Zipgrad01

Nobody ever said that he should be fired, but there are far too many kool aid drinkers on this site that are scared to be critical of him. If you think that I am off base with my evaluation of his recruiting then pull up the classes from 2013 and 2014 and show me what they have done to help this program. They have basically had zero impact.

Keener hits on what would be my main point. We were severely talent deficient at almost every position and yet not one freshman from last years class was capable of stepping on to the field. In contrast, Western Michigan came off a 1-11 season and crushed it in recruiting. They had freshman playmakers all over the field, including the MAC offensive player of the year. They went from 1-11 to a bowl team. Is Western a traditional power? Nope. Do they have better facilities? Not even close. Are they in a better recruiting area? Far from it!! Are their uniforms better? Nope. Is their coach better at recruiting? Ding ding we have a winner. He doesn't have some magic ferry recruiting dust. He is a young and energetic guy and comes up with stupid slogans and can talk players into believing in the future of their program. He has been at western as long as bowden has been here. The difference is he has dominated recruiting in the same time period while Bowden has fallen flat on his face. He has turned western into the program of the future in the MAC based off of player potential and we are still playing parlor tricks to try and get competitive guys on the field in order to compete. In a way, Fleck is the short, skinny and unattractive guy at the bar that can talk mad game and take home the hot chic that is way out of his league. Bowden is the old fat guy that talks about the glory days and how good looking he and his dad used to be and he is hoping the ugly chic that nobody wanted had enough to drink so that his pickup lines work. That might sound harsh, but this is Bowdens 3rd class and so far they have all stunk.

He is but an untouched block of clay, simply awaiting the magical hammer and chisel of Michaelangelo (Bowden) to transform him into the Megatron of the MAC.

I will say it in a different way....if we were an NFL team, our player procurement process would be skipping the draft and filling our team with free agents and undrafted rookies. Who would even remotely be open to that option? The fact is, our recruiting is awful. The coaches can give their speak all they want about not caring about how recruits are graded or who else is offering them. Baloney. In the end they are salesmen and they are going to give whatever talking job they have to in order to make people think that things are going as planned. He isn't going to come out and say "hey, come play for me. I cant beat out any other school for recruits, so you are my only choice". He has to stick with what he is selling until he can get some success to change his tune.

Meaningless??? It just so happens that all the teams at the bottom of the ranking are the worst teams in the country?

I was one of the ones that said that I was extremely concerned and it is for a very simple reason. If you can not get anyone worthwhile from your core recruiting area , NE Ohio or simply Ohio in general, to commit to your program then it is a major red flag! Bowden has stated that his core areas are Ohio, SE Michigan, western PA and Florida. We recruited almost exclusively from Florida. That is not good when you can't pull any players from 3 of your 4 hotbed areas. People can make excuses all they want, but the fact is offers were out there for kids in all these areas and we came away empty handed. Every school in the country recruits Florida. If we think that we are going to build classes by picking through the Florida leftovers then we are insane. Several of the kids that we got from Florida had no other offers, or if they did they were not from traditionally successful programs. The offer sheets matter more to me than the stars. But, when you scroll through our classes offer list you quickly see one of two things... 1. Not many other programs thought these guys were worthy of offering. 2. Bowden is just that much "smarter" than every other coach in America. i guess I can be considered one of the doubting thomases.

Where is captain obvious when you need him? 0-6 for FT's!!!! Ridiculous

What a joke

Sounds like Montel Jordan committed as well. Not 100% sure, but it looks good.

I got pissed when we were down by 4 and missed our shot. I turned it off.

Lol...wow...guess I shouldn't have checked out. How in the holy hell did we win?

Inexcusable to lose a game like this to a pathetic team. And people wonder why joe akron doesn't care.

According it 247sports also had an offer from UCF.

http://www.dnj.com/story/sports/college/mtsu/football/2015/01/21/mtsu-football-new-committments-national-signing-day/22141383/ As of the 22nd, he is still being reported as a MTSU commit.

I really like his tape. He could be a matchup nightmare as a tight end with his speed and athleticism.

Rivals has Vernon Walker as a solid commit to MTSU as of 1/18.

I have tried to block that out, but you just brought it back!!

No. There is an old saying..."So goes Ohio, so goes the Big Ten". Ohio has been the largest provider to Big Ten schools for years. We just get the scraps.

Yes. Several of them had no real offers. None of them have turned into superstars yet. We have a few decently rated Ohio players obviously, but there is no debating that we are struggling with Ohio high school recruiting.

You seem to hate on the guy so much that I often think that he gave the "Pohl" to your girlfriend.

That just made my blood boil. What a traitor!!

One more thing....no inside guy is bumping up his players ranking. They went from 1-11 to a bowl game with great young talent. He is killing bowden in recruiting and with results on the field.

If this is in fact true, it is not a good thing. These kids follow recruiting nowadays. It is a big to do like the NFL draft. What better way to advertise that nobody wants to play at your school? That is a terrible recruiting decision. Say whatever you want about PJ Fleck, but the recruits know that they are lighting it up in recruiting because of these services and kids want to go be a part of it. How would you feel if you were being recruited by Akron and when you looked them up on the recruiting services that they are currently ranked about 40th in 1-AA? Sign me up!!

Big difference...Deji is a legitimate D1 athlete. He struggled with his skills. Not all athletes have D1 skills. His time and effort in the gym are finally paying results where the two are finally meshing. Big Dog is not a legitimate D1 athlete. He is overweight, slow and can not jump. He also has at best borderline skills. Combine that with his lacking athleticism and I don't ever see him being a star at this level.