tualum 108 Report post Posted October 22, 2017 1 hour ago, mat1992 said: I get a bit frustrated when we talk about one player because those teams from 2011-13 were more than one guy. Ty Smith, Jordan Dangerfield, Ryan Delaire, Gerard Sheppard, Tom Ryan, Eric Pike, Doug Shaw. They all could play. T-West wasn't solely responsible but he played a big part of course. One of the great FCS running backs of all time. It doesn't hurt to get talent at the skill positions because even a very good back like Darius Victor helped us go 7-4 in 2015. Having West, Grant Enders/Athens and an outstanding line with strong fullback play was the reason we could play smashmouth football, when most teams are going spread. I've said this many times, but if you go back to the yards per carry averages of guys like Dom Booker, they were averaging over 5.0 yards per carry so it wasn't just West that was great. That line was great as well. Now the talent is down or very young. Our best players (Simpson, Mahalak) are injured. I do think some of these kids have potential like Kobe Young. Though he might go back to the secondary next season. Ultimately, you take a chance on two injury-prone grad transfers on offense, who have been, well...injured or have played very little. But if Ellis Knudson works out at qb, we're not worried about Mahalak getting injured or Stover going through tremendous growing pains. So many missed opportunities the last few years in the recruiting game have cost us big-time. Agreed... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DocMinnegan 9 Report post Posted October 22, 2017 Yeah, West had 29 touchdowns as a freshman, and before he set foot on campus, Rob Ambrose was 3-19. Since he left Rob's not been to the playoffs, so if that line of thinking is to be disproven then Rob needs to make the playoffs without West on the field, which he has not done. In fact, The OL made some holes, and West ran through them. The OL could not push a Patriot League team off the line when it counted in the playoff game, so maybe that colors my impression of them. Booker was a change of pace back, but with no West, he's not memorable on any level. If anyone was an equal to West's importance it was Enders, who had to keep the offense moving forward amidst the myriad of personality clashes between West and Ambrose during both 2011 and 2012. The other guys were nice players, but take West and Enders out of the mix and that was a 4-7 team at best. I get a little lightheaded thinking of Athens and Booker leading that group, and I'd bet so would Ambrose, as he would not have made it to a 4th season if the 2011 team had put up another below par season. My bet is that Waddell would have bounced him along with Kennedy and Seaman. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Chris Datres 423 Report post Posted October 22, 2017 (edited) I hesitate to jump into this pool because the OP cited numbers that I've seen before under a different name and that name always gave me the shakes on here....but here goes. I seem to remember that playoff loss to Lehigh being a 40-38 final score so offense was the least of our problems that day. But if it fits your narrative, go ahead and run with it. Our problem is that there was zero capitalization by the entire program (athletic department included) on the championship game run. Victor proved a very capable replacement to T West but the rest of that championship talent graduated and the recruiting/juco pipeline went dry. That causes the domino effect (losses, poor attendance, recruits look elsewhere) that results in what we see on the field this year. Yeah, injuries to the skill players don't help but I'm not sure that Mahalak and Simpson would provide much of a difference given how rough the offensive line is. Hoops season in 3 weeks at least. Edited October 22, 2017 by Chris Datres Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tgr4life 169 Report post Posted October 22, 2017 While there is no question that winning is better than losing, you should look at the entire picture. The statement earlier of any sport, including football and basketball, having exceptional resources is just an alternative fact. Every once in a while an underfunded program can make a magical run. In the end, the teams with the resources win. Football funding is a big number, but only compared to other sports at Towson. Percentagewise, compared to other football programs we compete with....the number is not really competitive. Towson Athletics just does not have and therefore can not provide sufficient resources to consistently win. Citing the RA salary, one is trying to make the case that it is a big number......it is not.....certainly not compared to others in ours and comparable conferences. Anyone is allowed to disagree with decisions made by the staff, and the record says other decisions might have worked out better, but until Towson University and Towson Athletics is funded at a level comparable to our competition, we will have these discussions. The administration wants coaches to overcome deficiencies in funding for the student athletes. Provide the funding and then we can truly measure the job that the staff is doing. It might be interesting to see the entire Athletics budget and see how much is spent on administrative salaries before you address the won-loss football record and tie it to the RA salary. Then we can have a discussion as to the appropriate conference we should compete in......financially. Follow the money. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DocMinnegan 9 Report post Posted October 22, 2017 (edited) Numbers never lie, and Towson is in the best shape in terms of athletics budget in the history of the program. The football budget is 250% that of the men's basketball budget and 600% of the men's lacrosse program in 2017. As of 2015-16, Towson's TOTAL expense budget was TOP 4 for the CAA: http://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/finances/# 1 James Madison $47,442,648 • 18 sports, will not be in the CAA much longer as they are looking to move up to FBS 2 Delaware $34,309,705 • 21 sports and a $41,618 out of state cost of attendance, with only 28 in-state kids on their 2017 football roster, that means that 112 of their student-athletes coming from outside of Delaware, that they are spending at least $3,780,000 annually on out of state scholarships for football. 3 Stony Brook $30,968,765 • 17 sports, Long Island Cost of Living inflates this budget as does the $41,290 cost of attendance 4 Towson $29,412,429 • 19 sports, Football has the largest budget of any sport - over $8m in 2017-18 and one of the lowest tuitions in the league, $35,336 in-state and $37,004 for out-of-state students, with 35 students on the current football roster from Maryland 5 UNH $28,908,841 • 19 sports, with TWO Ice Hockey programs which are very expensive + a $46,000 out of state cost of attendance 6 W&M $26,499,511 • 23 sports - the largest athletic program in the CAA with in-state cost of attendance being $35,900 and out of state a whopping $56,475 7 Maine $20,888,618 • 17 sports, with TWO Ice Hockey programs which are very expensive, off-set by the cheapest cost of attendance in the league at under $10,000 8 URI $26,170,562 • 18 sports, including A-10 men's and women's basketball programs and a Football program that was de-emphisized a few years ago. In-state is $28,100 cost of attendance and out of state is $44,100 9 Albany $20,904,597 • 18 sports with in-state costs at $24,700 and out-of-state at $39,800 NOTE: Elon, Villanova and Richmond are Private and do not report figures Elon just moved to the CAA from the Southern Conference and has the #3 CAA cost of attendance at just under $46,670 > contrast that with Towson's which is $35,336 in-state and $37,004 for out-of-state students Villanova plays basketball, and all other sports other than football, in the Big East and has 24 sports overall - their cost of attendance is $62,773, #2 among CAA football playing schools Richmond has 19 sports, and is the most expensive school playing football in the CAA at with a $63,000 cost of attendance > contrast that with Towson's which is $35,336 in-state and $37,004 for out-of-state students The argument used in the earlier post that TOWSON ATHLETICS is cash poor compared to the rest of the CAA is a total, outright, misleading statement. Ambrose coached teams have winning records against only URI, W&M and Maine - all have inferior budgets to Towson. URI 5-2 W&M 4-3 MAINE 3-2 RICHMOND 3-3 UNH 3-4 DELAWARE 3-5 VILLANOVA 3-6 ELON 2-1 STONY BROOK 2-3 ALBANY 1-0 JMU 1-5 TOTAL VS CAA 30-34 Ambrose coached teams have winning records against only URI, W&M and Maine - all have inferior budgets to Towson. The non-conference numbers are also pretty pedestrian, with the highlight of the win over UCONN and the lowlights of the losses to Central Connecticut State and Dartmouth. 18-9 vs FCS teams / 4-1 vs Low Scholarship teams / 3-2 in FCS Playoffs / 2-2 vs Non-Scholarship teams / 1-8 vs FBS teams St Francis 4-0 Low Scholarship FCS Coastal Carolina 2-0 Now FBS, was FCS at the time of the games NC Central 2-0 FCS Holy Cross 2-0 Non-Scholarship FCS Delaware State 2-0 FCS Fordham 1-0 FCS Playoffs E Illinois 1-0 FCS Playoffs E Washington 1-0 FCS Playoffs UCONN 1-0 FBS Colgate 1-0 FCS Morgan State 2-1 FCS Kent State 0-1 FBS LSU 0-1 FBS Northwestern 0-1 FBS Northeastern 0-1 FCS, no longer has a football program Indiana 0-1 FBS Columbia 0-1 Non-Scholarship FCS UMASS 0-1 Now FBS, was FCS at the time of the game Lehigh 0-1 FCS Playoffs ECU 0-1 FBS N Dakota State 0-1 FCS Playoffs CCSU 0-1 Low Scholarship FCS USF 0-1 FBS Dartmouth 0-1 Non-Scholarship FCS WVU 0-1 FBS Maryland 0-2 FBS TOTAL vs Non-Conference Foes 19-17 Perhaps if Rob Ambrose didn't hold up the Towson Athletics Budget to get paid so much they could spend more on the program. In the end, Rob is out for Rob, not the program. Not that it's a bad thing, but let's park the notion that he is loyal to Towson, as in the end, he is going to stay here as long as he can and bank the cash with the assumption that no one will ever fire an "Alum" and that he can always play the "we are not funded card" and keep his job. Edited October 22, 2017 by DocMinnegan took out tables 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tgr4life 169 Report post Posted October 22, 2017 The "we are not funded card" is actually a true statement. You can post the numbers as you have, but if you look across the NCAA Football universe, all of the significant advances are made through outside donations, not budget. Cole Field House was redone through donations, many SEC schools are building new facilities through donations....not budget. Money needs to be raised from outside of the budget process in order to appropriately fund the program. We can debate the point as to 'loyalty to Towson"....or "firing an alum" and we are entitled to different points of view (which we do have), but there is NO question that in order for a program to succeed regularly, outside money is necessary. Budget covers the bare necessities. Football and basketball, nationally, are the sports where alumni donate the least. For a FCS school to succeed regularly, someone needs to change that trend at that school. By the way, just because James Madison wants to move up.....that does not mean anyone wants them. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DocMinnegan 9 Report post Posted October 22, 2017 I do not disagree that Towson needs to raise more money. That's an absolute fact. You have to wonder why the head of the athletics fundraising efforts is not a professional fundraiser. Dan Crowley may have been a great quarterback, as his bio states, but he is not a fundraiser. Why was he hired as the Senior Associate Director of Athletics for Development, when he had no development leadership experience at all? Don't take my word for it, read his bio http://www.towsontigers.com/staff.aspx?staff=28 Delaware's fundraiser was the lead development guy at the University of Michigan for 5 years before going to be the #2 in the Blue Hens department http://www.bluehens.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_LANG=C&DB_OEM_ID=29100&ATCLID=211075115 JMU's top money raiser came from Duke. http://jmusports.com/staff.aspx?staff=550 What experience did Towson seek out? No fundraising experience at all, but he played football at Towson. This is exactly our problem. Other schools hire professionals to lead fundraising, we hire a former player who everyone knows. How's that working out Tgr4life? Yes, TL is a fundraiser, but he's also running the department and paying attention to 19 sports, not just football and not just fundraising. It also helps fundraising when you make the National Championship game, and then, do not lose to low scholarship Central Connecticut State in the home opener the following season. CCSU had 1/3 the scholarships that Towson did, and was playing it's first game under a new coach, on the road. Do you think their fundraising went up after coming in and beating us at Minnegan Field? Perhaps, but they finished 3-9 that season, also beating URI and St Francis. So, to your point Tgr4life, CCSU had 1/3 the scholarships that Towson had, a new coach, was playing on the road, and got it done. St Francis had 1/3 the scholarships of TU and came within a 41 yard FG of beating us this year. You're making the case that an $8,000,000 football budget is not competitive enough at Towson to expect 7-8 wins on an annual basis? If that's the case, perhaps we don't need to be spending money on football, as it's clearly not captivating anyones attention. Bring back soccer, drop football, and save 7 million bucks in the process. 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tgr4life 169 Report post Posted October 22, 2017 Please don't put words in my mouth, but we agree on may things. We certainly would like to see more wins, since winning is more fun than losing. However, there are many people that have a hand in both success and shortcomings. The coach gets too much credit for wins and too much blame for losses. The ones that need the support are the players.....after all, the real reason for an athletic department and competitive collegiate athletics is to provide the student athletes with an environment that helps young men and women to grow on the field and off the field. If alums are only interested in winning and not the other parts of what a team environment can do, they are missing the larger point of college athletics. Again, winning is more fun than losing......but that is not the only measure. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
TuTigers2012 1,071 Report post Posted October 22, 2017 The defending and excuses being made for Ambrose and the staff is just sad. He is a below average coach with a below average record. Udel and Elon fired coaches last year and are having very good years with rookie coaches at their schools. Maybe we squeek another one out against uri with a late double did it rally. 3-8 again Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
TSU88 1,073 Report post Posted October 22, 2017 (edited) At some point, the assertion that we’re financially competing with one hand tied behind our back begins to take on the tone of excuse/rationalization. I’m hard pressed to imagine we’re ever going to get the type of alumni donations to bridge the purported (if not actual) gap between us and some of the other schools in the conference. At the core, we are a commuter school with an apathetic student body, who, when they graduate, become apathetic alums. We’re not a true “college town” in that we will always lose out to the Ravens &, even to some degree, to MD, when it comes to the competition for the hearts & minds of our own students & alum. So, perhaps we should move down in football. I for one hope we don’t, & I still believe that we can be competitive in the CAA. While RA will always have a place in TU history, we’re now in the midst of our 4th consecutive season of not making the playoffs. Injuries are part of the game-poor recruiting & coaching isn’t. Every coach is hired to be fired. I suggest the “use by” date on this current coach has expired. Edited October 22, 2017 by TSU88 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
