Buffalo Week

The thing we have in common with EMU is that we both had a P5 win the week before playing Buffalo. We can’t still be cebrating Northwestern when we hit the field in Buffalo.

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Interesting tidbit…maybe that’s more about being banged up against P5 and travel out west…hopefully we came out pretty healthy against NU (McWood I guess the one potential injury)…our D will show up, Woullard quickly developing, Wise hopefully back.

This is pretty impressive given OOC schedule, Kent of course gets a pass given (and they are still 3rd) their absurdly challenging OOC, but Miami at the top with UK, UC and NU:

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Preliminarily, I see something like a 38-30 game with Miami winning this one. Let’s see what the weather does before locking down a guesstimate.

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I worry about our ability (w Chuck’s game management) to get to 38 points. Our D needs to come up big again and sure hope McWood can play…we really need him!

I see our top end scoring output in the high 20’s, so we need to hold them to 21 points to have a good shot at winning. Again, this is based on what I have seen with Smith so far…perhaps if we are really successful running the ball, it will open up short passes and slants for him to exploit.

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Good point. Chuck himself mentioned,last week at LaRosas, the need to score in the 30s to win most games in today’s environment. We haven’t broken 20 this year except for ROMO and just barely broke 30 against the Colonials. We’re going to have to figure out a way to put up more points or the next eight games could all be a bigger challenge than we initially expected.

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Yep

Chuck’s presser recapping the NU win and looking forward to Buffalo. Chuck makes it explicitly clear he does not like how we schedule. Curious how that lands with David Sayler. Although I’m guessing Chuck has been in his ear already about it.

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I don’t think we need to get to 38 with the way our D is playing but we probably need to average in the upper 20’s to win 5 MAC games.

We need to do something to keep defenses from just loading the box. We have had 1 passing 1st down in the last 7 quarters. I agree that we should focus on slants and bubbles but need to find a way to hit some longer routes to truly keep defenses honest. That will help the running game.

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Agreed…hit the seam with Coldiron (TE) or Muersch lined up as TE…as confidence grows, can hit Hipp and Walker on deeper routes, hopefully…meanwhile slants to Hipp/Miles and bubbles to Davis and Walker…maybe even a wheel route to RB?

I like the old jailbreak screen we used to run with Ryne Robinson back in the day.

Chuck’s comments on scheduling are telling. He even referred to UC as a Big 12 team. Our commitment to playing Cincy every year prevents us from scheduling like Toledo or Ohio. Their formula is generally one FCS, one big time P5 buy game and generally one home and one away against a couple of G5 squads. Both occasionally catch a P5 at home, which if we could do would give us another home game in September and a big time fan draw. I’m not sure how we fix it. Most of our OOC is locked in for the next four or five years. Missouri is the only P5 home game on the books through the end of this decade.

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when will this freakin guy learn to think before he speaks…maybe what would be in the best interest of miami football is for chuck and his staff to work for free so that we didn’t have to have two money games per year… obviously not a solution, but if he doesn’t like working for a G5 in this day and age, go back to DII

jeebus is this guy an asshole…

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But I think his point is that’s not how other G5 schools do it. Just Miami, and I guess Kent State. I don’t necessarily think he’s wrong

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It is curious that after we removed the Liberty deal from our schedule we replaced their 2023 game with James Madison (who hasn’t missed a beat in moving up from FCS) instead of an FCS home game. We’ll be at UMass two weeks before (breaks up The U and UC games) but it’s not a great recipe for starting better than 1-3.

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Agreed. Just looking at a few other schedules around the MAC, there are some teams that play two money games, but it’s usually balanced out with two easier opponents. Others only play 1 P5 game. For us, UC has essentially evolved into another P5 team. So we’ve been stuck playing two P5 buy games to make money, plus another P5 team because of “tradition”. It is an outlier among G5 schools and certainly not a recipe for success.

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You nailed it, RedHawks16. Some play G5 opponents like New Mexico State. We’ve got a home and home with the team that just beat App State in Boone and ran MTSU off the field 44-6. And MTSU just beat Coral Gables U. It looks like scheduling Sun Belt teams as your G5 OOC is going to be a bit hazardous in the foreseeable future.

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I have no problem with what Chuck said, especially the the fact having 1 home game in the 1st 5.

And why not make the UC game every 2nd or 3rd year?

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UC wants to keep us as an annual low-cost FBS win
after they go into the B12 and can only schedule 3 OOC games a year. It’s not a buy game for us so it’s in their best interest.

I get how the schedule would wear on you as a coach but someone is going to take the money and someone’s players are going to get the experience of playing in these environment. Why shouldn’t it be us? 2 years ago Brett got hurt, Shelton and Bester tore Achilles…none against a P5.

Some programs deal with this in conference play. Indiana and Vandy come to mind. Kentucky as well…somehow they have figured out how to rise above a brutal schedule. App State has played big P5’s for years, they thrive on it!

I mean Vandy and Indiana have traditionally gotten their brains beat in by the top echelon of their leagues, so I don’t know if they’ve really risen above it.

Playing 3 P5 road games OOC is dumb imo. If the UC game is going to continue, we need to consider dropping to just one buy game. But maybe we need the money that badly. I don’t know

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Kentucky has risen above it. Vandy and Indiana deal with the gauntlet in their conference schedule. Sure they get paid via the TV deals and ticket sales but nonetheless they face a brutal schedule every year.

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