miami to just 7 points in the last 10:50 and just 4 points in the last 8:32.

As an extra FU, the NIT selection show the next day on ESPNU went to their first commercial saying, "Coming up, find out who ABC U, XYZ State, and AKRON will be playing in the NIT (little Akron highlight montage plays)!" And then we weren't selected at all. Anyone else remember that? 26-7 and no post-season. For any newer fans or young'uns....besides Middleton, that team was lead by Romeo Travis and Dru Joyce III, two local Akron kids (high school teammates of LeBron) that were charismatic, likeable and so, so, so good. This was before the CBI and other smaller post-season tourneys existed. I haven't loved a Zip team as much as I loved that one.