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Some Buzz About The AAC and One Of Our Recruits

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The third article in this edition of the excellent AAC Football Fever Blog discusses our highly touted place kicker recruit, Michael Tarbutt. With the new high profile head coaches at Houston and SMU and several other good stories within the ranks, the AAC should garner more attention going forward. It's our chance to shine.

http://aacfootballfever.com/
 
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The third article in this edition of the excellent AAC Football Fever Blog discusses our highly touted place kicker recruit, Michael Tarbutt. With the new high profile head coaches at Houston and SMU and several other good stories within the ranks, the AAC should garner more attention going forward. It's our chance to shine.

http://aacfootballfever.com/

From my perspective the competition on the football field is just as good as it was in the Big East. The local rivalries are gone so its not as much fun, but winning this league (if we ever do) will still be a huge accomplishment.
 

ConnHuskBask

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From my perspective the competition on the football field is just as good as it was in the Big East. The local rivalries are gone so its not as much fun, but winning this league (if we ever do) will still be a huge accomplishment.

The dregs of the AAC (ourselves included) are way worse than the bottom of the Big East. The top of the conference will never be as good as some of the WVU or Louisville teams either.
 

rbny1

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The dregs of the AAC (ourselves included) are way worse than the bottom of the Big East. The top of the conference will never be as good as some of the WVU or Louisville teams either.

"Never" is a long time. The AAC is not a strong conference now, but it could be in the future. There is no way to predict. The AAC is the only conference we have going for us at this time, so I prefer to think positive.
 

Dooley

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I don't have any doubt in my mind that Tarbutt will see game action next season. Our kickoff coverage last year was excellent but I could see him taking over kickoff duties for more touchbacks. Also, kicks of 40+ yards might become Tarbutt territory.

He has some personality too. Very confident. I like confident kickers. Sure he'll miss some, but he seems to possess the type of personality that can shrug off a miss and hit the next one.
 
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The dregs of the AAC (ourselves included) are way worse than the bottom of the Big East. The top of the conference will never be as good as some of the WVU or Louisville teams either.

I think that some of our old bowl teams would have ground this conference into dust.


Last year's UCF team could play with any of the WV and Louisville teams. Heck Louisville was in our league last year.

This was a down year in the AAC but it was not unlike the Big East season in 2010 which was a down year for the league.

Yes we had some horrible teams this year, but two of them USF and UCONN were old Big East schools and SMU and Tulsa have just made huge steps toward improvement.

Who are the dregs next year? I think we have some tough sledding ahead because there are no pushovers to be found.
 
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The dregs of the AAC (ourselves included) are way worse than the bottom of the Big East. The top of the conference will never be as good as some of the WVU or Louisville teams either.
depends which Big East you are talking about. Miami and VT or WVU and UofL.
Cincy, UCF, and ECU can be just as good as WVU and UofL. Not sure we have a Miami or VT in the AAC that can rival their heydays in competing for a NC. Not sure the conference alignment or structure would even allow for it if we had a team that could compete (which is the most frustrating).
 
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The dregs of the AAC (ourselves included) are way worse than the bottom of the Big East. The top of the conference will never be as good as some of the WVU or Louisville teams either.

It's about the same.

Louisville first of all sucked for 4 years in the BE, and UConn has a pretty even record with them.

WV was the class of it, but they had a good 8 year run. Before that, not so much. WV is certainly better than any current team.

BUT, during those BE years, no team won more than Cincy, and Cincy is still in the conference.

Don't forget UCF played very well last year and was easily the equal of ANY of those BE teams over the years.

As for the dregs, you would put your money down on Syracuse 2006-2012 over Memphis or Tulsa? I wouldn't. Dregs are dregs.

This conference is the equal in football (heck, 7-5 Houston with a loss to UTSA beat Pitt last night) but much much worse in basketball.
 

ConnHuskBask

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I don't know. It's tough to compare the eras, but I find the football overall to be noticeably worse. Maybe a lot of that is due to having watched UConn primarily the past two seasons.

If anything though, I disagree with the notion that the AAC will improve in time. I'd argue the opposite actually as the P5 and G5 gap widens.
 
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I don't know. It's tough to compare the eras, but I find the football overall to be noticeably worse. Maybe a lot of that is due to having watched UConn primarily the past two seasons.

If anything though, I disagree with the notion that the AAC will improve in time. I'd argue the opposite actually as the P5 and G5 gap widens.

I don't think you are correct. There will continue to be bad teams in the P5, as always, who will struggle and there will be teams in the AAC that will do well. Winning matters. In addition, recruits will play for local schools in many cases over bad P5 schools. Schools like UCF, USF, Houston, SMU, and Tulane are located in very strong recruiting grounds.
 

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I think if Syracuse or Pitt were "relegated" back to the AAC/old Big East, they wouldn't be any better than what they are. Syracuse is Syracuse: a program that struggles to find success without Doug Marrone. Pitt, in my mind, will always carry the infamous label that the Whalers had (dubiously titled by the Boston Globe, of course): the Forever .500s. It doesn't matter what conference either of those two schools play in, they will struggle to find any type of success because of their size and general irrelevancy within their own territories. Put them back in the AAC and I don't see either program topping out at anything more than 6-7 wins.

Last year's UCF team was as good as the better WVU teams that the Big East had.

The bottom tier of the '14 AAC (UCONN, SMU, USF, Tulane, Tulsa) wouldn't have won a single game in the old Big East, including playing the very worst of the horrendous Syracuse, Rutgers, Temple or UCONN teams that the conference once had.
 
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Why is it that we have a thread about one of the recruits and his accolades/recognition and all anyone wants to piss and moan about is the conference ?
 

Stainmaster

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Why is it that we have a thread about one of the recruits and his accolades/recognition and all anyone wants to piss and moan about is the conference ?

Because bashing the conference will help us get a P5 invite sooner! :rolleyes:
 
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When WVU was fairly decent under Rodriguez, I know quite a few WVU fans who "feared" seeing ECU as an OOC opponent........feared that was one OOC opponent that could pull the upset over them.......respected ECU program.

ECU and UCF would have been great additions to the old BE,.....at least in FB......and may have postponed the departure of WVU, Pitt, and Louisville. If there was ever a catalyst to the departure of those 3 was the so called theory that Villanova could "improve the status of the FB conference.........really BIG time thinking by BE administrators in Providence.

My fear is that if, in my wildest imagination, there is ever any talk of further expansion of the P5, or realignment of the P5 into P4 conferences, we'll see the possibility of UCF. ECU. Cincinnati. and/or Houston being poached from the AAC before UConn.

The old BE, post Miami, Virginia Tech, and BG had three decent teams.....WVU, Cincinnati, and Louisville. The rest were mediocre at best, and no better than the current ECU, UCF, or Houston teams.
 

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Why is it that we have a thread about one of the recruits and his accolades/recognition and all anyone wants to piss and moan about is the conference ?

Because the second post says the league is as good as the Big East was.

A simple google search will show you that FIVE of the twenty worst teams in FBS were in the AAC.

So unless I missed the years where the best team in the Big East was barely a top 40 team and the league had 5 absolutely terrible football teams... it's pretty clear it's not even close to where the Big East was.

So if you don't want to be reminded the league is bad - stop trying to pretend it isn't.
 

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When WVU was fairly decent under Rodriguez, I know quite a few WVU fans who "feared" seeing ECU as an OOC opponent...feared that was one OOC opponent that could pull the upset over them..respected ECU program.

ECU and UCF would have been great additions to the old BE,.....at least in FB.and may have postponed the departure of WVU, Pitt, and Louisville. If there was ever a catalyst to the departure of those 3 was the so called theory that Villanova could "improve the status of the FB conference....really BIG time thinking by BE administrators in Providence.

My fear is that if, in my wildest imagination, there is ever any talk of further expansion of the P5, or realignment of the P5 into P4 conferences, we'll see the possibility of UCF. ECU. Cincinnati. and/or Houston being poached from the AAC before UConn.

The old BE, post Miami, Virginia Tech, and BG had three decent teams.....WVU, Cincinnati, and Louisville. The rest were mediocre at best, and no better than the current ECU, UCF, or Houston teams.

In the composite computer rankings ECU is 56th, UCF 39th and Houston is 75th.

WVU, Louisville and Cincinnati were no better than that?

What planet does this stuff come from?

ECU beat one Top 50 team this year - they were 42nd and ECU beat them in the flattest spot you could find - and still only held on only because VPI was inept in the fourth quarter.

They did nothing else outside of blowing out an extremely medicore North Carolina team who got dismantled in their last two games by NC State and Rutgers.

You'd think ECU would actually have to do something to get their balls washed like they do around here.
 

whaler11

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NC Central
SMU
UConn
Tulane
Tulsa

That is who ECU beat outside of VPi and UNC.

Those four AAC teams had a grand total of 2 FBS wins against teams other than themselves. 1 against Houston and UConn's win against UCF.
 
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So unless I missed the years where the best team in the Big East was barely a top 40 team

2010?

and if USF and UCONN weren't so bad the AAC would look a heck of a lot better. Put our team this year in the old Big East and we still would be at the bottom of the FBS so would USF, and neither team is bad because of the AAC, they are bad because of very poor coaching the last 4 years.
 
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UCweCONN

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Highly touted recruit...kicker? Kicker?!

Its going to be a long offseason.
You beat me to it. Not a QB, defensive end or running back, but a place kicker. Maybe we'll land a top punter too. We should have a recruiting edge there over every BCS program in the country. "If you come to UCONN, we'll be sure you see plenty of action." The place kicker will probably be our offensive MVP next season.
 

UConnDan97

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Highly touted recruit...kicker? Kicker?!

Its going to be a long offseason.

If the kid turns into Dave Teggart, you will feel a lot differently about that comment I'm sure. Kickers and long-snappers are so drastically underappreciated compared to how much they actually influence the outcome of games...
 
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If the kid turns into Dave Teggart, you will feel a lot differently about that comment I'm sure. Kickers and long-snappers are so drastically underappreciated compared to how much they actually influence the outcome of games...

A reliable threesome of long snapper, holder and kicker is certainly a very, very, very important piece of a winning program, and they do influence the outcomes of games tremendously - IF, the offense can move the ball far enough to attempt field goals regularly.

Because I'm bored this AM:

2008: 30 FG att. #3 in country
2009: 23 FG att #21 in country
2010: 31 FG att #2 in country
2011: 28 FG att #7 in country
2012: 22 FG att #35 in country
2013: 16 FG att #81 in country
2014: 14 FG att #107 in country (and this includes the practice kick from the right hash).

So forgive me, if I don't get excited about a player we've recruited, that won't play this coming season unless he beats out a Junior, and even so, will see the game field maybe once a game, unless our entire offense changes dramatically.
 
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I think that some of our old bowl teams would have ground this conference into dust.

And ...

YES, Randy Edsall knew how to put a team together. Can we get an AMEN

And ...

We can, given our recruiting footprint, get to that level today - may take 1-3 years though - and maybe go far higher. Why? Because Edsall was stubborn, I think. He got kids that were great development potential; but, I think I see more room for better roster strength throughout.
 
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And ...

YES, Randy Edsall knew how to put a team together. Can we get an AMEN

And ...

We can, given our recruiting footprint, get to that level today - may take 1-3 years though - and maybe go far higher. Why? Because Edsall was stubborn, I think. He got kids that were great development potential; but, I think I see more room for better roster strength throughout.

I don't think the current staff is nearly as good as Edsall's was.
 
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