(10-28-2021 05:54 PM)EKUSteve Wrote:  Missouri State AD saying they have not been contacted by a FBS conference nor have they contacted one.

https://www.news-leader.com/story/sports...184006001/

Why would they? They would literally destroy their basketball in one fell swoop.

(10-27-2021 02:30 PM)eku05 Wrote:  

(10-26-2021 09:24 AM)JohnGoodmanMSU Wrote:  Coach Petrino has done a great job on and off the field at MSU. The narrative about this man that the media tries to spin is just absurd. Fake news everywhere about the man. He had the incident at Arkansas back in 2012. Western Kentucky hired him in 2013 and you can ask the WKU people on this board but the Hilltoppers loved having Bobby. Then Louisville opened up the next year and Bobby went back to the place he loved where he had the most success. At Louisville he turned Lamar Jackson into a Heisman winner and restored the Cardinals to the glory days of his first run. The team struggled the year after Lamar Jackson left and the AD had a pretty quick hook.

He has brought a lot of life to the program at MSU. As he continues to win games he would love to hand the program off to his son Nick at the appropriate time.

I'm lurking on this board as an EKU fan because I'm really, really hoping we can get in on this discussion. We have the right leadership, massive renovations are underway, and there even more unannounced overhauls to come. We are ready for the opportunity if it arises.

But I'm also a lifelong Louisville fan, and I want to add some nuance to that discussion.

1. He's a great coach, and he was a great hire for an MSU program with very little to lose. I'm not surprised he's doing well there. He's one of the best offensive minds in the history of the game.

2. With that having been said, someone mentioned him having so many family members on his staff. That was true at Louisville as well near the end. There's a reason for that...no one wants to work for him anymore. He'll be fine at the FCS level because coaches pursuing those jobs don't have the options that guys with Power 5 credentials do. But in the ACC he had three different Defensive Coordinators in his last three years. Louisville lost Todd Grantham, who is now at Florida, to Mississippi State. Grantham had been outstanding for us, but he just couldn't get along with Petrino. And to make it worse, Petrino then hired the very coach that MSU had just fired before hiring Grantham away. He didn't forget how to coach, he just couldn't get/keep a staff together.

3. That collapse in his final year was about way more than losing Lamar Jackson. I mean, Lamar's replacement was a stud recruit too, and that team was LOADED with returning talent. You've never seen a team show less effort. Guys would just regularly quit on plays. The environment was toxic (I know family members of guys on the team at that time).

4. The slide started while Lamar was still there:
-In his sophomore season they were legit national title contenders. They came up half a yard short of beating Clemson in Death Valley. But after that loss the wheels came off. There were a few narrow wins over bad teams, and they got absolutely embarrassed on a Thursday night at Houston before being held to six points in a Bowl game against LSU
-In Lamar's junior season he was great, but the team underwhelmed losing something like four games and really stumbling down the stretch.
-Obviously the next year was horrible. They set the all-time FBS record for number of times allowing 50+ opponent points in a season. That has nothing to do with Lamar. That's a team with a lot of talent flat out quitting on a coach. Anyone who says otherwise just wasn't watching.

5. Even if you are going to use the "They lost Lamar so they got bad" argument, doesn't that essentially mean that 100% of Petrino's success in his second tenure at Louisville hinged on getting one player? That doesn't exactly lend itself to a high opinion of a coach.

I wish Bobby well, and I think he'll continue to do a nice job at MSU. But don't let anyone fool you into the idea that Louisville just wasn't patient enough. There were red flags all around, and another year of that could have killed the program for a long time coming.

But seriously. EKU to C-USA. We are a university and a fan base hungry for an opportunity, and we have really proactive, pro-athletics leadership in place right now.

Why would we want eku. You have done nothing in the Ohio Valley
When was your last basketball championship in the OVC
When did you last win the FCS Football playoffs.
Plus you just changed conferences to the ASUN
This year.
I think CUSA will take the most successful schools
Try the Sun Belt they seem to be adding everyone

(10-29-2021 01:59 PM)Hilltop75 Wrote:  

(10-27-2021 02:30 PM)eku05 Wrote:  [quote='JohnGoodmanMSU' pid='17780178' dateline='1635258292']
Coach Petrino has done a great job on and off the field at MSU. The narrative about this man that the media tries to spin is just absurd. Fake news everywhere about the man. He had the incident at Arkansas back in 2012. Western Kentucky hired him in 2013 and you can ask the WKU people on this board but the Hilltoppers loved having Bobby. Then Louisville opened up the next year and Bobby went back to the place he loved where he had the most success. At Louisville he turned Lamar Jackson into a Heisman winner and restored the Cardinals to the glory days of his first run. The team struggled the year after Lamar Jackson left and the AD had a pretty quick hook.

He has brought a lot of life to the program at MSU. As he continues to win games he would love to hand the program off to his son Nick at the appropriate time.

I'm lurking on this board as an EKU fan because I'm really, really hoping we can get in on this discussion. We have the right leadership, massive renovations are underway, and there even more unannounced overhauls to come. We are ready for the opportunity if it arises.

But I'm also a lifelong Louisville fan, and I want to add some nuance to that discussion.

1. He's a great coach, and he was a great hire for an MSU program with very little to lose. I'm not surprised he's doing well there. He's one of the best offensive minds in the history of the game.

2. With that having been said, someone mentioned him having so many family members on his staff. That was true at Louisville as well near the end. There's a reason for that...no one wants to work for him anymore. He'll be fine at the FCS level because coaches pursuing those jobs don't have the options that guys with Power 5 credentials do. But in the ACC he had three different Defensive Coordinators in his last three years. Louisville lost Todd Grantham, who is now at Florida, to Mississippi State. Grantham had been outstanding for us, but he just couldn't get along with Petrino. And to make it worse, Petrino then hired the very coach that MSU had just fired before hiring Grantham away. He didn't forget how to coach, he just couldn't get/keep a staff together.

3. That collapse in his final year was about way more than losing Lamar Jackson. I mean, Lamar's replacement was a stud recruit too, and that team was LOADED with returning talent. You've never seen a team show less effort. Guys would just regularly quit on plays. The environment was toxic (I know family members of guys on the team at that time).

4. The slide started while Lamar was still there:
-In his sophomore season they were legit national title contenders. They came up half a yard short of beating Clemson in Death Valley. But after that loss the wheels came off. There were a few narrow wins over bad teams, and they got absolutely embarrassed on a Thursday night at Houston before being held to six points in a Bowl game against LSU
-In Lamar's junior season he was great, but the team underwhelmed losing something like four games and really stumbling down the stretch.
-Obviously the next year was horrible. They set the all-time FBS record for number of times allowing 50+ opponent points in a season. That has nothing to do with Lamar. That's a team with a lot of talent flat out quitting on a coach. Anyone who says otherwise just wasn't watching.

5. Even if you are going to use the "They lost Lamar so they got bad" argument, doesn't that essentially mean that 100% of Petrino's success in his second tenure at Louisville hinged on getting one player? That doesn't exactly lend itself to a high opinion of a coach.

I wish Bobby well, and I think he'll continue to do a nice job at MSU. But don't let anyone fool you into the idea that Louisville just wasn't patient enough. There were red flags all around, and another year of that could have killed the program for a long time coming.

But seriously. EKU to C-USA. We are a university and a fan base hungry for an opportunity, and we have really proactive, pro-athletics leadership in place right now.

Why would we want eku. You have done nothing in the Ohio Valley
When was your last basketball championship in the OVC
When did you last win the FCS Football playoffs.
Plus you just changed conferences to the ASUN
This year.

EKU05. Many western fans don't want us, they have made it plain, they don't want another FBS team in the state to compete with....never mind that we are the only school that has done the preparation for such a move...

Quote:Why would we want eku. You have done nothing in the Ohio Valley
When was your last basketball championship in the OVC
When did you last win the FCS Football playoffs.
Plus you just changed conferences to the ASUN
This year.
I think CUSA will take the most successful schools
Try the Sun Belt they seem to be adding everyone

Some of these are fair points. We won OVC basketball in 2014, and we've got a very, very good team this year. If you're buying stocks you don't buy the ones that are high now. You buy the ones likely to trend up in the near future, and all of the signs are there that we're moving in a very good direction. Besides, we all know that FBS moves are not about what happens on the field. If they were you wouldn't want Missouri State either. Until last year they'd been a joke.

There really is a new leadership mentality on campus at EKU, and they're taking big steps in the right direction with facilities, bringing in some pretty fantastic coaches recently, etc. We're ready for this, which is not something I'd have said a few years back. Obviously we're not the only option, but I think we'd be a solid pickup, and I think the renewal of the "Battle of the Bluegrass" would generate interest that both programs could put to good use. WKU has done amazing things, and I'm glad we're finally taking the steps to at least try to emulate some of them.

But your last comment? You're really going to take shots at the Sun Belt for being inferior right now? I'm not trying to troll, but you have to admit that's a little silly.

(Also, for what it's worth...we did try the Sun Belt. They were on our campus vetting us twice. The first time they didn't expand at all, and the second time we were runner up to Coastal. Admittedly, that one worked out pretty well for the Belt).

(10-29-2021 02:57 PM)LexColonel Wrote:  EKU05. Many western fans don't want us, they have made it plain, they don't want another FBS team in the state to compete with....never mind that we are the only school that has done the preparation for such a move...

It's not the competition. It's knowing that their survival hinges on FCS additions, but Eastern Kentucky and Chattanooga or East Tennessee are the additions the Suck Belt wants to see because that's who they want to add to get to 16 without actually being the league to build those programs up.

(10-29-2021 01:58 PM)ericsaid Wrote:  

(10-28-2021 05:54 PM)EKUSteve Wrote:  Missouri State AD saying they have not been contacted by a FBS conference nor have they contacted one.

https://www.news-leader.com/story/sports...184006001/

Why would they? They would literally destroy their basketball in one fell swoop.

If C-USA adds the right teams it could be a pretty nice Basketball conference. NMSU and Liberty are no slouches, and WKU & La Tech are consistently good year to year

(10-29-2021 03:04 PM)All4One Wrote:  

(10-29-2021 02:57 PM)LexColonel Wrote:  EKU05. Many western fans don't want us, they have made it plain, they don't want another FBS team in the state to compete with....never mind that we are the only school that has done the preparation for such a move...

It's not the competition. It's knowing that their survival hinges on FCS additions, but Eastern Kentucky and Chattanooga or East Tennessee are the additions the Suck Belt wants to see because that's who they want to add to get to 16 without actually being the league to build those programs up.

It's funny, you were over there being "cordial" not that long ago.

You have no team. You don't care for a particular conference. You say you have no vested interest.

Clearly that's a lie.

As for ETSU, EKU, and UTC, only EKU was ever mentioned for possible expansion and I saw them mentioned in like 2014 or 2015 along with Missouri State. Neither program had facilities or budgets at the time, as I remember it. Since that time, you've seen Missouri State invest heavily in building support, a donor base, and facilities to FBS levels. If anything, them moving to C-USA harms the SBC's position in your fantasy land you've obviously created.

UTC, to the best of my knowledge, doesn't have anywhere near the support or budget required to move. Their sports and facilities are fine. They would come in with one of the nicest stadiums in C-USA, a holdover from App State's National Championship run...Kidd Brewer West.

In short, no one cares if C-USA adds those programs, especially the Sun Belt. I actually think that it would be the first good decision that C-USA has made in more than a decade, but not because it helps the Sun Belt because it doesn't. What would help the Sun Belt is if every program remaining in C-USA dropped down to FCS, but that's not happening either, nor should it happen.

(10-29-2021 04:08 PM)ericsaid Wrote:  

(10-29-2021 03:04 PM)All4One Wrote:  

(10-29-2021 02:57 PM)LexColonel Wrote:  EKU05. Many western fans don't want us, they have made it plain, they don't want another FBS team in the state to compete with....never mind that we are the only school that has done the preparation for such a move...

It's not the competition. It's knowing that their survival hinges on FCS additions, but Eastern Kentucky and Chattanooga or East Tennessee are the additions the Suck Belt wants to see because that's who they want to add to get to 16 without actually being the league to build those programs up.

It's funny, you were over there being "cordial" not that long ago.

You have no team. You don't care for a particular conference. You say you have no vested interest.

Clearly that's a lie.

As for ETSU, EKU, and UTC, only EKU was ever mentioned for possible expansion and I saw them mentioned in like 2014 or 2015 along with Missouri State. Neither program had facilities or budgets at the time, as I remember it. Since that time, you've seen Missouri State invest heavily in building support, a donor base, and facilities to FBS levels. If anything, them moving to C-USA harms the SBC's position in your fantasy land you've obviously created.

UTC, to the best of my knowledge, doesn't have anywhere near the support or budget required to move. Their sports and facilities are fine. They would come in with one of the nicest stadiums in C-USA, a holdover from App State's National Championship run...Kidd Brewer West.

In short, no one cares if C-USA adds those programs, especially the Sun Belt. I actually think that it would be the first good decision that C-USA has made in more than a decade, but not because it helps the Sun Belt because it doesn't. What would help the Sun Belt is if every program remaining in C-USA dropped down to FCS, but that's not happening either, nor should it happen.

Woh! I did not say I had no vested interest in anything. And I've said repeatedly that Conference USA itself is my team,

(10-26-2021 09:32 AM)OsageJ Wrote:  You may need to talk to people who worked with him. He was a terror at Arkansas. Treated people like crap. That's not the media. After he leaves MSU you will hear it from them too. The one good thing is he may get the Bears off their duff and into a FBS conf. That would make our games with y'all better.

Don’t forget the whole thing about him having no loyalty and always treating every job as a stepping stone to some place else. I mean there was the whole debacle with Auburn during his first stint at Louisville, his departure from the Atlanta Falcons midway through his first season (where he didn’t even tell the team in person that he was leaving for Arkansas, according to several Falcons players) and when he got his second chance at WKU, he only lasted a year before he was bouncing for another job. Missouri State is only a paycheck to him. He feels no sense of loyalty to the school. I wouldn’t be surprised if he isn’t already sending out resumes to other schools.