Tiger93

Hard to know, but seems like he feels comfortable enough with Brown and Kent, and likes the upside of Inrdorf enough to not feel a need to get a transfer FBS QB. As we know from the past, it seems to be about a 10-20% hit rate in terms of getting a really good QB here. I wish were better at it, but if we can develop a good QB I am all for that too. I don't care how it gets done, as long as we can start getting better QB play from year-to-year moving forward. That also has a lot to do with the quality of the O-line too. I am cautiously optimistic for year three. It was Shinnick's breakout season at UNC-Pembroke, the ramp-up year for the big breakout at West Florida, and was also the year Rob Ambrose started our great three-year run from 2011-13. This is his program now, and it is a big year for Towson football (as we have talked about quite a bit) in general with the shifting landscape. We have to start working our way out of this cycle of mediocrity that has mostly existed since 2014.

We came out ready to play against St. Mary's and had a pretty solid effort. We just didn't have enough size, but good fight. Three of the next four were not great performances. We showed some good fight to pull out really ugly wins against Morgan State and Nicholls State, completely laid an egg against South Carolina, and had some flashes in JMU win. I still liked how we played against UC Irvine, but we came up short. The effort was there against Kennesaw State and Kent Stat were there, but we had injuries and also didn't play very well. The non-conference really unraveled with the UMBC and Duquesne efforts, and blowing the big lead to Robert Morris stung. To the credit of Skerry and the players, the win over Bryant seemed like it gave us some momentum going into a very successful conference season. I just feel like this program should be 100 or better in the NET by conference play every year, and once every 2-3 years it would be nice to have a year like 2021-22 where we find ourselves in that top 60-70 range. This is what good all-around programs do if we aspired to be one

I look forward to seeing how this team comes together. One thing I would like to Skerry and the players to improve upon, is being more ready for the non-conference season. This will obviously be a pretty tough schedule, but there are likely some solid RPI/NET victory opportunities against similar top of mid-major conference programs. There is the obvious need to make the NCAA Tournament and play better in March drum that we will all beat, but a big area for improvement is having a better feel for ways to tighten things up in November and December so we can elevate the overall profile and quality of this program. We got a tease of this in 2021-22, and if this program wants to be better that needs to become more of a regular outcome.

Good for Tomiwa! I really grew to like him last year. He made a lot of plays to spark this team, and really seemed to embrace being at Towson in the short time he was here. There are a lot of bad things about the constant transfers and roster turnover, but guys like him show there are players that can come via transfer route who will fully buy into the program. He is part of the long and growing list that I wish could have helped deliver out long-awaited return trip to the NCAA Tournament.

That is some good information. Thank you for sharing.

Are we not facing UC Irvine this year at all, or will they work something out? It sounded like they wanted to figure out a way to face each other. By my count with JMU return game, that would be eight non-conference games so far. We played 13 last year (12 D1). Seems like we would need five more to fill it out. Are we hearing about any other games? So far it looks like some of the crazy schedules Terry Truax put together back in the 1990s (that I always enjoyed), with some better non-conference opportunities against teams with a similar level to us.

I Where does this put us for non-conference for 2025-26? I had the following. Is there anything I am missing? November 3 Loyola November 8 at Houston November 24-26 - Bradley, Liberty, Princeton, Rhode Island, Temple, UC San Diego, Vermont December 3 - Cornell December 16 - at Kansas Canada Tournament - UC Irvine and other teams (when would this be?) Am I missing anything else?

We were 7-8 against the North and 4-8 against the South this year.

That is sort of my point with the teams that are similar to us. It feels like we need to be out in front and try to lead a coalition best we can, because I am not sure we bring enough to the table on our own. There is no doubt it might be more appealing to the North teams to band together and shut us out. However, I picked Bryant, Stony Brook, Albany and Monmouth because none of those teams can stand on their own reputation wise, but they all have show in some way that they have the potential to breakthrough and build good programs. New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Maine are the teams that might try to lead and dictate, but if we joined those previously mentioned universities it might give us all more opportunity to collectively control what is next and find a couple of up and coming D2 teams and a couple of programs that either relevant geographically or in some other way to fill out a conference. This might also be completely unrealistic, I am not just trying to think of fairly realistic out of the box ideas to try to have some control. I agree on the SoCon, but to me it is the other option along with staying in the CAA or figuring out a way to engineering our own hybrid conference.

I appreciate you sharing the receipts of your suggestions. Seriously, one of my least favorite things is complaints with no tangible suggestions/solutions. I love that you through this ideas out there a while ago. Of those three, the SoCon was and is probably the most realistic option. - I think we either need to swing for the fences with a targeted FBS plan, which would probably require money we don't have and might be a major financial risk. This seems unrealistic. - Get together with Stony Brook, Monmouth, Albany and Bryant (Elon would be good too, but I don't know if it it fits regionally as much as the others), and see if as a group we have enough influence to can convince 3-4 other similar schools of decent quality to join up. It is pretty slim pickings, but maybe one or two FCS schools looking to move geographically and/or 1-2 good D-2 schools with the itch to move up. I know that is not exciting, but those seem like the schools that have the most in common with us when it comes to quality, potential (which we all have), and financial resources (I don't know for sure, but none of us are FBS schools, but we can do well at this level). - Try to go to the Patriot League (they probably won't have us, because it was never a great fit when we were there). - Try to go to the SoCon. It is where a lot of the CAA travel are going anyways with new members, so travel wouldn't be much more of an issue. Especially if we brought one or two of the schools above with us. - Stay in the CAA, try to recruit new members and hope for the best. - Drop the program and focus on basketball and lacrosse, and other sports. I would say go to D-2 or D-3, but I wasn't sure if that means the rest our programs would have to go there too. That would not be acceptable. The ground is shifting below is and we will have to pick a track at some point in the next 3-5 years to map out a real future. Otherwise, we could be back to treading water like we were in the mid-90s, only with more financial sharks circling around us to create bigger problems. -

I am sure someone will show up. In our case, she said Towson is making an effort to talk to see where there are new alumni opportunities to connect. The person who hosted our event at him and his wife's apartment recently started donating scholarships and wanted to help them cultivate more connections in Minnesota. I appreciate that he did that because now there are three of us who are connected and willing to help move efforts along in the future. As I have said, I have a friend who went to Johns Hopkins, and because of the medical field opportunities at the Mayo Clinic they have quite a few alums in the state. They do an annual Orioles-Twins' game that my friend puts together, and there are usually 15-20 people there, which seems like a lot for this state's connection with a university from Maryland. Please let us know about your event. I am interested to see how these go in different states.

I am sure it was discussed, but because of what we are I am not sure the options were any more extensive than they are now. This program needs to raise its level of success if it wants to be in a better conference. By my count, we are 56-58 and 38-42 in conference play since playing in the national title game. With our lack of attendance and fan support it doesn't exactly scream out to anyone that we are an attractive get for any conference. We wanted a new coach and we got one. With two full recruiting cycles for Shinnick, year three is really put up or shut up time in terms of raising the level of the program in a conference where the quality diminishes every year.

Pretty reasonable assessment, although Rhode Island, Maine and UNH are probably mostly stuck for football too. It is not like they are juggernauts either, although Maine and UNH have better community, student and alumni support than we do. The Patriot League should be right behind the Missouri Valley for the best football conference in FCS in the next couple of years. That would be great if we could go back, but it seemed like a strange fit when we were there the first time. I feel like the core of Rhode Island, Bryant, Monmouth, Stony Brook, Albany, UNH, Maine, Bryant and Towson seem about right for each other. Although, UNH seems a slight notch about everyone at this point (at least attendance wise). https://herosports.com/fcs-football-2024-attendance-leaders-bzbz/. The NC A&T, Hampton, Campbell and Elon part of this equation doesn't make much sense.

You summed it up pretty well. I think there will be some limited opportunities as the landscape continues to shift, but we have to have make ourselves more attractive on the field too. I imagine as leagues fracture there might be new ones built out of them or pieced together, but we have to be proactive and show that we can be a quality program We have never really had any sustained success. Just fits and stops. Between that and the consistent lack of excitement of athletics that our community, student body, and alumni have show historically, FBS always seemed like a pipe dream when were talking about it.

I am sure he is been out ahead of this for a while, but it is going to be a tough nut to crack. I truly believe we are a higher caliber than what this league is becoming, but the first part is we have to go prove that on the actual field. There are a lot of other aspects, but we have to show that we can put a quality product on the field. It has happened in fits and spurts with this program, and it is important for the future of this program that the next couple of years bring some success with them. I know that might seen overdramatic, but with all of this shifting we need to prove we stand out from others in the CAA. Right now, we don't seem like we have any better of a future than Stony Brook, Monmouth or Bryant (when it comes to football and overall). That needs to change on the football field this year.