Hypothetical: 2009 Season Results

[cmhatter]

our national reputation = choke artists...

as evidenced by college football live, Big East Preview, analysts, national messageboards etc.

We are on the map for good a bad reasons... we beat great teams OOC but lose to teams we shouldn't lose to in conference.

[IncrediBULL]

Leavitt seemed to believe the big wins would get us on the map and competing for recruits and fans more than a BE Championship, although he thought it important still.

And he was right ...

To an extent, yes.  Winning big games against a nationally ranked (or Florida based) team got us media and fan attention on a national level.  However, the mid season collapse, inability to end a season ranked, and our lack of competing for a BE championship (or even coming in in the top 3) has left those same people with a bad taste in their mouths.  They feel duped.   Fool me once, shame on me.  Fool me twice, etc...    For them to "rally" around us we would need to do more than just the first half of the season, and they would need to see we are for real.  Consider, we could win our first 8 games in a season, lose the next 4, and end up finishing 5th in the conference and once again unranked.  That is the problem, no one knows what to expect from us.  Our team, during the past three seasons, has only proven to be a contradiction. 

If Skip can do only one thing, it would be to bring some consistency into the team.

Eventually, it will be about the conf championship and higher, but right now it's more about the recruiting than anything else to keep building the foundation ... and the recruiting hinges more on winning big games than conf championships. Maybe just my opinion, but athletes/recruits in this state don't give a crap about BE championships as far as an attention getter ... Beating Auburn, FSU, Miami, UF opens eyes up. The really good players want a good chance to play for national championships. Just winning the BE doesn't tell them we're a good enough program to do that ... beating the Big 3 does.

We will disagree on that a bit.  We will probably lose to UM and UF this year based on their rankings and what many feel our chances are this year.  However, if we were to run the table in the BE and win the conference, we would get a big name BCS bowl game, we would have beaten at least 3 top 25 teams, and it is likely (depending on how bad our UF/UM losses were) would be ranked in the top 15.  We might even get a bcs bowl game, but at least a top bowl in the BE. 

I think a good bowl win, a final ranking in the top 25, and some national publicity would help recruiting.  Just my opinion.

[SANJAY]

There was a time when va tech couldn't finish a season either.  They figured it out eventually.  I personally don't care for diminishing the very good wins we have had for purposes of making leavitt appear to be a bad coach.  If anyone thinks what leavitt did was easy, just look around at fau, fiu, etc. Or the fact that every start up uses USF as the example.

[IncrediBULL]

There was a time when va tech couldn't finish a season either.  They figured it out eventually.  I personally don't care for diminishing the very good wins we have had for purposes of making leavitt appear to be a bad coach.  If anyone thinks what leavitt did was easy, just look around at fau, fiu, etc. Or the fact that every start up uses USF as the example.

Talking recruiting is not diminishing what Leavitt accomplished.  That isn't the debate here.  We have had some great OOC wins that recruits would notice.  Pitt.  FSU.  Auburn.  UNC.  NC State (I think but not the bowl game).  UCF.   

But again, if you can show some of those big wins PLUS tell a kid we are going to get a decent bowl (ie not st pete bowl) and if we are able to get ranked and stay ranked, and win a conference championship, those are very very important.

While at UF, each year, Spurrier had one goal for his players. Win the SEC.      IF we can consistently be first or second in teh BE, we will be ranked, we will be on ESPN a lot, we will be able to attract talent for the team.  Yes, we need to get some more signature OOC wins, but win the BE and everything else takes care of itself. 

We may have a shot at beating ND now that Holtz is here.  In the past handful of years, Kelly had our number. 

[Triple B]

There was a time when va tech couldn't finish a season either.  They figured it out eventually.  I personally don't care for diminishing the very good wins we have had for purposes of making leavitt appear to be a bad coach.  If anyone thinks what leavitt did was easy, just look around at fau, fiu, etc. Or the fact that every start up uses USF as the example.

Talking recruiting is not diminishing what Leavitt accomplished.  That isn't the debate here.  We have had some great OOC wins that recruits would notice.  Pitt.  FSU.  Auburn.  UNC.  NC State (I think but not the bowl game).  UCF.

I stopped reading right here ... Anybody who classifies a win over UCF as "great" and in the same breath as wins over Auburn and FSU has obviously lost his ******* mind.    

[IncrediBULL]

There was a time when va tech couldn't finish a season either.  They figured it out eventually.  I personally don't care for diminishing the very good wins we have had for purposes of making leavitt appear to be a bad coach.  If anyone thinks what leavitt did was easy, just look around at fau, fiu, etc. Or the fact that every start up uses USF as the example.

Talking recruiting is not diminishing what Leavitt accomplished.  That isn't the debate here.  We have had some great OOC wins that recruits would notice.  Pitt.  FSU.  Auburn.  UNC.  NC State (I think but not the bowl game).  UCF.

I stopped reading right here ... Anybody who classifies a win over UCF as "great" and in the same breath as wins over Auburn and FSU has obviously lost his ******* mind.    

I know.  I hesitated in putting that down.  My inference is that in the battle for 4th place in the state, we have beaten UCF 4 times (total domination).  So that shuts out them, FIU, FAU, and others we might compete with for recruits and puts us in a good position to recruit against them.  Since we are only 90 minutes from them, that means that if you met half way (lakeland) between UCF/USF we are recruiting in the same patch of land. 

Again, I don't call any one of them as signature wins, but in the recruiting game, they were important.  And I like our story line to a recruit a lot better than theirs.  Lets say a hs player was recruited by both schools.  UCF coache's line in regards to USF would go something like "play for us and you may be the one to help us finally beat USF, but they won't play us because they are afraid".  Our coaches can say "we have played UCF 4 times, beat them 4 times, once 64 - 12 when they won their conference title, we really don't want to play them as we have proven ourselves and have set our sights higher at this point".  Again, our story is better now, and fortunately we have had some success against them.

[commbull]

Sure, I'd like to win the BE championship, but if I was presented with that or with beating UF and UM (not that I think either of those at all likely) and going 2-5 in the BE, for 7-5 overall record, I'd have to think about that a while. 

[Brad]

Agreed.  With people basically laughing at the Big East, I'm not so sure that would be the thing that would brings us local recruits and stop their nearly automatic path to Florida, FSU and Miami.

Winning the Big East wouldn't sway those top tier recruits like wins over FSU, Miami and Florida would.  That's why CJL wanted them on the schedule.

The guy builds it better and faster than anyone in history, then we question direction and simply want MORE!

[IncrediBULL]

Agreed.  With people basically laughing at the Big East, I'm not so sure that would be the thing that would brings us local recruits and stop their nearly automatic path to Florida, FSU and Miami.

Winning the Big East wouldn't sway those top tier recruits like wins over FSU, Miami and Florida would.  That's why CJL wanted them on the schedule.

The guy builds it better and faster than anyone in history, then we question direction and simply want MORE!

Well Duh, of course we want more.  We havn't won our NC yet.  That is a no brainer that we want more. 

[Brad]

With a new coach, I suspect we'll have it this season I-Bull.  No problem.