the week of national coverage goimg into this louisville game would have been the most exposure weve ever had in football.

10/17/2016 3:39:48 PM

Quote :

"It'll mean something if we go 3/4 against Louisville, FSU, Miami and UNC. If not then it's just a fluke, an illusion. "

i don't think you can say that definitively. we'll *maybe* be favored in one of those games. and quite possibly none of those games. so going 2-2 would be pretty damn impressive. 1-3 would be maybe disappointing, but not at all terrible. more than that though, to me it's about how we play this week. on the road vs a legit top 10 team with a Heisman level QB after an emotional loss....it'll be on the coaches to keep the players focused and hungry after the Clemson loss. if we come out and lose by 20 and play poorly, then that's frustrating. if we play good and lose a close one, then that's still progress.

to me, saying "if we don't go 3-1 vs 4 that schedule then it'll be an illusion" is a major case of moving the goal posts on this year's team. at the outset we all kinda agreed that given this schedule, 7-5 would be pretty dang solid. now we're expecting to go 3-1 vs 4 legit top 25 teams that we probably were hoping to go 1-3 at best against earlier this year? and going 3-1 vs those teams probably means we go 9-3 (6-2)...i mean that would be an incredible season imo. but that's not remotely realistic.

10/17/2016 4:49:05 PM

Quote :

"at the outset we all kinda agreed that given this schedule, 7-5 would be pretty dang solid. now "

That's a valid point, but it's been my opinion that unless we get 8 wins this season would just be a step backwards. Calling a 7 win season solid because of SOS is just an excuse. It's his 4th season, Doeren doesn't have that luxury anymore.

10/18/2016 8:45:57 AM

Are we really complaining about the potential of going 7-5? If we make it to 7-5, we have at least 1 solid upset in that collection, and more importantly, one over an ACC team with a winning record(not sure Doeren has a win over one of those yet).

I wouldn't say SOS would be our only excuse, I'd point to: SOS, new OC, new QB, new OL coach, top WR going down prior to season, awful kicking game(we knew it was before prior to season, but not cost us 2 games bad), and huge question marks in our secondary.

Obviously if we had a weak SOS we would have more wins, but getting to 7 wins with our SOS and status of our program is a success. Obviously winning a high-profile game will help with recruiting, but so will winning a bowl game, so I think we should focus on that.

Did we just play over our heads for 1 game or are we a legit good team? After Louisville beats us by 14-17 again the Chicken Littles will come out saying our season is over and that Doeren is awful.

10/18/2016 9:29:56 AM

Replied 504 times and viewed nearly 12000 times. Wow.

10/18/2016 9:32:03 AM

Quote :

"That's a valid point, but it's been my opinion that unless we get 8 wins this season would just be a step backwards. Calling a 7 win season solid because of SOS is just an excuse. It's his 4th season, Doeren doesn't have that luxury anymore. "

but that's bullshit logic. this is doeren's best team. you can see the progress. we just went toe to toe with Clemson at their house and the defense had their best game of the Doeren (and Hux) era. before we get ahead of ourselves, we all wanna see if that carries over to the rest of the season, but it's still a fair point. i'd love to be 6-0 right now, we all would. but you can't set expectations at an unreasonable level when measuring progress or evaluating a coach. you MUST take into consideration that this is Doeren's toughest schedule to date. you're comparing apples and oranges. you're saying that because we won 7 games against shitty competition last year, we should win 8+ games against superior competition this year. i understand that you think SOS is a poor excuse. but it legitimately is valid. you have to take into consideration who we play when counting wins. if you wanna move the goalposts now because ND sucks and FSU isn't a top 5 team like we thought, then you can. but to just say that 8 wins, no matter what, is the goal is silly.

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/fplus

the advanced f/+ rankings have us as the #23 team in the nation.

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/ncaa

s&p has us at 25.

regardless, i feel like this is a conversation for after the season...otherwise we're counting W's/L's before we play the games and that's not exactly fair either way.

it's important to put this in perspective. again, we all thought 6-6 with this schedule and set of circumstances (new QB, new OC, etc) would be reasonable and doable. anything better than that would be a minor miracle. most people were saying that if we make a bowl this year and finally break through with an unexpected win then that'd a good season. if you said anything other than that your expectations were not grounded in reality.

[Edited on October 18, 2016 at 10:47 AM. Reason : f]

10/18/2016 10:45:27 AM

Quote :

"Are we really complaining about the potential of going 7-5? If we make it to 7-5, we have at least 1 solid upset in that collection, and more importantly, one over an ACC team with a winning record(not sure Doeren has a win over one of those yet). "

Serious question. When TOB was fired and DD was hired, would you take 7-5 in year four?

10/18/2016 3:03:49 PM

Am I aware that we have to play murderer's row in our division 4 years ago? That makes a huge difference. It's not like we're losing 5 games to Wake and Syracuse.

10/18/2016 3:31:19 PM

TOB had at least one win over every team in the division. Think about that. He beat FSU, Clemson, and Louisville.

10/18/2016 3:42:37 PM

are we really talking about tob

10/18/2016 3:46:54 PM

UL wasn't in the division when we beat them in a bowl. but sure, he beat MD...that's the same thing.

the division is also even more top heavy now than it was then. it's also been 3.5 years. TOB coached here like 6 years. so if you wanna make an even comparison...after 3 seasons TOB had beaten a whopping 2 divisional opponents (wake and md once each). after 3 seasons DD has beaten 3 divisional opponents (cuse, wake, bc all twice each). so i'm not sure what you're getting at with that comparison. it took TOB a while before he beat good teams. it's also taking DD a while. and i think it's also fair to point out that the ACC is just better now than it was under TOB.

i'm not even really trying to act like DD is the savior. but saying bullshit like "TOB even beat all the teams in the division" is either obvious trolling or complete stupidity.

10/18/2016 3:59:27 PM

they have no idea how long it takes to build a program.

10/18/2016 4:00:58 PM

Wow, I didn't realize how bleak the outlook is for some of you fellas. Excuses at this point are ridiculous, and defending them just looks sad.

dmspack, keep in mind if we had beaten ECU the conversation at this point would be completely different. But we didn't, and that raised serious questions.

The fact that the ACC (as a whole) is playing on a higher level than the TOB era just highlights how we've fallen even further behind.

[Edited on October 18, 2016 at 4:22 PM. Reason : k]

10/18/2016 4:19:30 PM

i fully agree that we are not where we should aspire to be as a program. i just think it's fair to point out that it's not as doom and gloom as y'all are making it out to be. again, this discussion is best had at the end of the year when everything is final. there's still a lot that can change - good or bad - between now and then.

i'm not walking back any argument i've made here. i still think setting goals like "win 8 games" without giving the schedule any consideration is just not a realistic. because i think we all agree that the two previous 7 (regular season) win seasons were products of shitty schedules. so jumping to conclusions without trying to measure things realistically is not fair (in either direction, good or bad). i don't feel like that's making excuses either. i'm just attempting to get us on the same page when analyzing what Doeren has and has not done.

ultimately wins and losses get coaches hired and fired. but there are plenty of other measures of how a program is progressing rather than arbitrary things like "can him if he doesn't win 8 by year 4". the ecu loss was embarrassing, you'll get no argument from me. but i'm not ready to let that define his entire tenure yet. that loss is looking more and more like an outlier than the standard for this season's team. and i'm not arguing that Doeren is gonna be that coach to take us to the promise land...but i'm not buying into the same doom and gloom that i'm seeing from others.

what's more confusing to me is this stuff coming out after the defense's best performance of the Doeren era. not only that, but this was a well-coached game by Doeren. you can question a couple of play calls, but the game plan was great. like...this should be an encouraging performance...disappointing as hell, but still encouraging.

[Edited on October 18, 2016 at 4:39 PM. Reason : f]

10/18/2016 4:32:53 PM

what he said

10/18/2016 4:41:30 PM

Quote :

"If we make it to 7-5, we have at least 1 solid upset in that collection, and more importantly, one over an ACC team with a winning record(not sure Doeren has a win over one of those yet). "

wake this year is the only one...and they could certainly finish the season with 7 or 8 wins with their schedule (games remain vs UVa, BC, Army). but yeah that's still a sad stat.

10/18/2016 5:30:05 PM

Who cares about all these made up stats.

The only one I care about is if Doeren's record ever ends up crossing .500 in the ACC

He is currently 6-18

[Edited on October 18, 2016 at 5:40 PM. Reason : ]

10/18/2016 5:38:05 PM

i thought he was 1-1

10/18/2016 6:06:44 PM

The replay of this instant classic is currently playing on ESPNU.

10/18/2016 8:21:11 PM

Quote :

"it took TOB a while before he beat good teams"

He beat a ranked UVA team, won at Miami, and won at 8-5 ECU in year one. All three of those wins are as good as DD has in four years.

[Edited on October 18, 2016 at 11:50 PM. Reason : 2007 BC was 11-3/Wake went 9-4 so you can't say it was weaker, all division teams went bowling]

10/18/2016 11:47:10 PM

o , with Chucks talent

10/18/2016 11:52:33 PM

kinda exactly like Doeren did at NIU with Jerry Kill's recruits

[Edited on October 19, 2016 at 12:52 AM. Reason : minus the quality wins]

10/19/2016 12:44:28 AM

Quote :

"[Edited on October 18, 2016 at 11:50 PM. Reason : 2007 BC was 11-3/Wake went 9-4 so you can't say it was weaker, all division teams went bowling]"

seriously? maybe the bottom feeders were better back then. but you're comparing 07 Wake and BC to 2016 Clemson and UL or 2015 Clemson and FSU? hahahahaha. the conference is without question better today than it was then. that's not at all up for debate.

[Edited on October 19, 2016 at 7:13 AM. Reason : f]

10/19/2016 7:12:25 AM

Did TOB ever have a schedule with as many ranked teams to start a season as Doeren has had this year? When TOB went and choked at Maryland and missed on the ACC Championship Game...were there 2 top 10 teams in our division? Did TOB ever have a year where a team in his division won the National Championship? Did he have one where a team finished #2?

The ACC, and more specifically the Atlantic, has gotten immensely better the last 3-4 years with the addition of Louisville, the re-emergence of FSU, and Clemson finally getting over Clemsoning.

Before this season, looking at our top 10 SOS, a 7-5 season would have sounded spectacular. Did I hope for more by year 4 when Doeren was hired? Sure. But I think I was a little naive to just how bad of a situation TOB left him in, our team was completely devoid of talent outside of a handful of players.

As long as I feel the program is headed in the right direction, I'm content with Doeren as the HC, once I feel like we're regressing, then I'll consider shifting my opinion. I just don't see how you could watch our team the last few years compared to this year and not think we're getting better and have amassed more talent. The Clemson loss is probably the best I've seen us play in years, because it wasn't just a half like the FSU and Clemson games from the past couple of years, we out-played a top 5 team ON THE ROAD for 4 quarters and came up short on a 33-yard FG(and some awful officiating).

Do you REALLY think firing your coach right now is going to be a good move? Doeren is building something and we have some new staff members that are really impressing(OL and OC) and next season we're looking to have a lot of talent and more stability in the staff and at QB. You can't keep building up to being average to slightly above average and just blowing the whole thing up every 4-5 years.

10/19/2016 9:07:55 AM

FUCK THIS GAME

that is all

10/19/2016 10:36:57 AM

This is the textile bowl I expect and supposed to be.

10/25/2016 2:02:16 PM

So Wayne Gallman is acting like a little bitch.

10/25/2016 2:09:31 PM