http://www.dnj.com/article/20091028/BLUE...ions+stink

My reply:

I don't believe that a majority of Hilltopper fans EXPECTED to waltz into the Sun Belt and be given the crown. That is just not realistic. I know, as MTSU fans have already lived through, it takes many years to create a quality program out of transition. It requires solid recrutiing, a supportive AD and quality coaching besides needing a patient fan base. Most of which WKU has, or is in process of building. Our one issue is our Head Coach - he has not shown any examples of being able to leads us into "big boy" football. He is new to the program - named head coach in 2003- yet our team seems less prepared for the transition in FBS competition and feels like it is getting worse every week. There seems to be little improvement that is to be had under his tenure. He talksof being a young team but how long can we expect youth to be the excuse without seeing any improvement in their abilities? We have never expected this to be easy but were expected to be at least competitive in SBC play.

Here's the thing. WKU has been recruiting for the move to FBS football.

Would this team be able to go 9-4 or 9-3 in the Missouri Valley as it did in Elson's first two years? Would it match the 6-5 records posted the final two years in the league?
Will it post a .167 winning percentage against FBS as it did in the first year of transition? They've already missed the 1.000 winning percentage vs. FCS posted against four FCS teams in the first year of transition and 1.000 posted against two last year.

I don't think WKU is as good as it was before transition despite recruiting for FBS.

(10-28-2009 01:46 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  Here's the thing. WKU has been recruiting for the move to FBS football.

Would this team be able to go 9-4 or 9-3 in the Missouri Valley as it did in Elson's first two years? Would it match the 6-5 records posted the final two years in the league?
Will it post a .167 winning percentage against FBS as it did in the first year of transition? They've already missed the 1.000 winning percentage vs. FCS posted against four FCS teams in the first year of transition and 1.000 posted against two last year.

I don't think WKU is as good as it was before transition despite recruiting for FBS.

Which means that it isn't the players......

or if it is the players then that falls back on him too.

i'm not too worried about this article. it was meant to do one thing and that was yank the chain of wku fans. the young writer is doing nothing more than slamming what he feels is the muts biggest rival.

it's smart on his part as it makes his readers (muts fans) feel a little bit better about themselves with no appreciable effort on their part.

this guy has no clue about the steady downfall under eLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLson in re wku football. the only wku fans that will even know about his article is the 4-5 of us wku posters on this board as the dnj is not a newspaper that is read in this part of the commonwealth.

kudos to him for knowing his audience.

As a long time WKU Football Fan (29 years) here is what I am seeing:

WKU won the 1AA National Championship in 2002. In 2003 and 2004 Elson basicly had the same players and used the same style of ball.

Since 2005 until now it has been all Elson and his players. If you do not look at the records, conferences or 1A/1AA and only look at the following factors:

Team Improvement, Indiviual Improvement then it is very clear. The job is not getting done. When WKU was in the Gateway and exploring the move to the SunBelt, WKU fielded a better football team. This jump to 1A has had little to do with how the team is playing now. There is no indiviual or team improvement and there hasnt been any since Elson took over. WKU needs a change after this year.

Call me Pollyanna, but I think this was an excellent article.

When our redshirt freshman this year are redshirt seniors... get back to me. Yelling "Elson sucks" during practice does not help. Chanting "fiy-uhr El-son" during games does not help.

We're young, expectations were unrealistic, and it is actually possible that with a team this young we could be 0-12 even with a good coach.

While you let that sink in consider this... the MTSU team that blew us out the other day was mostly the same players that we beat two years ago (or at least I recognized a lot of the names). We have had nearly 80% turnover (graduation etc.) since then. Isn't it just possible that those MTSU players have developed and learned since then? Something that our players have not had time to do.

Elson is handling himself with admirable class and grace under pressure. I don't think Selig will throw him under the bus and I think he will prove a lot of Topper fans wrong.

you pollyanna....i mean ht2k....i hope you realize i'm just kidding as you are one of my favorite posters from here and what i've seen you do on the ualr board.

that said 'not so fast my friend'.....i'm not a big donor at all....but i know some of them....there is a lot of talk that if he goes 0-12 he is more than likely GONE. there is talk of sending him along before the end of the season.

you can color it any way you want about unrealistic expectations but i haven't seen a topper fan yet that thought we'd have a winning season. most fans expected it to be a struggle with the exception of carolina topper and he's a certifiable lunatic.

don't be surprised if he pulls an oh-fer and is let go.

this is by no means a slam at the unt faithful....they are our best shot at a win. most of the rest of the schedule is upper conference teams that we don't have a snowballs chance in hello to beat.

we don't get unt....we don't get anyone homie.

I'm sad to hear that.

I really have two criteria for firing a coach.

#1 Things are bad. They are.

#2 Things have less than a 50-50 chance of getting better under the current coach. I'm not convinced of this at all.

Two thirds of our roster is freshmen, redshirt or other wise. Our past recruiting class was rated #1 in the belt by some, 20 out of 26 of that class is redshirting.

I wish we could give Elson until all of these underclassmen become upperclassmen and we would have 20k supportive fans in the stands every game the whole way. I know that might not be realistic.


FWIW. Go Tops.

(10-28-2009 06:37 PM)dahbeed Wrote:  this is by no means a slam at the unt faithful....they are our best shot at a win. most of the rest of the schedule is upper conference teams that we don't have a snowballs chance in hello to beat.

we don't get unt....we don't get anyone homie.

Not insulted. Hopefully nobody in hilltopperland is insulted that so many people on our end of the world are saying Dodge should be fired if we lose to you guys.

I think everyone here from both sides realizes that our teams are in pretty rough shape, competitively speaking.

If two thirds are freshmen that is no more than 50 and a roster of 75 with only 25 sr jr or soph

(10-28-2009 06:57 PM)Hilltopper2K Wrote:  I'm sad to hear that.

I really have two criteria for firing a coach.

#1 Things are bad. They are.

#2 Things have less than a 50-50 chance of getting better under the current coach. I'm not convinced of this at all.

Two thirds of our roster is freshmen, redshirt or other wise. Our past recruiting class was rated #1 in the belt by some, 20 out of 26 of that class is redshirting.

I wish we could give Elson until all of these underclassmen become upperclassmen and we would have 20k supportive fans in the stands every game the whole way. I know that might not be realistic.


FWIW. Go Tops.

Who rated you recruit class as #1 in the Sun Belt ?

Scout.com

I think using the youth card is a cop out for Elson. Over the last couple of seasons MT's roster has been loaded with underclassman due to trying to correct the apr infractions from the previous regime. We have not been able to red shirt them like we wanted to. Last season we had a few true freshman starting on the oline, but we still one some games. I think you guys need to get rid of Elson. He obviously cant handle it at the D1 level.