reeder

http://postimg.org/image/hvt1fftld/

Another view - can't figure out how to post the actual image

I'm guessing SEFCU. I think they had a 10 year deal for SEFCU arena that expires this year and they were the high bidder a year or so go when McElroy decided to rebid...

Let's go back to the class of 2013. I remember being at the first game at Bob Ford field and the excitement at seeing our red shirted freshmen. (I'm going to look for the old threads). How many are still here and how many are on the roster/depth chart?

Regarding the class of 2013 - where's Ngachie?

Really disappointing. It's one thing to lose but it shouldn't be this bad. When was the last time there was a loss this bad? You wonder how much losing Gontarek impacted the team - not his production on the field but losing him indefinitely as a teammate? There was a quote by the coach saying he didn't know if he'd come back...msgdg posted about Roberson's attitude - wonder if it's related.

Would like to see Sussman get the start next week. Give him some first team reps in practice and see what he can do. Don't understand why they didn't have more of the short passes when he went in the game today to build his confidence.

What's most disappointing is the defense. We struggled there last year and it seems to be the same this year.

The Holy Cross announcers made a couple of good points.

1. Crook took too long making the reads. I remember this being the same issue that Fiaachi had last year. Makes you wonder if the offense needs to be simplified.

2. They compared the defense to the 80's Miami Hurricanes where players were undersized - safeties played OLB, OLB's played DE... That's exactly our situation. Julian Cox was an all star safety in HS and now he's an undersized LB. I believe Malachi Hoskins was a OLB last year and now he's and undersized DE... Maybe this would work better if we were better up the middle but that's not a strength - especially when the starting MLB is a 210 pound redshirt freshman. This would also work better if we had athletes like Miami had but you're not getting that many athletes on the same team at our level.

IMO, the issue is probably not the marijuana, I'd bet that most arrests at large universities are marijuana related. I know that a lot of the SEC schools have a one game suspension policy for marijuana. I'd guess there is no significant penalty for the average student for smoking marijuana...

I think the issue is the tampering and that he's been the face of the program for the last couple of years - he's Gattuso's star recruit. I'm sure the coach and AD are embarrassed. Gattuso gave him a chance- he was a late qualifier who only had offers from Division 2 schools...but not only did Gattuso give him a scholarship but he tells the dunking the basketball story to every reporter that will listen and he brought him - a sophomore to CAA media day.

Imagine if he played against Maine on homecoming - the only sellout and everyone will be watching the star player who smoked marijuana and is still allowed to play. There's not much media coverage but there would be an editorial about that.

He'll definitely be back. Remember the kid that was arrested for terrorist threats? He was suspended for the rest of the season - finished sitting out his redshirt year and now he'll be the starter while Gontarek is out.

He has to grow up and this a part of that process. He's young and stuff happens. I just hope he recovers and gets over this so he can have a good college experience.

I think we have very good skill players. Croskey, Hanks and Roberson will all contend for freshman/ newcomer of the year (not sure what it's called). The oline is also playing well. I think it may take a few more games by Crook will be OK, he just needs to get the ball to the playmakers. I think it's good that he threw the ball away a few times yesterday - he's had a few bad interceptions and almost interceptions because he tried to force the ball into coverage - IMO, his throwing the ball away is a sign of his maturing.

We need to recruit defensive lineman. I understand that they had to move one of the DE's to TE after Ketter was injured. We haven't seen Foussennie yet - he's a redshirt freshman defensive lineman and I don't think he's played at all yet, also Dudzinski is a redshirt freshman defensive lineman and I don't know that he's played yet. Coach Gattuso also happy about the two freshman defensive lineman - in the spring he said they would make an impact this season - Grogg and Griffin, but I dont think they've played yet either so I guess they're redshirting.

All that said, I feel like we're moving in the right direction - I didn't expect to win yesterday as JMU is just a better team,

A few thoughts.

1. Vad Lee was the starting QB at Georgia Tech. You don't see many starters from FBS transfer to FCS programs. He's a really good athlete and hard to stop in space.

2. Our defensive line will have a hard time. That was the weak spot last year, the defensive scheme changed but the personnel is basically the same.

3. We had a chance to beat them last year. There were a lot of missed tackles - primarily Rayshan Clark. I also think this was the game where Andre Martin lined up at Fullback on the goal line and tried to jump over the defensive line and was stopped on fourth down - still don't understand that play call. This was also the game where Cole King had an offensive pass interference call that negated a touchdown.

4. I think the team is going to be very good (especially the offense) by the end of the season.

Other roster notes

1. Shanley not on the team. Not surprising but we've lost three QB's from the spring.

2. Ngachie not on the 2 deep. Thought he could have been a starter this year.

It's great that they are doing this - not just the uniforms but the teaser. Don't know if anyone remembers the excitement last year when JMU rolled out their black uniforms and new helmets - it was a really big deal and the players (and fans) were really excited. Teams like Stony Brook and Liberty make it a big deal to select a combination of jerseys, pants and helmets for each game - point is the players love it.

It creates excitement for both the players and the fans. May not be the same level of excitement as JMU but step by step...

Malloy and Joyner are listed at the same positions that they were listed at last year - doesn't look like the positions were updated since preseason last year.

IMO, there's no news there. This is pretty much the same as the previous business review articles and interviews from football and basketball season. Looks like another year to build the brand. I hope some of this starts in the fall. Wouldn't want to take another year to work on this.

"Well spend the next year or so working on the brand, what were going to call ourselves, rolling out the general program to our fans so they have enough time to give us some feedback and get some dialogue, said Benson. Were going to change how we market ourselves and how we sell season tickets. So just that extra focus with the community might bring more people in."

There was some talk about improving the gameday experience - anyone have any updates on this. There was also talk about changing the ticketing process to make it more or a point system based on donations - any updates?

I've not really followed it lately so thought that i'd reach out to those of you closer to things to see what's going on. Guess i'm just looking for any improvements that we've made so far (i don't mean billboards)...

Kudos to Stony Brook for doing what they should be doing - having a vision for their athletics department, IMO, Stony Brook has three things that we don't have. This doesn't guarantee them success in athletics but it provides them a framework

1. Alumni financial support.

2. Political allies

3. An articulated plan

To start, I'm looking forward to hearing our plan on improved gameday experience and increasing attendance. There have been a lot of articles saying that these are goals and progress is being made but until a plan is articulated, it's meaningless.

Hooley live on Sportscenter tonight between 11 and 12

The best player in school history - an uncanny ability to create his own shot and also getting to the line.

I found this messageboard after reading an article about him around the time he was a freshman.

I can NOT believe they'd have an event like this in Dallas, and NOT at least have a live webcast.

There will be ONLY audio available. Ridiculous.

This event appears to be a similar event.

http://patriotcup.com/?page_id=9

So, based on his background, we know that Benson is great at getting corporate giving, but how did ODU fare on the attendance side of thing, and do we know what kind of broad plan, if there is a broad plan, he's putting in place to increase engagement?

ODU had great attendance - don't know if it changed or was always high. There is a significant difference between southern fans and northern fans - not sure that you can compare UA attendance and ODU attendance. For football, look at the attendance differences between the northern CAA schools and the southern ones.

Thought that I'd chime in with a different perspective. I graduated in the 80's (division 3 at the time). There was the same concern about student support for athletics back then. The athletes would go to each other's games to show support, there was a student group put together to talk about ways to increase student support, there were meetings with the intramural board, I remember sitting in the campus center asking students to come to the games. You'd get big crowds once or twice a year for basketball games (I think Potsdam was the big game then). Things have changed since then but the student support still lags. My point is that we can keep trying to get students to the game but they don't come - I think we've been recycling ideas. Don't want to abandon the efforts but we have to accept that it may not change much.

IMO, college sports is about the community. If we want big crowds then we need the community.

1. Community tailgate and campus tour - invite the community to the campus on the day of the Duquesne football game. Give tours of the campus, have a big tailgate and bands. Get people to experience the campus - the campus isn't ideally situated to get a lot of people stopping by so it will take some effort. Maybe have buses pick up people. Have the biggest Party that the city has seen for that one day. You can do the same for the first basketball game.

2. I know that some HS games are played at Bob Ford Field - have more. In Georgia, they have a kickoff weekend at the Georgia Dome, why not have a kickoff weekend at Bob Ford Field. You could get 2 games in on a Friday and 3 or 4 in a Saturday. Have a HS Basketball tipoff tournament and Christmas tournament. Give the players and coaches t shirts. Sell discounted tickets, these are your ideal customers. Have a swim team, have softball leagues just get people to campus (we may already do these things - I don't know)

3. Stop requiring a $500 or $1000 donation for the gold seats for football. I've only been to two games at the stadium - Rhode Island and Holy Cross. Neither game had the gold seats sold out, for Holy Cross, there were 4 in my party and we had the entire row. You can still have a fundraising campaign and get people to contribute but get people in the seats. I think people would buy a season ticket for the gold seats if they weren't required to spend $500 or $1,000.

4. Spend more time with the higher donations. When my son was in HS, the booster club members got a lot of attention. Gifts for joining - seatbacks, mugs, flags, blankets (not all in the same year), tour of the facilities, coaches email with scouting report on next opponent, invitation to film review and dinner, a special tailgating session. why can't UA do something similar? UA allows football alumni on the sidelines, why not let the really high contributors on the sideline as well?

I think people need a connection to the school - we need to get them on campus and create that connection. Also need to have realistic student expectations.

 

The member institutions of AE are first rate. I don't think UA could find better company. The empahasis should be on improving the AE and not finding new friends.

At one point I would have vehemently argued this with you... Lately I've started to come around. As a group, this collection of schools are a great fit. This commissioner seems to be a smart/talented lady... Let's see where this league goes in the next 3-5 years. Many of the schools have nice or new facilities, two more are on the drawing board (UVM and umbc)... We don't need to needlessly spend our money, what little we have of it flying or busing out to Ohio or Indiana to chase an upgrade in affiliation that wouldn't be earth shattering.

At this point I'd much rather spend our money on facilities and keep growing the program. Few know this but... There are conversations to gut sefcu and build basically a new state of the art facility 5k+ seats. In line with what sbu and bing have. Let's focus our energy and funds there for the time being.

In an interview with Benson a couple of weeks ago, he said short term goals would be more seatbacks and video board and long term more permanent seating (I think the context to more permanent seating was major renovation but don't remember anything more specific). Would be great if the renovation happened sooner but my sense from his comments was that it was a later phase.

Is it normal to have that many QB's on the roster, I know some may play in other spots but SIX?

I don't think that you would ordinarily have that many especially when you only have 63 scholarships - assuming they all have scholarships, that's 10% at one position (obviously the most important position). Listening to the replay of the press conference yesterday and some of Coach's comments in the year end review - none of the returning players have distinguished themselves and in this offense, the QB has a lot of latitude (according to Coach's comments) so he wants to have the right player there.

He was asked about the Penn State transfer yesterday and said he had a very good chance at winning the job but then he walked it back and said that everyone had a chance.

Also, if a freshman or redshirt freshman wins the job and has success, there will be attrition.

1. The most impactful newcomers last year were all signed much later than National Signing day. Gontarek was a late qualifier and his signing was announced in May, Neverdon was also announced in May and he returned some kickoffs and had a blocked punt and I don't think there was never an announcement about Patrick Toole - think he just arrived I the summer. (Don't think there were any national signing day newcomers that had an impact last year)

2. IMO, the defensive line was our biggest challenge last year. A couple of new defensive ends will help (if they don't redshirt) but I was hoping for a FBS transfer because I think we need help right away. That said, there are a few freshman that redshirted last year that will probably help - I'd guess the coaches are pretty high on them given we didn't get any transfers.

3. I've read a lot of good stuff about Mencer. He may help a lot immediately - big and fast.

4. Will be interesting to see what happens with the QB's. We have a lot of them.

5. Also felt like we had depth issues at ILB and we didn't get any help there. Maybe some of the returning players bulk ap a bit and the using sophomore from Good Counsel (forget his name) may help there but I would like to have seen a transfer there as well.

Will there be a press conference like last year?

Donte Terry. DB Commit

https://twitter.com/ozoneinq/status/558370360199233536

Not sure who else offered but the way recruiting works, you get noticed as a junior and at camps between junior and senior year. He may have been under the radar because he was a QB as a junior and I don't know if he did any camps. At our level, these are the layers that you have to find.

We need RB depth. I think we only have two returning scholarship RB's. Andre Martin hasn't had the chance to establish himself because he's played behind Omar the last 2 years. Croskey seems to have speed and a lot of potential but you just don't know. I think One of the new signees - Alston is also a RB but given his size, I don't see him being an every down back (in the short term anyway)

Running Back Commit Eli Mencer

https://twitter.com/wpial_insider/status/554094893002674176