(11-20-2016 04:02 PM)EigenEagle Wrote: (11-20-2016 03:25 PM)07pantheralum Wrote: With all due respect, I think it's a bit of lazy thinking to go off what former players, who may have an interest in representing things a certain way or who have hard feelings toward Fritz, say completely at face value. That's risky.
In cases like this, I tend to go with the more pedestrian, straightforward explanation, and that explanation isn't that Fritz shut down standard GS football operations for a while before our game last year.
No, my more pedestrian, ordinary explanation would be "matchups." They didn't favor you last year. It's as simple as that. Upsets happen, and in all of them you can look back to matchups.
We're not talking about a team that was a 20-point favorite and lost by 7. We're talking about a team that was a 20+ point favorite and lost by 27 right smack in the middle of when we were playing very good football. That's almost unheard of and is probably a record in most computer-generated mathetical point spread systems.
When you turn in a term paper that's identical to something you found on the internet you don't assume your high school english teacher will assume it's a coincidence if it's uncovered.
You are a homer if you think there was any mismatch on the field so big as to think that accounts for that. We beat multiple teams better than State late in the season.
I'm not saying there was an overall talent disparity in Georgia State's favor, or even that one or two matchups between units on the field were wildly in our favor, either. I don't believe those are true, so you can call me a homer all you want, but the game last year is a bit confounding as well, although I'm not gonna buy your "Fritz tanked" theory just because you talked to a few probably ticked-off former players. Given the body of work last year, GS was the overall better team. Georgia State certainly wasn't anywhere close to being able to blow out a Bowling Green in a bowl game. I also don't think the overall talent disparity was as bad as many people assumed before the game, or as many people tried to rationalize later.
You're right...I'm having trouble finding numbers, but it might be the biggest score differential swing from the spread in a long, long time, if not ever. The USC loss to Stanford in 2007 is considered one of the most shocking upsets of all time...Stanford was a 41-point 'dog and won by a point. Maybe you're giving that spread of 20-plus in last year's game a little too much credence, though. Maybe it should have been a lot closer, all things considered, given State had won three in a row and generally played everyone in the conference (other than App) tough.
I find it interesting you're willing to say that the team was playing good football and seemed well prepared in all the time surrounding that game, however. So the Fritz-GS relationship soured juuuuust in time for our game? Hmmmmm.
That's all a long way of saying that I can think of a number of different reasons for the GSU win last year, but I'm not buying your theory that Fritz tanked it and that's the main reason. That's very convenient.
Maybe instead of blaming individual coaches, it would pay to consider that your program, in its current state, isn't as impervious to dips in performance as you previously thought, given overall allure to recruits, talent, other built-in factors. Is that a possibility? Or is it your birthright to win at least nine games every year and all the games you think you're supposed to, and if you don't, then the HC is a terrible incompetent OR bordering on a saboteur?
That's always been a cop-out, and it still is.
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Game Thread : Georgia Southern @ Georgia State
) got blown out of its own stadium. I'm saying I have no reason to believe that was the one tipping point or the main factor. You're adding an assertion here that it seems only you have the insight on. The extra, intangible stuff is all you.