Topic: Doc & Dan and reflecting on the State of Marshall Sports...

[THECHAMPISHERE]

Both coaches gifted championships from weaker competition...and both coaches not only didn't take advantage of the situation but took their teams backwards. It's hard to fathom. Isn't it? Given such ideal situations...

Years and years of championships were given to Doc on a silver platter when the conference got gutted in 2013. And outside of 2014...Doc made Marshall football average and even downright awful in a bad conference of nobodies and startups. Instead of beating the start ups...they beat us. Instead of being a big fish in a small pond...we became irrelevant and a bigger nobody than the nobodies we were surround by. And we are still struggling with Huff...albeit in a better football conference now. I go back to Doc though because Dan has a similar situation gifted to him...

Here we go to the Sun Belt in basketball. I thought even Dan originally didn't want to go because it was a major downgrade...and here we sit 11th in the Sun Belt. Instead of abusing a bad conference and us being the class of it...this bad conference is taking US behind the woodshed. Instead of it being an easier path to the NCAA tourney...we are further away than we've ever been. If we would happen to go on a run in the conference tourney and get in...we wouldn't be prepared at all to handle a top 3 seed in a tourney game after being a bad team in a bad conference and playing cupcakes all year.

It's crazy how when you sum it up...we just really don't want to or know how to win anymore or want to or know how to find guys who can.

It's heartbreaking to think of how far we are now from playing Ole Miss in a bowl game in front of over 50k like we did in 97. Or having a Heisman Candidate like we had 3 times in less than a 10 year span. Or any major program of ours being the winningest of a decade...or even coming close to that. It's hard to imagine us ever being associated with the group of schools we were when we first joined CUSA. All of those things now seem unreachable. And it's not because college sports has changed (though it absolutely has) it's because WE HAVE changed.

How did we ever pull the OC of Oklahoma here in 1990 (we were an FCS school and there was a HUGE financial gap between us and the top (P5s) of college football)...and then we follow it up with the DC from Florida and fully go into the glory years...at a time where, IMO, the gap was just as big if not bigger between us and the P5s (from a $$$ perspective). How did we ever get a Billy Donavan or even a Donnie Jones? Those hires seem a thing of the past now. When will we just hire a coach in the two main sports that somebody...anybody out there wants at any point? It's been what 20 years for football and 14 for basketball?

[W0lfman]

Pretty good summation.

[HerdEcon]

You forgot the DC from Ohio State.  We all remember how that worked out.  Terrible.

[miltonherdfan]

I'm beginning to think DD was so anti-SBC when we were making the move bc he thought it would expose his program even more than CUSA was (more acceptable to be mediocre in CUSA than it is to be mediocre--or terrible--in SBC?)

[herd1990]

Both coaches gifted championships from weaker competition...and both coaches not only didn't take advantage of the situation but took their teams backwards. It's hard to fathom. Isn't it? Given such ideal situations...

Years and years of championships were given to Doc on a silver platter when the conference got gutted in 2013. And outside of 2014...Doc made Marshall football average and even downright awful in a bad conference of nobodies and startups. Instead of beating the start ups...they beat us. Instead of being a big fish in a small pond...we became irrelevant and a bigger nobody than the nobodies we were surround by. And we are still struggling with Huff...albeit in a better football conference now. I go back to Doc though because Dan has a similar situation gifted to him...

Here we go to the Sun Belt in basketball. I thought even Dan originally didn't want to go because it was a major downgrade...and here we sit 11th in the Sun Belt. Instead of abusing a bad conference and us being the class of it...this bad conference is taking US behind the woodshed. Instead of it being an easier path to the NCAA tourney...we are further away than we've ever been. If we would happen to go on a run in the conference tourney and get in...we wouldn't be prepared at all to handle a top 3 seed in a tourney game after being a bad team in a bad conference and playing cupcakes all year.

It's crazy how when you sum it up...we just really don't want to or know how to win anymore or want to or know how to find guys who can.

It's heartbreaking to think of how far we are now from playing Ole Miss in a bowl game in front of over 50k like we did in 97. Or having a Heisman Candidate like we had 3 times in less than a 10 year span. Or any major program of ours being the winningest of a decade...or even coming close to that. It's hard to imagine us ever being associated with the group of schools we were when we first joined CUSA. All of those things now seem unreachable. And it's not because college sports has changed (though it absolutely has) it's because WE HAVE changed.

How did we ever pull the OC of Oklahoma here in 1990 (we were an FCS school and there was a HUGE financial gap between us and the top (P5s) of college football)...and then we follow it up with the DC from Florida and fully go into the glory years...at a time where, IMO, the gap was just as big if not bigger between us and the P5s (from a $$$ perspective). How did we ever get a Billy Donavan or even a Donnie Jones? Those hires seem a thing of the past now. When will we just hire a coach in the two main sports that somebody...anybody out there wants at any point? It's been what 20 years for football and 14 for basketball?

Good post Champ! Spot on.

[HerdinNT]

Champ,  while your summary has some ample points, you missed the biggest ones.  One, money is king and MU lost that race big.  Two, Huntington changed.  It went from having fortune 500 companies to none along with unemployment/drug issues.  Three, MU and Huntington leadership was a failure with little success in their plans.  Lastly, ESPN started to make their mark and eventually decided how they wanted college sports to look like.  ESPN is like the Democratic party- control and regulate to the end.

[bighat]

Nucor is the first company in the rise of this area.

[gochneaur645]

ESPN is like the Democratic party- control and regulate to the end.

I'd argue they're more like the Republican party in creating monopolies that crush fair competition and make everything worse for everybody except those at the top.

[THECHAMPISHERE]

Champ,  while your summary has some ample points, you missed the biggest ones.  One, money is king and MU lost that race big.  Two, Huntington changed.  It went from having fortune 500 companies to none along with unemployment/drug issues.  Three, MU and Huntington leadership was a failure with little success in their plans.  Lastly, ESPN started to make their mark and eventually decided how they wanted college sports to look like.  ESPN is like the Democratic party- control and regulate to the end.

I agree with everything you said...but I did mention $$. We were still at a tremendous, tremendous financial disadvantage in the 90's compared to the elite of college football (I think maybe even at a bigger disadvantage than we are now - I mean we were in FCS for a portion of the 90's) and still were able to win, recruit, and hire good coaches.

I do think a big problem with getting good coaches and even recruits here...is Huntington. It's really interesting because while Huntington has made strides since the 80's and 90's other towns Huntington's size and even much smaller...have made HUGE STRIDES. While we've gotten better by 30% lets say many other places (college towns) have gotten better by 300%. We always said Huntington needs Marshall...but right now, Marshall needs Huntington (to get it's act together) more than EVER.

[BigJimslade]

Both coaches gifted championships from weaker competition...and both coaches not only didn't take advantage of the situation but took their teams backwards. It's hard to fathom. Isn't it? Given such ideal situations...

Years and years of championships were given to Doc on a silver platter when the conference got gutted in 2013. And outside of 2014...Doc made Marshall football average and even downright awful in a bad conference of nobodies and startups. Instead of beating the start ups...they beat us. Instead of being a big fish in a small pond...we became irrelevant and a bigger nobody than the nobodies we were surround by. And we are still struggling with Huff...albeit in a better football conference now. I go back to Doc though because Dan has a similar situation gifted to him...

Here we go to the Sun Belt in basketball. I thought even Dan originally didn't want to go because it was a major downgrade...and here we sit 11th in the Sun Belt. Instead of abusing a bad conference and us being the class of it...this bad conference is taking US behind the woodshed. Instead of it being an easier path to the NCAA tourney...we are further away than we've ever been. If we would happen to go on a run in the conference tourney and get in...we wouldn't be prepared at all to handle a top 3 seed in a tourney game after being a bad team in a bad conference and playing cupcakes all year.

It's crazy how when you sum it up...we just really don't want to or know how to win anymore or want to or know how to find guys who can.

It's heartbreaking to think of how far we are now from playing Ole Miss in a bowl game in front of over 50k like we did in 97. Or having a Heisman Candidate like we had 3 times in less than a 10 year span. Or any major program of ours being the winningest of a decade...or even coming close to that. It's hard to imagine us ever being associated with the group of schools we were when we first joined CUSA. All of those things now seem unreachable. And it's not because college sports has changed (though it absolutely has) it's because WE HAVE changed.

How did we ever pull the OC of Oklahoma here in 1990 (we were an FCS school and there was a HUGE financial gap between us and the top (P5s) of college football)...and then we follow it up with the DC from Florida and fully go into the glory years...at a time where, IMO, the gap was just as big if not bigger between us and the P5s (from a $$$ perspective). How did we ever get a Billy Donavan or even a Donnie Jones? Those hires seem a thing of the past now. When will we just hire a coach in the two main sports that somebody...anybody out there wants at any point? It's been what 20 years for football and 14 for basketball?

U sound like a luddite
Stop living in the past