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Post by spenser on Oct 22, 2017 8:40:47 GMT -5
I think that this pretty much sums it up.
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Post by Non Alum Dave on Oct 22, 2017 8:42:29 GMT -5
I normally scoff at using the PL as an excuse for poor performance, but I admit with football its a little different. They (PL) allow for participation in the FCS playoffs, yet do not allow non medical redshirting. Huh? Couldn't the argument be made that without them it can possibly become a safety issue when competing outside the league, never mind performance?
My steps for righting the ship:
1. Hire the right guy 2. Convince the PL to allow non medical redshirts 3. Schedule up like never before (become "unique" as td128 and nhteamer have championed). 4. Emphasis point #3 to recruits (and show them our facilities!)
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Post by HC92 on Oct 22, 2017 8:58:14 GMT -5
We will never know what would have happened in the final four games if TG was not undercut. We will never know? Come on, man. We have been awful for a very long time with the exception of a handful of games. We would have continued to be awful with an occasional strong performance that makes the awfulness all the more frustrating. And we would have done stupid things at the end of the half and the end of the game. That much we definitely know.
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Post by sader1970 on Oct 22, 2017 9:04:26 GMT -5
After yesterday's on field performance by the team and the post game comments, who's jumping on the bandwagon for Coach Rock for permanent head coach?
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Post by crusader12 on Oct 22, 2017 9:09:53 GMT -5
After yesterday's on field performance by the team and the post game comments, who's jumping on the bandwagon for Coach Rock for permanent head coach?
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Post by crusader12 on Oct 22, 2017 9:15:36 GMT -5
After yesterday's game I just hope the players don't give up on the season. HC FB is at rock bottom right now. While I support the timing of the ADNP move you have to wonder if FHCTG was still there could we have made it a closer game? I think absolutely it would have been closer but Nate was trying to find a spark and it obviously did not work. These three games can't go by fast enough... this is a make or break hire for Holy Cross.
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Post by hcpride on Oct 22, 2017 9:34:29 GMT -5
After yesterday's game I just hope the players don't give up on the season. HC FB is at rock bottom right now. While I support the timing of the ADNP move you have to wonder if FHCTG was still there could we have made it a closer game? I think absolutely it would have been closer but Nate was trying to find a spark and it obviously did not work. These three games can't go by fast enough... this is a make or break hire for Holy Cross. If TG was there would it have been worse than Yale? Maybe. Things were trending down. Hard to know if we are at rock bottom now or if next year will be worse.
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Post by timholycross on Oct 22, 2017 10:04:22 GMT -5
I do think they were playing well enough until that fumble in the second quarter. That seemed to open up the floodgates. The fumble was follwed by the misjudged punt, a sack that resulted in them deciding to run out the clock (except for a bizarre pass attempt with 10 seconds left, what the hell was that/) ; followed by the pick 6 to start the second half.
Right or wrong it seems that Pine, et. al. decided to give Gilmore 5 years with scholarships...I thought 4 was enough. Wonder if year #5 was strictly a $ decision.
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Post by purple1 on Oct 22, 2017 10:51:55 GMT -5
In discussing the matter at hand with ADNP last night, let me state that there is a LOT OF INTEREST in the head coaching position from candidates around the country, not just New England. We can all speculate, but I feel reassured worthy candidates will be in the mix. I also believe having a couple of Holy Cross former players on the staff can effectively help recruit with the Holy Cross story. A change in offensive play calling needs to be made and adjusting the defensive schemes, especially pass coverage, need to be addressed. ADNP will make this as smooth of a transition as he can.......he wants to win !
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Post by ncaam on Oct 22, 2017 12:41:23 GMT -5
How about some o linemen who can run and block
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Post by hcpride on Oct 22, 2017 13:51:13 GMT -5
Barring highly unusual circumstances, I can't see a successful sitting FCS or FBS head coach heading our way. I could see a successful sitting D2 up-and-comer head football coach investigating to see if the program can be turned around - it is certainly a career killer to take the job and then 'fail'. Tom Gilmore's fate (since he had a general reputation of at least competence) might be ominous to some in this category. It'll take a guy who has supreme confidence in his ability to rebuild (recruit, build a fan base, X's and O's, etc.) a shattered HC program ... and ADNP's talent to spot and support the right guy from among those applicants. Agree with purple1 that since HC is a virtual unknown to potential recruits (outside of MA of course) it'll help to have an HCer or two on staff. I looked up the D-2 rankings www.ncaa.com/rankings/football/d2 and could not help noticing that there is only 1 New England College in the top 20: Assumption. Since that guy can recruit players to Worcester and win football games, it might be worthwhile to see if he is interested.
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Post by 6sader7 on Oct 22, 2017 14:09:30 GMT -5
I’m all for getting out of the PL. The question becomes where do you go. Confrence membership seems necessary. Independent? I really don’t know. It’s a lousy league, at least in football. But what is a better course. I’d be interested in people’s thought. Options: 1. Go Independent. No AI, no schollie limit, redshirting galore. Schedule the same kinda schools we schedule now. FCS playoff bid would have to be merit based. Need help from admissions. 2. Join CAA or other and be bottom feeder. 3. Go FBS and implode as a program. 4. Go D3 and do really well. 5. Drop football and move on with your lives. 6. Stay in the PL for another 30 years trying to solve a riddle we’ve failed so solve since 1991. I think there is a very strong argument for going Independent at this point -- The challenging aspect of this is that the longer we've waited to do this stuff the more issues we now have to solve simultaneously (need a coach now, need to retain players, need to recruit) Regardless, I think it would be a great option for us (Provide some necessary cover (AI, less transparency into admissions, etc) that would be needed to get us back to where we need to be. My question is: To leave the Patriot League and move independent, what's that process look like? How much lead time do you need to provide the league? Any monetary penalties to be paid? Our schedule is already set for the next couple of years so it shouldn't have any real impact there ( I wouldn't think)
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Post by joe on Oct 22, 2017 14:14:39 GMT -5
Perhaps we can be independent but also “stay in the league.” Remember those years when Fordham had schollies before everyone else? They were still in the league but were ineligibe for the auto-bid. Just a thought. We can simply start giving more schollies, red-shirting, and ignoring the AI. The league can keep us or jettison us. Who cares? If we could stay, for a while anyway, at least scheduling would be less of an issue. The PL needs numbers after all.
I still say we absolutely have to get out of the PL for football. This league is going nowhere fast, for football anyway.
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Post by 6sader7 on Oct 22, 2017 14:16:17 GMT -5
In my unfortunate experience, in situations like these, a player can go through all the motions of practicing, watching film, lifting, meetings, treating injuries, etc., but at a certain point he is doing so with an extinguished flame. At a certain point, it becomes a deal where you’ve shifted focus to grades and exams, and doing what you need to do to keep you education/scholarship intact. A person can only take so much with regard to a game. I hope I’m saying this in decent and respectful enough terms. I think perhaps the 4th and 5th years are looking toward life after football, and the underclassman looking toward 2018, if not at transfer opportunities. Coaches meanwhile are making calls and polishing resumes. In terms of HC dropping football, there is nothing irrational about that conversation, but I think it’s a waste of time, considering HC’s alleged re-commitment to the sport. In other words, we’d have let the rest of the 2017 season rot on the vine if that were seriously being considered, not canned a coach halfway through to get a leg up on brining in someone new. Program needs to be gutted to the studs and rebuilt. Need to get out of the PL now. NOW! Use a promise of this as part of a strategy for landing a really good coach. Figure out a better place or go independent again and max out schollies and redshirting. We’re going to have some rough times as a program, would rather re-emerge as something more than champions of an irrelevant conference. Completely agree with all of this -- What you're describing above is very much the feeling our program had, especially among the upper classmen in '04 - And we did gut and re-build at that point. The same needs to happen now, but taking into account some lessons that we learned last time.
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Post by 6sader7 on Oct 22, 2017 14:27:01 GMT -5
I'm probably wearing purple-tinted glasses, but maybe going Independent and re-building the program could lead us back to the Big East table -- How ironic would that be...
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Post by joe on Oct 22, 2017 14:27:51 GMT -5
I’ve said before, in for a penny in for a pound. You have to be all-in, in every way, every aspect, if you expect an elite school of 2,900 students to be a player in D1 football. I say we just go for it at this point - with full financial and administrative backing - for another 8-10 years. If we haven’t found a nice place for ourselves by then, it’s time to downsize. No more half assed attempts to “get it to work.” There is no coach on the planet who can do that alone. See Vaas, Allen, and now Gilmore. It takes the whole college, the alumni, and even Worcester and central MA to get behind this team for this thing to work out. It’s there for the taking if we have balls enough to go for it.
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Post by hcpride on Oct 22, 2017 14:32:49 GMT -5
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Post by sader1970 on Oct 22, 2017 14:39:28 GMT -5
Apparently, a number of posters have never spoken to or have heard from the administrators at Holy Cross, much less the faculty. The very reason that we are in the Patriot League and will remain for many, many, many more years to come is because there is a belief that the league is one of the very few that plays division 1 athletics with true student-athletes. The AI is a manifestation of that common belief. Holy Cross will either drop football altogether or drop to D-3 before it will ever get into a league in which the emphasis is on athlete over student. I believe what sader1998 posted is spot on. Nate will try to get a Carmody-like hire for head coach of football and he (not being sexist here because I don't think there are any women football head coaches) will have a specific amount of time, perhaps 5 years, to turn the program into a Patriot League champion consistently. Failing that, there won't be another football coach - they will pull the plug and use those saved expenses for other things. Heck, couldn't you pretty easily convert the indoor football practice field into a PAC? Plenty of room!
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Post by joe on Oct 22, 2017 14:44:06 GMT -5
You don’t neccessarily abandon the ideal of the student-athlete by giving non-medical redshirts and not being so damned ridiculous about admitting kids to the college. And you don’t need the Patriot League to do that either. There are enough kids out there to make this work. Holy Cross needs an advantage. You don’t let thugs into the school. You admit the good kids, the ones who may not have the typical HC grades but who will work twice as hard to succeed. It’s more than numbers. It’s about heart and desire and a belief in the school and the program. It can be done. You’d find some special kids out there for sure.
Where is Andy Talley these days?
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Post by 6sader7 on Oct 22, 2017 14:49:20 GMT -5
You don’t need to abandon the ideal of the student-athlete by giving non-medical redshirts and being so damned ridiculous about admitting kids to the college. And you don’t need the Patriot League to do that either. There are enough kids out there to make this work. Holy Cross needs an advantage. Agree - ND is ranked higher than Holy Cross academically, and I assure you there are guys on that team who wouldn't have met HC's AI Same goes for BC Same goes for Stanford I'm not sure who HC thinks they are at this point with their holier than though approach to athletic admissions when we aren't even requiring SAT scores as a college anymore? I would venture to say that of all of the Patriot League football schools - Our admissions is absolutely the most difficult to work with -- In a way it almost seems like they're thumbing their nose at the program. A revenge of the nerds, if you will.
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Post by hcpride on Oct 22, 2017 14:50:27 GMT -5
Apparently, a number of posters have never spoken to or have heard from the administrators at Holy Cross, much less the faculty. The very reason that we are in the Patriot League and will remain for many, many, many more years to come is because there is a belief that the league is one of the very few that plays division 1 athletics with true student-athletes. The AI is a manifestation of that common belief. Holy Cross will either drop football altogether or drop to D-3 before it will ever get into a league in which the emphasis is on athlete over student. I believe what sader1998 posted is spot on. Nate will try to get a Carmody-like hire for head coach of football and he (not being sexist here because I don't think there are any women football head coaches) will have a specific amount of time, perhaps 5 years, to turn the program into a Patriot League champion consistently. Failing that, there won't be another football coach - they will pull the plug and use those saved expenses for other things. Heck, couldn't you pretty easily convert the indoor football practice field into a PAC? Plenty of room! We could just copy Georgetown...cut the huge expense by going non-scholly again. Stay Patriot. How much worse would our record be? Would most students/grads even care? Of course we'd have played non-schollie Dayton or Davidson rather than UConn but I can live with that. Academic upgrade. Other Patriot FB members might even do the same.
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Post by joe on Oct 22, 2017 14:56:01 GMT -5
Following Georgetown’s lead in football is absurd. What we need to do, as 67 says, is to stop being so pompous about our admissions “standards.” No one is impressed. Loosen the F up a couple of notches. Weigh other aspects of a young man’s application a little higher and grades a little less. That’s all we’re saying. Just a little is all it would take.
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Post by sader1970 on Oct 22, 2017 15:01:20 GMT -5
I am not convinced that scholarships vs. non-schollie GU model saves that much money, other than the title IX implications but defer to PP (Crossports' PP not QB PP). You still have the same expenses for equipment, travel, recruiting, field maintenance, coaches salary and still have to get players past admissions. GU has a couple of advantages over HC. The first is its location - Washington vs. Worcester. Where would most people prefer to go to school? The second is the higher academic ranking of GU. If you aren't getting a scholarship, all things equal, go to the best reputational school.
We would be at a significant disadvantage against the PL schools that retained schollies.
And because the expenses would not diminish all that much, having no schollies means no longer being able to schedule the "pay" games against FBS competition that helps bring in revenue to offset the program's expenses.
The more I think about it, the more I think that we either stay where we are and try to improve using LAC and a charismatic new coach or the program gets dropped.
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Post by 6sader7 on Oct 22, 2017 15:24:15 GMT -5
I am not convinced that scholarships vs. non-schollie GU model saves that much money, other than the title IX implications but defer to PP (Crossports' PP not QB PP). You still have the same expenses for equipment, travel, recruiting, field maintenance, coaches salary and still have to get players past admissions. GU has a couple of advantages over HC. The first is its location - Washington vs. Worcester. Where would most people prefer to go to school? The second is the higher academic ranking of GU. If you aren't getting a scholarship, all things equal, go to the best reputational school. We would be at a significant disadvantage against the PL schools that retained schollies. And because the expenses would not diminish all that much, having no schollies means no longer being able to schedule the "pay" games against FBS competition that helps bring in revenue to offset the program's expenses. The more I think about it, the more I think that we either stay where we are and try to improve using LAC and a charismatic new coach or the program gets dropped. The more I think about it the more I completely disagree -- The entire Patriot League Football model is built to fail any way you look at it. The only positive that can come out of this disastrous turn of events is that it may provide us with an opportunity to make a real change that would benefit not only the program but the college at large. If you always do what you've always done then you'll always get what you've always got. No reason we can't restore our program to a higher level, increase the HC name recognition, and actually generate enough money to subsidize scholarships, etc.
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Post by hcpride on Oct 22, 2017 16:39:12 GMT -5
Higher level would be CAA.
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