We’re not the only ones
- Thread starter Medill '03
- Start date
On one hand it makes me pause: Can programs where academics are a priority thrive in this new NIL universe? Is that the game changer?
And then I watched Wake Forest beat Clemson yesterday. Wake is no Northwestern or Stanford, but it's still an academically competitive program with a long-term head coach at the helm.
And then I watched Wake Forest beat Clemson yesterday. Wake is no Northwestern or Stanford, but it's still an academically competitive program with a long-term head coach at the helm.
And when NU has been up, Wake has been really down. The margin for error in college football is small, especially when you're a small private school.
Absolutely. I get that Admissions standards, less sustained prestige in football, etc. can yield ebbs and flows...and you need heavy hitters on both sides of the ball to show up at the same time/in the same classes.
One thing that really irks me as we look at where we are right now...how we effectively squandered the recruiting mojo we had (or should've had) with the Ryan Fieldhouse. There was a point at which some in sports media said we had THE BEST facilities in college football. Then we went 3-9.
I'm sure academics and school size will always present issues. NIL complicates this further. Win at any cost will never be NU's mantra. 1995 was once in a lifetime and I'm glad to have been around to live through it and watch the program in Pasadena.
But NIL can't be blamed for what's happened thus far this year. The Cats have total advantage under NIL over the any of the programs that defeated them this year. Put another way, we won't ever see any Cat trading purple for a Saluki uniform or transferring to a MAC conference team unless it's somebody completely buried in the depth chart.
They can take anyone with a pulse. No academic requirements, and no body there or at Duke gives a **** as long as they are competitive.
Like at NU, Stanford has deteriorated with stale coaching (Stanford still has been recruiting better).
Clawson has built a more stable program w/ a modern passing O, built on the foundation of its O-line.
It's pretty damning of the job Fitz has done w/ respect to the O-line when Wake has been able to consistently able to churn out pretty decent O-lines.
Clawson has built a more stable program w/ a modern passing O, built on the foundation of its O-line.
It's pretty damning of the job Fitz has done w/ respect to the O-line when Wake has been able to consistently able to churn out pretty decent O-lines.
This is a total BS argument. I mean debate the point in another context if you will, but in the context of losing to the likes of Duke, Southern Illinois (an FCS team with barely any scholarships) and a previously winless Miami OH who is projected to finish at the bottom of the MAC, it has NOTHING to do with NIL, academic restrictions, talent gaps or anything sorry assed excuse people want to make up. This is just plain inexcusable incompetence and failure on the part of our coaches.
Dude, get your facts right.
Miami was 1-2 entering the NU game, losing to Cincy and top 10 Kentucky.
They were picked by CFN to finish top of the MAC East:
Yes Miami has been reasonably competitive and yes they were expected to compete for their division, prior to having to play Venus de Milo at QB. Let's parse the game. By the 4th quarter, everyone knew they could not pass, and I think they had like 125 total yards. Miami coach removes head from *** and starts running on every play and we are unable to stop them. Gigantic, post-curry explosion play followed by a grind it out, dare you to stop me drive. If anything, this was more humiliating than the SIU loss due to that 4th quarter.
Miami is no longer favored as their starting QB was knocked out of the season already. Do you really think a team that cannot pass the ball at all can win their conference?
Agree. But his point was that they were picked to finish last preseason, which is just false. A team picked to win their division is more than just a talented QB.
Does Notre Dame count as an academically focused football program that’s also struggling due to NIL, like us / Stanford?
Or did they just hire the wrong coach?
1.)Miami was chosen to win their MAC Division.
2.) SIU has 65 full rides, that is hardly a team with barely any scholarships.
3.) Duke football, like Duke basketball accepts basically anyone the coaches desire.
4.) Our transfer academic requirements definitely hurt our recruiting in that arena.
5.). NIL, or lack thereof, is killing us in high school and grad student recruitment.
Get your facts in order and help fix the problem. Armchair QBs are the worst!
We'll see if Freeman is the right coach for ND. But it might end up like Washington, where a highly successful coach in Petersen left and his hand-picked top assistant (Lake) failed miserably.
Miami is terrible. If you want to make SIU excuses, I've got nothing else to say. How did we from dominating Duke to losing 4 straight? Did they suddenly change their policy?
If you want to accept 1-11 and explain it away with Miami's incorrect accolades, Duke's sudden resurgence and the talent of SIU, I'm ready to give up and go the U of Chicago route. And don't build an 800M white elephant
I don't think it matters where Miami was picked preseason when they're 3-4 right now including that win against us. Right now you would project them to finish closer to the bottom than the top based on the first half of the season.
Are we really trying to puff up the quality of Miami, SIU, and Duke?
Duke is a Power 5 football team with less academic restrictions than us in recruiting. You could argue that they have the same talent level as us. Losing to them isn't the end of the world.
Miami and SIU? They should be nowhere close to us. We lost to those 2 teams in particular because of coaching (JON and Bajakian) more than anything else.
If Miami was tearing up the MAC that'd be one thing, they're not. They're likely to end up somewhere around a 0.500 MAC team or worse.
@phatcat has a fair point. If we're really going to try to explain away these losses when we're dumping $1.1 billion into a Big Ten football program, what's the point?
We're spending $10 million on Fitz and his assistant salaries and they're losing to teams that have salary pools under $1 million. What are we getting for this?
Just de-emphasize athletics and get it over with if we're trying to rationalize these losses; there should never be an excuse for losing to these programs with far less resources and lower talent levels than we have. These losses are squarely on the coaches.
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hey maybe it's time, actually well past time to loosen up academic requirements. It sure hasn't hurt Duke's reputation. NIL shouldn't hurt NU recruiting with all the big buck grads available. You know "you will be working for us one day" group. get with it.. now.