Sweet Victory #7

Sweet victory.

And there you go.  The first winning season since 2015.  A long time in the wilderness and the worst stretch in program history.

I'm really proud of our guys for last night.  After that UT gut punch, it would have been easy to come out flat in a nearly empty, rainy, cold Waldo Stadium last night.  But that's not what happened.  BG jumped on the Broncos early and the game was over at halftime.  That alone is a sign of resilience and maturity.

So, by now there should be no doubt that Scot Loeffler will be back next year. He's not right where he said he would be after five years but he's only one year behind, particularly with a bowl win.  Here's something I thought of last night...when we were going through late December and losing players to P5 teams in the portal...and then if I told you Hardamon would miss the season, what are the odds you'd think we'd improve by one game.

He said some interesting things in his presser.

First, and I think this is so key, is that we have to bring everyone back.  We lose almost no one off of our depth chart.  Coach repeated his sales to pitch to Harold Fannin, who can absolutely play where ever he wants. You surely saw that last night. (Here's what I wrote on him when he was our first verbal that year).

We can be pretty good next year and we have a big high school class coming in.  But we can't lose our top 6-7 guys to the portal.  I don't know how that works, because some of our guys could play at larger schools and get a little NIL-love. I don't know if we have to pray to some portal god or what, but for our progress to continue we need to get everyone back.

Coach also said we have to take the next step.  Look, given our schedule and the way those tough MAC games were sandwiched into the P5 games, 7-5 is an accomplishment.  Our MAC record stayed at 5-3.

Even so, there's a clear demarcation:

Record of teams we lost to: 49-6

Record of teams we beat (FBS): 16-32

We played three games against the top teams in the MAC, and we only put up a representative effort for half of one of them. The other 2.5 games were not competitive.  To win a title, that's where it needs to continue to improve and I think Coach would agree.

A couple of last thoughts from me:

How much would you like to have the first half of that Liberty game back? 

BG succeeded this year based on huge turnover differentials. That can have a distorting effect on the rest of the game.  Phil Steele notes that since 1990, teams at +10 or more have had the same or lesser record 72% of the time the next year.  (Best example:  USC was +22 last year.  OU was +12 and lost 3 regular season games again).

BG was only +7 overall.  Of course, it was -4 in the Liberty game.  The point is that BG relied on getting turnovers to succeed, and sometimes that can mask what you need to do to improve.  And at some level, turnovers involve a level of luck. They're not random, but your lineman can deflect a pass and it's a matter of fractions of an inch that the ball ends up going up and toward one of the lineman's teammates.  Fumble recoveries have similar elements.

BG is 3rd in scoring offense in the MAC right now, but 5th in yards per play.  That's largely because of the short fields. 

My only point is that the defense seems pretty solid.  And Hardamon will be back. The offense has room to grow.

There will be big losses at WR.  Stewart can be back and if he is and he stays healthy, he's a game changer to be sure.  We beat UT with him in the lineup.  (But we beat them without Finn the year before.)

The line still has to be better and, most importantly, teams that win the MAC have an elite QB and I don't know if we have that guy on the roster.  Certainly, better protection would make a difference but I'm still not sure.

I would not mind seeing some new blood on the staff on the offensive side of the ball.  I'm not expecting that, but I do think that some fresh thinking might help the team.

If we keep everyone, we can portal selectively.  That would include at WR.  We do have a number of young players coming up, including Jaylon Tillman, who scored last night.

The guys get to rest and get healthy.  We will find out our bowl assignment in a few days.  We get the extra practice and, I hope, a bowl win.  When the team takes the field in '24, it will be with the most optimism since 2016.

And let me just say how great it is to watch us winning games again.