GP1

BOOM!

Georgia Southern, Appalachian State and Marshall all have wins against P5 schools. So do we in our wins against NC State and Northwestern. All of us have really ugly loses against many more P5 schools that far out number the wins. The point isn't to either play the games or not. The point is to limit your exposure. One beat down a year is enough. I give tDon Draper highlighting the importance of limiting your exposure. https://youtu.be/jWbyoUAEJ4E

I respect the attitude, but I will explain why the athletic directors cannot allow the players to overly influence these decisions. One of the last things to complete development in the human body is the brain. Specifically, the part of the brain that allows us to fully understand the long term consequences of our choices. This part of the brain does not stop developing until the age of 25. We are capable of understanding right from wrong, but not fully the long term consequences. With that said, the athletic directors must make the long term decisions that best support their employers, and more importantly those who are not fully capable of understanding their decisions. Unfortunately, they simply haven't in the case of the MAC and the results prove this out.

I don't trust MAC athletic directors to work in the best interest of their employers. Until I see different I will continue interpreting their statements in this manner.

Interesting he says winning and money are equal in importance in scheduling. They aren't. Actually , I would ask, for whom? See, he is asking us to believe ongoing failure is acceptable as long as it is balanced out with money. Winning leads to more winning and the Sun Belt is proving that out. Money leads to athletic directors destroying their employers in an effort to get another job. Essentially he is asking people to accept losing in exchange for athletic directors getting better jobs. My memory isn't clear. Did he make a scheduling decision this year and what was that decision?

Oh, Akron plays at Liberty. I could not bring myself to care about our moronic and self destructive schedule to check.

I was at the Liberty vs. Wake game yesterday. Here are my thoughts about Liberty. Offense If I needed to describe their offense yesterday, it would be in two words: opportunistic and talented. Opportunistic - To be fair, their offense made some mistakes in the first half and that probably cost them the game. Now, in the second half they took what was in front of them and moved the ball great. Had they been more opportunistic, and probably adjusted to what Wake was doing faster in the first half, ESPNU would be talking about another G5 school upsetting a P5 school. Their run game moves the ball on first down and makes it easier to move the ball. Their QB is smart about when and when not to run. Talented - They have some burners at WR who also make good catches. After the catch, they are very shifty. Very reliable group. They have a decent offensive line. After halftime they were able to slow down Wake's rush and move the ball better. The QB was still under pressure, but not under siege. Their offensive line is the weakest part of their offense, but still a good group. If the offense Liberty put on the field in the second half shows up in Akron next week, they will hang 50 on the Zips. Defense My word description for this group would be: focused. They came to Winston-Salem with a game plan to stop Wake's running game and not give up a flood of big plays. I think they accomplished both. Liberty held Wake to 26 yards rushing on 21 carries. Wake lives and dies with the Sam Hartman to A.T. Perry combination down field. Everyone knows Hartman by now, but a lot don't know Perry. He is a very tall WR destined for the NFL and destroys teams downfield. Liberty held him to 33 yards on 4 catches. Wake could have done a better job of throwing some intermediate passes, but that isn't the nature of their offense so they were forcing the ball downfield a lot even though Liberty decided those plays would not beat them. In the second half, this group played great. For most of the second half, Wake's offense was confused and out of sync. Liberty also forced two interceptions out of a QB not prone to throwing them. Their defensive line made Wake's look like what I think they really are, average. They got just enough pressure on Hartman to throw off his game. I hope the Zips do something to move the pocket around against this group. Their first down defense was great. Zips need to find a way to move the ball on first down more consistently than Wake did. Special Teams Their biggest success was a blocked punt through the end zone resulting in a safety. On kick offs, they had a lot of success retuning to their left so the Zips need to watch out for that. Liberty's PK has a huge leg and can easily place kickoffs through the back of the end zone. He also made a +50 yard FG with relative ease for a college kicker. Coaching Going into halftime, it was something like 20-8 in favor of Wake. I really thought with Wake getting the ball to start the second half and their ability to move the ball late in the first, the game would quickly get out of hand and a sold out homecoming crowd could head to the bars early. Whatever they did, it worked. Actually, I think "whatever" was just Liberty playing better. Their offense is extremely creative and they are well coached in it. The two things I would be upset about today if I was a Liberty fan were: the decision to go for two with 1:10 remaining in the game and the play call. Liberty had a ton of confidence and momentum. I would have tied the game, gone into overtime and trusted my team. Second, they ran a form of the "Philly Special" for their two point play. I don't like trick plays to begin with and I hate them with the game on the line. I would have passed and given my QB, who was playing great at the time, a couple of options in the end zone and allowed him to make a decision. If the play would have broken down he had great legs and could have run in if the opportunity presented itself. I have seats on the 50 (actually, the 48) and could see from my view the play had no shot from the start. Too slow developing and Wake played disciplined defense on the play and had it well covered. The WR had no shot to do anything with the ball. I just felt like the decision and play were a form of desperation and they were too in control of the game for desperation.

Ignore them. SEC fans are the biggest pack of crybabies on the planet.

MSU hasn't won west of the Rocky Mountains since 1953.

I can't. Fixed. Thanks for pointing out.

In the 80s and 90s, they had an impressive and obvious steroid program.

Solid team all the way around, but not world beaters. I think you'll see a team similar in talent to MSU. Winning against Florida will be the difference between them finishing 3rd or 4th in the SEC East. This week could very well be a look-ahead game and a bit of a let-down game after a nail biter in overtime the week before. I would mix in a lot of back-up players in anticipation for the SEC starting. They have two winnable games after Akron against UofF and at LSU...then Alabama in Knoxville. It would be pretty tempting to play a risk free game if I was the TN coach and set myself up for a potential great start to SEC play. I'd take the Zips +48.5.

Nebraska has become the Arizona State of the Big Ten only ASU has less of a history and Nebraska has monumentally better fans.

Yes. Play one money game, one G5 and one FCS. 9 conference games.

https://sportsenthusiasts.net/2021/12/15/how-the-sun-belt-conference-football-membership-has-evolved-since-2001/ Good article on SunBelt expansion over the years.

So, you are saying my argument is incorrect and the changes the Sun Belt has implemented to their scheduling is not the correct thing to do? You're focused on the wrong things. This is one of the mistake MAC fans have been making for decades. If you want to the MAC to be viewed at as better than it currently is, Mack's mention of Buffalo on Monday Night Football has NOTHING to do with it. It's the "exposure" argument that has helped harm the league and prevented us from even becoming a Sun Belt. I'm not saying don't play P5. Play 1 per year. Win that one and people will talk as long as you don't get waxed by 1-2 other P5 schools. Everyone misses this point.....You don't go from starting the season 1-3, while playing 3 PF schools and 1 FCS, every year to 2-2 or 3-1 without breaking the lunacy of the scheduling disaster MAC athletic directors give MAC schools. For example, if you play 1 P5, 2 G5 and 1 FCS, there is a good chance of starting the season 2-2 unless you are really bad. 2-2 provides momentum and that extra win for a lot of teams is the difference between going to a bowl game and a winning season or not. Bowl games and winning count more than Mack's mention on Monday Night Football. Every few years, a team can go from 2-2 to 3-1 or even 4-0 with a win against a P5 school. It's rare, but can happen and we saw it last weekend. Winning starts with smart scheduling. I don't know why this isn't as obvious to you as it was to the Sun Belt and me. Other than money, there is no reason for Akron to play two P5 schools in a season at this point. If you are enamored with losing as much as some on this board seem to be, how about a 35-31 loss to a G5 school in lieu of a 52-0 drubbing by a P5 school. Isn't the game at least more interesting or are the blowouts too appealing? Did anyone actually watch the crap in East Lansing until the end of the game Saturday? If you did, you need immediate psychiatric attention. Marshall is not in the sun belt and I mentioned that above. ODU is in the sun belt as well as JMU.

When Alabama plays OOC on the road, they run the risk of referees actually calling the endless pass interference penalties they commit. Alabama does the same thing the Seattle Seahawks did the year they cheated their way to a Super Bowl. They committed so many pass interference penalties on almost every pass in every game, the referees couldn't possibly call every penalty so they just stopped after the first quarter. The next season the refs actually did their jobs and guess which would be dynasty went one and done in Super Bowls?

I remember a "dancer bar" in Norton called The Nest. They always ran advertisements in the ABJ and I laugh about them with a guy here in the Carolinas from Norton. He clearly remembers the ads said, "Swings, Polls. My Girls Do It All".

Yes. Get rid of Buffalo. I'll trade a conference that knows it's identity. I'm not sure how one player keeps the MAC relevant in the NFL talent discussion, but believe what you want to believe. Living here in the Carolinas, nobody every says, "Ah, you went to Akron. Didn't Khalil Mack play in the MAC". Seriously, nobody has ever said that to me. App States wins are interesting evidence to remain in our current scheduling disaster. Their one time success is an outlier, not the norm for almost all G5 schools. Big picture says current G5 scheduling practices are horrible for their conference and the Sun Belt proved it. Winning makes for winning programs. They have grown with the addition of schools....in the sun belt. Get it?

I don't know.

Are you listening to the former Sun Belt commissioner discuss the conference? The MAC could learn a lot from the discussion. My biggest takeaway is the importance of university presidents in that conference buying into changes in scheduling that don't result in teams starting the season 1-3 every year, and how that leads to more winning and the importance of winning over money. Basically, money doesn't create winning. Winning creates a momentum the results in more winning. Success in college football for G5 schools is about winning, not gobbling up money. MAC schools have scheduling all wrong. In fact, how the MAC schedules is in direct contradiction to winning. What was the key to scheduling changes for the Sun Belt you ask? Easy..... They encouraged schools to abandon the following scheduling method: 2-3 money games and one FCS team to start the season. Replaced that failing model with: 1 money game, 2 G5 games and one FCS. Georgia Southern has a schedule like this that creates a winning culture....how did that work for them last weekend? Marshall has a schedule like this that creates a winning culture.....how did that work out for them last weekend? App State has a schedule close to this.....how did that work out for them last weekend? Sun Belt Conference membership model does not involve admitting teams just because you think it's a good idea or the fans are bored with the current state. It purposefully brings in teams specifically in the footprint of the southeast with the exception of Marshall. The MAC is a midwest conference and with the exception of Buffalo, who could hit the bricks and nobody would care, the conference should stay that way. If you want a successful midwest conference at the G5 level in the midwest, keep Western Kentucky and MTSU out of the league. Get rid of Buffalo and shrink the size of the league and it will be better off for it.

Purpose of this topic is to discuss games during the ongoing 2022 season. Last weekend was awesome for college football on a multitude of levels. Recommendation. Full Ride is about to air on XM Radio 84. Rick Neuheisel is a brilliant commentator. It's about to start. If you can listen and aren't, adjust your schedule.

Out of curiosity, while they got destroyed, did they at least play better?

I'm going with more than 4 scores while at the same time predicting the Zips play better than last weekend. If MSU gets up early, it could be a long day for the Zips. MSU goes to Seattle next weekend to play Washington. They need to get their starters in game shape for a 4 quarter game next weekend so I don't see them calling off the dogs, regardless of the score, until the end of the 3rd quarter. In fact, with the exception of Maryland, their schedule is pretty brutal through the end of October. I like the 9 game Big Ten schedule. It is a sign of a conference confident in the product they are selling. Call me crazy, but I think the MAC is offering a good product and I'd like to see them do the same.

"until then" is 4 seasons away. Think about how much has changed in the last two. Is it so far out of the world of reality to believe they couldn't narrow college football at the highest level down to 30:40 teams? It's entirely possible and they are heading that way. So, what access do the rest have right now? The answer is, zero. The people at the television networks currently running college football don't give a hoot about anything other than maximizing shareholder profits. These people are much smarter than the athletic directors they are currently running over. Does anyone really think these monsters care about what happens to G5 schools? It's time to wake up before it's too late.