Yeah I saw that. I lurk over there on rare occasions. But damn, this game sounded terrible. Not renewing my season tickets was a wise choice. I see this being only one of two scenarios: The team is going through a major rebuilding/redirection and these growing pains are just part of the process; or, The staff and team suck. I don't know which it is yet, and we probably won't know for sure for another 2-3 years. But I'm hoping enough people at the school care enough about the program to not let us go back to the crappy days like when I was there (2006-2010).
I can't believe they kept us in FCS top 25 after losing to DII Colorado St-Pueblo at home, winning streak at home is over. Last year's playoff team had a hard time with Lamar who brought back most of the team. Might be Sam's last week ranked if we can't bring a victory outta Beaumont. Get the black roses ready, go Kats!
This game will tell us how the rest of the season will go. We're coming off a bye week and the team seems to be in a revolt (if you believe what you read on Katfans). Will they come together and show everyone that they are still a team to beat in the SLC? Or will they self-destruct and render this a completely lost season?
I was there during the exact same window, so I feel your pain. The Todd Whitten years were no fun. K.C. Keeler is a proven winner at this level, so I can't imagine that it's just the coaching staff being poor. I just think we're seeing what happens when you have a bunch of turnover and then fill basically all of those key roles with transfers. You can hit a home run with D-I transfers from time to time (see McCown, Josh and Flanders, Timothy), but sometimes, you find out that there was a good reason it didn't work out at their first stop. I'm glad that Keeler and the administration is committed enough to the program that they felt compelled to try to more or less "run it back" rather than doing a complete rebuild, but it feels like that's going to end up happening this next offseason anyway.
We finally looked like Sam Houston State again. 1-0 in the SLC, that's all that matters right now. I wonder if we worried too much about the CSU-Pueblo loss. Those guys are a Division II juggernaut. They've won 15 of their last 16 games. Throw that game out the window (along with the LSU game) and we've actually been pretty good. We were in the game the entire time at EWU and they're #2 in the country. And we blew out a much improved lamar team on the road. Maybe things aren't so bad after all.
I'm going to the game in Huntsville on Saturday. Any suggestions as to where to tailgate? Maybe an alumni tent open to the public with food and drink (not necessarily in that order...)?
On the north side of the field is the tailgating... although I'm sure you know that by now. Game is on TV just as an FYI to all. It's on The KUBE and can also be streamed online for free if you go to Southland website and click on Southland TV.
Big win today over #4 McNeese. Maybe this team has more fight in it than we were giving it credit for.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Adrian Peterson watches Sam Houston St beat McNeese St N Huntsville as reported by <a href="https://twitter.com/HoustonianSport">@houstoniansport</a>(school newspaper) <a href="http://t.co/9SOta0iMMP">pic.twitter.com/9SOta0iMMP</a></p>— Mark Berman (@MarkBermanFox26) <a href="https://twitter.com/MarkBermanFox26/status/521113722706620416">October 12, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
I have no idea, but the story has gotten quite a bit of traction. I guess it's a positive any time a big-time NFL player comes around, but this is not exactly the best time for the program to get the Adrian Peterson stamp of approval given his issues over the last few weeks.
1 North Dakota State Bison*(156) 2 Eastern Washington Eagles*(4) 3 New Hampshire Wildcats 4 Coastal Carolina Chanticleers 5 Villanova Wildcats 6 Jacksonville State Gamecocks 7 Montana Grizzlies 8 Southeastern Louisiana Lions 9 Montana State Bobcats 10 Illinois State Redbirds 11 McNeese State Cowboys 12 Fordham Rams 13 Eastern Kentucky Colonels 14 Southern Illinois Salukis 15 William & Mary Tribe 16 Bethune-Cookman Wildcats 17 Chattanooga Mocs 18 South Dakota State Jackrabbits 19 Richmond Spiders 20 Northern Iowa Panthers 21 Youngstown State Penguins 22 Indiana State Sycamores 23 Charleston Southern Buccaneers 24 Sam Houston State Bearkats 25 Harvard Crimson 2-0 in the conference. SELA is 3-0 as is Central Arkansas. Next game is at NW St at 3:00pm. I think it will be on TV again on The KUBE.
Kinda crazy to think that all of their preseason goals (SLC title, playoff berth) are still right in front of them. Ultimately, this team has been so up and down that I don't think they'll be consistent enough down the stretch to pull it off, but I'd sure love to see it.
I think we're going to have to win the conference to get in. Losing to a D2 school doesn't usually do much for the resume of a potential at-large. That said, nice to see us playing football again. Should beat NW to move to 3-0. Maybe it's just that it took some time for the new systems to kick in. Still worried about the defense, though. If you look at our schedule, it's couldn't play out better. After @NW, We're home for Abilene Christian, SFA @ Reliant, @ Incarnate Word, @ HBU, then home for Central Ark. We have a very good chance getting to that Central Ark game 7-0 with that being the conference champion deciding game. CA plays Souteastern this Saturday. SE will still have @ SFA and McNeese.
I think this is just a case of all the transfers finally getting acclimated to the system. They talked about how many transfers weren't there for spring ball and how that affected the start of the season. With both bye weeks, they had a lot of practice time. The defense looked much better against McNeese, although it seemed like every play McNeese ran was a QB draw. I also heard that we only have 1 senior starter this year, so the future is very bright no matter what happens this year. We could be in for another run similar to Fritz's run a couple of years ago.
Disappointing game. Playoff hopes likely crushed. Oh well, Jared Johnson is only a sophomore right? I'd like to see him use the rest of this year to get better at medium range passes and decision making. Having Overstreet for next year will be good. And wasn't there a good defensive player we got from TCU who will start next year? Have to get better on defense. I don't know if it's a scheme, inexperience, or talent issue, but it needs to get better.
That was a bummer of a game. Started off well but they couldn't pull away. The inexperience of the team was showing. Going to have to win out and hope SELA loses.
This was a winnable game. Not sure why we went away from the running game which was KILLING NWS in the 1st half. I actually had to leave at halftime and missed the entire 2nd half. Were they stacking up against the run or did we just get too cute with our playcalling? But yeah, this has turned into a "we can with the SLC and make the playoffs" kind of year to a "at least the BOTPW will be fun if we beat sfa" kind of year. Good news is that we are VERY young. Only 3 seniors starting this year? An our all-american DE is just a freshman.
Tough loss that turns the rest of this season into an extended dress rehearsal for next season considering how many of the two-deep will be back next year. This group seems a little more grounded than the regular posters over at KatFans, but I still can't believe how many over there have already started the pitchfork and torch routine on K.C. Keeler. The guy is a proven winner at the FCS level and we knew going into this season that 2014 was more than likely going to be a rebuilding year unless he hit on every single one of the D-I transfers. Let's give the guy a year or two to get things rolling again.
I can't imagine what others were expecting for this season. Bell, Flanders, etc, all gone. Keeler will get his guys in there and he'll do fine. The only thing I was concerned about him was his lack of knowledge about recruiting Texas. I think he even admitted as much.
