2023-2024 Season

[wgstl]

Pillow fight > Double byes 

Who would you rather take on first round? I'd rather see the rhodys imo

[BLIKNS]

Right now we are undefeated .  Channeling my best Rob Loe ..... LET'S GO!!!!

[JMM28]

3 hours ago, wgstl said:

Pillow fight > Double byes 

Who would you rather take on first round? I'd rather see the rhodys imo

Woof. If that is the result, I’d expect a full house cleaning. May Ford and some others. 

[Fraz]

I firmly believe this team will do better with 0 expectations.  Underdog mentality all year.  Ford teams play better like this for whatever reason

[WVBilliken]

5 hours ago, wgstl said:

Pillow fight > Double byes 

Who would you rather take on first round? I'd rather see the rhodys imo

No worst than 6th, mark it down!

 

[wgstl]

8 minutes ago, WVBilliken said:

No worst than 6th, mark it down!

 

I’m with you. With brad I’m between 5-7. Without, it’ll be ugly. 

[stmdragons]

1 hour ago, wgstl said:

I’m with you. With brad I’m between 5-7. Without, it’ll be ugly. 

I think it's a pretty big indictment of where the program currently is that we're all waiting with bated breath to see if a guy who averaged 12 minutes for a 7-25 team will be able to play this season. 

[wgstl]

51 minutes ago, stmdragons said:

I think it's a pretty big indictment of where the program currently is that we're all waiting with bated breath to see if a guy who averaged 12 minutes for a 7-25 team will be able to play this season. 

Yep. But hey, it’s all cool man. 

[Lord Elrond]

9 hours ago, stmdragons said:

I think it's a pretty big indictment of where the program currently is that we're all waiting with bated breath to see if a guy who averaged 12 minutes for a 7-25 team will be able to play this season. 

It is what it is…

[wgstl]

38 minutes ago, Lord Elrond said:

It is what it is…

That’s the problem

[johnbj14]

2 minutes ago, wgstl said:

That’s the problem

Bingo. More importantly, it isn’t sustainable, because more people will adopt the mentality that this is just how things are. Either the program needs to shock everyone and have a huge year, or the house has to be cleaned. 

[Aquinas]

I suspect in this new NIL era, cleaning house for a school with a modest NIL bag is uncharted waters as well. I suspect a coaches first question is; how much NIL money does a school have. It's more important than contract, location, history,  facilities and conference, outside the P5. Even low end P5 schools have big TV revenues and large fan bases.  Hunting for a new head coach could mean wating on all of the P5 dust to settle. If you catch a good young one, you can't keep him. Life as a mid major has gotten a lot tougher.

[billikenfan05]

3 minutes ago, Aquinas said:

I suspect in this new NIL era, cleaning house for a school with a modest NIL bag is uncharted waters as well. I suspect a coaches first question is; how much NIL money does a school have. It's more important than contract, location, history,  facilities and conference, outside the P5. Even low end P5 schools have big TV revenues and large fan bases.  Hunting for a new head coach could mean wating on all of the P5 dust to settle. If you catch a good young one, you can't keep him. Life as a mid major has gotten a lot tougher.

This is a really great point, ashamed to say I hadn't thought of.

[cheeseman]

9 minutes ago, Aquinas said:

I suspect in this new NIL era, cleaning house for a school with a modest NIL bag is uncharted waters as well. I suspect a coaches first question is; how much NIL money does a school have. It's more important than contract, location, history,  facilities and conference, outside the P5. Even low end P5 schools have big TV revenues and large fan bases.  Hunting for a new head coach could mean wating on all of the P5 dust to settle. If you catch a good young one, you can't keep him. Life as a mid major has gotten a lot tougher.

So you only have 2 choices according to you - keep what you have and get the same results or clean house and not improve your situation.  Why wouldn't a new coach motivate people to donate to the NIL pot who not for the existing unsuccessful coach?  

[Coach314]

In the era before NIL,  did you guys view the recruiting as a plus in terms of the direction you wanted to see the program go?  Take away the local kids who wanted to stay home.  They weren't hard to recruit.  

[billikenfan05]

15 minutes ago, cheeseman said:

So you only have 2 choices according to you - keep what you have and get the same results or clean house and not improve your situation.  Why wouldn't a new coach motivate people to donate to the NIL pot who not for the existing unsuccessful coach?  

I think there are a ton of questions that all go into it. You have to have believe in your ability to sell a new coach on that.

[JMM28]

15 minutes ago, Aquinas said:

I suspect in this new NIL era, cleaning house for a school with a modest NIL bag is uncharted waters as well. I suspect a coaches first question is; how much NIL money does a school have. It's more important than contract, location, history,  facilities and conference, outside the P5. Even low end P5 schools have big TV revenues and large fan bases.  Hunting for a new head coach could mean wating on all of the P5 dust to settle. If you catch a good young one, you can't keep him. Life as a mid major has gotten a lot tougher.

It absolutely is one of the first questions. I know Wichita had a couple coaches turn down interviews because their NIL program was/is a mess. 
 

Penn State lost Shrewsberry to UND because of the lack of NIL there in Creepy Valley. 

 

[brianstl]

43 minutes ago, Coach314 said:

In the era before NIL,  did you guys view the recruiting as a plus in terms of the direction you wanted to see the program go?  Take away the local kids who wanted to stay home.  They weren't hard to recruit.  

The high school recruiting had been subpar since the 2019 class. Not one starter on last season from a high school recruit since that class.

It was the reason that being an at large bid quality tournament team last season was so needed.  They needed it to jump start their recruiting. Selling the future and program building has a shelf life.  You have to produce results at some point.

[Aquinas]

2 hours ago, cheeseman said:

So you only have 2 choices according to you - keep what you have and get the same results or clean house and not improve your situation.  Why wouldn't a new coach motivate people to donate to the NIL pot who not for the existing unsuccessful coach?  

 

[Aquinas]

I think the best path is to address the NIL organization before looking  for a new coach. What coach wants to go to a new school to build an NIL system from scratch?  It could put the coach at odds with the administration who want to protect their top donors. It's just another way for a coach to fail. I think it might be easier to attract big donors to participate in attracting a new coach. 

Unless a school has a lock on a coach or an assistant they are CERTAIN, will take the job. They are looking at a long hiring process, waiting on the P5 schools to finish picking over the pool of available coaches, or do a quick hire for a coach who is certain the P5 will pass them over.

 

[3star_recruit]

Some folks have absolutely no confidence that we will be able to capitalize on our momentum even if we exceed expectations this year.  Recent history has shown that Lucy will take away the football after a solid season.  I get it.  

[cgeldmacher]

1 hour ago, brianstl said:

The high school recruiting had been subpar since the 2019 class. Not one starter on last season from a high school recruit since that class.

It was the reason that being an at large bid quality tournament team last season was so needed.  They needed it to jump start their recruiting. Selling the future and program building has a shelf life.  You have to produce results at some point.

Sadly, I think this is looking at the recruiting process through the lens of the former way things were done.  If we had made it to the Sweet 16 last year, kids who we want on our team this year are still going to ask "How much NIL money to I get?" 

Let's suppose there is a kid that we are recruiting who was also being recruited by Ole Miss.  Let's suppose we made it to the Sweet 16 last year, and that Ole Miss went 12-21 last year (their actual record).  We offer the kid $20,000 in NIL money and Ole Miss offers him $60,000.  Do you really think that kid is going to go to SLU because we had a good year last year over getting 3 times as much money in his pocket?  There in lies the problem.

As unfortunate as it is, even having good seasons now may not beat NIL money, which, if I had to make a prediction, we will always be short of compared to large state schools.

[3star_recruit]

17 minutes ago, cgeldmacher said:

Sadly, I think this is looking at the recruiting process through the lens of the former way things were done.  If we had made it to the Sweet 16 last year, kids who we want on our team this year are still going to ask "How much NIL money to I get?" 

Let's suppose there is a kid that we are recruiting who was also being recruited by Ole Miss.  Let's suppose we made it to the Sweet 16 last year, and that Ole Miss went 12-21 last year (their actual record).  We offer the kid $20,000 in NIL money and Ole Miss offers him $60,000.  Do you really think that kid is going to go to SLU because we had a good year last year over getting 3 times as much money in his pocket?  There in lies the problem.

As unfortunate as it is, even having good seasons now may not beat NIL money, which, if I had to make a prediction, we will always be short of compared to large state schools.

Recruiting has always been a strength of Coach Ford.  He went with mostly international high school school recruits for a reason.  And you did a great job of illustrating that reason.

[johnbj14]

31 minutes ago, cgeldmacher said:

Sadly, I think this is looking at the recruiting process through the lens of the former way things were done.  If we had made it to the Sweet 16 last year, kids who we want on our team this year are still going to ask "How much NIL money to I get?" 

Let's suppose there is a kid that we are recruiting who was also being recruited by Ole Miss.  Let's suppose we made it to the Sweet 16 last year, and that Ole Miss went 12-21 last year (their actual record).  We offer the kid $20,000 in NIL money and Ole Miss offers him $60,000.  Do you really think that kid is going to go to SLU because we had a good year last year over getting 3 times as much money in his pocket?  There in lies the problem.

As unfortunate as it is, even having good seasons now may not beat NIL money, which, if I had to make a prediction, we will always be short of compared to large state schools.

SLU finds themselves in a classic chicken or the egg situation. Wins will bring more NIL dollars, but NIL dollars will bring more wins. If SLU made the Sweet 16 last year in your example, there would be more money. You’re right, SLU won’t fully close the gaps compared to state schools. But consistently winning at a level higher than what SLU is now will hopefully lead to more donors on the NIL side. 

[billikenfan05]

11 minutes ago, 3star_recruit said:

Recruiting has always been a strength of Coach Ford.  He went with mostly international high school school recruits for a reason.  And you did a great job of illustrating that reason.

So then you have to ask, is Ford the right coach for a school like SLU in this new world of NIL. He no longer has his recruiting ability to stand on. He's going to have to do a hell of a coaching job this year and every year.