HUNTINGTON – Mike Hamrick is baffled, and to be honest, disappointed.

Hamrick, Marshall’s veteran director of athletics, has heard little but backlash from much of the Herd fan base in the aftermath of last week’s announcement of a signed home-and-home football series with Appalachian State.

He said the notion that Marshall would work a home-and-home deal (for the 2021 and 2022 seasons) with a program that isn’t competitive isn’t fair to his alma mater and a football program in which he once played — much less Appalachian State.

Hamrick said the disgruntlement is as misguided as the notion expressed by some Herd fans … that ASU is a Southern Conference program, “so why would we play a home-and-home with someone below us (in the FCS)?”

http://herdinsider.com/football/hamrick-...e-20153361

Hamrick should realize that the issue is not with App. State, far from it. Its how he lead fans on with a tweet a few days before the announcement basically saying - 'EXCITING scheduling news coming for Herd fans." With the way it was worded and with his efforts to court P5 schools to start a series with us, many Herd fans felt an announcement was eminent that we had scheduled a 1-1 or 2-1 with a P5 school - the message boards ran wild with speculation.
When it was announced it was Appy, many fans were in fact disappointed it wasn't a P5 but not mad that it was Appy.

Most are angry with his tweeting something to purposely build up the excitement. He should have handled it better. Next time he would be well advised to stay off Twitter and just make a formal announcement. If that had been done in this case, many would have been very accepting and acknowledged a quality opponent that is App. St. -as they should have.

Clearly Hamrick's definition of exciting is different from the fanbase's definition. Mincing words and being a little sneaky is one thing, but this just shows disconnect.

(06-30-2015 03:24 PM)SVHerd Wrote:  Hamrick should realize that the issue is not with App. State, far from it. Its how he lead fans on with a tweet a few days before the announcement basically saying - 'EXCITING scheduling news coming for Herd fans." With the way it was worded and with his efforts to court P5 schools to start a series with us, many Herd fans felt an announcement was eminent that we had scheduled a 1-1 or 2-1 with a P5 school - the message boards ran wild with speculation.
When it was announced it was Appy, many fans were in fact disappointed it wasn't a P5 but not mad that it was Appy.

Most are angry with his tweeting something to purposely build up the excitement. He should have handled it better. Next time he would be well advised to stay off Twitter and just make a formal announcement. If that had been done in this case, many would have been very accepting and acknowledged a quality opponent that is App. St. -as they should have.

Isn't that fairly normal for AD's to overhype games on Twitter? Our administration does it all the time before we end up announcing some AAC or MWC opponent no one cares about (No offense to UNLV and SMU). I mean, the idea and the goal is to sell tickets...when you try to sell tickets for games that don't mean much for your fans, you have to get creative.

I guess the only thing he could have done was clarified it was a G5 opponent...

LOL

SVHerd, to correct, Hamrick did not hype this announcement... A Charleston sportswriter announced a home and home was coming the morning if the announcement, so any perceived hype was inferred by you on this one.

I am going to state why I perceive this is happening. When Hamrick first took the position, he said he heard from fans that they wished there was more local teams like Ohio, Miami, and Louisville on he schedule. So he went out and got them, got Pitt, got NcState, and a few other MAC schools. So, he applied similar logic to Appy State, thinking here's a team with history, not terrible travel, and the fans will generally like it... So he probably expect a similar reaction to when he announced the Miami of Ohio series...

... except Marshall fans quit reminiscing about the SoCon days long ago. It actually feels like a step back to a page we walked away from. Appy fans started throwing out trash talk from 20 years, and it just doesn't have meaning today and is a history that most are not exactly excited to revisit.

You better beat 'em or you will look very bad...

This is a

(10-24-2014 10:48 PM)HogDawg Wrote:  

(10-24-2014 10:40 PM)MUther Wrote:  

(10-24-2014 10:07 PM)HogDawg Wrote:  

(10-24-2014 06:56 PM)fedale Wrote:  

(10-24-2014 01:04 PM)HogDawg Wrote:  Good article. However, I gotta agree with this sentence that I saw in one of the comments:


I lay this one at the feet of the Marshall AD. He knew he was going to have a good football team this year, yet he apparently did NOTHING to bolster his teams schedule in order to showcase the schools best team in school history. Why not? He really set Marshall up for failure.

You must not know how scheduling works, do you?

I'm so damn tired of making the point over and over and over again.

People think they are so intuitive about how our schedule turned out and they don't take the 5 minutes to research it or even think about it.

Apparently I know more about scheduling than you and your AD. While I know it can be difficult, it's certainly not impossible to schedule quality teams in the timeframe Marshall had left. I mean, Rhode Island? Come on. At least TRY!

By the way, this discussion has nothing to do with the quality of Marshall's football team, which I think is very good. To the contrary, poor scheduling by the administration could end up limiting the football team's "upside".

Regardless of the excuses, the quality of Marshall's schedule is going to remain the anchor around the Herd's neck throughout the 2014 season. Not saying they can't overcome it, but it's certainly going to make the climb to legitimacy more difficult.

Rhode Island was not his first call, it was his last resort. He did try. Your argument is the same thing as saying ECU knew they were gonna be good so they should have made sure VT, UNC, and USC would be good, too. You can only control what you can control. There was no one with the P5 moniker magically available inside a year's notice that could meet our needs. That's all there is to the story. Anything else is wrong and stems from ignorance. You don't know so you're spewing some perfect world viewpoint that can't jibe with reality.

No, I'm just telling you what the Achilles heel is for your football program in terms of garnering recognition, and that you're just gonna have to deal with it. You can beat Rhode Island 100-0, but nobody of importance in college football is going to care.

No one wants to play appy state, except the few that say its a driveable game with an old opponent. It is not a compelling match up. No one is going to buy an extra ticket to the joan because it i appy state coming to town, and no one is going to go to an extra away game, now are we going to get any respect from any national media outlet for having them on the schedule. This i terrible scheduling all the way around, perod. I am glad the backlash is getting back to him and maybe he will learn and not schedule like this again.

Perhaps there will be enough build up for the rematch in Huntington after the Apps win the first game in Boone.

Plus the first game won't be for six years yet. Appalachian by then won't be thought of as a Southern Conference team. It's a relatively nearby school with a history. It's not Idaho.

Cameraman J is right--a fan-AD DISCONNECT.

Don't get why Marshall fans are so grumpy about this. App State is a good program with history and they have a large fan base. I know it's not like getting WVU or UNC into the Joan but still.

(06-30-2015 03:24 PM)SVHerd Wrote:  Hamrick should realize that the issue is not with App. State, far from it. Its how he lead fans on with a tweet a few days before the announcement basically saying - 'EXCITING scheduling news coming for Herd fans." With the way it was worded and with his efforts to court P5 schools to start a series with us, many Herd fans felt an announcement was eminent that we had scheduled a 1-1 or 2-1 with a P5 school - the message boards ran wild with speculation.
When it was announced it was Appy, many fans were in fact disappointed it wasn't a P5 but not mad that it was Appy.

Most are angry with his tweeting something to purposely build up the excitement. He should have handled it better. Next time he would be well advised to stay off Twitter and just make a formal announcement. If that had been done in this case, many would have been very accepting and acknowledged a quality opponent that is App. St. -as they should have.

He didnt tweet before the announcement. Some media said something and got everybody excited.

Because some of them remember when both programs were on the same level App won 65% of the time.

Also some of their fans look at this as a step back, in a way it is a reality check.

That should have come long before now when they look at the last round of expansion.

(06-30-2015 06:53 PM)Ole Blue Wrote:  Don't get why Marshall fans are so grumpy about this. App State is a good program with history and they have a large fan base. I know it's not like getting WVU or UNC into the Joan but still.

I'm with you.

I'm a Marshall fan that likes this series. This is much better than the MAC or FCS schools we have been scheduling.

(06-30-2015 07:01 PM)Saint3333 Wrote:  Because some of them remember when both programs were on the same level App won 65% of the time.

Also some of their fans look at this as a step back, in a way it is a reality check.

That should have come long before now when they look at the last round of expansion.

please explain your term 'reality check' in re the marshall program.

talk about needing a reality check.

Some of the Marshall fans, notice the word some, it was chosen for a reason.

There are two groups in the FBS when it comes to scheduling, we are on an even playing field, that is the reality check for SOME of their fans.

(06-30-2015 05:45 PM)Cyniclone Wrote:  Plus the first game won't be for six years yet. Appalachian by then won't be thought of as a Southern Conference team. It's a relatively nearby school with a history. It's not Idaho.

Well, I mean, we know who they are.

(06-30-2015 07:01 PM)Saint3333 Wrote:  Because some of them remember when both programs were on the same level App won 65% of the time.

Also some of their fans look at this as a step back, in a way it is a reality check.

That should have come long before now when they look at the last round of expansion.

Nothing against playing this game. I would point out we had a major setback that stalled our program for a few years. They did a movie about it and everything. Your 65% figure needs some perspective.

Fair enough, let's look back.

For perspective the crash occurred 1970.

Marshall was classified in NCAA University Division up from NAIA in 1962 as well at the time of the crash and that division was renamed Division I in 1973. So Marshall was playing at the highest level before and after the crash.

Appalachian in 1970 was NAIA, transitioned to Division 2 in 1971, and Division 1 in 1974.

App and Marshall didn't play their first game until 1977, seven years removed from the crash for Marshall but seven years at the Division I level while it was only App's 4th year at that level.

I respect what the Marshall program and community did to rebuild the team, but using the crash isn't valid for this series. You could say Marshall was a bad program 1977 into the early 80's which would be accurate. Your record was better the six years after the crash than that time period.