Here we go again with the excuses. Right on cue.
We have some truly fantastic players in this program, we really do. There's enough talent on this roster to go all the way to Frisco. We've dropped the ball at developing some positions, which is why we have some of the struggles that we do, but we have some some fantastic young men in this program. They all graduate and get good grades. No issue there.
With all of that in mind though, we lost to a
2 win team when potentially a playoff berth, conference title, and first round bye were on the line. The combined record of the two teams Albany beat is 8-14 and both of those wins were by seven points or less. That's unacceptable. It's not the first time either as there's no shortage of games over the past five season we lost either to inferior teams, or were outright lucky to win. When the stakes are that high, and the team doesn't perform, who do you think that falls on to? Once again, it's not the first time.
The way Shawn talks, you'd think he's trying to get us into the Big Ten, and that's awesome. But if we're going to make the athletic department "big time," we as fans can't start coming up with excuses like "we're not Ohio State" when we lose critical games to bad teams. You cannot have it both ways. You can't aspire to be a premier athletic department, but then act like we're playing youth football when the results don't materialize. We spend a hell of a lot of money on athletics. Our spending puts us at
5th place among FCS public schools. Far too much to just expect average results. Last year we
paid Coach P more than Buffalo paid their coach, and in total,
we're spending low FBS money on coaches salaries. When you spend money like that (as we should) it's not unreasonable at all to expect better results than last night.
On one final note, actually yes, there is a bidding for hosting playoff games that takes the facility, gate revenue, etc. into account. This video put out by the NCAA at roughly the 10:30 mark outlines these procedures.
Something must have gone awry, because by all objective measures we should be hosting this game. For all our attendance woes, SEMO State had
worse attendance than we did this year. They only had 3,100 people show up for a top 5 Jacksonville State team. That's all water under the bridge now though. Time to prepare for the game and win this one.
All in all, I'm excited to play a different team from another conference, and will be eagerly watching the game next Saturday afternoon. Go Seawolves!