I don’t know what anyone expected. This was a game we had zero hope of winning. It was this year’s equivalent of last years Michigan.
I absolutely think we need to find a conference. Id return to the AAC if possible in a heartbeat for football. But anything will do. We need to win games and playing games like this is no good for the program ( yeah we get a payday but it is just awful from every single other angle).
The other thing is that this team is really not that much different from last year’s. Last year we won a bunch of close games. This year we lost them. Last year we didn’t blow any one out. We pretty much won the 50-50 games. If you look at it, we had a shot in NC State, BC, USF,FIU, Utah State. Not that we automatically would or should have won, but we had a shot. Lost all and usually on some crazy thing. This year every game was Ball State. Last year only Ball State was Ball State. We have very very little margin for error in our winnable games. Last year we made a play here or there. This year we did not.
But here is the reality folks. Unless we finally end up in a P4 league, we are not competing with Tennessee or Michigan or Ohio State. I’d much rather play teams we CAN compete with rather than get embarrassed. Then, who knows, you go 11-1 or10-2 in the MAC or the AAC or the Sunbelt and suddenly you are in the Top 25. Maybe the playoffs. Much more interesting and fun than what we are trying to do now. I’d much prefer a schedule of 8 games we can Compete in, a couple of mid-low tier ACC (BC OR Virginia or someone) or Big 10 games (IndiaNA, Illinois, Rutgers) and maybe UMass and Army/Navy/MWC type game. Sure once in a while a Duke or Virginia will be really good. But I think that is a very sometimes thing. Winning breeds winning but it also breeds interest and support.
