The Sky is falling? or rising?

[clawman1]

There is a lot of turmoil in the perennial powerhouses. The two remaining BSC teams in the second round got clobbered. Maybe "the big fluffy" is appropriate, or is it?
The honeymoon is over in Missoula and changes are at hand with their new HC
QB U, better known as Cheney, struggled at that position this season and thus didn't even make the playoffs and they lost their QB coach to the FCS.
The Bobcats had their first losing season since 2001, fired their coach, lost their QB, and ...
NAU faded late again.
meanwhile: changing of the guard?
Southern Utah made the playoffs and were very strong getting there.
Portland State was the class of the Big Sky this year.
North Dakota had a better record than other teams in the playoffs but were left out... barely
looking forward
The Bobcats have a new head coach and he is assembling a very respectable staff
Coach Stitt in Msla is getting "his guys" in place
Baldwin has a couple of very promising young QB's in the wings and the young defense is another year more experienced and stronger.
What will 2016 bring to the SKY?

 

[GoldenEagle]

There is a lot of turmoil in the perennial powerhouses. The two remaining BSC teams in the second round got clobbered. Maybe "the big fluffy" is appropriate, or is it? No it isn't appropriate.
The honeymoon is over in Missoula and changes are at hand with their new HC Megalomaniac
QB U, better known as Cheney, struggled at that position this season and thus didn't even make the playoffs and they lost their QB coach to the FCS. Great young QBs, I'm sure Baldwin will continue to have a heavy hand in their development.
The Bobcats had their first losing season since 2001, fired their coach, lost their QB, and ...
NAU faded late again. MSU will improve dramatically, NAU?[/b]
meanwhile: changing of the guard?
Southern Utah made the playoffs and were very strong getting there.
Portland State was the class of the Big Sky this year.
North Dakota had a better record than other teams in the playoffs but were left out... barely
looking forward
The Bobcats have a new head coach and he is assembling a very respectable staff
Coach Stitt in Msla is getting "his guys" in place Stitt has no "guys" only minions.
Baldwin has a couple of very promising young QB's in the wings and the young defense is another year more experienced and stronger. Hopefully Schmedding is as bright as advertised and turns into a great DC
What will 2016 bring to the SKY?2016 will bring the EAGS back to the playoffs with "All Galaxy" Cooper Kupp smashing FCS records.

 

[Jibjab68]

I'm Looking forward to 2016! Hell of an opening schedule with @ WSU, @NDSU and UNI at home. The UNI home game will be a lot of fun. Offensive line will be very young. Hoping they can gel by UNI. We will be much improved at RB (Jabari, Jalen, Smash and others) and QB's (I'm thinking we might be in the market for a drop down/transfer QB as well) with a year of experience under our belts. TE will be solid with Wimberly returning. The development of Henderson, Byus and Gilder will be key to TE depth. WR is the class of the FCS. I think by the time its all said and done our Offense returns to its top perch in the Big Sky and the FCS.

Defensively we will be improved. Lots of youth coming back a year older. Dline is big and solid. Dends will also be a year older. We really need to be able to get better pressure on the QB from our front people. Our LB's should be solid next year with Zamora, Gall, Ketner and others all getting bigger, stronget and better. Same with our secondary. CB's should be improved with experience. Our safety play needs to improve. Looking forward to seeing what Sam Inos and DaHonte Hays bring to the table next year. I think the Eags D improves to middle of the pack in Big Sky and FCS.

Overall I think the Eags finish 8-3 overall and 7-1 in Big Sky. Make playoffs and get seeded in top 8.

Go Eags!!!

 

[LDopaPDX]

Scary to think we could conceivably be pretty good and be 0-3 and out of the playoffs by the third weekend in September. Even 1-2 leaves us almost no room for error. Terrible scheduling, but what's new?

 

[EWUeag]

IMHO...
https://youtu.be/EI9TS4O5Ww4" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[LDopaPDX]

IMHO...
https://youtu.be/EI9TS4O5Ww4" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Pretty hard to beat SRV, def one of the 5 best guitarists IMO. I still like Billy Gibbons in the #1 spot, though. Throw in Eddie Van Halen for his fusion of crisp metal riffs to a mainstream sound, Jimi Hendrix for mastering the art of feedback and early development of the grunge sound. To round out the list, maybe Randy Rhoads or even a real creationist like Chuck Berry... and you've got one helluva list!

 

[kalm]

IMHO...
https://youtu.be/EI9TS4O5Ww4" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Pretty hard to beat SRV, def one of the 5 best guitarists IMO. I still like Billy Gibbons in the #1 spot, though. Throw in Eddie Van Halen for his fusion of crisp metal riffs to a mainstream sound, Jimi Hendrix for mastering the art of feedback and early development of the grunge sound. To round out the list, maybe Randy Rhoads or even a real creationist like Chuck Berry... and you've got one helluva list!

Mark Maron (WTF Podcast) interviewed guitar guru Richard Thompson a short while ago and Thompson told a story about Hendrix. Jimi's first trip to London was the same week that the Beatles released the Sargeant Pepper album and London was abuzz. Folks had heard about this guitar phenom from states and on his opening night, guys like Thompson, Jimmy Paige, and Pete Townsend were in attendance to see what Hendrix was all about.

He came out and played a cover of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band that absolutely blew them all away. They recognized they were in the presence of a true wizard. After completing the opening song, Hendrix sits down and starts re-tuning his guitar and at one point looks over at the other masters and asks "hey man, one of you wanna come up here and help with this?".

:notworthy:

 

[kalm]

There is a lot of turmoil in the perennial powerhouses. The two remaining BSC teams in the second round got clobbered. Maybe "the big fluffy" is appropriate, or is it?
The honeymoon is over in Missoula and changes are at hand with their new HC
QB U, better known as Cheney, struggled at that position this season and thus didn't even make the playoffs and they lost their QB coach to the FCS.
The Bobcats had their first losing season since 2001, fired their coach, lost their QB, and ...
NAU faded late again.
meanwhile: changing of the guard?
Southern Utah made the playoffs and were very strong getting there.
Portland State was the class of the Big Sky this year.
North Dakota had a better record than other teams in the playoffs but were left out... barely
looking forward
The Bobcats have a new head coach and he is assembling a very respectable staff
Coach Stitt in Msla is getting "his guys" in place
Baldwin has a couple of very promising young QB's in the wings and the young defense is another year more experienced and stronger.
What will 2016 bring to the SKY?

Without looking in depth at every roster yet here's a few tidbits

SUU loses Cowser, Olsen, Malik Brown, Matt Holley, and Killebrew. Could be a rebuild.

PSU loses Onwausor and David Jones but gets Kuresa, Tago, and Xavier Colemen back. They were also young at o-line and appear to have a stable of competent rushers.

Griz lose Van Ackerman, Holmes, and Crittendom on D and Jones and Schmaing on offense but they are otherwise returning a most of their o line.

North Dakota is intriguing. They graduate 3 o lineman but have true freshman, BSC rushing champion John Santiago back along with Keaton Studsrud. Studsrud went out in the 3rd quarter against ISU which was the start of their 3-game swoon. Studsrud comes back and they win 3 straight to close the season average 45 points per game. Schweigart is a D-minded coach and they played well at times this year. They might be a contender in 2016.

Did UNC turn a corner with their first winning season since moving up to DI? They certainly seem to have better athletes on offense and are returning most of their skill positions including Knipp at QB and Riek at RB. Need to D it up but they could pick off a good team or two again.

Agree with Claw in that our defense is still young but another year of experience for both players and coaches should bring improvement. We badly need to replace Raynes at Safety though.

Offense is a question mark with the losses on line. We really need to figure out a way to either get the running game going again or get much better in the short passing game (we weren't nearly as crisp as normal this year IMO). We missed the long ball but I think that was more a function of inexperience at QB and lack of a short threat.

We have experience at running back, the question is are any of them explosive enough to make big plays?

Special Teams needs some serious work too. Watching the playoffs, NDSU and JSU both made huge plays in the return game. It's nice, however, to see we're not the only ones with a poor kicking game. Find a good solid leg man, and that can become a nice asset.

With our schedule, it's going to be tough to make the playoffs.