How do we feel about the state of the program now?

[xc84]

But what if we were 3 and NINE?!?!!?

ha...I get it. Now I am really bummed.

 

[tipphill]

I'd vote against any game with Rutgers. They should be left to sink to the bottom of the B1G.

You weren't alone on Penn.

Years ago I did some work at AMTRAK in Philly which seemed to be full of people who were previously with the Pennsylvania RR. Lots of them were Penn grads. And they were still highly-pissed that Penn had joined the Ivy League which had Penn significantly reduced Penn's athletic profile. They wanted Penn to be Northwestern, at worst and maybe Stanford. I thought of them as The Chuck Bednarik Fan Club.

AMTRAK at that time was like a throwback to the 1940's. Walnut paneled everything. Secretaries abounded. An Executive lunch room with white table cloths and white jacketed wait staff.

glad to hear that no man is an island

 

[Townie72]

This, an just about every other net forum, remind me of the Sunday political talk shows. You know. They are the one's on which a politician is asked a question and he/she responds with an answer to the question they wish they had been asked.

The OP asked how do we feel about the state of the program. A direct answer should have been ? Not very good".

If he had asked" What do you hope will happen?", lots of these responses would have been fine.

If he had asked, "What do you really think is going to happen next year and in the next few years? Some of these responses answered that question.

Maybe the right two questions ought to be 1) Where are we really? and 2) Can you live with that?

 

[MSOrange]

ha...I get it. Now I am really bummed.

Don't be! I wish I had your ability to forget losses like that

 

[DoctorBombay]

This, an just about every other net forum, remind me of the Sunday political talk shows. You know. They are the one's on which a politician is asked a question and he/she responds with an answer to the question they wish they had been asked.

The OP asked how do we feel about the state of the program. A direct answer should have been ? Not very good".

If he had asked" What do you hope will happen?", lots of these responses would have been fine.

If he had asked, "What do you really think is going to happen next year and in the next few years? Some of these responses answered that question.

Maybe the right two questions ought to be 1) Where are we really? and 2) Can you live with that?[/QUOTE

(3) And for how much longer?

 

[Townie72]

glad to hear that no man is an island

In order to understand that your suggestion about Penn wasn't crazy you needed to know some history.

The Ivy League was formed in the late 1940's not the 1860's. As you know, prior to this some of the Ivy League schools were big time football powers.

In 1951, Princeton had two first team All America's on the team and one of them won the Heisman Trophy. They played Army and Navy who were also Big Time.

You can imagine that the alumni of Penn who were used to big time opponents were not happy with a steady diet of playing Brown and Columbia.

 

[Townie72]

(3) And for how much longer?

Yep, you got it.

As I watch college football on TV, I am shocked at the gulf that has developed between the top schools and the rest of us. The SEC teams seem so fast, so athletic, so competent, that it's almost like the rest of the teams are playing AAA or AA ball.

Whereas we struggle to complete a pass, they never seem to drop one.

 

[TheCusian]

This, an just about every other net forum, remind me of the Sunday political talk shows. You know. They are the one's on which a politician is asked a question and he/she responds with an answer to the question they wish they had been asked.

The OP asked how do we feel about the state of the program. A direct answer should have been ? Not very good".

If he had asked" What do you hope will happen?", lots of these responses would have been fine.

If he had asked, "What do you really think is going to happen next year and in the next few years? Some of these responses answered that question.

Maybe the right two questions ought to be 1) Where are we really? and 2) Can you live with that?

Not exactly. Any response about the state of the program would and should include an honest opinion of where the program is headed. To borrow from your political example - The President uses the State of the Union to not only talk about what is - but also lays out what he or she would like to accomplish in the near or long term future. If you want to divorce the future trajectory from the conversation, you're right - it would be a quick and simple exercise. But that's a very narrow reading of the question.

To fix the OP - making it closer to what I think he was asking (not a narrow, uninteresting reading), I'd ask: Given the state of the program, what do you think the future holds?

And your "right questions" are lame. 1.) 3-9, with some good recruits coming in. 2.) Do I have a choice?

 

[Scooch]

In order to understand that your suggestion about Penn wasn't crazy you needed to know some history.

The Ivy League was formed in the late 1940's not the 1860's. As you know, prior to this some of the Ivy League schools were big time football powers.

In 1951, Princeton had two first team All America's on the team and one of them won the Heisman Trophy. They played Army and Navy who were also Big Time.

You can imagine that the alumni of Penn who were used to big time opponents were not happy with a steady diet of playing Brown and Columbia.

You're point has always been an interesting one to me. While the elite athletic institutions of the south, midwest and west were mostly large, public universities, in the northeast they were largely small, private schools. A huge historical reason why we currently have no northeast-based conference like other regions of the country enjoy is because most of those northeast schools de-emphasized sports.

Imagine if many of the Ivies and other northeastern private schools that were once had top-flight athletics decided to follow the path of, say, Stanford, or Duke, or Vanderbilt, or Northwestern? This sure would be an interesting league in 2015:

Syracuse
Boston College
Boston University
Pitt
Harvard
Yale
Dartmouth
Penn
Cornell
Columbia
Brown
Princeton
Holy Cross
Colgate

 

[OrangePA]

Based on what exactly? He didn't look any better in the spring game than he did 2 years ago. I'm afraid Hunt may have hit his ceiling. Question is, can Lester use his legs enough to keep defenses honest like 2 years ago? The offensive production was so bad in the spring game that I'm not convinced we can get back to a bowl this year.

I actually saw some good things from Hunt during the spring game.

The simplified offense - the additional experience - the development of the skill players around him - a healthy OL.

There are reasons to be optimistic.

 

[tipphill]

In order to understand that your suggestion about Penn wasn't crazy you needed to know some history.

The Ivy League was formed in the late 1940's not the 1860's. As you know, prior to this some of the Ivy League schools were big time football powers.

In 1951, Princeton had two first team All America's on the team and one of them won the Heisman Trophy. They played Army and Navy who were also Big Time.

You can imagine that the alumni of Penn who were used to big time opponents were not happy with a steady diet of playing Brown and Columbia.

i knew the history,penn was power for years until the late 50's, i thought it would be a great market and recruiting area to say nothing about the academics. my daughter went to penn, thats how i ended up researching them.

 

[Millhouse]

I actually saw some good things from Hunt during the spring game.

The simplified offense - the additional experience - the development of the skill players around him - a healthy OL.

There are reasons to be optimistic.

read option for the running game, keep drives alive with his feet on third down, even a little improvement passing, new OC finally learning the purpose of bubble screens (hopefully), bigger targets in the red zone

the offense doesn't have to be horrid. i don't expect it to be good but it can be better than making me hate myself for watching.

i worry that the defense might fall off while as the offense picks up. last year's defense was 27th. hard to believe. if the offense gets better, opposing offenses will take more normal risks and our defense will suffer for it

we should do stat prediction threads in addition to the w/l one (rankings or yards per game or yards per play on both sides)

 

[Chip]

read option for the running game, keep drives alive with his feet on third down, even a little improvement passing, new OC finally learning the purpose of bubble screens (hopefully), bigger targets in the red zone

the offense doesn't have to be horrid. i don't expect it to be good but it can be better than making me hate myself for watching.

i worry that the defense might fall off while as the offense picks up. last year's defense was 27th. hard to believe. if the offense gets better, opposing offenses will take more normal risks and our defense will suffer for it

we should do stat prediction threads in addition to the w/l one (rankings or yards per game or yards per play on both sides)

Agree that if the opposing offense has to play 60 minutes of football, instead of just worrying about us scoring 7, the defense will suffer for it. But in addition on D, it's a lot of new faces. Granted, people pick things up quicker on D, and you can have more confidence in our staff/style on D, but still... There's only so much you can lose without some dropoff.

Have to win 4 of those first 5, then figure out 2 more somewhere. I think it's hard to expect more than that.

 

[Townie72]

Not exactly. Any response about the state of the program would and should include an honest opinion of where the program is headed. To borrow from your political example - The President uses the State of the Union to not only talk about what is - but also lays out what he or she would like to accomplish in the near or long term future. If you want to divorce the future trajectory from the conversation, you're right - it would be a quick and simple exercise. But that's a very narrow reading of the question.

To fix the OP - making it closer to what I think he was asking (not a narrow, uninteresting reading), I'd ask: Given the state of the program, what do you think the future holds?

And your "right questions" are lame. 1.) 3-9, with some good recruits coming in. 2.) Do I have a choice?

By not constraining yourself to the "narrow reading of the question", you are giving yourself latitude to answer whatever question you feel like answering (or pontificating about).

And you are seriously comparing a request for comments on the state of a football program with the President's State of the Union Message? Get a grip on reality, please.

 

[TheCusian]

read option for the running game, keep drives alive with his feet on third down, even a little improvement passing, new OC finally learning the purpose of bubble screens (hopefully), bigger targets in the red zone the offense doesn't have to be horrid. i don't expect it to be good but it can be better than making me hate myself for watching. i worry that the defense might fall off while as the offense picks up. last year's defense was 27th. hard to believe. if the offense gets better, opposing offenses will take more normal risks and our defense will suffer for it we should do stat prediction threads in addition to the w/l one (rankings or yards per game or yards per play on both sides)

Agree. I'm worried about our secondary when a team needs to air it out. I think our run D will be very good. I have faith in our D-line and young LB's

 

[TheCusian]

By not constraining yourself to the "narrow reading of the question", you are giving yourself latitude to answer whatever question you feel like answering (or pontificating about). And you are seriously comparing a request for comments on the state of a football program with the President's State of the Union Message? Get a grip on reality, please.

1. If the original question is too narrow, why shouldn't it expand to make it worthy of discussion?

2. I believe that the "state of the program" can include a look at where we are now and a look at where you think we are going.

3. You compared this thread to Sunday morning "Meet the Press" shows, no?

 

[Millhouse]

Agree that if the opposing offense has to play 60 minutes of football, instead of just worrying about us scoring 7, the defense will suffer for it. But in addition on D, it's a lot of new faces. Granted, people pick things up quicker on D, and you can have more confidence in our staff/style on D, but still... There's only so much you can lose without some dropoff.

Have to win 4 of those first 5, then figure out 2 more somewhere. I think it's hard to expect more than that.

tougher conference makes 6 wins the new 8.

17 of the prior years had an easier strength of schedule than 2014.

 

[javadoc]

I rate it a "buy". Get in on the ground floor. You're going to need a casita to hold the accumulated earnings.

 

[Townie72]

1. If the original question is too narrow, why shouldn't it expand to make it worthy of discussion?

2. I believe that the "state of the program" can include a look at where we are now and a look at where you think we are going.

3. You compared this thread to Sunday morning "Meet the Press" shows, no?

Here's an idea ... Ask the question you actually want answered. Don't be intellectually lazy.

The other side of that is posters should answer the question that was asked and not the one they are prepared to pontificate on. (Which is pretty much what they do on "Meet the Press".

You might well ask, "What does it matter?"

Well, if people drove people to ask the right kind of questions by answering what they asked, it would certainly improve the quality of some of these threads that splinter off in all sorts of direction such that there are two or three or four unrelated conversations going on. (Admittedly, that's exactly what I am doing with this nonsense I am spouting. I have zero expectations that my complaining will cause a single person on here to not talk about what they feel like talking about no matter how remotely connected it is to the thread title.)

And finally, comparing the answering tactics of posters on here to the pols on the Sunday talk shows and the structure of the State of the Union speech is a huge leap. It's like comparing a fist fight outside a bar on South Salina St with the Civil War. They are both conflicts, but the scale and importance are different.

 

[TheCusian]

Here's an idea ... Ask the question you actually want answered. Don't be intellectually lazy. The other side of that is posters should answer the question that was asked and not the one they are prepared to pontificate on. (Which is pretty much what they do on "Meet the Press". You might well ask, "What does it matter?" Well, if people drove people to ask the right kind of questions by answering what they asked, it would certainly improve the quality of some of these threads that splinter off in all sorts of direction such that there are two or three or four unrelated conversations going on. (Admittedly, that's exactly what I am doing with this nonsense I am spouting. I have zero expectations that my complaining will cause a single person on here to not talk about what they feel like talking about no matter how remotely connected it is to the thread title.) And finally, comparing the answering tactics of posters on here to the pols on the Sunday talk shows and the structure of the State of the Union speech is a huge leap. It's like comparing a fist fight outside a bar on South Salina St with the Civil War. They are both conflicts, but the scale and importance are different.

It's an imperfect board, brother. Filled with imperfect people. Posting imperfect things.

I for one am glad people took it away from the initial question. It was more interesting.

You're smarter than this - comparing two things doesn't mean that they hold the same importance (as you showed in your initial comparison). Just that there are things about the two that are alike. The truth is that the State of The Union is very much like an Apple Keynote (here's where we've been, here's where we're going) which is very much like many annual shareholder meetings which is maybe distantly related to this threads initial question. They are all asking "this is how it is now, this is where we think we're headed."

 

[tipphill]

townie, like it or not we compete against ru for recruits. they do have the big 10 now and it would be a great rivalry for us . please do not deny that they are a player in the ne east we did that already and lost BIG in terms of recruiting. the key is to out recruit them. we need to recognize the opponent and not UNDERESTIMATE THEM, as we did in the past. imho, the future lies with the chancellor and the direction he takes. its either big time or less. if less, i'll see you at colgate--pretty campus ---we lost many stl's last year, myself included---the worst is that we lost many townies who are the lifes blood of the saturday crowd--week in and out. you cannot deny ru existence w/o damaging our impact. face it, attack it, after all they made a better showing than we did last year

 

[billsin01]

This, an just about every other net forum, remind me of the Sunday political talk shows. You know. They are the one's on which a politician is asked a question and he/she responds with an answer to the question they wish they had been asked.

The OP asked how do we feel about the state of the program. A direct answer should have been ? Not very good".

If he had asked" What do you hope will happen?", lots of these responses would have been fine.

If he had asked, "What do you really think is going to happen next year and in the next few years? Some of these responses answered that question.

Maybe the right two questions ought to be 1) Where are we really? and 2) Can you live with that?

This. How do I feel about the program (original question)? Awful. Where are we really? Light years away from competing for anything relevant. Can you live with that? I guess.

My biggest gripe with the program has to do more with the state of college football -- if they aren't going to spend like crazy, which I agree is ludicrous, then they aren't really going to compete at a high level with any sort of consistency. *good* years will still be irrelevant to the broader world of college football.

Can this program somehow get back to being borderline top 25 every couple years? Probably, but that feels a long ways away and i'm not sure how great that is since that still feels well short of winning an ACC title, let alone sniffing the playoff.

I'm not trying to be debbie downer (perhaps I am that naturally), but I just think the Orange are fighting a massive uphill battle to approach true relevance in football.

 

[Townie72]

This. How do I feel about the program (original question)? Awful. Where are we really? Light years away from competing for anything relevant. Can you live with that? I guess.

My biggest gripe with the program has to do more with the state of college football -- if they aren't going to spend like crazy, which I agree is ludicrous, then they aren't really going to compete at a high level with any sort of consistency. *good* years will still be irrelevant to the broader world of college football.

Can this program somehow get back to being borderline top 25 every couple years? Probably, but that feels a long ways away and i'm not sure how great that is since that still feels well short of winning an ACC title, let alone sniffing the playoff.

I'm not trying to be debbie downer (perhaps I am that naturally), but I just think the Orange are fighting a massive uphill battle to approach true relevance in football.

You and I are pretty much in agreement.

Coming back to where we were in the 90's is going to be much more difficult than it was in the late 1980's. Too many things are working against us.. SU is now just one of many Northeastern schools trying to get visibility and recruit from the same relatively shallow talent pool.

I don;t think money spent has as much to do with it as others appear to. NCAA rules on total scholarships, number of coaches, etc. negate much of that.

 

[AZOrange]

Crusty I feel terrible about the State of the program. It's barely enjoyable. Last year was not at all. And the problem was widespread. There were 1000 posts on coaching v talent v scheme and in reality it's all of those things. The staff so far seems like the JV. At least with Doug I felt hopeful (and I don't think he did all that well). Talent wise there is some hope in the wrs. But the lines and qb have been awful and you have to have that at this level.

And I don't get the scheme or playcalling at all. No setups, no direction, no mismatches. Just throwing darts.

So yeah...***k it...I suppose I will have hope for a week or two this year.

 

[billsin01]

You and I are pretty much in agreement.

Coming back to where we were in the 90's is going to be much more difficult than it was in the late 1980's. Too many things are working against us.. SU is now just one of many Northeastern schools trying to get visibility and recruit from the same relatively shallow talent pool.

I don;t think money spent has as much to do with it as others appear to. NCAA rules on total scholarships, number of coaches, etc. negate much of that.

I'm not so much in the 'we don't have money we'll never win again' camp, but I do think it adds a degree of difficulty. Not so much that we don't have money to spend, but we're a team playing in a small, really outdated stadium with a pretty thin fan base and a pretty bland game-day atmosphere. We will have an IPF, supposedly, but I'd guess not one to compete with the big boys. Meanwhile Alabama will probably spend $7M to dig up Vince Lombardi so recruits can take pics with a stuffed lombardi on the sidelines.