No, they don't. Can you give me some numbers? It is an extreme rarity.
The other quote you included was one football player from 2003, and a women's basketball player.
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K. Ah Yat the greatest UM Quarterback
- Thread starter garizzalies
- Start date
The other quote you included was one football player from 2003, and a women's basketball player.
I never once said it was easy. I'm asking "is this the performance we hired Bobby for?" Did we truly gut the program to bring in Bobby to finish FOURTH, on average, in a watered down BSC in which (as you said), you can dodge any number of good teams in a given year? Is just MAKING the playoffs our new standard?
Read this paragraph again:
THAT is my issue. If you're in the camp that THIS is the new norm then fine, just admit it.
I, however, don't believe this is some kind of magical glass ceiling, but more a function of Bobby's unwillingness to do the right thing, quit with the ROADie coach program and hire the right coaches, behave in a manner that promotes the program and facilitates getting the right talent, etc., etc.
As I said, any objective observer looks at his body of work and it's easy to see that 2023 was the outlier.
We "gutted" the program after Stitt? Really? Bobby kept several position coaches from that staff. For someone that claims to have been over Stitt in 2016, you seem to show a deference to him that most people don't on here. Despite being out on him, do you think we'd have a better record since 2018 if he were the head coach the entire time?
Like I said repeatedly, I don't care about conference finishes in a conference where you don't play the same teams. The difference between 3rd and 6th is almost always just who you play against and where. Outside of this year, which was supremely disappointing, and last year, where we had an elite team, our conference finish generally matches the strength of the teams we played against. MSU's lone down season came in the only season where they had to play the best teams in the conference all on the road, just like we did in 2019 and 2022.
I think Bobby could do all those things you say (which I absolutely agree with, by the way) and still not catch up to where you think he should be. I also am not sure cleaning house and getting a new coach would be an instant fix, either. We're having the same conversation we had after the 2022 season all over again lol.
I'm not generally opposed to blowing it up and finding a different coach. I admit that my faith in Bobby to get us where you want us to be is waning, but I also just don't think we're necessarily a coaching staff away from being there. We have more things to overcome, IMO, than MSU, NDSU, or SDSU, which plays a large role in why we haven't been able to keep up with them.
He gutted the team. At least that's always been the excuse for the 6-5 record his first year.
And you may not care about where we finish in conference, but it's the difference between playing at home throughout the playoffs (2023) and playing somewhere ELSE after the play-in game (2021, 2022, 2024). And we all know how road teams fare in the playoffs...and when you lose to a 4-8 Weber at home, and let a 4-8 EWU take you to the wire, can we really complain about an unbalanced schedule?
And if Bobby DID do all those things, we'd all have lots less to bitch about, wouldn't we? Maybe then, absent any marked improvement, us "non-believers" would finally accept our fate that this IS, in fact, our new normal.
And what does that bolded sentence mean? Please elaborate...
HelenaHandBasket
Well-known member
You could win the conference and not get home throughout.
mthoopsfan
Well-known member
The crowds that weekend are good and very loud. Lots of good fans.
I mean, is it technically possible? Sure.
But the past several years it's been a lock, at least to the semi's. Since 2019 (as far back as I bothered to look) conference champ never worse than #4 seed. Which is home field until the semi's, assuming things go as expected.
2024 MSU - 8-0
2023 UM - 7-1
2022 Sac & MSU - 8-0
2021 Sac 8-0
2019 Weber/Sac 7-1
mthoopsfan
Well-known member
Conf rank doesn’t dictate playoff seeding. Wins and SOS do.
I mean, he gutted it in the same way Pflugrad gutted the team after he left, or Stitt gutted the team after Delaney. It was obvious in 2016 and 2017 that we were deficient in a lot of important positions.
You're mistaking what I mean when I say I don't care. Of course I care about winning the conference. That should be the goal every year. But you're on here saying we should feel bad because NAU finished ahead of us, even though they didn't play the two best teams. If we aren't winning the conference, it doesn't matter to me if we're 3rd or 5th. We were behind NAU and people weren't dumb enough to give them a seed over us, were they? If we played Sac and ISU instead of MSU and UCD, we're almost certainly finishing 2nd or 3rd at worst. That doesn't make our team any better, though.
I also am pretty confident that if Bobby did all of those things, and we didn't suddenly become just as good as NDSU/SDSU/MSU, you'd be on here saying just as passionately that he needs to be fired lol.
What do I mean? What do we currently have over any of those 3 teams? A better stadium?
MSU is a better, more attractive school, has way more money going into it, has better NIL program (allegedly), and has sustained success over the last few years.
NDSU and SDSU offer FCOA, have more NIL, more money going into the programs, a much better NFL pedigree, and sustained championship success.
Apart from the success, those are things that a coaching change cannot fix, and things that any coach, not just Bobby Hauck, has to work against.
HelenaHandBasket
Well-known member
While true, the wins and SOS come with winning in Conference, so being 6th isn't going to help.
HelenaHandBasket
Well-known member
People may argue, but the thing that has held back the Griz since Bobby returned is OL play. It has been a struggle bus, and hopefully another season with Pawlak will help.
Yes, I don't want people to think I don't think there are things right now the coaching staff can or should be doing to improve, namely coaching and recruiting.
I just don't get this idea that we are entitled to being a top 2 team in the FCS every season, and if we're not, then we should burn everything to the ground.
Thank you for that clarification.
Given our performance against EWU and Weber, there was no guarantee we were beating Sac or ISU either, so not sure that's a good argument.
And please, for the love of GOD, don't come on here crowing about a 14 seed.
And referencing the post above this one, we're not ENTITLED to anything. But we shouldn't sit and try to justify being slightly above average (with one glaring exception) either.
I have to laugh: The only two things the coaches need to do better is coaching and recruiting? lol...Is that it?
I ask the question again: Is THIS what we brought Bobby back to do? Is this what RTD looks like?
I'm not crowing about a 14 seed. I'm just saying the idea that NAU was better than us because they finished T-3 in the Big Sky and we were 5th is insane and objectively incorrect.
I still have a problem with your wording, saying we're "slightly above average" when no other FCS school besides the 3 we want to be associated with have consistently done better than us screams that your expectations and criteria are severely warped here. I think you do that because honestly calling it what it is, "disappointing for where we want to be, but better than literally every other school in our subdivision except 3" is a tough sell when the narrative is that we suck lol.
I said namely coaching and recruiting, implying yes I think there are certainly other things we could be doing better, but those are certainly the two most important, wouldn't you agree?
And finally, and I'll probably just end it here because I'm tired of arguing about this (AGAIN lol), how am I supposed to answer that? Are you suggesting that the results we've seen are unacceptable for Bobby, but would've been fine if we had a different coach? Why does it matter? The results are acceptable, or they aren't. After this season, I'm certainly leaning more towards unacceptable than I was a year ago, but that's not because Bobby promised we'd be better than we have been, I'd feel the same regardless of who was coaching us. You seem hung up on the fact that it's Bobby.
Come on, bro. You KNOW this conversation is fun. You LONG for it. We should get our own little sub-forum where you and I can just debate the merits of the team, the coaching staff, and their performance!
Sorry a 5th and two 6th place finishes out of 6 years is literally "average". One GREAT year, 5 average years. Agreed on NAU. Just really wanted to point out that a 14 seed is meaningless, particularly for UM who's ALWAYS going to get a home playoff game in the play-in weekend, given our ability to outbid anyone.
I just found it funny that you mentioned the two most important things the coaches could do better is coach and recruit...I mean, let's be honest, if they're not meeting expectations in THOSE two areas, what difference does it really make how they're doing in the other, less important things?
My point about the unacceptable performance/Bobby comment is this: If last year was the aberration, would any other coach not named Bobby Hauck have been retained? Sure, I stipulate that it's impossible to clean house after a NC run, but at the end of the day is Bobby treated differently than any other possible head coach based on his body of work? I just don't think this was the expectation for all the folks who were on the Bobby bandwagon in late 2017. And if it WAS, then that's really sad. It's not ME that's hung up on Bobby, I think it's the administration/big boosters.
And to close it out, I don't think my expectations are warped. I'm not looking for perfection, just progress. And I'm not seeing it.
The defense rests. Have a happy holiday season, 22. Always a pleasure.
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You too, man. Always fun getting into it with you.
We may have to settle it in person sometime in Missoula (over a beer lol).
garizzalies
Well-known member
Wut? Why twist words to fit a goofy “narrative” which is essentially the opposite of the truth? Seems like you, like several others in this thread, don’t really have anything against KAY. Instead, you guys can’t get passed your bias against BH, and your arguments are basically nonsense.
The “sample size” is not just two. lol
It’s 40 years worth of QBs. Some were amazing but apparently not good enough to play as a freshman, like KAY. I started to count all the QBs during this period for the correct “sample size” but said fuck it somewhere in the fifties.
That’s the point which you so conveniently ignore. We so rarely see a freshman QB get any substantial time, but KAY did and did pretty damn well, all things considered.
Not hard. Take off your BH foil hat and maybe you will see it too
What you take as BH hate is just rational thinking. Not everything is all roses all the time.
Anyways, how many freshman QB’s have received at least 50% of the snaps, or thereabouts? That’s your sample size.
garizzalies
Well-known member
See. What does your pessimism toward BH’s program have to do with KAY’s individual talent? If you could set your bias aside for one, maybe you would “rationally” evaluate the other.
Here's a slightly different take on it: Perhaps KAY was playing as a RS freshman this year not because he's viewed as some Frosh phenom, but simply because the other options on the roster were worse? And I highly doubt that was Bobby's plan all along...just turned out that way.
