Well, we’re down to the last big chance for multiple opportunities before bowl season next Saturday after having a couple on unexpected flag flyers - BG and EMU - during week 3. It’s a fairly intriguing list of possibilities this week. They’re all on the road:
BG at Mississippi State
Central Michigan at Penn State
Kent at Georgia
Miami at Northwestern
Toledo at San Diego State
Akron at Liberty
Ball State at Georgia Southern
NIU at Kentucky
Western Michigan at San Jose
Nobody in the MAC seems very good so far. Does anybody get it done?
Agree - but that’s a big if. Also don’t know anything about injuries we might have sustained vs Cincy. I’m concerned we might not have a healthy Ty Wise. That would hurt. I like Toledo’s and WMU’s chances, too… everything else is a pipe dream…
I can’t remember the last time we actually played a Power conference team who had a poor record. Most of the time they are ranked teams. Was it the Syracuse team that we beat in Oxford? Fire up and go get this one.
Michigan finished 5-7 in 2014, Mississippi State was 5-7 going into the 2016 St. Pete Bowl. Also 2013 Kentucky/Illinois were atrocious but against our JV squad they destroyed us.
I wonder how those guys who played their final two years in 2012-13 feel about their experience with Miami football. Those were some atrocious teams even by MAC bottom feeder standards. A few of the younger guys who were with us for that blowout at Marshall in 2013 transitioned well to the first two years of the Martin era - Harding and Gearing come to mind.
I think that kind of makes my point. Forgetting about Chuck’s first couple of years when he inherited a bad FCS roster, The only losing Power team we played was Mississippi State (5-7) who plays in the best division in college football ( 5-7 in the SEC West is still a very talented team).
Being locked into playing Cincy every season - particularly during the zenith 10-15 years of their program’s history - has tied us to two money games, UC and either an FCS, Marshall or Army under Monken. Looking ahead, I don’t see any current P5 bottom feeders on our future schedules, although with the portal and the growing gulf between P5 and G5, they are getting harder to find. We’ve currently got Miami of Florida, another game with Northwestern, Notre Dame, Wisconsin, Missouri and Purdue booked. No real slugs there, although we could have a decent shot at Mizzou in Oxford.
People were attacking Chuck, and you can throw out his first two years as the roster he inherited was the worst in D1, kind of like the guy at UMass inherited this year. We have lost twice to Minnesota in recent years, but those were winning teams with a great coach. The Illinois and Colorado games were pre Chuck, or at least in his first 2 years. It isn’t like any of the three other coaches since Hep were beating power teams. Shane won two, i think, over UC in 2005 ( first year in the Big East, first year with Bryan Kelly, starter mostly true freshmen) and Syracuse, who only won a game or two, and both of those Miami wins were home games, so Miami has not won any power conference games on the road since Hep left.
man time flies…that said year 9, and even the Akron’s, Bee Gees and EMU’s of the world do it…hard to ignore. 2016 to 2019 seems like there should have been one win UC or Marshall…Miss St.
i’m not ready to throw out the first two years of the Martin era until we’re ready to throw out the first two years of the Walker era…32 years ago, the game was different, perhaps there’s more parity at the G5 level now then 1990. maybe its that we’re now ~50 years beyond the heyday of the early/mid 70s, as opposed to just under 20 years when Walk took the helm…perhaps we’re more aligned to what would be viewed as medocrity looking through the lens of the 1970s.
Walk took over (nearly) the same dumpster fire that Martin did…i lived through the first era and was close to a person related to the second era
i look at the two coaches tenures…
overall win %: Walk’s was ~.620 before leaving…Martin through 2021 is ~.430
year 4 cumulative win %: Walk’s was ~.510 before leaving…Martin was ~.330
over Walk’s 9 seasons…11 wins out of conference, 3 vs P5 and 5-3-1 vs UC — we all understand Martin’s results
Walk’s MAC wp was ~.660, had 1 season below 500 and his cumulative wp was always above .500 ----- Martin is ~.570 and didn’t reach .500 cumulative until after year 5
i’m ready to wait for the end of the year … i would be very happy with 2-2 OOC … i recognize that we need to play perfect games to beat middle of the road SEC/BigTen teams and near perfect to beat UC, so those two losses met my expectations. again this is not 1973…just trying to remain objective versus fanatical…
Those programs have won some big out of conference games that we have not done. However, our program under Chuck is clearly superior to those programs.
I think back to the meeting in what then passed for a “conference room” deep inside Yager Stadium with B2 and a nice handful of alums in which he stated that there was absolutely no reason whatsoever that Miami FB couldn’t match what Boise had been doing for several years and dominating their conference (the MWC).
Now we have added P-5 facilities and coaching stability…and we are nowhere near Boise and never were over the last 25 years…Ben’s run excepted which felt like a generational-occurring meteor .
Agree. Given the advantages we have in campus atmosphere,facilities and academic reputation - and essentially being in a fertile, large metropolitan recruiting area - we should be further up the G5 ladder than we are.
Ohio is way over recruited between OSU, UC, 6 MAC teams, the big ten east, some sec/ACC schools like UK or Pitt, etc… Plus the demographic trends of the population and who plays football heavily favors the South.