Aberzombie1892 said:
DallasBear9902 said:
Dude. There are 15 other teams trying to win the conf title and they are not just going to let you have it.
The historical precedent of schools dominating their conference for the most part are examples of one or two schools beating up on lesser competition. Think Nebraska and OU back in the Big 8 days. Alabama rattling off conference titles in a deep conference is very ahistorical.
At two conference titles per decade you are ahead of LSU, Georgia, Penn State, and others. You're on par with Texas post-1980.
In a different phase of life I would have focused on the outcomes. But today, I'm with the poster up thread. Be grateful for the time spent watching our Bears and really enjoys the highs when they come around.
This. Baylor is a competent program but so is much of the rest of the conference. To that end and given the changes in the market (NIL, transfer portal, conference realignment, unequal media and CFP distributions, etc.), Baylor would be fortunate to, on average, win a conference title every 10-12 years moving forward. That doesn't mean that Baylor should be out there winning 3 games a season, but -really- bad years like last year will happen from time to time for various reasons - look at Oklahoma State, which has been the model of on the field consistency for the legacy Big 12 teams, and how it's winless in conference this year.
It's interesting, seeing the varied opinions and expectations for the fans here. I'm surprised that many still look at us as an equal to every other member of the conference. My take is that we are easily a top 5 in the 16 team conference from a program perspective. If you had a job as the BU coach and had access to the facilities, reputation, etc, which other programs in the conference would you consider a step up? I get it, we're not UT or OU, but no one in the B12 is a blue blood. There's no one in our league that is a big step up, maybe a few that might be seen as a slight step up, and we could identify many steps down.
I said it earlier, at the end of it all, I can easily be ok with being mediocre, as long as we're honest about not being able or willing to compete. Don't settle for mediocre while pretending to hire "top" coaches and spending the bucks for a name just to put lipstick on a pig.
Last, yes, I believe we should be in the top quarter of the conference regularly based on who we are as a program. If you disagree, I get it, but it wasn't that long ago Rhule took our program back to the top and CDA capped it off and proceeded to crash us to the bottom of the conference. Blame NIL all you want. I think it was CDA not knowing what he's doing. Thankfully either he's learned or he made a good hire in Spav, or maybe it's both. Whatever the case, he's earned an opportunity to continue building. I'm just not sold yet, though I like the improvements, just won't be surprised if he lives up to the mediocre expectations that many of you are setting for the program.