Post by Whup Em All on Sept 2, 2022 14:18:18 GMT -6
Y’all, I get that we saw our opening in CUSA and jumped at the opportunity, but I’m not super energized by the competition from some of the future CUSA opponents I’m seeing. FIU, NM State, WKU, Louisiana Tech, and UTEP all looked mediocre at best in their games. The only decent football competition appears to be Liberty and SHSU at this time.
We’ll know more about MTSU on Saturday.
If you are an average looking dude sitting in a bar and an average looking girl comes up and invites you back to her place for a night of fun, what do you do?
Look at bartender and say, "Check, please".
Turn her down because you think the hot chick across the bar is about to make the same offer.
CUSA is what it is. The Sun Belt is more compact and has a more marketable schedule. But we are here. We are in a much better situation than in the OVC or ASUN. The OVC is more basketball oriented and we were a major outlier. The ASUN is an FBS pipe dream that I don't see working out.
We can compete in football right away. That will help in credibility if we are going to bowl games in 2023 or 2024.
The four carryovers from the current CUSA football are definitely not awe inspiring, but there's hope:
FIU, other than a Sun Belt championship a decade ago, is pretty awful. But with the hiring of Mike MacIntyre, things could improve. Probably not this season, but give him a couple years. He's a solid coach at worst.
La Tech is normally good, but has struggled since 2020. I'm not sure letting Skip Holtz go was their best move, but it is what it is. The question is whether Sonny Cumbie can be successful as a head coach running Mike Leach's Air Raid. If nothing else, the Bulldogs should be fun to watch.
UTEP was awful a few years ago, but has been trending upward, including their first bowl appearance since 2014 last season. There's hope in El Paso that the addition of NMSU, giving UTEP a nearby historical rival for the first time in decades, will excite the fan base enough to put some energy back in the program. Are they good now? No. Will they be in a couple years? Maaaaaybe.
MTSU is historically a mediocre team, usually good enough for a bowl appearance, but (at least since leaving the Belt) not a championship. That said, they're a decent team, and the likeliest suspect to develop a solid rivalry with Jax State, especially if we can beat them soon after our transition. If the MTSU band's attitude hasn't changed since 1998, the Southerners, at least, will have someone to hate.
WKU is probably the most successful of the bunch, collecting a couple of CUSA championships under former coach Jeff Brohm (now at Purdue). In three seasons (plus one game) under current coach Tyson Helton, the Toppers have gone 24-16, including a blowout win over App State in the 2021 Boca Raton Bowl. They struggled against Peay last week, but Peay's a solid team, and WKU was replacing current New England Patriot Bailey Zappe at QB. It was ugly, but it was a win. They're still one of the contenders for the CUSA championship this season.
Entering this group are Jax State (who we all know and love) and the following:
NMSU is historically terrible. Easily one of the worst programs in the country, year after year. However, they may not stay down for long for two reasons: 1) As with UTEP, the presence of a nearby historical rival is something the Aggies haven't enjoyed in decades. Fans actually have a reason to care about at least one game each season now. 2) They've hired Jerry Kill (154–103 career) as head coach. Kill may not turn them into Cincinnati, but he's going to get them out of the basement. All we need is for them not to be the worst team in college football, and it's a drastic improvement.
After that, it gets noticeably better:
Liberty is a freaking G5 powerhouse. Three bowl appearances, and three bowl wins, over the past three seasons, with victories over Ga Southern, Coastal Carolina, and Eastern Michigan. Hugh Freeze has a fat contract and probably isn't going anywhere anytime soon. The Flames will absolutely be contenders from the start.
Sam Houston State hates us. I'm not entirely sure why, but they do. So points for that. It's good to be hated in football. Since Sammy is moving up from FCS like us, it's hard to forecast how good they'll be at the G5 level, but they've certainly proven themselves in our current subdivision, winning the NC in the weird spring 2021 season. With the same head coach in place, along with some commitments toward facility and budget improvements, there's no reason to expect the Bearkats will be anything but a contender in CUSA.
So to recap... WKU, Liberty, and Sammy will be the early favorites to win the conference. MTSU will play the role of dark horse/spoiler and regional rival for the Gamecocks. And UTEP, NMSU, La Tech, and FIU will be in various stages of (hopeful) improvement by next season.
It's not great, but it's a solid conference with potential. Let's give it a chance before we write it off for dead based on a bad opening weekend.
EDIT: Just wanted to add... in the recap just above this, I was only discussing our OPPONENTS. We all know the Gamecocks will be the odds-on favorite to win the CFP National Championship every season. Bama fans will look upon us with envy. We'll be the reason UGA will have to wait another 40 years before winning another title. So no need to forecast our fortunes in the new conference. I trust you'll understand.