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And if we get rid of football we can get rid of some of the shitty performing women’s sports too right?
Just saying.....cause we could really save some money and still be Title IX compliant, right?

Yes. You can easily save $1m-$1.3m in scholarship expense by changing the configuration. I've designed several variations of this and posted it before when I was trying to work through the issue while maintaining D1 status requirements.

 

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You guys do this thing where you keep doubling down and you keep being wrong… You’d think at some point you’d just google it and then not double down - but you don’t even do the homework. 🤣🤣

1980 - 1997 : 94-105 - Ratez

1998 - 2004 : 24-55 - McGuire

2005-2007 : 1-32 - West

2008-2012 : 20-36 - Miles

2013-2016 : 18-30 - Stanford

2017-2023 : 18-36 - Mallory (added our loss for Friday already)

20-36 and 18-30 overall is what success looks like… Because they had “successful” seasons. Surrounded by straight dog shit seasons. No one had a career winning record during the entire tenure here in the last 45 years most of them not even close.
Lots of real winners in the basketball program too. 🙄 Obviously it's easy to cherry pick and a coaches record doesn't necessarily reflect reality.

Take out Miles first two seasons where he was literally digging us out of the Lou West disaster that you conveniently ignore just to cherry pick your points, and he has a winning record.

Ratez had ISU as the ranked #1 team one year and we almost beat Florida in the Swamp one season, but I'm sure he's a loser too right?

Sanford's first season sucked, but it was followed by a trip to the playoffs and a playoff win the same year the MVFC was the strongest it has ever been, only having 2 losses all season against other FCS conferences (including our playoff loss to UTC). But yes, he was a real loser.

191982–1985Dave Schellhase337–48.435
201985–1989Ron Greene431–82.274
211989–1994Tates Locke550–88.362
221994–1997Sherman Dillard329–51.363
231997–2007Royce Waltman10134–165.448
242007–2010Kevin McKenna343–52.453
252010–2021Greg Lansing11181–164.525
262021–presentJosh Schertz234–33.507

Looking at the records for MBB I guess Royce Waltman and Kevin McKenna were two proven losers. Lansing was "the only real winner" at ISU; of course he walked into a fabulous situation left behind by "that loser McKenna" and lucked out having Odum join as a walk-on. I wonder what his record would have looked like if he had taken Ron Greene's place after he got canned? Probably not a "winner" in that scenario.
 
Take out Miles first two seasons where he was literally digging us out of the Lou West disaster that you conveniently ignore just to cherry pick your points, and he has a winning record.
And if you take out the seasons where the other team scored more than us, and then take out the seasons where we lost games, and then take out all the seasons where we didn’t score enough points to win, then we would have a lot of winning coaches. Lol. Even if you take out those seasons (which you can’t, they counted) Miles was still only about five games over .500. His best seasons were 7-4, 6-5 type years. And that is the best we have had in the last forty years.

You are what your record says you are. And we have no coaches with a winning record since before 1980. That’s who Indiana State football is.

But hey we almost beat Florida fifty years ago or something in a game no one remembers. We should make a banner for that and make sure to mention it to recruits.
 
And if you take out the seasons where the other team scored more than us, and then take out the seasons where we lost games, and then take out all the seasons where we didn’t score enough points to win, then we would have a lot of winning coaches. Lol. Even if you take out those seasons (which you can’t, they counted) Miles was still only about five games over .500. His best seasons were 7-4, 6-5 type years. And that is the best we have had in the last forty years.

You are what your record says you are. And we have no coaches with a winning record since before 1980. That’s who Indiana State football is.

But hey we almost beat Florida fifty years ago or something in a game no one remembers. We should make a banner for that and make sure to mention it to recruits.
Were Waltman and McKenna losers? Yes or No?
 
Were Waltman and McKenna losers? Yes or No?
Depends on how you want to view them. In your world I guess not because they had at least one winning season, or they beat a team that was really good during a season they coached. If that’s good enough to defend football then I guess it should be good enough for Waltman and McKenna.

All I’m pointing out is that if the best defense of the football program is that we had a few coaches who had one or two good years (surrounded by a lot of bad ones) and we almost beat a team that was good forty years ago then you have summed up the history of our football program better than anyone else. And that is a saaaaaaaad history.
 
Depends on how you want to view them. In your world I guess not because they had at least one winning season, or they beat a team that was really good during a season they coached. If that’s good enough to defend football then I guess it should be good enough for Waltman and McKenna.

All I’m pointing out is that if the best defense of the football program is that we had a few coaches who had one or two good years (surrounded by a lot of bad ones) and we almost beat a team that was good forty years ago then you have summed up the history of our football program better than anyone else. And that is a saaaaaaaad history.
I want to know how you personally view them. Since you seem to allude that you thought Miles was a loser or average at best, I want to know what you think of Waltman and McKenna. My personal answer is that neither one of them were losers.
 

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I want to know how you personally view them. Since you seem to allude that you thought Miles was a loser or average at best, I want to know what you think of Waltman and McKenna. My personal answer is that neither one of them were losers.
Not going to bite. And here is why. You changed the argument. SSOM pointed out the record of the program and that we have had a few winning seasons sprinkled in but over all no coach has had a winning record at Indiana State. You then chose to pick two coaches of basketball and try to make it about the individuals. But that was not the original argument. The football program has an overall winning percentage of .426. Every coach for the past five decades has left the school with a losing record. SSOM has been pointing out that it doesn’t matter who the coach is. It’s the program itself. We have too many things working against the program and not enough resources available to change its trajectory.

And the basketball program has an overall winning record of 53% or something close to it.
 
Lots of real winners in the basketball program too. 🙄 Obviously it's easy to cherry pick and a coaches record doesn't necessarily reflect reality.

You must not know what “cherry picking” means… It’s not cherry picking when you take every coach we have had for the last 40 years. That’s the definition of not cherry picking. Try harder.
 
One more point to be clear on - I didn’t call anyone a “loser” you used those words and tried to put words in my mouth… I personally know Trent, I personally know Dennis and his son Mark. I don’t think anyone of these guys are losers let’s just get that straight right now. I think if I called them a loser they’d probably each personally put me in the hospital pretty easily…

I think the program is broken & I’ve illustrated that.
I’ve been making this point for several years now on here and was often times over the years met with resistance… Each-and-every-year more and more people come to this same realization that I have had. Maybe you will figure it out one day? Maybe not.
 

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Records from 1980 on per program:
*Year represents season start date.

80-89 MBB= 94-186
90-99 MBB= 124-152
00-09 MBB= 124-183
10-19 MBB= 166-154
20-22 MBB= 49-43
Total MBB= 557-718 (43.7%)

80-89 FB= 55-56
90-99 FB= 47-63
00-09 FB= 18-95
10-19 FB= 49-66
20-22 FB= 7-15
Total FB= 176-295 (37.4%)

Winning % difference is 6.3% in favor of MBB.

-------------------------------------------------

NCAA Tournament Appearances since 1980:
MBB= 3
FB= 3

Result is a tie.

---------------------------------------------------

NCAA Tournament Wins since 1980:

MBB= 1
FB= 2

Result is in favor of football by 1.
 
Records from 1980 on per program:
*Year represents season start date.

80-89 MBB= 94-186
90-99 MBB= 124-152
00-09 MBB= 124-183
10-19 MBB= 166-154
20-22 MBB= 49-43
Total MBB= 557-718 (43.7%)

80-89 FB= 55-56
90-99 FB= 47-63
00-09 FB= 18-95
10-19 FB= 49-66
20-22 FB= 7-15
Total FB= 176-295 (37.4%)

Winning % difference is 6.3% in favor of MBB.

-------------------------------------------------

NCAA Tournament Appearances since 1980:
MBB= 3
FB= 3

Result is a tie.

---------------------------------------------------

NCAA Tournament Wins since 1980:

MBB= 1
FB= 2

Result is in favor of football by 1.
I’m convinced…Mallory needs another extension!
 
I figured. Doesn't fit the narrative that football sucks and basketball doesn't.
Basketball isn’t a financial black hole. Football is.

If football went to the national championship of FCS, how many student would care? How many new applicants would the school see?

If the basketball team went to the Final Four how many students would care?

The baseball team hosting a regional was more exciting and drew more interest than a season where the football team went to the playoffs. Very few caresl about fcs level football.

Want an easier example,…. A football game will have about two pages of posts after the game is over during the season (maybe). A basketball thread will have four pages of posts before the game even starts. Other than a few die hards, no one cares about football at Indiana State.

If football ended tomorrow this site wouldn’t change much at all. If basketball ended tomorrow this site would probably shut down due to a lack of traffic.
 
Records from 1980 on per program:
*Year represents season start date.

80-89 MBB= 94-186
90-99 MBB= 124-152
00-09 MBB= 124-183
10-19 MBB= 166-154
20-22 MBB= 49-43
Total MBB= 557-718 (43.7%)

80-89 FB= 55-56
90-99 FB= 47-63
00-09 FB= 18-95
10-19 FB= 49-66
20-22 FB= 7-15
Total FB= 176-295 (37.4%)

Winning % difference is 6.3% in favor of MBB.

-------------------------------------------------

NCAA Tournament Appearances since 1980:
MBB= 3
FB= 3

Result is a tie.

---------------------------------------------------

NCAA Tournament Wins since 1980:

MBB= 1
FB= 2

Result is in favor of football by 1.
Now who is cherry picking? I point out that basketball has an overall winning record and the football team has an overall losing record so you just go back and pick a year to start a comparison? Interesting logic.

This^ is what we call grasping at straws. If you are even trying to make the case that football is somehow as successful and therefore as important to the school as basketball then I will just stop arguing now as it is clearly an unfair fight.

Now go ask any student on campus how many wins the football team has. Or ask them who the football team plays next week. Or ask them about those memorable NCAA wins. I’m sure they will mesmerize you with stories of how much they can recall about those class of games.

You can wish it all you want, but the day is coming soon when football won’t be around at Indiana State. Reality always wins.
 
Going back 120 years to compare the two is grasping at straws. The basketball team was literally playing high schools back in the day. At least keep the argument to the Division 1 era. And you still never answered my question about Waltman and McKenna. Dodged it like a politician who refuses to be straight about their agenda or their past.

Students? What do they care about exactly? Attendance for either sport among the students is typically minimal and their tickets are "free". I imagine if we made it to Frisco in football or to the Final 4 in basketball there would be close to equal excitement among the students. The excitement baseball received should be a clue on how people would react to a deep football run.

If you asked the students who we were playing this week you'd probably get more correct answers than any other week. Most of them probably wish they were going to IU.

None of the students remember any of our NCAA wins. Most of them probably weren't even born yet when we beat Oklahoma. I don't even remember the Menser years and I'm 27.

I don't base my opinions on what a board of 15-20 regular posters thinks. We have several thousand fans show up to football and basketball games. There's more than 20 opinions out there. Just because most of this board of 15-20 gets all worked up over basketball doesn't mean that no one cares about football. Very small sample size.
 

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Going back 120 years to compare the two is grasping at straws. The basketball team was literally playing high schools back in the day. At least keep the argument to the Division 1 era. And you still never answered my question about Waltman and McKenna. Dodged it like a politician who refuses to be straight about their agenda or their past.

Students? What do they care about exactly? Attendance for either sport among the students is typically minimal and their tickets are "free". I imagine if we made it to Frisco in football or to the Final 4 in basketball there would be close to equal excitement among the students. The excitement baseball received should be a clue on how people would react to a deep football run.

If you asked the students who we were playing this week you'd probably get more correct answers than any other week. Most of them probably wish they were going to IU.

None of the students remember any of our NCAA wins. Most of them probably weren't even born yet when we beat Oklahoma. I don't even remember the Menser years and I'm 27.

I don't base my opinions on what a board of 15-20 regular posters thinks. We have several thousand fans show up to football and basketball games. There's more than 20 opinions out there. Just because most of this board of 15-20 gets all worked up over basketball doesn't mean that no one cares about football. Very small sample size.
I’m failing to understand what you’re arguing for or against. Comparing the futility of our football program to any other program doesn’t seem to prove any particular point. Are you saying we should just keep doing what we’re doing and hope it gets better? Because if so there are decades of data that show that is a losing strategy - literally.

At the level for which we participate in football and basketball, basketball is the ONLY one with any possible chance of being profitable and self-sustainable. With the win shares and the level of revenue that comes from the ncaa basketball tournament, it’s the only sport (between the two) that could financially propel us forward. Football at the FCS level will continue to be a massive financial suck year after year. Our football “money” games are also about to dry up completely with conference expansion and realignment.

By putting more resources and investing more into basketball we have an actual chance. Putting more resources and investing in football will just be throwing good money at bad.
 
Going back 120 years to compare the two is grasping at straws. The basketball team was literally playing high schools back in the day. At least keep the argument to the Division 1 era. And you still never answered my question about Waltman and McKenna. Dodged it like a politician who refuses to be straight about their agenda or their past.

Students? What do they care about exactly? Attendance for either sport among the students is typically minimal and their tickets are "free". I imagine if we made it to Frisco in football or to the Final 4 in basketball there would be close to equal excitement among the students. The excitement baseball received should be a clue on how people would react to a deep football run.

If you asked the students who we were playing this week you'd probably get more correct answers than any other week. Most of them probably wish they were going to IU.
I don't base my opinions on what a board of 15-20 regular posters thinks. We have several thousand fans show up to football and basketball games. There's more than 20 opinions out there.
First, I guarantee that there would be ten times the excitement about going to the final four. It wouldn’t even be close and anyone who disagrees is flat out wrong. Students would be traveling to the final four. None of them even know where the fcs championship is played. Ask fifty college football fans who won the fcs championship last year and my guess is maybe half can answer it. Then ask them who the winning team beat in the finals and I doubt any of them could answer.

If Indiana State went to the fcs national championship we would talk about it for about three months. If we ever went back to the final four we would talk about it for another 30 years.

Second, I said ask the students who we are playing NEXT week. They won’t know. They won’t care. Most don’t even know it’s a division 1 team/program. I also bet they don’t know how much of the program they themselves are paying for with their fees.

Third, this board is made up of the die hards. The ones who actually care about Indiana state, show up for games and donate money. And even most of them don’t get fired up for football.

Many of the fans that show up for football are the families of the players. And as soon as the player is gone, those fans are gone too. They care only as long as their family member is here. Then the school and program is an afterthought. There have been many, many parents of players on this site over the years and as soon as their son was no longer part of the team they stopped caring or supporting the program immediately.

The school spends $5 million of money they don’t have on a program that the majority of fans and alumni don’t know (or care) anything about. It’s unsustainable. Wishing won’t change it. In the coming years the school is going to have to face the reality of the situation.
 
And no one has still answered my question about what “success” for the football program looks like?

Is it a winning season? Playoffs once in awhile? Playoffs every other year? A finals appearance every ten years?

What is a successful football program at Indiana State?
 
At the most basic level, some of you just like going to ISU football games. You’ve gone for a long time and you don’t want your traditions to change. I get that. You like it and have supported it for a long time and you maybe even have sat in the same seats for years.

That’s great, but that’s clouding your better judgement.
 
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