If we want to get respect we have got to earn it.  Beating ECU is the next thing that can be done to help with that.  The program could use a signature win.  Winning cures most everything.

Respect said

If we want to get respect we have got to earn it.  Beating ECU is the next thing that can be done to help with that.  The program could use a signature win.  Winning cures most everything.

Posted On: Sep 4th 2013, 11:38 AM #316528

Beating ECU would give us a gentle bump. Losing would give us a swift, hard kick in the pants. So go the oddities of college football.

The only thing thats not accurate in that ESPN bottom 10 article is that it has us at 0-2 after week 1.

I'm not gonna get caught up in wins and losses. To me, what's more important is how we play. If we lose to ECU in a hard fought 24-21 game, I'm pumped and looking forward to the next game. All I hope for is a competent, competitive team that believes they can win when they play the game.

Last year I think we had a thread going with everyone predicting the # of wins/losses the next few years under pelini.  I think I had predicted 3-4 wins last year, 5-6 wins this year and 6-8 wins next year.  I'll still be happy with a similar record as it shows improvement each year.  I'd love for us to be bowl eligible this year, but who knows if that'll happen or not.  Just keep improving owls and the wins will come.

"winning cures everything"

Is there really such thing as "rebuilding mode" in college sports though? I think it is an interesting question because it's not like in pro sports where you properly rebuild by trading veterans and aging players for high drafts picks. We don't get to pick the best athletes with a first overall recruit pick. The nature of college sports is that it is kind of inherently unfair, or at least built where the rich get richer. To me, it's slightly frustrating to watch the same schools get the best talent every year. It's part of why I like pro sports more than college.

That said, it seems that the only way to rise up in this sport is to have a coaching staff that knows what it's doing and recruit well. Some success can lead to more attention, which in turn should lead to better recruiting classes. I think we really fell off when Schnellenberger (and I am eternally grateful for everything he did) more or less stopped recruiting and we fell behind FCS schools in recruit rankings. As much as people tried to pretend that it didn't matter, I believe that is part of what put us down towards the bottom of 1-A. I believe we'll climb out, but it's a very slow process in this game.