[aredd33]

Whew

[lueer]

Most unsatisfying win ever?

[Cider Jim]

Thank God for UMass's kicker--missed a FG to end regulation and a PAT in OT.

[Tothehoopyall1]

That was one more UGLY loss… I mean win.

[ballcoach15]

A win is a win.

[Ill flame]

This season is strange because it feels like our offense isn't very good yet we end up scoring 30+ points by the end of most games. Meanwhile our defense feels improved from last years (outside of the ability to create turnovers) since we are giving up less yards per play yet we are giving up about the same points per game. I believe the personnel will be there but if we don't make significant improvement on that side of the ball next season I think it'll be time to make a change at coordinator. There's no excuse to give up 34 points to one of the worst team in the countries backup qb for a team with conference championship aspirations let alone the CFP.

[sstaedtler]

I don't believe our defense is improved one bit from last year. We aren't getting sacks, we force less turnovers. Our defense got shredded by Kennesaw State and UMass. I mean, 263 yards rushing to UMass? That's getting bullied. I think there needs to be a change at defensive coordinator and perhaps some coaches. They either aren't attracting talented players, can't coach, or both. I mean, how many times today was the the defense not even set at the snap?

[Dalegarz1]

Grateful for the win but…
I’ve been watching LU football for 24 years and I think this game was the worst tackling performance that I ever witnessed. Defensively, we give up so many big plays both in the run game and the air. How many times do we fail to get off the field on 3rd and long situations? Is it scheme or talent or both? Almost unbelievably, we control our destiny to the CUSA CHAMPIONSHIP! I believe if we win out-we’re in. Someone correct me if I’m wrong.

[Sly Fox]

You are not wrong. And if we win the final two, we deserve to be in. WKU & Sam are the two strongest CUSA opponents aside from Jax State. We can all agree that we wil need to play SIGNIFICANTLY better to have a chance in these final games.

Yes, we will go to a bowl. And with seven wins we have somehow guaranteed a winning season. But we have plenty left to prove the next two weeks.

[Purple Haize]

Funny thing.
Last night Mrs Purple said that this team doesn’t play to be Good, just good enough. Then I see HCJC comments and feel better about the future

[Sly Fox]

This may have fallen through our awareness filter but Sam Houston had to go to OT to beat Kennesaw. These final two weeks of the regular season are like a tournament for the CUSA Championship Game. With all of the four contenders playing each other.

[Ill flame]

I don't believe our defense is improved one bit from last year. We aren't getting sacks, we force less turnovers. Our defense got shredded by Kennesaw State and UMass. I mean, 263 yards rushing to UMass? That's getting bullied. I think there needs to be a change at defensive coordinator and perhaps some coaches. They either aren't attracting talented players, can't coach, or both. I mean, how many times today was the the defense not even set at the snap?

I do think there's been a slight improvement when you consider they are spending more time on the field since the offense isn't dominating time of possession as much as last year. Turnovers cant really be relied on as a sign of a good defense. Too much randomness there.

Opponent yards per game has declined from 373 last year to 355.
Yards per play went from 5.6 to 5.3
Opponent red zone scoring improved from 81.6% to 73.1%.
Sacks per game increased from 1.8 to 2.1

The big stats where we've gotten worse or stayed the same.

Takeaways went from 1.8 to 1.3 per game
Penalties have skyrocketed. Don't have defense only numbers but as a team we went from 62.5 to 75.8 yards per game.
Scoring has been about the same declining from 24.3 to 23.9

Regardless I'd like to see us under 20 PPG with our schedule being as weak as it is. Chadwell has never had a good defense as a FBS coach and that trend is clearly continuing here. It doesn't make sense to me because he runs a slow possession based style of offense that defensive minded head coaches love to run to give their defense a breather.

[LU 57]

Never been a fan of co-coordinators. When you have one chief there is clear accountability.

I realize there is a lot more going on than that but would like to see that change.

[Chippy]

Not much is different from last year's D aside from the lack of getting TOs. The difference is on offense as we averaged @ 40 points a game last year. If we did that this year we would be probably undefeated.

One more thought, last year we consistently played with a lead forcing teams to throw more which lead to a ton of Ints.

[ALAFlamesFan]

This team continues to play below their capabilities. It has got to drive coach crazy. I have seen some reports of coaches blocking fans on X, ASOR blocking fans, etc. If true then that is disappointing. It is one thing for College kids to be soft at times but the proper response from the adults in the room is to speak truth, take critique like a man, counter the critique if unfounded and implement change where necessary. Blocking long time LU fans is not a good look.

[Ill flame]

This team continues to play below their capabilities. It has got to drive coach crazy. I have seen some reports of coaches blocking fans on X, ASOR blocking fans, etc. If true then that is disappointing. It is one thing for College kids to be soft at times but the proper response from the adults in the room is to speak truth, take critique like a man, counter the critique if unfounded and implement change where necessary. Blocking long time LU fans is not a good look.

Some people are just attention seeking trolls and shouldn't be given the time of day. You can call blocking them on social media soft, I call it sensible. Now having the head coach cancel his media obligations the week after losing to the worst team in the country is soft and I hope won't be a trend.

[LUalum12]

Culture has become a problem this year. We have the talent but lack the heart. At least that's what it looks like. Hopefully HCJC can get that fixed for a late season run at the CUSA title.

[Humble_Opinion]

I'm a finance guy. I started in LU's finance dept in 2009 and worked for one of the smartest people I've ever known during the explosion of revenue / investment in campus. It was exciting, but I learned quite a bit about Cost / benefit analysis and ROI. Athletics as a whole doesn't do well in either category, but there's a perceived benefit that is difficult to define, but you know is there from things like campus cohesion, marketing/brand recognition, etc. From the founding, our school has had athletics as a primary focus because Jerry Sr. saw the ability of athletics to reach people in a way that he personally was unable.

I say all that for the following: it is clear we have spent a large amount of our God given resources on athletics and continue to annually. We are in a conference where LU's annual budget is nearly two times higher than the league average. LU's budget is over $20M, or more than 40% higher than the SECOND highest spender (FIU). Our coaching staff is the best paid in the G5 and we have some of the best facilities if not the best in all of G5. What I keep asking myself is, are we seeing the payoff on the field? Last year was an unequivocal yes, but this year? I think we'd all have to say the answer is no. I get the excuses of issues on scheduling, going long periods without playing and the delays we've had. That's hard to swallow though when I think about the considerable advantages we have over the teams we're playing for a resource perspective. It was always going to be difficult to match the achievements of last years team and I get that; however, the product we have put on the field this year is worse than I think anyone could have imagined. There are chemistry issues, attitude issues, a lack of leadership, and at times it seems like we're just going through the motions and expecting a W. We lost to the WORST team in FBS this year and almost lost to the 2nd worst this past weekend. My takeaway from that game was that WE didn't win it, UMass lost it. That game was there's for the taking and we got lucky that the wind pushed that FG attempt wide right not once, but twice.

[Humble_Opinion]

This team continues to play below their capabilities. It has got to drive coach crazy. I have seen some reports of coaches blocking fans on X, ASOR blocking fans, etc. If true then that is disappointing. It is one thing for College kids to be soft at times but the proper response from the adults in the room is to speak truth, take critique like a man, counter the critique if unfounded and implement change where necessary. Blocking long time LU fans is not a good look.

Some people are just attention seeking trolls and shouldn't be given the time of day. You can call blocking them on social media soft, I call it sensible. Now having the head coach cancel his media obligations the week after losing to the worst team in the country is soft and I hope won't be a trend.

Do we have some trolls? Yeah, we do. However, that's not what happened. Nate Hope decided to make a post on X a mere 15 seconds after the game ended essentially calling everyone that doubted them haters and talking up the team for the win. I'm sorry, but that's NOT how that game should be viewed and a staff member taking to X to do that practically before the game is over is silly. I responded to that post with a simple gif saying it wasn't the time and got blocked for it. Do I have an anonymous name? Yeah. That doesn't make me a troll and also doesn't take away from the fact that I spend ~$2,000+ a year supporting LU athletics. So yeah - I'm sorry but that is SOFT. If you can't take a little criticism from a fanbase that is as tame as ours, then you'll never last in ANY P4 conference.

[Humble_Opinion]

Not much is different from last year's D aside from the lack of getting TOs. The difference is on offense as we averaged @ 40 points a game last year. If we did that this year we would be probably undefeated.

One more thought, last year we consistently played with a lead forcing teams to throw more which lead to a ton of Ints.

This is an insightful post. One thing I will say though about last years’ team… our DBs were better in coverage. Singleton and Hodge were a solid duo and it’s unfortunate we lost them both in the portal. Both knew how to play press, but could also play the ball on deep throws. Our DBs single handedly won that game against SHSU last year. I don’t know if our current team could do that in a similar situation this year.

[LUalum12]

I agree on Hodge and Singleton. As far as this years DB's, we had better DB's when we were FCS (Fogg, Peters, and Aikens to name a few) I am still not sure this Staff has a grip on talent evaluation. The one thing I will say about Freeze, he can recruit and is a good talent evaluator (but can he coach the talent, Lol). This staff has proved nothing so far when it comes to overall talent evaluation and recruiting in my opinion. With that being said, its only year 2. So, I guess we will have to wait and see.

[JK37]

I'm a finance guy. I started in LU's finance dept in 2009 and worked for one of the smartest people I've ever known during the explosion of revenue / investment in campus. It was exciting, but I learned quite a bit about Cost / benefit analysis and ROI. Athletics as a whole doesn't do well in either category, but there's a perceived benefit that is difficult to define, but you know is there from things like campus cohesion, marketing/brand recognition, etc. From the founding, our school has had athletics as a primary focus because Jerry Sr. saw the ability of athletics to reach people in a way that he personally was unable.

I say all that for the following: it is clear we have spent a large amount of our God given resources on athletics and continue to annually. We are in a conference where LU's annual budget is nearly two times higher than the league average. LU's budget is over $20M, or more than 40% higher than the SECOND highest spender (FIU). Our coaching staff is the best paid in the G5 and we have some of the best facilities if not the best in all of G5. What I keep asking myself is, are we seeing the payoff on the field? Last year was an unequivocal yes, but this year? I think we'd all have to say the answer is no. I get the excuses of issues on scheduling, going long periods without playing and the delays we've had. That's hard to swallow though when I think about the considerable advantages we have over the teams we're playing for a resource perspective. It was always going to be difficult to match the achievements of last years team and I get that; however, the product we have put on the field this year is worse than I think anyone could have imagined. There are chemistry issues, attitude issues, a lack of leadership, and at times it seems like we're just going through the motions and expecting a W. We lost to the WORST team in FBS this year and almost lost to the 2nd worst this past weekend. My takeaway from that game was that WE didn't win it, UMass lost it. That game was there's for the taking and we got lucky that the wind pushed that FG attempt wide right not once, but twice.

As a finance guy, you’ll get this.

1) Maintain a long-term perspective.
2) The state of affairs in college athletics has led to an unprecedented degree of volatility.

Last year was a peak. This year is a valley, or feels like one. We hope it’s the valley. We hope we’ve hit bottom and are bouncing back up. Only time will tell. But be prepared to be on the rollercoaster for the foreseeable future.

The downside of last year is what it did to everyone’s expectations.

[JK37]

This team continues to play below their capabilities. It has got to drive coach crazy. I have seen some reports of coaches blocking fans on X, ASOR blocking fans, etc. If true then that is disappointing. It is one thing for College kids to be soft at times but the proper response from the adults in the room is to speak truth, take critique like a man, counter the critique if unfounded and implement change where necessary. Blocking long time LU fans is not a good look.

Some people are just attention seeking trolls and shouldn't be given the time of day. You can call blocking them on social media soft, I call it sensible. Now having the head coach cancel his media obligations the week after losing to the worst team in the country is soft and I hope won't be a trend.

Do we have some trolls? Yeah, we do. However, that's not what happened. Nate Hope decided to make a post on X a mere 15 seconds after the game ended essentially calling everyone that doubted them haters and talking up the team for the win. I'm sorry, but that's NOT how that game should be viewed and a staff member taking to X to do that practically before the game is over is silly. I responded to that post with a simple gif saying it wasn't the time and got blocked for it. Do I have an anonymous name? Yeah. That doesn't make me a troll and also doesn't take away from the fact that I spend ~$2,000+ a year supporting LU athletics. So yeah - I'm sorry but that is SOFT. If you can't take a little criticism from a fanbase that is as tame as ours, then you'll never last in ANY P4 conference.

Most coaches and staffers are now programmed in such a way that any negativity is blocked. May not be right in every case, but usually it is so sometimes the baby does get thrown out with the bath water.

Why do you even care what a 20-something Assistant Director of Scouting has to say?

[Humble_Opinion]

I don’t care what a twenty-something old staffer has to say, but I do care how they act.

[Humble_Opinion]

As a finance guy, you’ll get this.

1) Maintain a long-term perspective.
2) The state of affairs in college athletics has led to an unprecedented degree of volatility.

Last year was a peak. This year is a valley, or feels like one. We hope it’s the valley. We hope we’ve hit bottom and are bouncing back up. Only time will tell. But be prepared to be on the rollercoaster for the foreseeable future.

The downside of last year is what it did to everyone’s expectations.

That’s fair. I get the volatility that has been created by the portal/NIL and am not dismissing it in full. I just am worried about the regression we’ve seen in one year. Even with an “easy schedule” it was going to be hard to run the table, but this worries me that something else is awry.