If you check the Big East rankings, you'll see that 247 rates our class as being almost identical to UConn's but that we trail all the other BE leftovers. The test will be for 2013. Can we just outright kick UConn's butt if they are lousy again and if we win a bowl game as I think we should, can we put together a class comparable to that of South Florida, for example?
Not that it matters but... at least we finished a head of a couple of Big12 teams and right behind another.
If you check the Big East rankings, you'll see that 247 rates our class as being almost identical to UConn's but that we trail all the other BE leftovers. The test will be for 2013. Can we just outright kick UConn's butt if they are lousy again and if we win a bowl game as I think we should, can we put together a class comparable to that of South Florida, for example?
Thank you. Very interesting. Though it's still so frustrating that we have such a tough time ---in any poll that I've seen over the past 10 or 15 years---getting higher than in the 70's in ranking. I think Tom Craft had us in the 60's, but that was fleeting, since few of them qualified. You're right, this next recruiting class should be very telling. Do we have they right recruiters however? Or enough of them?
If you check the Big East rankings, you'll see that 247 rates our class as being almost identical to UConn's but that we trail all the other BE leftovers. The test will be for 2013. Can we just outright kick UConn's butt if they are lousy again and if we win a bowl game as I think we should, can we put together a class comparable to that of South Florida, for example?
Just noticed - that although BSU is rated higher than us - they are in the same boat - are only ahead of UConn in the BE.
BTW - just saw this about Petersen... how the hell can they afford that??
Petersen will get $1.7 million in 2012 with that number incrementally increasing until it hits $2.5 million in 2016.
The contract will also automatically extend for another season anytime Boise State manages to win 8 games in a season,
If you check the Big East rankings, you'll see that 247 rates our class as being almost identical to UConn's but that we trail all the other BE leftovers. The test will be for 2013. Can we just outright kick UConn's butt if they are lousy again and if we win a bowl game as I think we should, can we put together a class comparable to that of South Florida, for example?
Just noticed - that although BSU is rated higher than us - they are in the same boat - are only ahead of UConn in the BE.
BTW - just saw this about Petersen... how the hell can they afford that??
Petersen will get $1.7 million in 2012 with that number incrementally increasing until it hits $2.5 million in 2016.
The contract will also automatically extend for another season anytime Boise State manages to win 8 games in a season,
I'm assuming that they (Boise) have deep-pocketed boosters (as others here have remarked) that want badly to keep him, or make sure that he doesn't leave. I'm not sure if we have those kind of boosters, or enough of them, or not the right coach(s) to generate that level of "enthusiasm". But I think that another thread had a post with an article showing that at least some of that raise was voted on in the state legislature.
If you check the Big East rankings, you'll see that 247 rates our class as being almost identical to UConn's but that we trail all the other BE leftovers. The test will be for 2013. Can we just outright kick UConn's butt if they are lousy again and if we win a bowl game as I think we should, can we put together a class comparable to that of South Florida, for example?
Thank you. Very interesting. Though it's still so frustrating that we have such a tough time ---in any poll that I've seen over the past 10 or 15 years---getting higher than in the 70's in ranking. I think Tom Craft had us in the 60's, but that was fleeting, since few of them qualified. You're right, this next recruiting class should be very telling. Do we have they right recruiters however? Or enough of them?
Craft's 2003 class was rated by Rivals as the 55th best:
No bigger fraud was ever perpetrated on the Aztec Nation. As indicated in an article by the supposed anti-Aztec, Brett Schrotenboer, only 52% of those recruits ever wore the red and black for more than one year. The rest either never qualified academically, flunked out after their first year, sustained a career-ending injury or simply got tired of playing football and quit. And unfortunately, that included many of those most highly rated guys.
"America loves a winner and will not tolerate a loser" - George Patton
Joined: Jul 2009 Gender: Male Posts: 5,180 Location: Fallbrook, CA
Re: No Raise for Rocky Long? « Reply #65 on Apr 17, 2012, 11:12am »
It takes many years and a lot of effort to create a college football program that is a recognized national power. Out of 120 FBS schools, how many can be considered national powers? I'd say maybe a couple of dozen. Several conferences don't have even a single one.
SDSU was on its way to becoming a national power, or at least a program close to that level, in the 1970s. We all know what happened; Claude Gilbert was fired and a succession of questionable to downright foolish head coaching hires, plus a lack of commitment on the part of the school, ruined our chances. (The rise of BYU in the same conference didn't help, either.)
Now we are ecstatic if the team wins 8 or more games in a single year. We are also very pleased if 30,000 or more people actually attend Aztec games. . . . in a stadium that seats 70,000!
I'm on record as supporting the hire of Rocky Long. It was certainly the right move given the circumstances. However, if SDSU is ever to join the ranks of recently elevated programs (Boise State, TCU, Houston), we may have to wait for a dynamic young (i.e., under 50) coach to take over. I am, of course, thinking of the second coming of Don Coryell. Lunacy on my part? Perhaps, but one can always hope for the best.
In any event, just to keep up with the Big East teams we will be facing, we are going to have to bring in more than the handful of outstanding recruits that we signed this year. As I pointed out in an earlier post in this thread, almost all of the BE schools got at least one or two 4-star athletes in addition to a goodly number of 3s. Until we can duplicate that kind of recruiting class we will have to hope that our staff can do a super job of coaching up young players that our fellow BE schools passed on.
It takes many years and a lot of effort to create a college football program that is a recognized national power. Out of 120 FBS schools, how many can be considered national powers? I'd say maybe a couple of dozen. Several conferences don't have even a single one.
SDSU was on its way to becoming a national power, or at least a program close to that level, in the 1970s. We all know what happened; Claude Gilbert was fired and a succession of questionable to downright foolish head coaching hires, plus a lack of commitment on the part of the school, ruined our chances. (The rise of BYU in the same conference didn't help, either.)
Now we are ecstatic if the team wins 8 or more games in a single year. We are also very pleased if 30,000 or more people actually attend Aztec games. . . . in a stadium that seats 70,000!
I'm on record as supporting the hire of Rocky Long. It was certainly the right move given the circumstances. However, if SDSU is ever to join the ranks of recently elevated programs (Boise State, TCU, Houston), we may have to wait for a dynamic young (i.e., under 50) coach to take over. I am, of course, thinking of the second coming of Don Coryell. Lunacy on my part? Perhaps, but one can always hope for the best.
In any event, just to keep up with the Big East teams we will be facing, we are going to have to bring in more than the handful of outstanding recruits that we signed this year. As I pointed out in an earlier post in this thread, almost all of the BE schools got at least one or two 4-star athletes in addition to a goodly number of 3s. Until we can duplicate that kind of recruiting class we will have to hope that our staff can do a super job of coaching up young players that our fellow BE schools passed on.
AzWm
Good post AztecWilliam. And I particularly agree with you on the necessity of hiring an under-50 coach who may relate better to recruits. I feel that we are very deficient on recruiting. Though I also agree that hiring Rocky was the best we could do under the circumstances we found ourselves when Hoke bolted. But on a point of disagreement, didn't TCU and Boise rise to the very top in much less than a decade? More like 5 years? And with very young coaches? And another point I have not researched, when we join the Big East, won't we have the oldest coach in the league?
Re: No Raise for Rocky Long? « Reply #67 on Apr 17, 2012, 12:11pm »
Its not about the age - its about the fit. Cuckles and Craft were young and well...
Fisher is the oldest coach in the MWC and will be in the BW and would be in the all but one or two conferences.
Is Rocky the answer? maybe/maybe not - but for now he is 8-5 which is a lot better than we were two years before. Can he put a string of 8 wins seasons together then make the jump to winning conference championships? Only time will tell.
Its not about the age - its about the fit. Cuckles and Craft were young and well...
Fisher is the oldest coach in the MWC and will be in the BW and would be in the all but one or two conferences.
Is Rocky the answer? maybe/maybe not - but for now he is 8-5 which is a lot better than we were two years before. Can he put a string of 8 wins seasons together then make the jump to winning conference championships? Only time will tell.
Well, I agree that age alone is not the answer. Certainly in view of Craft and Chuck Long. I should have been more clear, and I guess this is a truism, younger is preferable IF he's also got coaching and recruiting ability. Fisher has a proven track record. Rocky---in my view and in spite of the "great" years at New Mexico--does not. This obviously requires good choices by our ADs, which have been totally vacant in the past and prior to Hoke.
And I particularly agree with you on the necessity of hiring an under-50 coach who may relate better to recruits. I feel that we are very deficient on recruiting. Though I also agree that hiring Rocky was the best we could do under the circumstances we found ourselves when Hoke bolted.
But on a point of disagreement, didn't TCU and Boise rise to the very top in much less than a decade? More like 5 years? And with very young coaches? And another point I have not researched, when we join the Big East, won't we have the oldest coach in the league?
TCU, not at all. Google their history and you'll find Horned Frogs football goes way, way back in the SWC, with a couple Heisman candidates to boot.
Note the CSUN scores from their first two years at that level. CSUN was a member of the Big Sky Conference at that time so traveled up to that neck of the woods often. However, note also that both non-conference games were played in Boise. Why? Because nobody except a former history professor of mine ever cared about CSUN football. (I attended CSUN for a couple years before transferring.) In contrast, Boise has always been popular. I know that because my aunt and uncle lived there and although not alumni, had season tickets for years.
I've lost the link because it was on the hard drive of my last computer but there was an article published about half a dozen years ago about the essence of Boise's success. One was fan support from a football crazy city too far from Seattle and the Bay Area for most fans to attend NFL games. Another was support from the chamber of commerce, which created the Humanitarian Bowl just so the Bluefields would have a post-season game to participate in if they were bowl eligible as a member of the Big West when that conference still played football. (CSUN had moved UP to the Big Sky for football from the Big West, which inferior in that sport.) Another was the blue field, which provided a great gimmick to use to promote Boise football. Another was that Boise figured out early on that there were plenty of good HS football players in California that weren't going to be offered by the Pac-10 or SDSU or SJSU or Fresno and that it behooved Boise to fund their out-of-state tuition rather than having a bunch of modestly talented but much cheaper Idaho farm boys on the roster because winning teams sell tickets and losing teams tend not to.
Unlike William, I'm not convinced SDSU is headed toward becoming a football power on the national stage. Boise has won a buttload of huge victories over the years. SDSU? I can't remember how long it's been since the last one. If Rocky beats a Pac or B12 team in a bowl game this year or if BYU goes 10-2 and we kick their ass in the Poinsettia Bowl, then maybe I'll feel differently. Until then, we're a work in progress IMO.
"America loves a winner and will not tolerate a loser" - George Patton
Joined: Jul 2009 Gender: Male Posts: 5,180 Location: Fallbrook, CA
Re: No Raise for Rocky Long? « Reply #70 on Apr 17, 2012, 1:08pm »
I mentioned the age factor because I want us to hire a really terrific coach who will be here for a decade or more. I doubt that Rocky Long will, even if he continues to have winning seasons, be coaching more than four or five years. I could be wrong, of course.
What we need is someone like Lavell Edwards or Chris Peterson, a coach who decides that it is not in his best interest to jump to a "big name" school. Such an attitude can make sense. There have been a lot of coaches who did well in a low-profile school and then fell flat when they stepped up to a higher level school. (Example: Joe Glenn had great success at Doane, Nothern Colorado, and Montna. He then went to Wyoming and had just one winning season our of six as HC.)
And I particularly agree with you on the necessity of hiring an under-50 coach who may relate better to recruits. I feel that we are very deficient on recruiting. Though I also agree that hiring Rocky was the best we could do under the circumstances we found ourselves when Hoke bolted.
But on a point of disagreement, didn't TCU and Boise rise to the very top in much less than a decade? More like 5 years? And with very young coaches? And another point I have not researched, when we join the Big East, won't we have the oldest coach in the league?
TCU, not at all. Google their history and you'll find Horned Frogs football goes way, way back in the SWC, with a couple Heisman candidates to boot.
Note the CSUN scores from their first two years at that level. CSUN was a member of the Big Sky Conference at that time so traveled up to that neck of the woods often. However, note also that both non-conference games were played in Boise. Why? Because nobody except a former history professor of mine ever cared about CSUN football. (I attended CSUN for a couple years before transferring.) In contrast, Boise has always been popular. I know that because my aunt and uncle lived there and although not alumni, had season tickets for years.
I've lost the link because it was on the hard drive of my last computer but there was an article published about half a dozen years ago about the essence of Boise's success. One was fan support from a football crazy city too far from Seattle and the Bay Area for most fans to attend NFL games. Another was support from the chamber of commerce, which created the Humanitarian Bowl just so the Bluefields would have a post-season game to participate in if they were bowl eligible as a member of the Big West when that conference still played football. (CSUN had moved UP to the Big Sky for football from the Big West, which inferior in that sport.) Another was the blue field, which provided a great gimmick to use to promote Boise football. Another was that Boise figured out early on that there were plenty of good HS football players in California that weren't going to be offered by the Pac-10 or SDSU or SJSU or Fresno and that it behooved Boise to fund their out-of-state tuition rather than having a bunch of modestly talented but much cheaper Idaho farm boys on the roster because winning teams sell tickets and losing teams tend not to.
Unlike William, I'm not convinced SDSU is headed toward becoming a football power on the national stage. Boise has won a buttload of huge victories over the years. SDSU? I can't remember how long it's been since the last one. If Rocky beats a Pac or B12 team in a bowl game this year or if BYU goes 10-2 and we kick their ass in the Poinsettia Bowl, then maybe I'll feel differently. Until then, we're a work in progress IMO.
Thanks for the elucidation. I wasn't under the impression that William thought we were headed toward a national power. And I'll say it more strongly than you did, without renovation of our coaching staff in my view, we will NEVER get close. Regarding TCU and Boise, I was aware that both had some history, but to me, TCU's latest jump and Boise's only jump, to the national scene (yes Hawkins gave them a boost after they joined the WAC) were intiated by their current coaches and those guys have only been in place for less than 10 years.
"America loves a winner and will not tolerate a loser" - George Patton
Joined: Jul 2009 Gender: Male Posts: 5,180 Location: Fallbrook, CA
Re: No Raise for Rocky Long? « Reply #73 on Apr 17, 2012, 1:58pm »
Point of clarification: I am by no means convinced that SDSU is destined to become a national power. I think that we had a chance to become relevant in the 1970s; However, it's pure speculation as to whether we would have made the jump to certifiable football powerhouse even if the suits had not made the many mistakes with which we are so familiar.
Actually, now that I think of it, perhaps the biggest mistake of all (if you can call it a mistake) was letting Don Coryell get away. I realize that it would have been tough for him to turn down a chance to be an NFL head coach, but perhaps he would have stayed had the school not handicapped the program with its admission policy of 1971.
As I recall, athletes were not given priority in class scheduling that year. That was when we relied almost exclusively on JC recruiting, with a yearly turnover of almost 50%. The result was Coryell's worst year (6-5). Had St. Don stayed on, I think it would have been hard for the administration to fire him in 1980 as they did Claude Gilbert when the switch to H.S. recruiting was being made.
I do believe that SDSU has a decent chance to reach a level at which most years we win 8 or more games and are often ranked in the Top-25. I repeat, there is a chance, not a guarantee.
When all is said and done, at some point we are going to have to hire a Coryell 2.0 or get lucky as we did in basketball with Steve Fisher. Rocky Long has the potential to help this program improve; I don't want to sell him short. But I am taking the long view, and that means, if possible, hiring a great coach who will last a decade or more.
The best thing for us is to continue to win 7-9 games a year and when Rocky is ready to call it quits we bring in a big name. Look at Arizona. They now have Rich Rodriguez. I don't know whether RickRod would have taken the job here had it been open, but that hire is the kind that might replicate in football the resurgence we have enjoyed in basketball.
AzWm
« Last Edit: Apr 17, 2012, 2:00pm by AztecWilliam »
Re: No Raise for Rocky Long? « Reply #74 on Apr 17, 2012, 2:07pm »
TCU's more recent success started under Dennis Franchione who took over a 1-10 team and rode some running back by the name of Tomlinson to winning records and their first bowl win since 57'.
We moved up to DIA in 1969 and kicked major butt for a decade. We then underestimated how difficult the transition to playing at altitude in out of the way places like Laramie would be but "transitioned" well eventually, winning the WAC championship eight years later. (That WAC was vastly better than the present one as exemplified by the fact BYU won the national championship two years earlier.)
We then had to dispose of two mediocre coaches but began landing on our feet with Lugie in 1990. However, that guy put together both as good an offense as there was in the country and as bad a defense as anybody had. I even thought replacing him with Tollner was fine. BUT, extending Ted's contract to whopping ten years was as dumb as the MWC's ten-year TV deal. Word was Ted was thereafter seen about as often at the golf course as in his office and I'll leave it to SteveEM, who had contacts within the staff if not also within the president's office, to explain how seldom Ted reportedly hit the road to recruit. That all began in 1998 and it only got worse over the next ten years.
"America loves a winner and will not tolerate a loser" - George Patton
Joined: Jul 2009 Gender: Male Posts: 5,180 Location: Fallbrook, CA
Re: No Raise for Rocky Long? « Reply #76 on Apr 17, 2012, 2:40pm »
Listing the evolution of Boise State football is really informative. You know, in a real sense the Broncos' rise to Top-10 status may well be a one-of-a-kind deal. I'd say it will be next to impossible to replicate that feat. Winning 8 or more games a year and getting in the Top-25 now and then, yes. Racking up 12-1 or 13-0 seasons just a few years after being I-AA? Don't think we are going to see that any time soon. If ever.
AzWm
« Last Edit: Apr 17, 2012, 10:47pm by AztecWilliam »
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