Timeline for New Hire and Who's your candidate?

[Hammer58]

_ So to stir the pot a little what will everyone be saying if UL does win this weekend _

Then I will be asking the same questions that I asked last week. Why can we not play consistently well form week to week? How can we play well against OSU and Troy but play like crap with no emotion against WKU. IMO, that is coaching. A good coach gets his team to play to the best of their talent each week rather than playing up or down to your opponent. This team has shown it has talent. Unfortunately playing up or down to the level of our opponent seems to be a trademark of Coach Bustle's teams.

[cajunfan32]

_ [/I]

Thank you for the compliments they are appreciated. A winning tradition is something McNeese is proud of. ULL in the glory days was proud too. Unfortunately, Jerry Baldwin ran the program off the rails and into a deep ditch. As for D1 academic requirements McNeese is D1-FCS Division. ULL is D1-FBS Division. Please do your own research.

We have to both adhere to the same academic standards and rules as implemented by the NCAA. The big difference is the number of scholarships allowed per division. FCS gets 65 (I think) and FBS gets 87 (I think). The difference is 22 which is an extra defensive unit and offensive unit for FBS schools. That, in an of itself, kinda exacerbates the whole premise of coaching versus actual talent.

I follow both programs and UL handles their academic casualties via grey-shirting and McNeese pretty much does the same. At least since the Matt Viator era.

Good Luck to the Cajun program. I hope you find a great coach for the future.
_

Sorry I'm not very familiar with the differences between FCS and FBS in terms of kids they can and cannot recruit. So does the FCS teams have any advantages in recruiting or am i thinking of something else.

[TuffGuy84]

_ Then I will be asking the same questions that I asked last week. Why can we not play consistently well form week to week? How can we play well against OSU and Troy but play like crap with no emotion against WKU. IMO, that is coaching. A good coach gets his team to play to the best of their talent each week rather than playing up or down to your opponent. This team has shown it has talent. Unfortunately playing up or down to the level of our opponent seems to be a trademark of Coach Bustle's teams. _

I think the problem is mental toughness. Anytime that this team has hit adversity this season, we have folded, and folded bad. When WKU had the fumble return for a TD against us, we looked defeated. We regrouped a little at half and scored on the first drive, only to have WKU drive down on their first drive and take back the 17 point lead, again, when that happened, we looked defeated. Against MT, when Lawson had that fumble on that first play we looked defeated. The difference between that and ok state or troy is 2 things. 1) we expected to be in for a long day and 2) we played well early in both games that gave us hope. Against Troy though, we seemed to have that same feel when we had the fumble inside their 5. This teams mental toughness is definitely lacking.

[cajun67]

_ I think he fits the mold of someone that we could land. He wants to move up so he needs a stepping stone job...the question would be does he view UL as a stepping stone. _

Is he interested in Real Estate or Bar/Grill ownership after coaching? We may be in the running!!

[cajunfan32]

_ Then I will be asking the same questions that I asked last week. Why can we not play consistently well form week to week? How can we play well against OSU and Troy but play like crap with no emotion against WKU. IMO, that is coaching. A good coach gets his team to play to the best of their talent each week rather than playing up or down to your opponent. This team has shown it has talent. Unfortunately playing up or down to the level of our opponent seems to be a trademark of Coach Bustle's teams. _

I just....I just dont get how we lose by 33 pts to the worst team in the nation but lose to the #22 team in the nation by 26 pts....
So inconsistent.
We will probably come out this week and dominate just b/c we are that inconsistent.

[CajunProud]

_ So to stir the pot a little what will everyone be saying if UL does win this weekend _

Who's going to be the NEW coach next year?

[Hammer58]

_ Sorry I'm not very familiar with the differences between FCS and FBS in terms of kids they can and cannot recruit. So does the FCS teams have any advantages in recruiting or am i thinking of something else. _

Just look back over the past years at all of the student / athletes from some of the area public schools who were studs in the "athlete" department and getting recruited by BCS program and top mid-majors but woefully lacking in the "student" end of the equation and could not qualify for those D1A programs but wound up at mcneese. I think CajunT once explained it as not a difference in the ncaa standards but a difference in the universities' standards. They take kids who cannot get into the selective admissions institutions such as LSU, UL, Tech, etc. and then get them eligible (probably not taking pre-med courses). CajunT can probably give a more detailed explanation with examples of some of those players. The Daily Advertiser also did a series of articles about this a few years ago. Kevin Foote and Big Dave made it a cause of theirs because they were frustrated seeing so many of these "stud" high school players failing to get the D1A scholarships due to poor academic performance. Unfortunately, when they tried to put on free seminars to help explain the importance of academics to these kids and their parents if they expected to play college ball very few kids or parents showed up. The lack of response frustrated Foote. I don't know if they continued the seminars after the initial attempts failed to attract interest.

[cajunfan32]

_ Just look back over the past years at all of the student / athletes from some of the area public schools who were studs in the "athlete" department and getting recruited by BCS program and top mid-majors but woefully lacking in the "student" end of the equation and could not qualify for those D1A programs but wound up at mcneese. I think CajunT once explained it as not a difference in the ncaa standards but a difference in the universities' standards. They take kids who cannot get into the selective admissions institutions such as LSU, UL, Tech, etc. and then get them eligible (probably not taking pre-med courses). CajunT can probably give a more detailed explanation with examples of some of those players. The Daily Advertiser also did a series of articles about this a few years ago. Kevin Foote and Big Dave made it a cause of theirs because they were frustrated seeing so many of these "stud" high school players failing to get the D1A scholarships due to poor academic performance. Unfortunately, when they tried to put on free seminars to help explain the importance of academics to these kids and their parents if they expected to play college ball very few kids or parents showed up. The lack of response frustrated Foote. I don't know if they continued the seminars after the initial attempts failed to attract interest. _

"We have to both adhere to the same academic standards and rules as implemented by the NCAA."
So this quote by cowboy is false?

[Cowboy Up]

Sorry I'm not very familiar with the differences between FCS and FBS in terms of kids they can and cannot recruit. So does the FCS teams have any advantages in recruiting or am I thinking of something else.

FCS has no advantages in recruiting when going up against the FBS schools. I suppose individual universities have there own policies as to selective admission. McNeese has gone to selective admissions and have actually seen the programs improve. Most kids want to go to FBS so the FCS becomes a hard sell.

For the bigger schools like LSU, they just pick up the tab and enroll the prospect into a JUCO or Hargrave Military Academy "to get qualified". That's what they did to Kieland Williams. I think Ole Miss sued the NCAA under the Americans with Disabilites Act to finally get Gerald Powe into the university and he can't read!

Where McNeese fell short was in the APR (Academic Progress Rate) which was inherired from the previous coaching regime. I think if the NCAA was strictly enforcing the APR during Baldwin's tenure it was going to be ugly. Thank God those days are gone.

At the end of the day most universities without the financial clout "grey-shirt" a recruit until they qualify. They come on their own dime and see if the they can succeed academically. It seems to work better for the school and the athlete.

[Hammer58]

_ "We have to both adhere to the same academic standards and rules as implemented by the NCAA."
So this quote by cowboy is false? _

No, if you read my post I stated that CajunT explained that the difference was in the admissions standards of the schools. These kids could not get qualify at the D1A programs that were recruiting them but could get in at other in-state schools such as mcneese, Nicholls, SLU, etc. In effect they were grey-shirting at those schools.

I searched the net for Foote's series of articles detailing this trend in the area but was not able to locate anything on it. It was at least two or three years ago when he wrote them. Unfortunately the Advertiser does not archive stories on the web.

[RedBug58]

FCS has no advantages in recruiting when going up against the FBS schools. I suppose individual universities have there own policies as to selective admission. McNeese has gone to selective admissions and have actually seen the programs improve. Most kids want to go to FBS so the FCS becomes a hard sell.




When the heck did McNeese go to selective admissions???

A couple years ago a UL college recruiter came to STM and was addressing a group of Seniors and their parents on what grade point average and ACT score was required to get into UL. One of the parents asked what could be done if the student didn't have the required grade point average or the ACT score. The recruiter said that they would help them get into McNeese or Nichols.

(By the way, I looked it up. At McNeese it is required that the ACT is taken, but no minimum score is required.) Unless that changed since 2008

[Hammer58]

_ FCS has no advantages in recruiting when going up against the FBS schools. I suppose individual universities have there own policies as to selective admission. McNeese has gone to selective admissions and have actually seen the programs improve. Most kids want to go to FBS so the FCS becomes a hard sell.




When the heck did McNeese go to selective admissions???

A couple years ago a UL college recruiter came to STM and was addressing a group of Seniors and their parents on what grade point average and ACT score was required to get into UL. One of the parents asked what could be done if the student didn't have the required grade point average or the ACT score. The recruiter said that they would help them get into McNeese or Nichols.

(By the way, I looked it up. At McNeese it is required that the ACT is taken, but no minimum score is required.) Unless that changed since 2008 _

Here is what the mcneese website shows as requirements for first time freshman:

First-Time Freshman Admission Requirements
Graduates of Louisiana High Schools-First-time freshmen who are graduates of Louisiana high schools must meet the following admission criteria:

Completion of the Regents’/TOPS High School Core Curriculum (listed below);
Need no more than one developmental course; and
ONE of the following:
Cumulative high school grade point average (GPA) of 2.0 on a 4.0 scale as reported by the Department of Education; or
ACT composite score of 20 (SAT score of 940); or
High school rank in the top 50% of the graduating class.

I guess you could consider that selective admissions. But all you need is a 2.0 which is all the athlete needed to be eligible in high school. Most of them have that but usually fall short in their ACT scores which prevents them from going to the D1A schools the would prefer.

To gain admission to UL you have to have varying combinations of GPA and ACT scores. The higher the GPA the lower the ACT score can be. In general the common combination is 2.5 GPA and 19 ACT.