It Is Almost Time To Get Angry At Footballing Events
Also, let's laugh at Memphis
It has been a long summer for MGN, and it ain’t even over yet. Road tris? Yes. Too much eating and drinking? Of course. Lots of sunburn and water activities. It is a good time. I am grateful for the family and friends I have. I hope your Summer is just as enjoyable or more.
They are sending Eric Morris, coach of our favorite football team, out to various locals and having him be interviewed for footballing things. Thus far we have learned he also doesn’t think of the new Pac-12 as impressive, and considers it the Mountain West in disguise. I agree with him. He will talk up some of the offense, the new faces, and the modern college football landscape in which seemingly half-hundred new faces show up to various college campuses and play some pigskin. So it goes.
Speaking of, everyone is scrambling to afford having a football team anymore. Every university is asking for NIL, stadium funds, and also for you to pony up for season tickets that have gone up. They are firing miscellaneous staff to support things, even good ones like the dude who was on the MG creative squad. College Football is powered by our money and everyone is scrambling to have that cash filtered through their pockets first.
The American Conference has some new branding, even if it has members who are willing to part with $250 million to get away from it. Who is good? No one knows. Everyone has transferred everywhere else and football is a funny old game. NT can compete with the top of the league — by that I mean not get smashed by 25 in a half-hearted effort — and a good portion of that will be by simply having A Defense.
This year the team should be good. The offense is nearly always good (in the aggregate at least) and NT has a new QB, but a couple of backups that should be quality as well. There is speed all over, but we need new guys to step up and own the spotlight. If that sounds familiar, it is because it was the same story as the first two seasons under Morris. The major question has always been the defense and this year Morris went about addressing that by importing the entire a few good players from Sam Houston State along with their coordinator. Given the strength of schedule, NT should have a great record this year even if they might not be as talented from 1-100. So it goes.
I think we are all done with losing and allowing 57 points per game. We are numb to putting up big yards and things, but it is always fun to score. Mostly we want to win. If I’ve learned anything in this life it is that you can get used to just about anything —good or bad — and right now I want to get used to winning.
I am excited about the changes, but I want to caution everyone that the SHST defense didn’t have as powerful of an offense, or a coach who would go for it on 4th down as aggressively, and played some less-explosive offenses and talents. NT’s largest problem was in pure size. The front three/four were just too small. The linebackers too tiny. The safeties not swole enough. Tulane ground out the game and pushed dudes aside easily. The depth issues meant that we had to rely on the starters — already overmatched — to do too much. That’s how you allow big rush yards and big plays and explosives.
Did NT get bigger? A little. Did they get better? Yeah sure if you squint. The idea is that there are small improvements throughout the defensive side of the ball along with a major improvement in the experience of the coordinator. NT has got to not get blown off the ball in the run game, and absolutely needs to create pressure on the QB in the pass game. That makes everyone 3x better.
That is all simply Football 101 stuff though. I am pencilling in a trip to Kalamazoo. Hyped. Also after a summer of road trips and days in the heat the Autumn is starting to look real appealing right now.
MGN has done some testing on the new video podcast set up and will be scheduling the regular show again. It is almost time, folks.