HD6 said:
they have been to a bowl game 8 years in a row, 12 out of the last 13 years. How on earth are they not currently a better overall football program than us. Do you really think Croom would have ever beaten them? We might have beaten them this year, but seriously, USM is a damn good CUSA football program.
You can argue about whether recruits should rather go to a good CUSA program or a (1) bad (2) mediocre, (3) bad but improving, or (4) mediocre but improving SEC program (I think MSU is No. 4 at this point), but just saying USM has a better program lacks context.
In the Croom years, I would assume USM had better teams, but even with a ****** Head coach and OC, MSU beat the CUSA's best team with defense alone. And since the 8th or 9th best team in the SEC seems to relatively consistently beat the best CUSA team (don't know the record, but it seems like SEC wins usually), it seems reasonable that the 10th or 11th best SEC team in many years would be a competitive team in the CUSA.
To answer your question, USM is not a better football program b/c in their best years, they go to Memphis to end the season. Croom managed to banish state's football program to the wilderness, but a decent coach and smart out of conference schedule still puts USM's absolute ceiling within reach for MSU more or less every year.