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PSU 2021

joeterry9 said:
bigskyconf said:
Alan said:
This blog I stumbled upon has several good articles:
https://bigskyvalhalla.substack.com/
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Another Montana transplant writing about PSU. As long as he doesn't skew things towards the Cats or Griz when we play them :lol: .

Otherwise, I can get into it. :thumb:
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Thanks fellas!

I appreciate all the readers I get. To clear up some questions from earlier in the thread, Barnum signed an extension in June that keeps him as head coach until 2023. He gets a one-year extension if he wins at least six games any time in that stretch.

Also, I worked in Montana for about 10 years but I grew up in Michigan and don't have any allegiances to either of those schools. I did however enjoy covering FCS football and the league while I was there, which is why I wanted to continue doing so when my wife's job relocated us to the Portland area. You'll get Portland State-focused content all year including a healthy skepticism of the Montana schools and some of the storylines that surround those programs.

Thanks again for reading! New stuff out every Sunday and Wednesday in the fall!

https://bigskyvalhalla.substack.com
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Welcome! Insider information is always appreciated. :thumb:

I couldn't find anything on the Barnum extension but it made sense. With Peery and Kennedy leaving (and then Cleary later), I don't think they wanted to refill all the positions in the major sports.
 
If someone wants to do something to the PSU football program tonight, considering what happened in Columbus today, your timing couldn’t be more perfect. Nobody would hear it.

Although I wish some of my fellow Duck fans wouldn’t go full Daesh and stick 5 flags on their car to drive around.
 
What is scary is that the conference has shown through two weeks that defense is key to winning and Hawaii and Wazzu have both scored in every quarter. Our defense has not posted a zero in any quarter so far.
 
bigskyconf said:
What is scary is that the conference has shown through two weeks that defense is key to winning and Hawaii and Wazzu have both scored in every quarter. Our defense has not posted a zero in any quarter so far.
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Yes, quite scary. Especially so since we continue our pattern of losing football. If I am not mistaken, Viking football is 0 and 2 in 2021, 0 and 1 in 2020, and 3 and 7 against D1 programs in 2019. A combined D1 record of 3 and 10! No wonder the program has little support.
 
I’m voting to have the state of the program argument here rather than in the conference schedule thread.

I think the major question this year is whether Barnum needs to go or the DC needs to go.

The success of the offense seems to be either when (1) PSU totally sells out for a running play, or (2) when Davis Alexander makes $%@+ up. Bruce Barnum was generally better with Nigel Burton’s recruits than his own.

Did we ever decide Barnum’s contract status? Or is my memory totally fried? (The latter has been completely possible lately)
 
Pounder said:
Did we ever decide Barnum’s contract status? Or is my memory totally fried? (The latter has been completely possible lately)
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Somewhere I saw from the new guy, Joe Terry, that Barnum was signed to an extension in June but I have not seen anything on it.

You look at the numbers every week and the offense rivals that of EWU's . The way Alexander runs around, keeping the Viks in games week after week is incredible. Barnum is an offensive guy so one has to think (right or wrong) that part of the success of the offense has to do with him. The other side of the coin, Barnum has never been a defensive coach so one should be able to reasonably assume that Barnum needs a good defensive mind on that side of the ball. The fact that the defense has a tough time stopping anyone I think clearly shows that we do not have a good DC right now. I understand we have this "innovative" coach and his defensive philosophy but it just seems like teams speed up their offense and the play is going while we are still trying to figure out what formation we are in (and running around trying to get to that formation). Through the season, our defense has allowed zero points in only two quarters. That puts a lot of pressure on the offense to try to keep up with the points given up by the defense.

Is it a case of throwing it all away and starting from scratch again, or can the situation be fixed by bringing in a decent DC with a sound strategy?
 
Pounder said:
Did we ever decide Barnum’s contract status? Or is my memory totally fried? (The latter has been completely possible lately)
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Barnum is signed through 2023, the school is probably too cash-strapped to buy him out and doesn't have a full-time AD to pull that trigger anyway. He's not going anywhere unless the new president and a new AD have ambition to move on or a significant donor foots the bill.

Even if that happens, and they want to get a big name coach, why would any coach sign on without a concrete stadium plan? Their travel plan includes mostly buses. The brass at PSU hasn't shown it's interested in making the type of investment it would take to turn this program into a juggernaut. That could always change, the new president hasn't had a normal year and finances will likely rebound eventually, but I get the sense that everyone likes having Barnum around.
 
To illustrate better my point about the defense, going back to the 2019 season, we have had 3 DI games where we've held the opposition to less than 30 points (Arkansas, 20 in 2019, Idaho, 0 in 2019, Southern Utah, 13 in 2021). Therefore we are asking our offense to score over 30 points a game in order to win. That is a bit much if you ask me, but we have done it in a few of those games.

Most DC's in DI usually do not have a job after these repeated performances.
 
bigskyconf said:
To illustrate better my point about the defense, going back to the 2019 season, we have had 3 DI games where we've held the opposition to less than 30 points (Arkansas, 20 in 2019, Idaho, 0 in 2019, Southern Utah, 13 in 2021). Therefore we are asking our offense to score over 30 points a game in order to win. That is a bit much if you ask me, but we have done it in a few of those games.

Most DC's in DI usually do not have a job after these repeated performances.
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Most HC's who go 9 and 30 against conference opponents do not have a job with such a record. Our DC was hired just after the 2018 season was promoted to Associate HC in 2019. Whose fault was that?
 
Alan said:
bigskyconf said:
To illustrate better my point about the defense, going back to the 2019 season, we have had 3 DI games where we've held the opposition to less than 30 points (Arkansas, 20 in 2019, Idaho, 0 in 2019, Southern Utah, 13 in 2021). Therefore we are asking our offense to score over 30 points a game in order to win. That is a bit much if you ask me, but we have done it in a few of those games.

Most DC's in DI usually do not have a job after these repeated performances.
Click to expand...

Most HC's who go 9 and 30 against conference opponents do not have a job with such a record. Our DC was hired just after the 2018 season was promoted to Associate HC in 2019. Whose fault was that?
Click to expand...

Like I mentioned before, you aren't going to win many games if you expect the offense to score 30 points just for a chance to win it. Barnum is an offensive coach and the offense is not the problem. He needs a capable DC. The problem as I see it is the DC is expecting the offense to score 30+ points to have a chance to win, and that is not happening. Sadaat's "awsome" defense has held only 3 DI opponents to under 30 points since he's been here. Before we throw out everyone and everything, maybe get a decent DC and see what happens.
 
James Madison, Sam Houston and Jacksonville State all announce they are moving up to FBS.

https://www.inforum.com/bison-media-zone/mens-sports/football/7270581-McFeely-blog-James-Madison-Sam-Houston-Jacksonville-State-to-FBS-is-official

James Madison will go to the Sun Belt, and Sam Houston and Jacksonville State will go to the C-USA. C-USA also announced that New Mexico State and Liberty will be joining the conference as well.
 
bigskyconf said:
James Madison, Sam Houston and Jacksonville State all announce they are moving up to FBS.

https://www.inforum.com/bison-media-zone/mens-sports/football/7270581-McFeely-blog-James-Madison-Sam-Houston-Jacksonville-State-to-FBS-is-official

James Madison will go to the Sun Belt, and Sam Houston and Jacksonville State will go to the C-USA. C-USA also announced that New Mexico State and Liberty will be joining the conference as well.
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That prompted me to get “the number” on Portland State’s athletic budget. Last I found (data from last year) says $14.5 million.

I saw one comment that the “magic number” for moving to FBS these days is $20 million. It was $10 million when Boise went up. Inflation, man.

James Madison’s budget is apparently $60 million. Just damn.
 
Of the 128 FCS programs PSU was 110 with an average attendance of 3329 for 2021.
https://herosports.com/2021-fcs-attendance-leaders-bzbz/
 
bigskyconf said:
Alan said:
Of the 128 FCS programs PSU was 110 with an average attendance of 3329 for 2021.
https://herosports.com/2021-fcs-attendance-leaders-bzbz/
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Actually, the chart has PSU at 104th.
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"No, we're better than Drake, dammit!"

Used to be that there was always a straggler or two below Portland State among Big Sky schools. And I know that, in Boise, they never stopped telling jokes about Weber having to resort to a bake sale to keep the football program going 25-30 years ago. It's weird seeing how much things have flipped over time (EWU was often the straggler, BTW, sometimes shared with Sac).
 
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