Sure, this was not the way we wanted to end the season, but there are way more positives than negatives, and we took a big step forward this year. Going to hash out my thoughts below, and probably add to them as more things come to mind. This is a chance to get past the sting of the way we ended it by remembering that we had a winning season: a first in the history of our program.
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Will Healy is the real deal. He and our staff will learn a lot from this year. There were some questionable schemes and situational play calls at times this year, and that theme continued to the bowl game. I still think this staff is studying hard, trying some things, and putting our players in the best position to succeed more often than not. We are frankly not as big nor talented nor deep going up about just about every other team we play against (save for a couple of real stinky ones like UMass) and we’re running entirely different offensive and defensive schemes. Without even the positional personnel to do it half the time. We haven’t even really seen what a class of Healy’s recruits look like, but we can see what his strategy was and size/speed are both on the way.
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7-6 = winning season. Never been done before. We cannot forget that we were 2-5 on October 19. Just about everyone, myself included, was ready to leave us for dead and write off another year. The fact that we are even in a bowl game is basically a miracle. A win would have been the ultimate cherry on top but good lord, that was fun to watch us not completely mail it in. In doing so, we probably made our NFL prospects considerably wealthier next year, too.
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Best recruiting class ever. Alluded to above and throughout, but man, this class is so much more athletic and comparable to the classes our peers are bringing in. We need to keep digging for OL and DL help but to go from last in CUSA and pretty much all of college football to top 80/top 4 is pretty deep. Next class should build on it.
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Five straight wins, longest streak in school history. And with 3 fourth quarter comebacks, and two absolute beatdowns mixed in. So fun.
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5-3, most conference wins in history. We should legitimately be aiming for 6 or more next year. 5 needs to be the absolute floor from here on out. Especially with the coaching changes in the east division this year, we need to take a window and establish this as our division to win. How SICK would it be to host a conference championship game in the next year or two?
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4-0 in November: Can’t be beat. BEATS TOP OF METAL LOCKER AS HARD AS POSSIBLE
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Three likely NFL players. Three of our all time greats. Highsmith’s single season sacks record might stand for a VERY long time. Truly a once in a program type find as a walk on, and his family, by all accounts, are bought in to be Niners for life. Cam will be drafted and Benny might be as good as a 3rd or 4th round pick, as well. I wish all three luck at the combine.
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First All-American in school history; Three first team all conference players. Again, legends of the program. Our first All American, and not just one publication, but 3+. I hope we retire his jersey after a few successful NFL seasons.
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Unbelievable national marketing/recognition, more city/media buy in than we’ve had in 2 decades. This speaks for itself. Not since leaving CUSA 1.0 has a sports team from Charlotte generated this much free media for the school and AD. Mike and Will are magical in front of crowds and on tv and radio. The entire city lit up green. 1000+ in the Bahamas. Multiple watch parties across Charlotte packed to the gills. I have a feeling we aren’t going to have attendance problems next year as long as we keep playing well. I guarantee you we earned at least a couple of casual fans this season…even if we get 10 new people to JRS next year, they might be season ticket holders in the future, or their kids might want to check out Charlotte for college. Just win, baby.
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Proudest I’ve ever been to be a Niner. We are heading in an overwhelmingly positive direction and we should all step up and support financially at the level we are comfortable with. We need butts in seats and coffers filled if we are going to get serious about making the master plan for facilities into real brick and mortar. If you also feel proud to be a Niner, consider throwing $49 at the crowd fund or buy two tickets for family friends that haven’t been to a game before.
Here’s to a healthy offseason, good team GPA, a February class with some big linemen. To 2020.
