Houston is 4-3 at ECU this year, and 18-22 into his fourth year, I wonder how much better we would actually be under him, obviously ECU plays in a conference with better competition, but ECU was also in a much better starting position in terms of talent, established recruiting pipelines, and winning tradition, and his recruiting classes have only been marginally better than ours, and far below App St, I was high on his credentials at JMU and thought that he was a home run hire for ECU, but so far I am underwhelmed by what he has done there and wonder how much better we would actually be here with him
His trams also appear to be improving, unlike ours.
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Houston is slowly building something & improving every year. We’re really heading in the opposite direction. Healy’s first year & first full recruiting class were pretty good but he just hasn’t been able to build on that.
To be fair, this is his 4th season and a lot of kids redshirted so the earliest his recruits would hit nfl would be next year. But also, the only recruit of his that shows star power right now would be spencer.
Dubose?
It’s kind of crazy. Arguably our best recruit under Healy is only here because our 4 star QB transfer bust brought him to us.
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Money is a good reason to take a job, but it’s not the only reason to take a job. I’m happy that we are able to pay a higher salary than Sun Belt teams, but saying they are beneath us is a bit ridiculous.
Nobody is beneath our sorry asses. We’re literally in the running for the worst combined programs in the D1 nation if you talking the two that matter most to most people, Football and hoops
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Crazy to think about. Ill give credit to healy for landing spencer though. I hope he sticks around (spencer, not healy). Him and dubose are going to be high draft picks.
I wasn’t counting transfers as his recruits
The League is beneath us. I’ll stand on that. We invest more, we raise more and our facilities are better across the board when compared to those programs, even more so now that we have stepped up to AAC.
Now have we executed well against the advantages we have? Absolutely not. Point is though we have the resources and access needed to excel. The fact we haven’t is based on some poor decisions on our part, not systemic challenges due to finances or structure.
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Just because we field more sports and spend more money than some Sunbelt programs doesn’t mean we are better than them. It is like a company boasting about their revenue being much higher than their competitors but their competitors rake much better profits.
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clt says this is correct
No disrespect to anyones opinion and I guess this is just me. But I’m sick and tired of hearing about market and potential.
Freaking do something positive with that crap or just drop the programs
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You’ve got to wonder, when we got into the Metro, or C-USA 1.0 (I realize we threatened legal action for one of these to get in), was market a condition? Because we performed well then (basketball).
If we were winning I would be very happy in the Sunbelt. Unfortunately we would get our butts kicked in that conference too.
There are two things . Actual performance on the field and the support network to enable success. My point is our structure and support system is absolutely above the sunbelt programs. The only thing holding us back has been our own ineptitude in leveraging those things.
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I wish many of you had been around towards the end of CUSA (2003-2005). Louisville was drastically underachieving in CUSA, especially to hear their fans tell it. We got into flame wars on message boards where we ridiculed them for thinking they were better than the league, and it was what was holding them back…
Fast forward a few years, and their program took off when they joined the Big East, and that eventually got them invited to the ACC.
Food for thought.
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Obviously more history than we have but they had a floundering football program and a basketball program still living in the past. Sound familiar?
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The big investment they made at basically the perfect time, was hiring Rick Pitino to turn around their flagging Basketball program. Lutz had gotten Denny Crum fired after beating him 106-72 in Freedom Hall, to the point where their fans were booing and calling for him to retire.
That one move propelled them into the BE, where Pitino got to stretch his legs, and meanwhile, it gave their football program the platform it needed to develop.
Here was Pitino’s record at UL after he took over for Crum:
That little 4 year run catapulted them to a BE invite, and after an initial tough season in the BE, Pitino stayed at the front of that league for most of the rest of their time in it.
Something to think about should we be looking for a new coach for either revenue sport in the near future.