AtlantaTiger

I came here to type this EXACT response and you beat me to it. Couldn’t agree with your assessment more. Still shooting ourselves in the foot with horrific shot selections at crucial moments in the game and dreadful FT shooting.

Towson: 27 Spiders: 24

Towson vs Baylor in the first round of the NCAA TOURNAMENT….as predicted by Jerry Palm. 🤣 https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/bracketology/

I don’t know, I kind of prefer being rationale and pragmatic and NOT being a prisoner of the moment? But you do you.

I’m just here for the comments. Funny how week-to-week opinions and perspectives can change about the team and the coaches. Go Tigers!!

I wanna give a quick shoutout to the local boys down here at Kennesaw State for picking up their first FBS win ever and their first win of the season. It’s a program and a university that I’ve compared very similarly and favorably to Towson on this message board in the past. I applaud them for their leadership’s ambitious approach to building a winning football program and culture in such a relatively short amount of time. Our “leaders” at TU can maybe learn a thing or two from the Owls.

To be clear, the point of referencing the Nova game is to highlight the fact that not all of the issues we’ve had are coaching related. Players need to make plays. The sample size for Shinnick is fairly small. It would be one thing if we had a roster full of studs and he’s been underperforming with a great team. We don’t have much talent at all on the defensive side of the ball and our O-line is depleted. I’m not understanding what the expectation some people have for this team. Should we be 7-0? 5-2? 4-3? How many of our losses are a direct result of coaching incompetence?

Let’s also keep in mind that we are a dropped TD and TWO missed chip shot field goals against Nova from being a 4-3 team. We’d all be having a very different conversation this morning. I don’t know that this is the train wreck some of y’all are making it out to be. Wanting to run Shinnick out of town with pitchforks a season and a half into his Towson career….and yet some of you will defend Skerry’s continued tournament flops year after year after year……

By me, that’s who. 😉 I’m not here to defend today’s performance, by all accounts it sounds like it was an all around disaster. However, Shinnick is less than two full seasons into his Towson career and all of a sudden he’s somehow not meeting the standard and “pedigree” of our program? Let’s not try to tell ourselves that we’re the Alabama of FCS. Winning consistently at Towson hard AF. Dude inherited a mess. Coach Pete, based on resume alone, is objectively the most accomplished football coach Towson has ever had given where he’s coached in the past and what he’s legitimately achieved as a head coach. He literally built a college program from scratch….and then won MULTIPLE national championships with it. His predecessors at Towson were a collection of former TU grads who were gifted the position simply because they were “Towson men”. The program was run largely like a high school team. What had any of them truly accomplished as head coaches?? I’ll wait. The man is in year 2. He still has several holdovers from the Ambrose regime. Does he need to bring in more talent? Absolutely. I don’t know that there’s a bona fide, difference-making player on that defense. Our defense is flat out bad. It’s not a scheme issue, it’s a talent issue. We don’t have any. Offense is a different story. There are some playmakers on offense. You can debate the merits of the starting quarterback. I can see pros and cons of both QBs….but we got guys who can do some dynamic things with the ball in their hands. Unfortunately it sounds like our offensive line is in shambles right now. I’m not sold on Shinnick’s Polly Anna style of no cussing and the Arete mantra….seems like it might be a little corny to sell in this day and age but I think the guy needs to bring in a few more players, ESPECIALLY on defense. Personally, I’m going to withhold judgment until year 3. He will have had enough time to bring in “his” guys by then and will have had enough time to establish some kind of culture. If he continues to struggle next season I think it would be fair to question his approach at this level but as of right now, I believe it’s less of a coaching issue and more of a lack of defensive talent issue.

Towson: 35 SB: 24

Towson made CBS Sports’ Top 100 Programs https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/news/college-basketball-rankings-cbs-sports-top-100-and-1-best-teams-for-the-2024-25-season/

Oh man, what happened with him? His choice or was he told to leave?

That’s very unfortunate, I think he could be a significant offensive weapon for us. We need all the playmakers available down the stretch.

Is Londono injured?

Is our resume not strong enough? Lost to a Big 12 team that’s currently tied for third in their conference. Which, by the way, we gave a far more respectable game against than their conference foe, University of Houston. They blew Houston’s doors off. Lost to perennial FCS juggernaut NDSU. I think our resume is pretty solid.

I have to be honest, I think this team is right on schedule for this season. After 6 games, we’re 3-3. Before the season started and given the schedule we were facing I think most of us would have said 3-3 is where we’d likely be. Letting that Villanova game slip through our fingers is extremely frustrating knowing that we could very easily be 4-2, but in reality 3-3 is neither shocking nor discouraging. We don’t exactly have a meat-grinder of a schedule remaining. If we had the Blue Hens still to play, I’d be a little less optimistic but I’m looking for the next “heavyweight” on our schedule and I’m just not seeing one. We are very capable of beating each of the teams we have left. I feel like there’s a bit too much pessimism on this board, even for this group of characters. So what, we have a couple of “ugly” wins? We’re right in the thick of things.

Why are the playoffs unlikely at this point?

You make it sound like 3 starts is a lot. This kid has not played a lot of college football compared to Davis and yet he has arguably made better decisions and more clutch throws in the games he’s played in. I would expect he’ll clean up a lot of the mistakes he made today….so long as our OC puts him in better situations and makes better play calls. Definitely don’t want to be in a week-to-week QB competition situation at this point of the season. That’s not good for the guys and it’s it good for the program. Let’s ride with Brown. A more consistent running game will help take the pressure off of him.

I was able to watch a total of 6 plays on ESPN+. I believe they were the final 6 plays of the first half to include the Brown pic in the end zone. Quickly turned it off and went back to the yard work and “honey-do” list. Look, a W is a W. Better to have found a way to win this one than have let it slip through our fingers. Be thankful we had this clunker against NSU and not one of our conference foes. I’m not nearly as concerned about our QB play as I am our defense. Don’t love the scheme and don’t love our lack of size. Short dlinemen, undersized LBs, inexperienced secondary. That more than our QB situation is going to get us into trouble the rest of the way. I don’t know what his final stats were, I know he had a tuddy, but I feel like we need to just keep feeding our monster TE. He’s a freaky athletic Frankenstein of a football player. Feed the beast.

Towson: 38 NSU: 14

To be clear, I’m a true believer of Coach Pete. I think his system and his style will lead to great results for Towson football this season and in future seasons. Having said that, I want to take a minute to call attention to the guy who I was advocating for during our coaching search, Shawn Lutz at Slippery Rock. This dude hardly ever loses. SRU is 5-0 so far in 2024. I don’t know if their website is updated but assuming it is, his current head coaching record is 70-19!!! If it’s NOT, then he’s 75-19!!! Looking at their roster it’s primarily dudes from all over PA, MD, NJ, VA with a few other states sprinkled in. He also has several former FBS players on the the roster from the likes of Rutgers, Va Tech, Pitt…..looks like there’s a even a kid who had “a cup of coffee” at Towson. How has this guy not been scooped by a larger program?? It’s not like he’s a SRU grad himself and his content to be at his alma mater…he graduated from WVU. If I’m any mid-Atlantic, northeast FCS program who’s struggling, I’m putting this guy at the top of my list. (I’m looking at you Fordham, Albany, Marist, Penn, etc…) Kudos to you, Coach Lutz.

My prediction of a 41-24 Towson win drew some skepticism from some of my fellow Tigers here. I wasn’t too far off. Just felt like the Towson squad we saw against UC was not a fluke but a truer indication of what this team is capable of offensively. Granted, that team was led by Davis. However, after what I saw from Brown against Villanova, I’m all in on that dude. I feel like he has better instincts and composure. There are still some challenging games left but none of them are “improbable” wins. I still wouldn’t be shocked if we ran the table the rest of the way.

I might like the helmets better if the decals were a bit bigger. Field logo actually looks decent, I will admit.

Interesting that 3-1 New Hampshire is a +2.5 underdog against 1-1 Harvard tonight.

Tribe: 24 Tigers: 41