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Curious... would you say your school's fan base overall has grown...
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UAB Schnauzer Offline
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Post: #21
RE: Curious... would you say your school's fan base overall has grown...
(08-14-2019 09:01 AM)TTT Wrote:  I made this long post a few months ago on another board and I'll share it here. It's pretty much the backstory to what all happened to USM starting around the end of the 2011 season up to today:

Quote:If you're wondering what the hell has happened to Southern Miss since we went 12-2 and won CUSA in 2011, here's a breakdown of what happened. ESPN could literally make one of the greatest 30/30 episodes about this:

2011: HC Larry Fedora leads USM to 12-2, T25 ranking, CUSA Champions, and wins the Hawaii Bowl and then bolts for the HC job at UNC. After the Bowl season is over, USM President and AD are both fired because USM had the choice to go to the HOD Bowl and play Penn State but Fedora/AD/Prez (who all knew Fedora was going to jump ship to UNC) accepted the Hawaii Bowl invite vs Nevada instead which pissed off the ENTIRE USM community because hardly anyone can afford to travel to Hawaii to see us play Nevada...compared to the Heat of Dallas Bowl vs. Penn State. So, head coach, AD, and Prez are gone and only a few of the key guys from this championship team (QB, OL, WR's) will be graduating in the spring.

2012: USM (w/ an interim President and interim AD) hires the absolute worst HC in all of college football, Auburn DC E-loss Johnson who turns around and hires HS, JUCO, & SWAC coaches AND a realtor for our S/C coord (a REALTOR as our S/C Coord. who hasn't worked in D1 athletics since the 80's!!! I kid you not!). Meanwhile, during Eloss' first meeting with his new team (while going over team rules and whatnot) he tells the players "No walkmans allowed in the fieldhouse". True story. I sh!t you not. Long story short, he plays HIS guys who he recruited that spring instead of the much more talented juniors/seniors already here recruited under Fedora and we don't win a single game that year. Players are constantly thrown under the bus in post-game pressers and so naturally, every decent player on the team starts to transfer out and thus it starts the mass exodus of our roster. At the conclusion of the 0-12 season Elloss Johnson is fired. Essentially, the 2012 season was a death penalty for USM football. No doubts about it.

2013: USM finally names a new President, Rodney Bennett who later names new USM AD Bill McGillis from USF and enter new HC Todd Monken who inherits an absolute MESS! He literally is working w/ like 50 scholarship players and as a result we "improve" to 1-11. Of course this is also the start of teams leaving/entering CUSA coupled w/ the fact we've won 1 game in 2 years...fan apathy is at an all time high because no one knows who the hell is in our conference anymore and we've only won ONE game over the past 2 years...

2014: We finally start to see a semblance of a FB program. We started the season 3-4 and then our QB (future NFL San Francisco QB Nick Mullens) goes down for the season with an injury and we end up losing the remaining 5 games. We finish this season 3-9. At this point it's hard being a USM fan, 4 wins in the past 3 years....ugh.

2015: USM football is back. We go 9-5. We win CUSA West but ended up losing to WKU in the CUSA CG and Washington in the HOD Bowl. It took a few years but nevertheless, USM football is finally back to being a respectable program and has a lot to build on for the years to come.

2016: A week before national signing day USM HC Todd Monken resigns to become the OC for the Tampa Bay Bucs. Enter new (and current HC) Jay Hopson. He assembles an ok staff all things considered and he manages to keep some of the recruits that were committed to Monken. First game of the season USM wins at Kentucky 44-35 (after trailing 35-10 right before halftime). We have a ton of injuries throughout the year on defense and we end up going 7-6 and are NOLA Bowl Champions. Still, USM is back to being a respectable program.

2017: USM AD McGillis bolts for the AD position at the Univ. of San Diego. We hire Jon Gilbert from Tennessee. We have another decent year in football. We finish 8-5 and get throttled by FSU in the Indy Bowl.

2018: In Monken's 3rd year he would lead his USM team to 9 wins and west division Champs. For Jay Hopson's 3rd year there's too many close losses, a non-existent running game and a cancelled (weather) game @ App State and we go 6-5 and no bowl invite. USM was 7 points away from finishing 9-2 and hosting the CUSA champ. game. 7 freaking points. Run game was terrible, play-calling was terrible, S/C was suspect...so Jay Hopson replaces our OL, OC, and S/C coaches and the outlook for 2019 looks great!

2019 thus far: We lose our AD to ECU, which most USM fans aren't sweating because he really didn't do much. So, we hire Troy's AD Jeremy McClain who is a USM guy who wants to be here and wants to do good for us. What's also good news is we return nearly everyone from our '18 team that was 7 points away from going 9-2 and hosting the 'ship. What does 2019 hold? I predict we beat in-state foe Mississippi State, win 10+ games, host the 'ship, and possibly flirt w/ the T20 towards the end of the season.

Another crucial thing is that prior to the 2017 season our AD stopped giving away free tix to many of the local business/organizations etc. Apparently USM had been doing this for the past 20 years or so. Naturally our attendance went down but we actually made more money from tix sales.

The first issue that led to the decline was getting rid of Bower
08-14-2019 09:33 AM
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JoeJag Offline
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Post: #22
RE: Curious... would you say your school's fan base overall has grown...
(08-14-2019 09:33 AM)UAB Schnauzer Wrote:  
(08-14-2019 09:01 AM)TTT Wrote:  I made this long post a few months ago on another board and I'll share it here. It's pretty much the backstory to what all happened to USM starting around the end of the 2011 season up to today:

Quote:If you're wondering what the hell has happened to Southern Miss since we went 12-2 and won CUSA in 2011, here's a breakdown of what happened. ESPN could literally make one of the greatest 30/30 episodes about this:

2011: HC Larry Fedora leads USM to 12-2, T25 ranking, CUSA Champions, and wins the Hawaii Bowl and then bolts for the HC job at UNC. After the Bowl season is over, USM President and AD are both fired because USM had the choice to go to the HOD Bowl and play Penn State but Fedora/AD/Prez (who all knew Fedora was going to jump ship to UNC) accepted the Hawaii Bowl invite vs Nevada instead which pissed off the ENTIRE USM community because hardly anyone can afford to travel to Hawaii to see us play Nevada...compared to the Heat of Dallas Bowl vs. Penn State. So, head coach, AD, and Prez are gone and only a few of the key guys from this championship team (QB, OL, WR's) will be graduating in the spring.

2012: USM (w/ an interim President and interim AD) hires the absolute worst HC in all of college football, Auburn DC E-loss Johnson who turns around and hires HS, JUCO, & SWAC coaches AND a realtor for our S/C coord (a REALTOR as our S/C Coord. who hasn't worked in D1 athletics since the 80's!!! I kid you not!). Meanwhile, during Eloss' first meeting with his new team (while going over team rules and whatnot) he tells the players "No walkmans allowed in the fieldhouse". True story. I sh!t you not. Long story short, he plays HIS guys who he recruited that spring instead of the much more talented juniors/seniors already here recruited under Fedora and we don't win a single game that year. Players are constantly thrown under the bus in post-game pressers and so naturally, every decent player on the team starts to transfer out and thus it starts the mass exodus of our roster. At the conclusion of the 0-12 season Elloss Johnson is fired. Essentially, the 2012 season was a death penalty for USM football. No doubts about it.

2013: USM finally names a new President, Rodney Bennett who later names new USM AD Bill McGillis from USF and enter new HC Todd Monken who inherits an absolute MESS! He literally is working w/ like 50 scholarship players and as a result we "improve" to 1-11. Of course this is also the start of teams leaving/entering CUSA coupled w/ the fact we've won 1 game in 2 years...fan apathy is at an all time high because no one knows who the hell is in our conference anymore and we've only won ONE game over the past 2 years...

2014: We finally start to see a semblance of a FB program. We started the season 3-4 and then our QB (future NFL San Francisco QB Nick Mullens) goes down for the season with an injury and we end up losing the remaining 5 games. We finish this season 3-9. At this point it's hard being a USM fan, 4 wins in the past 3 years....ugh.

2015: USM football is back. We go 9-5. We win CUSA West but ended up losing to WKU in the CUSA CG and Washington in the HOD Bowl. It took a few years but nevertheless, USM football is finally back to being a respectable program and has a lot to build on for the years to come.

2016: A week before national signing day USM HC Todd Monken resigns to become the OC for the Tampa Bay Bucs. Enter new (and current HC) Jay Hopson. He assembles an ok staff all things considered and he manages to keep some of the recruits that were committed to Monken. First game of the season USM wins at Kentucky 44-35 (after trailing 35-10 right before halftime). We have a ton of injuries throughout the year on defense and we end up going 7-6 and are NOLA Bowl Champions. Still, USM is back to being a respectable program.

2017: USM AD McGillis bolts for the AD position at the Univ. of San Diego. We hire Jon Gilbert from Tennessee. We have another decent year in football. We finish 8-5 and get throttled by FSU in the Indy Bowl.

2018: In Monken's 3rd year he would lead his USM team to 9 wins and west division Champs. For Jay Hopson's 3rd year there's too many close losses, a non-existent running game and a cancelled (weather) game @ App State and we go 6-5 and no bowl invite. USM was 7 points away from finishing 9-2 and hosting the CUSA champ. game. 7 freaking points. Run game was terrible, play-calling was terrible, S/C was suspect...so Jay Hopson replaces our OL, OC, and S/C coaches and the outlook for 2019 looks great!

2019 thus far: We lose our AD to ECU, which most USM fans aren't sweating because he really didn't do much. So, we hire Troy's AD Jeremy McClain who is a USM guy who wants to be here and wants to do good for us. What's also good news is we return nearly everyone from our '18 team that was 7 points away from going 9-2 and hosting the 'ship. What does 2019 hold? I predict we beat in-state foe Mississippi State, win 10+ games, host the 'ship, and possibly flirt w/ the T20 towards the end of the season.

Another crucial thing is that prior to the 2017 season our AD stopped giving away free tix to many of the local business/organizations etc. Apparently USM had been doing this for the past 20 years or so. Naturally our attendance went down but we actually made more money from tix sales.

The first issue that led to the decline was getting rid of Bower

Was a terrible move. Not to mention dumb.
08-14-2019 09:47 AM
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THUNDERStruck73 Offline
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Post: #23
RE: Curious... would you say your school's fan base overall has grown...
(08-14-2019 08:38 AM)beefcake0520 Wrote:  
(08-14-2019 05:59 AM)SVHerd Wrote:  Ours is shrinking. Based on many factors. Same with most schools.

We missed our opportunity at growth due to a crap head coach during an exciting era. Snyder killed the fanbase. We got some of it back under doc but if we aren't going nearly undefeated, we still have the issue of lack of excitement within the base. I think Snyder did too much damage and jaded our fans. Heck look at herd fan boards, they piss ok doc if all he does is win 8, 9, games...I would have killed for that with Snyder.

While that may be partially true, I doubt just any coach could have won with what Pruett left in the cupboard. Plus, we got hit with the scholarship reductions. Snyder was fighting a losing battle to begin with.
08-14-2019 09:51 AM
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Up2stuff Offline
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Post: #24
RE: Curious... would you say your school's fan base overall has grown...
(08-14-2019 09:33 AM)UAB Schnauzer Wrote:  
(08-14-2019 09:01 AM)TTT Wrote:  I made this long post a few months ago on another board and I'll share it here. It's pretty much the backstory to what all happened to USM starting around the end of the 2011 season up to today:

Quote:If you're wondering what the hell has happened to Southern Miss since we went 12-2 and won CUSA in 2011, here's a breakdown of what happened. ESPN could literally make one of the greatest 30/30 episodes about this:

2011: HC Larry Fedora leads USM to 12-2, T25 ranking, CUSA Champions, and wins the Hawaii Bowl and then bolts for the HC job at UNC. After the Bowl season is over, USM President and AD are both fired because USM had the choice to go to the HOD Bowl and play Penn State but Fedora/AD/Prez (who all knew Fedora was going to jump ship to UNC) accepted the Hawaii Bowl invite vs Nevada instead which pissed off the ENTIRE USM community because hardly anyone can afford to travel to Hawaii to see us play Nevada...compared to the Heat of Dallas Bowl vs. Penn State. So, head coach, AD, and Prez are gone and only a few of the key guys from this championship team (QB, OL, WR's) will be graduating in the spring.

2012: USM (w/ an interim President and interim AD) hires the absolute worst HC in all of college football, Auburn DC E-loss Johnson who turns around and hires HS, JUCO, & SWAC coaches AND a realtor for our S/C coord (a REALTOR as our S/C Coord. who hasn't worked in D1 athletics since the 80's!!! I kid you not!). Meanwhile, during Eloss' first meeting with his new team (while going over team rules and whatnot) he tells the players "No walkmans allowed in the fieldhouse". True story. I sh!t you not. Long story short, he plays HIS guys who he recruited that spring instead of the much more talented juniors/seniors already here recruited under Fedora and we don't win a single game that year. Players are constantly thrown under the bus in post-game pressers and so naturally, every decent player on the team starts to transfer out and thus it starts the mass exodus of our roster. At the conclusion of the 0-12 season Elloss Johnson is fired. Essentially, the 2012 season was a death penalty for USM football. No doubts about it.

2013: USM finally names a new President, Rodney Bennett who later names new USM AD Bill McGillis from USF and enter new HC Todd Monken who inherits an absolute MESS! He literally is working w/ like 50 scholarship players and as a result we "improve" to 1-11. Of course this is also the start of teams leaving/entering CUSA coupled w/ the fact we've won 1 game in 2 years...fan apathy is at an all time high because no one knows who the hell is in our conference anymore and we've only won ONE game over the past 2 years...

2014: We finally start to see a semblance of a FB program. We started the season 3-4 and then our QB (future NFL San Francisco QB Nick Mullens) goes down for the season with an injury and we end up losing the remaining 5 games. We finish this season 3-9. At this point it's hard being a USM fan, 4 wins in the past 3 years....ugh.

2015: USM football is back. We go 9-5. We win CUSA West but ended up losing to WKU in the CUSA CG and Washington in the HOD Bowl. It took a few years but nevertheless, USM football is finally back to being a respectable program and has a lot to build on for the years to come.

2016: A week before national signing day USM HC Todd Monken resigns to become the OC for the Tampa Bay Bucs. Enter new (and current HC) Jay Hopson. He assembles an ok staff all things considered and he manages to keep some of the recruits that were committed to Monken. First game of the season USM wins at Kentucky 44-35 (after trailing 35-10 right before halftime). We have a ton of injuries throughout the year on defense and we end up going 7-6 and are NOLA Bowl Champions. Still, USM is back to being a respectable program.

2017: USM AD McGillis bolts for the AD position at the Univ. of San Diego. We hire Jon Gilbert from Tennessee. We have another decent year in football. We finish 8-5 and get throttled by FSU in the Indy Bowl.

2018: In Monken's 3rd year he would lead his USM team to 9 wins and west division Champs. For Jay Hopson's 3rd year there's too many close losses, a non-existent running game and a cancelled (weather) game @ App State and we go 6-5 and no bowl invite. USM was 7 points away from finishing 9-2 and hosting the CUSA champ. game. 7 freaking points. Run game was terrible, play-calling was terrible, S/C was suspect...so Jay Hopson replaces our OL, OC, and S/C coaches and the outlook for 2019 looks great!

2019 thus far: We lose our AD to ECU, which most USM fans aren't sweating because he really didn't do much. So, we hire Troy's AD Jeremy McClain who is a USM guy who wants to be here and wants to do good for us. What's also good news is we return nearly everyone from our '18 team that was 7 points away from going 9-2 and hosting the 'ship. What does 2019 hold? I predict we beat in-state foe Mississippi State, win 10+ games, host the 'ship, and possibly flirt w/ the T20 towards the end of the season.

Another crucial thing is that prior to the 2017 season our AD stopped giving away free tix to many of the local business/organizations etc. Apparently USM had been doing this for the past 20 years or so. Naturally our attendance went down but we actually made more money from tix sales.

The first issue that led to the decline was getting rid of Bower

Respectfully disagree (and I appreciate Bower), but Fedora kept things going. I have no problem with those years. They were fun and the 12-2 season and win over Houston (at Houston) in the championship game really had things rolling. The lazy-lame-ass hire of the coach to follow Fedora by the dumb*** president we had is what started the decline. There's no excuse - if you have a coach like Fedora that keeps things going and even picks it up a bit, there's no reason you shouldn't be able to go out and hire the next exciting up-and-coming coach. We didn't because our president didn't like Fedora. 03-banghead Our administration is too lazy to do there job. They just want to hire someone that will stay forever - which means at best they are winning just enough to go to a bowl game every other season or so. Jury is still out on Hop.
08-14-2019 09:56 AM
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kevinwmsn Offline
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Post: #25
RE: Curious... would you say your school's fan base overall has grown...
I think the last realignment has messed up old rivalries and fan interest in conferences where there were a number of teams leaving and entering. I also think since the Bower days there have been a number of schools that have added FBS Div 1 football and that may have hurt Southern Miss football. I think Southern Miss is going to have a good year.
08-14-2019 09:58 AM
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Post: #26
RE: Curious... would you say your school's fan base overall has grown...
(08-14-2019 09:33 AM)UAB Schnauzer Wrote:  
(08-14-2019 09:01 AM)TTT Wrote:  I made this long post a few months ago on another board and I'll share it here. It's pretty much the backstory to what all happened to USM starting around the end of the 2011 season up to today:

Quote:If you're wondering what the hell has happened to Southern Miss since we went 12-2 and won CUSA in 2011, here's a breakdown of what happened. ESPN could literally make one of the greatest 30/30 episodes about this:

2011: HC Larry Fedora leads USM to 12-2, T25 ranking, CUSA Champions, and wins the Hawaii Bowl and then bolts for the HC job at UNC. After the Bowl season is over, USM President and AD are both fired because USM had the choice to go to the HOD Bowl and play Penn State but Fedora/AD/Prez (who all knew Fedora was going to jump ship to UNC) accepted the Hawaii Bowl invite vs Nevada instead which pissed off the ENTIRE USM community because hardly anyone can afford to travel to Hawaii to see us play Nevada...compared to the Heat of Dallas Bowl vs. Penn State. So, head coach, AD, and Prez are gone and only a few of the key guys from this championship team (QB, OL, WR's) will be graduating in the spring.

2012: USM (w/ an interim President and interim AD) hires the absolute worst HC in all of college football, Auburn DC E-loss Johnson who turns around and hires HS, JUCO, & SWAC coaches AND a realtor for our S/C coord (a REALTOR as our S/C Coord. who hasn't worked in D1 athletics since the 80's!!! I kid you not!). Meanwhile, during Eloss' first meeting with his new team (while going over team rules and whatnot) he tells the players "No walkmans allowed in the fieldhouse". True story. I sh!t you not. Long story short, he plays HIS guys who he recruited that spring instead of the much more talented juniors/seniors already here recruited under Fedora and we don't win a single game that year. Players are constantly thrown under the bus in post-game pressers and so naturally, every decent player on the team starts to transfer out and thus it starts the mass exodus of our roster. At the conclusion of the 0-12 season Elloss Johnson is fired. Essentially, the 2012 season was a death penalty for USM football. No doubts about it.

2013: USM finally names a new President, Rodney Bennett who later names new USM AD Bill McGillis from USF and enter new HC Todd Monken who inherits an absolute MESS! He literally is working w/ like 50 scholarship players and as a result we "improve" to 1-11. Of course this is also the start of teams leaving/entering CUSA coupled w/ the fact we've won 1 game in 2 years...fan apathy is at an all time high because no one knows who the hell is in our conference anymore and we've only won ONE game over the past 2 years...

2014: We finally start to see a semblance of a FB program. We started the season 3-4 and then our QB (future NFL San Francisco QB Nick Mullens) goes down for the season with an injury and we end up losing the remaining 5 games. We finish this season 3-9. At this point it's hard being a USM fan, 4 wins in the past 3 years....ugh.

2015: USM football is back. We go 9-5. We win CUSA West but ended up losing to WKU in the CUSA CG and Washington in the HOD Bowl. It took a few years but nevertheless, USM football is finally back to being a respectable program and has a lot to build on for the years to come.

2016: A week before national signing day USM HC Todd Monken resigns to become the OC for the Tampa Bay Bucs. Enter new (and current HC) Jay Hopson. He assembles an ok staff all things considered and he manages to keep some of the recruits that were committed to Monken. First game of the season USM wins at Kentucky 44-35 (after trailing 35-10 right before halftime). We have a ton of injuries throughout the year on defense and we end up going 7-6 and are NOLA Bowl Champions. Still, USM is back to being a respectable program.

2017: USM AD McGillis bolts for the AD position at the Univ. of San Diego. We hire Jon Gilbert from Tennessee. We have another decent year in football. We finish 8-5 and get throttled by FSU in the Indy Bowl.

2018: In Monken's 3rd year he would lead his USM team to 9 wins and west division Champs. For Jay Hopson's 3rd year there's too many close losses, a non-existent running game and a cancelled (weather) game @ App State and we go 6-5 and no bowl invite. USM was 7 points away from finishing 9-2 and hosting the CUSA champ. game. 7 freaking points. Run game was terrible, play-calling was terrible, S/C was suspect...so Jay Hopson replaces our OL, OC, and S/C coaches and the outlook for 2019 looks great!

2019 thus far: We lose our AD to ECU, which most USM fans aren't sweating because he really didn't do much. So, we hire Troy's AD Jeremy McClain who is a USM guy who wants to be here and wants to do good for us. What's also good news is we return nearly everyone from our '18 team that was 7 points away from going 9-2 and hosting the 'ship. What does 2019 hold? I predict we beat in-state foe Mississippi State, win 10+ games, host the 'ship, and possibly flirt w/ the T20 towards the end of the season.

Another crucial thing is that prior to the 2017 season our AD stopped giving away free tix to many of the local business/organizations etc. Apparently USM had been doing this for the past 20 years or so. Naturally our attendance went down but we actually made more money from tix sales.

The first issue that led to the decline was getting rid of Bower

I always chuckle when I see people who are fans of other schools chime in about the Bower firing. They really don't even know what the hell they are talking about. This has definitely been debated time and time again but lets break this down again: Bower's time was past him. I love Bower and our fans do too but they most knew it was time for him to step aside because Bower refused to fire his friends on staff to the detriment of the program...and fans got sick of going 5-3 every year in conference. Let's compare Fedora's record vs Bower's:

Bower's last four years at USM
30-21 overall record (.58 win %)
21-12 conference record (.64 win %)
3-1 in bowl Games (.75 win %)
2-8 vs BCS teams (.20 win %)
ZERO CUSA Championships

Fedora's four years at USM
34-19 overall record (.64 win %)
20-12 conference record (.63 win %)
2-2 in bowl games (.50 win %)
3-5 vs BCS teams (.38 win %)
ONE CUSA championship

Bower didn't win a single CUSA championship his final four years at USM because he refused to fire the weak links on his staff. Why? He was too good of friends with them. Fedora won a CUSA championship. That alone means the firing of Bower and hiring of Fedora was worth it. Sure, you can make the case that Bower played against much tougher competition and I don't argue that...but still, Bower didn't win any CUSA championships his final four years and that had a lot to do with why he was fired. The argument that "Bower would've won more than one championship from 08-11 holds just as much water as "Fedora could've one at least one CUSA champ from '04-'07".
(This post was last modified: 08-14-2019 10:17 AM by TTT.)
08-14-2019 10:09 AM
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Old Blue Offline
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Post: #27
RE: Curious... would you say your school's fan base overall has grown...
(08-14-2019 09:47 AM)JoeJag Wrote:  
(08-14-2019 09:33 AM)UAB Schnauzer Wrote:  
(08-14-2019 09:01 AM)TTT Wrote:  I made this long post a few months ago on another board and I'll share it here. It's pretty much the backstory to what all happened to USM starting around the end of the 2011 season up to today:

Quote:If you're wondering what the hell has happened to Southern Miss since we went 12-2 and won CUSA in 2011, here's a breakdown of what happened. ESPN could literally make one of the greatest 30/30 episodes about this:

2011: HC Larry Fedora leads USM to 12-2, T25 ranking, CUSA Champions, and wins the Hawaii Bowl and then bolts for the HC job at UNC. After the Bowl season is over, USM President and AD are both fired because USM had the choice to go to the HOD Bowl and play Penn State but Fedora/AD/Prez (who all knew Fedora was going to jump ship to UNC) accepted the Hawaii Bowl invite vs Nevada instead which pissed off the ENTIRE USM community because hardly anyone can afford to travel to Hawaii to see us play Nevada...compared to the Heat of Dallas Bowl vs. Penn State. So, head coach, AD, and Prez are gone and only a few of the key guys from this championship team (QB, OL, WR's) will be graduating in the spring.

2012: USM (w/ an interim President and interim AD) hires the absolute worst HC in all of college football, Auburn DC E-loss Johnson who turns around and hires HS, JUCO, & SWAC coaches AND a realtor for our S/C coord (a REALTOR as our S/C Coord. who hasn't worked in D1 athletics since the 80's!!! I kid you not!). Meanwhile, during Eloss' first meeting with his new team (while going over team rules and whatnot) he tells the players "No walkmans allowed in the fieldhouse". True story. I sh!t you not. Long story short, he plays HIS guys who he recruited that spring instead of the much more talented juniors/seniors already here recruited under Fedora and we don't win a single game that year. Players are constantly thrown under the bus in post-game pressers and so naturally, every decent player on the team starts to transfer out and thus it starts the mass exodus of our roster. At the conclusion of the 0-12 season Elloss Johnson is fired. Essentially, the 2012 season was a death penalty for USM football. No doubts about it.

2013: USM finally names a new President, Rodney Bennett who later names new USM AD Bill McGillis from USF and enter new HC Todd Monken who inherits an absolute MESS! He literally is working w/ like 50 scholarship players and as a result we "improve" to 1-11. Of course this is also the start of teams leaving/entering CUSA coupled w/ the fact we've won 1 game in 2 years...fan apathy is at an all time high because no one knows who the hell is in our conference anymore and we've only won ONE game over the past 2 years...

2014: We finally start to see a semblance of a FB program. We started the season 3-4 and then our QB (future NFL San Francisco QB Nick Mullens) goes down for the season with an injury and we end up losing the remaining 5 games. We finish this season 3-9. At this point it's hard being a USM fan, 4 wins in the past 3 years....ugh.

2015: USM football is back. We go 9-5. We win CUSA West but ended up losing to WKU in the CUSA CG and Washington in the HOD Bowl. It took a few years but nevertheless, USM football is finally back to being a respectable program and has a lot to build on for the years to come.

2016: A week before national signing day USM HC Todd Monken resigns to become the OC for the Tampa Bay Bucs. Enter new (and current HC) Jay Hopson. He assembles an ok staff all things considered and he manages to keep some of the recruits that were committed to Monken. First game of the season USM wins at Kentucky 44-35 (after trailing 35-10 right before halftime). We have a ton of injuries throughout the year on defense and we end up going 7-6 and are NOLA Bowl Champions. Still, USM is back to being a respectable program.

2017: USM AD McGillis bolts for the AD position at the Univ. of San Diego. We hire Jon Gilbert from Tennessee. We have another decent year in football. We finish 8-5 and get throttled by FSU in the Indy Bowl.

2018: In Monken's 3rd year he would lead his USM team to 9 wins and west division Champs. For Jay Hopson's 3rd year there's too many close losses, a non-existent running game and a cancelled (weather) game @ App State and we go 6-5 and no bowl invite. USM was 7 points away from finishing 9-2 and hosting the CUSA champ. game. 7 freaking points. Run game was terrible, play-calling was terrible, S/C was suspect...so Jay Hopson replaces our OL, OC, and S/C coaches and the outlook for 2019 looks great!

2019 thus far: We lose our AD to ECU, which most USM fans aren't sweating because he really didn't do much. So, we hire Troy's AD Jeremy McClain who is a USM guy who wants to be here and wants to do good for us. What's also good news is we return nearly everyone from our '18 team that was 7 points away from going 9-2 and hosting the 'ship. What does 2019 hold? I predict we beat in-state foe Mississippi State, win 10+ games, host the 'ship, and possibly flirt w/ the T20 towards the end of the season.

Another crucial thing is that prior to the 2017 season our AD stopped giving away free tix to many of the local business/organizations etc. Apparently USM had been doing this for the past 20 years or so. Naturally our attendance went down but we actually made more money from tix sales.

The first issue that led to the decline was getting rid of Bower

Was a terrible move. Not to mention dumb.
Excuse me, you fired the president of the University over a football game? That's pretty hardcore.

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08-14-2019 10:17 AM
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Post: #28
RE: Curious... would you say your school's fan base overall has grown...
(08-14-2019 09:01 AM)TTT Wrote:  I made this long post a few months ago on another board and I'll share it here. It's pretty much the backstory to what all happened to USM starting around the end of the 2011 season up to today:

Quote:If you're wondering what the hell has happened to Southern Miss since we went 12-2 and won CUSA in 2011, here's a breakdown of what happened. ESPN could literally make one of the greatest 30/30 episodes about this:

2011: HC Larry Fedora leads USM to 12-2, T25 ranking, CUSA Champions, and wins the Hawaii Bowl and then bolts for the HC job at UNC. After the Bowl season is over, USM President and AD are both fired because USM had the choice to go to the HOD Bowl and play Penn State but Fedora/AD/Prez (who all knew Fedora was going to jump ship to UNC) accepted the Hawaii Bowl invite vs Nevada instead which pissed off the ENTIRE USM community because hardly anyone can afford to travel to Hawaii to see us play Nevada...compared to the Heat of Dallas Bowl vs. Penn State. So, head coach, AD, and Prez are gone and only a few of the key guys from this championship team (QB, OL, WR's) will be graduating in the spring.

2012: USM (w/ an interim President and interim AD) hires the absolute worst HC in all of college football, Auburn DC E-loss Johnson who turns around and hires HS, JUCO, & SWAC coaches AND a realtor for our S/C coord (a REALTOR as our S/C Coord. who hasn't worked in D1 athletics since the 80's!!! I kid you not!). Meanwhile, during Eloss' first meeting with his new team (while going over team rules and whatnot) he tells the players "No walkmans allowed in the fieldhouse". True story. I sh!t you not. Long story short, he plays HIS guys who he recruited that spring instead of the much more talented juniors/seniors already here recruited under Fedora and we don't win a single game that year. Players are constantly thrown under the bus in post-game pressers and so naturally, every decent player on the team starts to transfer out and thus it starts the mass exodus of our roster. At the conclusion of the 0-12 season Elloss Johnson is fired. Essentially, the 2012 season was a death penalty for USM football. No doubts about it.

2013: USM finally names a new President, Rodney Bennett who later names new USM AD Bill McGillis from USF and enter new HC Todd Monken who inherits an absolute MESS! He literally is working w/ like 50 scholarship players and as a result we "improve" to 1-11. Of course this is also the start of teams leaving/entering CUSA coupled w/ the fact we've won 1 game in 2 years...fan apathy is at an all time high because no one knows who the hell is in our conference anymore and we've only won ONE game over the past 2 years...

2014: We finally start to see a semblance of a FB program. We started the season 3-4 and then our QB (future NFL San Francisco QB Nick Mullens) goes down for the season with an injury and we end up losing the remaining 5 games. We finish this season 3-9. At this point it's hard being a USM fan, 4 wins in the past 3 years....ugh.

2015: USM football is back. We go 9-5. We win CUSA West but ended up losing to WKU in the CUSA CG and Washington in the HOD Bowl. It took a few years but nevertheless, USM football is finally back to being a respectable program and has a lot to build on for the years to come.

2016: A week before national signing day USM HC Todd Monken resigns to become the OC for the Tampa Bay Bucs. Enter new (and current HC) Jay Hopson. He assembles an ok staff all things considered and he manages to keep some of the recruits that were committed to Monken. First game of the season USM wins at Kentucky 44-35 (after trailing 35-10 right before halftime). We have a ton of injuries throughout the year on defense and we end up going 7-6 and are NOLA Bowl Champions. Still, USM is back to being a respectable program.

2017: USM AD McGillis bolts for the AD position at the Univ. of San Diego. We hire Jon Gilbert from Tennessee. We have another decent year in football. We finish 8-5 and get throttled by FSU in the Indy Bowl.

2018: In Monken's 3rd year he would lead his USM team to 9 wins and west division Champs. For Jay Hopson's 3rd year there's too many close losses, a non-existent running game and a cancelled (weather) game @ App State and we go 6-5 and no bowl invite. USM was 7 points away from finishing 9-2 and hosting the CUSA champ. game. 7 freaking points. Run game was terrible, play-calling was terrible, S/C was suspect...so Jay Hopson replaces our OL, OC, and S/C coaches and the outlook for 2019 looks great!

2019 thus far: We lose our AD to ECU, which most USM fans aren't sweating because he really didn't do much. So, we hire Troy's AD Jeremy McClain who is a USM guy who wants to be here and wants to do good for us. What's also good news is we return nearly everyone from our '18 team that was 7 points away from going 9-2 and hosting the 'ship. What does 2019 hold? I predict we beat in-state foe Mississippi State, win 10+ games, host the 'ship, and possibly flirt w/ the T20 towards the end of the season.

Another crucial thing is that prior to the 2017 season our AD stopped giving away free tix to many of the local business/organizations etc. Apparently USM had been doing this for the past 20 years or so. Naturally our attendance went down but we actually made more money from tix sales.

I haven’t seen/felt this much genuine optimism or hype about a USM football season in a while. I don’t know whether to be excited, or terrified. It’s an odd feeling not having a negative outlook on a season in early August.
(This post was last modified: 08-14-2019 10:21 AM by SouthernMissSNu.)
08-14-2019 10:21 AM
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Post: #29
RE: Curious... would you say your school's fan base overall has grown...
Some, well, just about all of you are looking at the question as "supporting fan base". In my opinion there is a difference, in supporter, those that will buy a ticket, and "fan".

Attendance is not the true indicator, because the dip in fans attending, could be explained away from high dollar tickets. High cost of food at games, and if you want to see any game. You can sitting in your home, watch on a large screen, with a 50 yard line view.

So are those choosing to stay home watching games and not spending the money, not fans? To me there's a difference between supporter, those spending money on the program, and fans. It's expensive going to a football game and dollar night, or five dollar night with a hotdog, and coke for another $3...is not getting those fans that only come when its cheap, to come back at full price.

For a father and son to attendance a Western, football game on a full price ticket, it can cost the dad around $60, if they eat a hotdog and get a drink. A dad making $15 an hour (that would be a great working class job in BG) is spending 13% of his weekly take home pay and around 15% if he has a 401k (6%) to take his son or daughter to a football game.

Or sit at home watch a really clear picture, eat a $8 pizza, drinking a .50 cent coke, or $1 beer....

those are the 10 to 20% of a supporting fan base that we have lost. They are still fans but not willing to spend the money for a crappy seat and over priced food. Well, till it's dollar night, or when a SEC team they see on TV is playing the home team.
(This post was last modified: 08-14-2019 10:26 AM by WKUYG.)
08-14-2019 10:24 AM
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TTT Offline
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Post: #30
RE: Curious... would you say your school's fan base overall has grown...
(08-14-2019 10:17 AM)Old Blue Wrote:  
(08-14-2019 09:47 AM)JoeJag Wrote:  
(08-14-2019 09:33 AM)UAB Schnauzer Wrote:  
(08-14-2019 09:01 AM)TTT Wrote:  I made this long post a few months ago on another board and I'll share it here. It's pretty much the backstory to what all happened to USM starting around the end of the 2011 season up to today:

Quote:If you're wondering what the hell has happened to Southern Miss since we went 12-2 and won CUSA in 2011, here's a breakdown of what happened. ESPN could literally make one of the greatest 30/30 episodes about this:

2011: HC Larry Fedora leads USM to 12-2, T25 ranking, CUSA Champions, and wins the Hawaii Bowl and then bolts for the HC job at UNC. After the Bowl season is over, USM President and AD are both fired because USM had the choice to go to the HOD Bowl and play Penn State but Fedora/AD/Prez (who all knew Fedora was going to jump ship to UNC) accepted the Hawaii Bowl invite vs Nevada instead which pissed off the ENTIRE USM community because hardly anyone can afford to travel to Hawaii to see us play Nevada...compared to the Heat of Dallas Bowl vs. Penn State. So, head coach, AD, and Prez are gone and only a few of the key guys from this championship team (QB, OL, WR's) will be graduating in the spring.

2012: USM (w/ an interim President and interim AD) hires the absolute worst HC in all of college football, Auburn DC E-loss Johnson who turns around and hires HS, JUCO, & SWAC coaches AND a realtor for our S/C coord (a REALTOR as our S/C Coord. who hasn't worked in D1 athletics since the 80's!!! I kid you not!). Meanwhile, during Eloss' first meeting with his new team (while going over team rules and whatnot) he tells the players "No walkmans allowed in the fieldhouse". True story. I sh!t you not. Long story short, he plays HIS guys who he recruited that spring instead of the much more talented juniors/seniors already here recruited under Fedora and we don't win a single game that year. Players are constantly thrown under the bus in post-game pressers and so naturally, every decent player on the team starts to transfer out and thus it starts the mass exodus of our roster. At the conclusion of the 0-12 season Elloss Johnson is fired. Essentially, the 2012 season was a death penalty for USM football. No doubts about it.

2013: USM finally names a new President, Rodney Bennett who later names new USM AD Bill McGillis from USF and enter new HC Todd Monken who inherits an absolute MESS! He literally is working w/ like 50 scholarship players and as a result we "improve" to 1-11. Of course this is also the start of teams leaving/entering CUSA coupled w/ the fact we've won 1 game in 2 years...fan apathy is at an all time high because no one knows who the hell is in our conference anymore and we've only won ONE game over the past 2 years...

2014: We finally start to see a semblance of a FB program. We started the season 3-4 and then our QB (future NFL San Francisco QB Nick Mullens) goes down for the season with an injury and we end up losing the remaining 5 games. We finish this season 3-9. At this point it's hard being a USM fan, 4 wins in the past 3 years....ugh.

2015: USM football is back. We go 9-5. We win CUSA West but ended up losing to WKU in the CUSA CG and Washington in the HOD Bowl. It took a few years but nevertheless, USM football is finally back to being a respectable program and has a lot to build on for the years to come.

2016: A week before national signing day USM HC Todd Monken resigns to become the OC for the Tampa Bay Bucs. Enter new (and current HC) Jay Hopson. He assembles an ok staff all things considered and he manages to keep some of the recruits that were committed to Monken. First game of the season USM wins at Kentucky 44-35 (after trailing 35-10 right before halftime). We have a ton of injuries throughout the year on defense and we end up going 7-6 and are NOLA Bowl Champions. Still, USM is back to being a respectable program.

2017: USM AD McGillis bolts for the AD position at the Univ. of San Diego. We hire Jon Gilbert from Tennessee. We have another decent year in football. We finish 8-5 and get throttled by FSU in the Indy Bowl.

2018: In Monken's 3rd year he would lead his USM team to 9 wins and west division Champs. For Jay Hopson's 3rd year there's too many close losses, a non-existent running game and a cancelled (weather) game @ App State and we go 6-5 and no bowl invite. USM was 7 points away from finishing 9-2 and hosting the CUSA champ. game. 7 freaking points. Run game was terrible, play-calling was terrible, S/C was suspect...so Jay Hopson replaces our OL, OC, and S/C coaches and the outlook for 2019 looks great!

2019 thus far: We lose our AD to ECU, which most USM fans aren't sweating because he really didn't do much. So, we hire Troy's AD Jeremy McClain who is a USM guy who wants to be here and wants to do good for us. What's also good news is we return nearly everyone from our '18 team that was 7 points away from going 9-2 and hosting the 'ship. What does 2019 hold? I predict we beat in-state foe Mississippi State, win 10+ games, host the 'ship, and possibly flirt w/ the T20 towards the end of the season.

Another crucial thing is that prior to the 2017 season our AD stopped giving away free tix to many of the local business/organizations etc. Apparently USM had been doing this for the past 20 years or so. Naturally our attendance went down but we actually made more money from tix sales.

The first issue that led to the decline was getting rid of Bower

Was a terrible move. Not to mention dumb.
Excuse me, you fired the president of the University over a football game? That's pretty hardcore.

Sent from my LG-H932 using CSNbbs mobile app

I'd suggest you read this Deadspin article about the whole thing. For context:
Martha Saunders - axed USM Prez
Richard Giannini - axed USM AD
Gen. Jeff Hammond - Interim AD hired by Martha Saunders
Doug Rouse - big wig Trustee & big time partner of Southern Bone & Joint (the medical team behind USM athletics at the time)

Here's a snippet:

Quote:In the spring, the athletics department began a nationwide search for a permanent athletic director, and many on the USM committee hoped to hire an outside candidate. President Saunders supported Hammond; a faction, led by trustee Doug Rouse and donors loyal to Giannini, fought her every step of the way.

Rouse may have had it out for Hammond after he was cited for potential ethics violations, which were discovered by Hammond's audit. Rouse lobbied Saunders hard not to hire Hammond, according to a series of texts obtained by the Hattiesburg American.

"How are we looking for a decision on AD by tomorrow?" one text reads. Another says, "Would love to talk about search whenever you have a chance."

And one from April 15 shows Rouse trying to dissuade Saunders from hiring current AD Jeff Hammond before talking to local business leaders.

"Sorry we couldn't connect, but wanted you to know Evan Dillard, Lawrence Warren, Mickey Hudson, Ed Langton and Carl Nicholson called today stating they are against in-house hire for AD position (Hammond)," writes Rouse.

"These are not Richard (Giannini, former athletic director) supporters but people who support the Univ. as a whole, and I hope you will talk to them before hiring."

Some boosters went so far as to threaten to withdraw their funding if Hammond were hired.

Before a decision could be made, Saunders unexpectedly retired. It was obvious to everyone that the battle over hiring an athletic director had grown so contentious that the trustees were willing to take Saunders down for it. Just last week, WLOX-TV uncovered documents indicating that "Saunders' exit was carefully orchestrated by the board." At her goodbye press conference in April, Saunders didn't directly address the reasons for her departure, but she didn't exactly deny the rumors either.

To Buy Out Failed Coach, Southern Miss Sold Home-Field Advantage Back To Nebraska for $2.1 Million
https://deadspin.com/to-buy-out-failed-c...ld-5964003
(This post was last modified: 08-14-2019 10:39 AM by TTT.)
08-14-2019 10:29 AM
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everyone Offline
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Post: #31
RE: Curious... would you say your school's fan base overall has grown...
(08-14-2019 10:21 AM)SouthernMissSNu Wrote:  
(08-14-2019 09:01 AM)TTT Wrote:  I made this long post a few months ago on another board and I'll share it here. It's pretty much the backstory to what all happened to USM starting around the end of the 2011 season up to today:

Quote:If you're wondering what the hell has happened to Southern Miss since we went 12-2 and won CUSA in 2011, here's a breakdown of what happened. ESPN could literally make one of the greatest 30/30 episodes about this:

2011: HC Larry Fedora leads USM to 12-2, T25 ranking, CUSA Champions, and wins the Hawaii Bowl and then bolts for the HC job at UNC. After the Bowl season is over, USM President and AD are both fired because USM had the choice to go to the HOD Bowl and play Penn State but Fedora/AD/Prez (who all knew Fedora was going to jump ship to UNC) accepted the Hawaii Bowl invite vs Nevada instead which pissed off the ENTIRE USM community because hardly anyone can afford to travel to Hawaii to see us play Nevada...compared to the Heat of Dallas Bowl vs. Penn State. So, head coach, AD, and Prez are gone and only a few of the key guys from this championship team (QB, OL, WR's) will be graduating in the spring.

2012: USM (w/ an interim President and interim AD) hires the absolute worst HC in all of college football, Auburn DC E-loss Johnson who turns around and hires HS, JUCO, & SWAC coaches AND a realtor for our S/C coord (a REALTOR as our S/C Coord. who hasn't worked in D1 athletics since the 80's!!! I kid you not!). Meanwhile, during Eloss' first meeting with his new team (while going over team rules and whatnot) he tells the players "No walkmans allowed in the fieldhouse". True story. I sh!t you not. Long story short, he plays HIS guys who he recruited that spring instead of the much more talented juniors/seniors already here recruited under Fedora and we don't win a single game that year. Players are constantly thrown under the bus in post-game pressers and so naturally, every decent player on the team starts to transfer out and thus it starts the mass exodus of our roster. At the conclusion of the 0-12 season Elloss Johnson is fired. Essentially, the 2012 season was a death penalty for USM football. No doubts about it.

2013: USM finally names a new President, Rodney Bennett who later names new USM AD Bill McGillis from USF and enter new HC Todd Monken who inherits an absolute MESS! He literally is working w/ like 50 scholarship players and as a result we "improve" to 1-11. Of course this is also the start of teams leaving/entering CUSA coupled w/ the fact we've won 1 game in 2 years...fan apathy is at an all time high because no one knows who the hell is in our conference anymore and we've only won ONE game over the past 2 years...

2014: We finally start to see a semblance of a FB program. We started the season 3-4 and then our QB (future NFL San Francisco QB Nick Mullens) goes down for the season with an injury and we end up losing the remaining 5 games. We finish this season 3-9. At this point it's hard being a USM fan, 4 wins in the past 3 years....ugh.

2015: USM football is back. We go 9-5. We win CUSA West but ended up losing to WKU in the CUSA CG and Washington in the HOD Bowl. It took a few years but nevertheless, USM football is finally back to being a respectable program and has a lot to build on for the years to come.

2016: A week before national signing day USM HC Todd Monken resigns to become the OC for the Tampa Bay Bucs. Enter new (and current HC) Jay Hopson. He assembles an ok staff all things considered and he manages to keep some of the recruits that were committed to Monken. First game of the season USM wins at Kentucky 44-35 (after trailing 35-10 right before halftime). We have a ton of injuries throughout the year on defense and we end up going 7-6 and are NOLA Bowl Champions. Still, USM is back to being a respectable program.

2017: USM AD McGillis bolts for the AD position at the Univ. of San Diego. We hire Jon Gilbert from Tennessee. We have another decent year in football. We finish 8-5 and get throttled by FSU in the Indy Bowl.

2018: In Monken's 3rd year he would lead his USM team to 9 wins and west division Champs. For Jay Hopson's 3rd year there's too many close losses, a non-existent running game and a cancelled (weather) game @ App State and we go 6-5 and no bowl invite. USM was 7 points away from finishing 9-2 and hosting the CUSA champ. game. 7 freaking points. Run game was terrible, play-calling was terrible, S/C was suspect...so Jay Hopson replaces our OL, OC, and S/C coaches and the outlook for 2019 looks great!

2019 thus far: We lose our AD to ECU, which most USM fans aren't sweating because he really didn't do much. So, we hire Troy's AD Jeremy McClain who is a USM guy who wants to be here and wants to do good for us. What's also good news is we return nearly everyone from our '18 team that was 7 points away from going 9-2 and hosting the 'ship. What does 2019 hold? I predict we beat in-state foe Mississippi State, win 10+ games, host the 'ship, and possibly flirt w/ the T20 towards the end of the season.

Another crucial thing is that prior to the 2017 season our AD stopped giving away free tix to many of the local business/organizations etc. Apparently USM had been doing this for the past 20 years or so. Naturally our attendance went down but we actually made more money from tix sales.

I haven’t seen/felt this much genuine optimism or hype about a USM football season in a while. I don’t know whether to be excited, or terrified. It’s an odd feeling not having a negative outlook on a season in early August.

I am nervous and excited. It is crazy that we are just now close to 85 on the roster for the first time in a looong time. Depth has been a big issue for too long. If we have a sub-par year it will be a big let down but I believe we have been through the worst of it. I bite my nails b/c the talent level we are recruiting is not near 2011. We are going to need very good coaching to over come the talent gap and win against good P5 teams.
08-14-2019 10:50 AM
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HiddenDragon Offline
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Post: #32
RE: Curious... would you say your school's fan base overall has grown...
UAB football fan base has increased tremendously and will continue to do so given all of the recent success and new facilities. Meanwhile, the basketball fan base has seen a significant decrease over the last 5 years.
08-14-2019 11:09 AM
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Post: #33
RE: Curious... would you say your school's fan base overall has grown...
(08-14-2019 09:51 AM)THUNDERStruck73 Wrote:  
(08-14-2019 08:38 AM)beefcake0520 Wrote:  
(08-14-2019 05:59 AM)SVHerd Wrote:  Ours is shrinking. Based on many factors. Same with most schools.

We missed our opportunity at growth due to a crap head coach during an exciting era. Snyder killed the fanbase. We got some of it back under doc but if we aren't going nearly undefeated, we still have the issue of lack of excitement within the base. I think Snyder did too much damage and jaded our fans. Heck look at herd fan boards, they piss ok doc if all he does is win 8, 9, games...I would have killed for that with Snyder.

While that may be partially true, I doubt just any coach could have won with what Pruett left in the cupboard. Plus, we got hit with the scholarship reductions. Snyder was fighting a losing battle to begin with.

Agreed, Struck. And/but it's also not as-if there's been Snyder-like results in the Holliday era. So, one can make the assertion that those were significant years, but that alone doesn't explain very well why Marshall might not be enjoying an especially rosy/bullish status at-present.

Again, for now though, I'm just wanting to hear-out others' analyses, so I'll leave that there.
(This post was last modified: 08-14-2019 11:30 AM by _sturt_.)
08-14-2019 11:29 AM
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Post: #34
RE: Curious... would you say your school's fan base overall has grown...
(08-14-2019 09:58 AM)kevinwmsn Wrote:  I think the last realignment has messed up old rivalries and fan interest in conferences where there were a number of teams leaving and entering. I also think since the Bower days there have been a number of schools that have added FBS Div 1 football and that may have hurt Southern Miss football. I think Southern Miss is going to have a good year.

Not to put words in your mouth, but is that to say you think some people who otherwise would have been USM fans/supporters in the past are, now, fans of Troy or USA or other former FCS schools who moved up?
08-14-2019 11:32 AM
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Post: #35
RE: Curious... would you say your school's fan base overall has grown...
(08-14-2019 11:09 AM)HiddenDragon Wrote:  UAB football fan base has increased tremendously and will continue to do so given all of the recent success and new facilities. Meanwhile, the basketball fan base has seen a significant decrease over the last 5 years.

So, are these *new* football fans, or are these Tide and/or Tiger fans who find it okay to moonlight as UAB fans? Or something else? And why has the basketball fan base went downhill in your opinion... ie, specifically as compared b/t the CUSA 2.0 and CUSA 3.0 years?
(This post was last modified: 08-14-2019 11:35 AM by _sturt_.)
08-14-2019 11:34 AM
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Post: #36
RE: Curious... would you say your school's fan base overall has grown...
(08-14-2019 09:51 AM)THUNDERStruck73 Wrote:  
(08-14-2019 08:38 AM)beefcake0520 Wrote:  
(08-14-2019 05:59 AM)SVHerd Wrote:  Ours is shrinking. Based on many factors. Same with most schools.

We missed our opportunity at growth due to a crap head coach during an exciting era. Snyder killed the fanbase. We got some of it back under doc but if we aren't going nearly undefeated, we still have the issue of lack of excitement within the base. I think Snyder did too much damage and jaded our fans. Heck look at herd fan boards, they piss ok doc if all he does is win 8, 9, games...I would have killed for that with Snyder.

While that may be partially true, I doubt just any coach could have won with what Pruett left in the cupboard. Plus, we got hit with the scholarship reductions. Snyder was fighting a losing battle to begin with.

He may have been, don't disagree there, but he didn't have limitations to recruiting and never could get a squad on the field that could do much. Remember even sweating the 1AA games and losing to New Hampshire? I can't give him a pass for the inability to recruit well and win. He recruited some good players but never had a good team.
08-14-2019 11:54 AM
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Post: #37
RE: Curious... would you say your school's fan base overall has grown...
(08-14-2019 11:29 AM)_sturt_ Wrote:  
(08-14-2019 09:51 AM)THUNDERStruck73 Wrote:  
(08-14-2019 08:38 AM)beefcake0520 Wrote:  
(08-14-2019 05:59 AM)SVHerd Wrote:  Ours is shrinking. Based on many factors. Same with most schools.

We missed our opportunity at growth due to a crap head coach during an exciting era. Snyder killed the fanbase. We got some of it back under doc but if we aren't going nearly undefeated, we still have the issue of lack of excitement within the base. I think Snyder did too much damage and jaded our fans. Heck look at herd fan boards, they piss ok doc if all he does is win 8, 9, games...I would have killed for that with Snyder.

While that may be partially true, I doubt just any coach could have won with what Pruett left in the cupboard. Plus, we got hit with the scholarship reductions. Snyder was fighting a losing battle to begin with.

Agreed, Struck. And/but it's also not as-if there's been Snyder-like results in the Holliday era. So, one can make the assertion that those were significant years, but that alone doesn't explain very well why Marshall might not be enjoying an especially rosy/bullish status at-present.

Again, for now though, I'm just wanting to hear-out others' analyses, so I'll leave that there.

No, alone it doesn't, it was still a huge missed opportunity to continue building the fanbase and the program. Wrong leadership was in place who was content for Marshall to never rise up. Doc does have some WTF losses but he also got us back to competing and winning against P5's, something Snyder couldn't dream of. Every P5 we played under him was a blood bath.He is also playing in a much different conference than Snyder did, he could win every game now and not be given credit for much. Every P5 we played under Snyder was a blood bath. Fans get tired of that stuff.
08-14-2019 11:59 AM
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_sturt_ Offline
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Post: #38
RE: Curious... would you say your school's fan base overall has grown...
(08-14-2019 11:59 AM)beefcake0520 Wrote:  No, alone it doesn't, it was still a huge missed opportunity to continue building the fanbase and the program. Wrong leadership was in place who was content for Marshall to never rise up. Doc does have some WTF losses but he also got us back to competing and winning against P5's, something Snyder couldn't dream of. Every P5 we played under him was a blood bath.He is also playing in a much different conference than Snyder did, he could win every game now and not be given credit for much. Every P5 we played under Snyder was a blood bath. Fans get tired of that stuff.

So, then, what's your larger take on why fan enthusiasm at Marshall isn't running higher in the CUSA 3.0 era than previously?
(This post was last modified: 08-14-2019 12:16 PM by _sturt_.)
08-14-2019 12:15 PM
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HiddenDragon Offline
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Post: #39
RE: Curious... would you say your school's fan base overall has grown...
(08-14-2019 11:34 AM)_sturt_ Wrote:  
(08-14-2019 11:09 AM)HiddenDragon Wrote:  UAB football fan base has increased tremendously and will continue to do so given all of the recent success and new facilities. Meanwhile, the basketball fan base has seen a significant decrease over the last 5 years.

So, are these *new* football fans, or are these Tide and/or Tiger fans who find it okay to moonlight as UAB fans? Or something else? And why has the basketball fan base went downhill in your opinion... ie, specifically as compared b/t the CUSA 2.0 and CUSA 3.0 years?

Definitely new fans as indicated by the huge increase in season ticket sales. And if Bama and Aubie buys UAB Football season tickets that is fine by me! But no doubt we'll have those fans attending UAB games especially when the new stadium opens in 2021.

As for basketball, well the product has sucked and the rejuvenation of football has sucked some of the life out of the program. Attendance for basketball has been on a steady decline for years now. It has yet to be determine if UAB can have a viable and successful football and basketball program at the same time. We shall see.
08-14-2019 12:24 PM
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beefcake0520 Offline
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Post: #40
RE: Curious... would you say your school's fan base overall has grown...
(08-14-2019 12:15 PM)_sturt_ Wrote:  
(08-14-2019 11:59 AM)beefcake0520 Wrote:  No, alone it doesn't, it was still a huge missed opportunity to continue building the fanbase and the program. Wrong leadership was in place who was content for Marshall to never rise up. Doc does have some WTF losses but he also got us back to competing and winning against P5's, something Snyder couldn't dream of. Every P5 we played under him was a blood bath.He is also playing in a much different conference than Snyder did, he could win every game now and not be given credit for much. Every P5 we played under Snyder was a blood bath. Fans get tired of that stuff.

So, then, what's your larger take on why fan enthusiasm at Marshall isn't running higher in the CUSA 3.0 era than previously?

Honestly, I know I may piss some of our conference brethren off, but there was no replacements that had name recognition out there. You can't replace ECU with ODU or Charlotte and expect it to be a wash. That was just an example and without naming other schools in our conference, I will leave it at that. Average fans that aren't following all of CFB saw these changes and wondered who the heck is that? Why was CUSA 2.0 exciting when we came in? is CUSA 3.0 just as exciting to an average fan? We on here, aren't average fans, we know who is who, how good they are and why we should care. Average Joe doesn't.
08-14-2019 12:27 PM
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