Cajuns Football: A Slow Climb

[gridiron]

Bustles very best year is only three games better than Baldwin, he has been given three times as long to get it.

[CajunRed]

_ Bustles very best year is only three games better than Baldwin, he has been given three times as long to get it. _

Answer this...

If this new guy's 2nd year schedule includes 2 SEC schools and 1 Big-12 school, will you demand that he wins 8 games... which means he could only lose 1 other game? If not, we will need to fire him?

[GeauxCajuns]

_ If this new guy's 2nd year schedule includes 2 SEC schools and 1 Big-12 school, will you demand that he wins 8 games... which means he could only lose 1 other game? If not, we will need to fire him? _

exactly why i said earlier hence 3 years to build a program. give the guy 3 years, if he has 3 bcs schools and cant win 7-8 games yes fire him. im nottrying to making friends with these guys or expect them come in and have a great stay in lafayette and not win, they need to come in and produce a winner...3 years to do it, if they cant move on. thats why we have been mediocre for so long, we dont put any pressure on our coaches to succeed

[CajunRed]

_ exactly why i said earlier hence 3 years to build a program. give the guy 3 years, if he has 3 bcs schools and cant win 7-8 games yes fire him _

With our current budget, Nick Saban "MIGHT" be able to do that 1 out of every 4 or 5 years.

My point is that we MUST back off of the money games. Limit them to 1 per year, which means that our team would then have a fighting chance to win 11 of the games on its schedule. THEN, it would be realistic to demand 7 or 8 wins... and even 9 every few years.

[GeauxCajuns]

_ With our current budget, Nick Saban "MIGHT" be able to do that 1 out of every 4 or 5 years.

My point is that we MUST back off of the money games. Limit them to 1 per year, which means that our team would then have a fighting chance to win 11 of the games on its schedule. THEN, it would be realistic to demand 7 or 8 wins... and even 9 every few years. _

how then do we pay to play these other games in place of the money gams, much less find those oppenents, who we know most of which will not come to cajun field. and trying to find these teams would be a problem to, because you know what all those other teams are doing too.....playing money games of their own. you cant complain about having one of the lowest budgets in the country and then scrap money games, then the budgets even lower, and when we lose to these replaced money game teams, we can just blame it on the fact that our budget is even lower now because we arent playing any money games
i see it now, some one saying "well _____ if we're gonna lose anyway, it might as well be to a bcs school and we can get paid for it!"

[CajunRed]

_ how then do we pay to play these other games in place of the money gams, much less find those oppenents, who we know most of which will not come to cajun field. and trying to find these teams would be a problem to, because you know what all those other teams are doing too.....playing money games of their own. you cant complain about having one of the lowest budgets in the country and then scrap money games, then the budgets even lower, and when we lose to these replaced money game teams, we can just blame it on the fact that our budget is even lower now because we arent playing any money games
i see it now, some one saying "well _____ if we're gonna lose anyway, it might as well be to a bcs school and we can get paid for it!" _

Then you can't have it both ways. If 3 money games is fine with you, then a 6 and 6 record is really a 6 and 3 record considering the games where the administration (in putting together the schedule) put us in a position to win... which would be 9 of the 12.

[Turbine]

Personally (can't exactly prove it) I think money games have cost the program tens of millions of dollars in community support over the years.

[CajunRed]

_ Personally (can't exactly prove it) I think money games have cost the program tens of millions of dollars in community support over the years. _

I very strongly agree with you. They may have been needed in the past, but now they are hurting more than helping. Between the RCAF and other continued fundraising, it is imperative that we find the dollars to replace money games and limit them, at least while we attempt to contine to build the program, to "1" per year.

[Damon]

Let me put a reverse spin on the spin. Programs have joined (or hell, even started playing football) in DIV1 FBS and won bowl games faster than our slow climb (UCF, FAU).

Don't bring up money. W's and L's are all that I'm talking about. There's ways to get money that we did not source in the past outside of the missing RCAF. Money should never have been an excuse. Ever.

[J-Town Cajun]

_ There are only "2" programs in the country with lower budgets to work with than ours. In our conference, there is only 1. In spite of that, only Troy has more wins than us in the past 5 years. In the state, only LSU has more during the same 5 years.

We continue to hand our program 2 to 3 losses before they get started each year, then demand the team wins the 7 or 8 of the remaind 9 or so games. Is that realistic? _

Besides ULM, who is the other team with a lower budget?

[HoustonCajun]

_ You did not address my question concerning years like next year... which will include "3" very strong BCS programs. Will you expect us to win 7 of our last 9 games? And will that be expected of any future coaches we have? _

That's what Troy did this year, although they played 2 instead of 3 BCS teams. This lost an opening game to Bowling Green that they expected to win, then lost to Florida, and won all the rest of their games (8-0 in conference and a win over UAB) and lost to Arkansas, their 3rd to last game, to finish 9-3. We don't play all the BCS teams back to back to start the year next year. Ole Miss comes late in the year. So, we could start off 1-2 if we beat Ohio with a likely 3rd loss coming later at Ole Miss. It is the conference games that we need to win and go 6-2 or 7-1 giving us either 7 or 8 wins. I don't mind playing the big boys, in fact I'm glad we are. On paper, we should have a pretty salty team next year. It is time to take care of this conference and quit screwing around. We have flirted with 6-6 records for too long now. We play in the worse conference in the country. We should be picked in the top 3 next year. We wanna be 1A, then step our game up.

And, as for Bustle, I thought we needed a change, too. But, we have him for another year, so let's make the best of it. What really needs to happen is changes to the infrastructure that will equip either Bustle or his replacement after next year to win. In the absence of that, even a new coach would face the same impediments that Bustle has faced. We'd be excited for a year or two, then this starts all over again. Fix it internally first, then success will come.

[CajunRed]

_ Let me put a reverse spin on the spin. Programs have joined (or hell, even started playing football) in DIV1 FBS and won bowl games faster than our slow climb (UCF, FAU).

Don't bring up money. W's and L's are all that I'm talking about. There's ways to get money that we did not source in the past outside of the missing RCAF. Money should never have been an excuse. Ever. _

So I assume you have season tickets AND contribute a sizable amount to the athletic foundation.