Agreed, Navy was way better than I was expecting and they showed up tonight. I hope Houston was taking notes because that triple option is what killed Memphis. I'm still at a loss though because I would have loved to see what could've happened if Memphis won out the season. Navy is getting votes though so it'll be interesting to see if they can get themselves ranked and having more teams from The American in the top 25 doesn't hurt.
Good points but its important that all teams in our conference need to beat p5 teams.
I agree. I still think a G5 school will have to basically go undefeated for two seasons to get consideration for the CFP. I think we would have had a good shot in 2014 if Blake and Storm came back. Memphis has made their own destiny thus year and the stars were aligning for them this year, because if they beat Navy they still would have played at least two more ranked oppononents (Houston and Temple...maybe a ranked Temple twice if things went down a certain way). This is my opinion but beating P5 schools is nice (and I agree our conference needs to do this more regularly) but unless you at least play for the conference title it's just going to be looked at as that team choking when it mattered.
I think Navy is that good. They played the exact kind of defense we usually play when we have good seasons....bend don't break, and they have a very experienced team. 10 of the 11 offensive starters are listed as Seniors, with the one other guy being a Junior. On defense 9 if the 11 starters are Juniors or seniors with two sophomores playing LB (backed up by a junior and senior).
I'm down with the philosophy. The #1 characteristic I'd be looking for is either a coach and his OC and/or QB coach have taken multiple kids and made them solid QBs. Case in point would be something we saw with our own eyes. GOL was a solid coach, but GOL + Taafe = "a great coach". We need to spend the money to get that kind of combination again.
But isn't that what people are saying about Bortles when they want to downplay GoL's success in '12 and '13?
Memphis may have costed the conference an additional $6 million if they made the Final Four. Add Houston or Temple in the NY6 and thats $10 mil total on top of the $12 million the conference receives. With an additional $5 mil for being the best of the G5, we end up back at what the Big East was making during UCFs one and only year in a big conference. That money should help in removing those chain link fences and upgrading our Knight facade and mascot.*
As long as we're being honest ...
The coincidental rise and fall of the football and basketball programs is bad news for the American, but good news for conference expansion.As long as we're being honest ...
Memphis wouldn't have had the BigEast, now AAC, invite if it wasn't for basketball.
That said ... still have to give kudos for Memphis taking the invite and conference to the house with their recruiting and subsequent success.
