PiRate Ratings College Football–November 9-13, 2021

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This Week’s PiRate Ratings Spreads

Home	Visitor	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Miami (O)	Buffalo	7.7	7.0	6.0
Eastern Michigan	Ohio U	11.7	9.9	9.1
Western Michigan	Akron	19.2	20.6	20.4
Bowling Green	Toledo	-19.4	-18.7	-19.8
Central Michigan	Kent St.	8.0	5.7	6.7
Northern Illinois	Ball St.	-3.2	-3.9	-2.6
Pittsburgh	North Carolina	3.0	3.7	2.0
South Florida	Cincinnati	-25.4	-25.3	-26.5
Boise St.	Wyoming	17.9	17.7	18.3
Kansas St.	West Virginia	0.6	1.6	1.6
Coastal Carolina	Georgia St.	17.2	16.2	17.1
Clemson	Connecticut	46.8	46.3	50.0
Iowa	Minnesota	9.2	8.1	8.5
Virginia Tech	Duke	18.9	17.5	18.8
Georgia Tech	Boston College	1.8	1.9	1.8
Penn St.	Michigan	3.7	3.5	4.9
Indiana	Rutgers	11.6	9.4	11.1
Temple	Houston	-26.8	-25.0	-27.2
Michigan St.	Maryland	10.4	11.7	12.3
Louisville	Syracuse	5.2	4.8	6.1
Oklahoma St.	TCU	10.6	11.5	11.1
Texas	Kansas	35.9	36.1	38.8
Wake Forest	North Carolina St.	0.9	0.8	0.9
Baylor	Oklahoma	-7.3	-6.4	-7.4
Virginia	Notre Dame	-5.6	-5.4	-7.4
Wisconsin	Northwestern	22.8	22.3	24.3
Rice	Western Kentucky	-9.5	-11.1	-11.5
Arizona	Utah	-22.2	-22.3	-22.2
Appalachian St.	South Alabama	16.8	16.7	19.1
UCLA	Colorado	12.7	13.3	13.8
Washington	Arizona St.	-1.5	-0.9	-1.3
UNLV	Hawaii	-1.7	-2.0	-1.4
Oregon	Washington St.	11.3	11.4	12.8
Oregon St.	Stanford	11.0	10.6	11.4
California	USC	-5.1	-1.8	-3.1
Memphis	East Carolina	-3.8	-3.0	-4.1
Auburn	Mississippi St.	10.0	9.1	9.9
Louisiana Tech	Charlotte	8.0	7.3	5.4
Texas Tech	Iowa St.	-16.0	-14.7	-16.6
Troy	Louisiana	-13.5	-11.9	-12.8
Old Dominion	Florida Atlantic	-11.1	-11.3	-10.5
SMU	Central Florida	3.6	4.9	2.5
Missouri	South Carolina	1.5	1.9	1.5
Vanderbilt	Kentucky	-27.1	-28.8	-28.6
UTSA	Southern Miss.	31.2	31.4	32.0
Alabama	New Mexico St.	61.3	60.0	63.4
Ole Miss	Texas A&M	-1.4	-2.3	-2.1
Tennessee	Georgia	-22.0	-22.5	-23.0
Ohio St.	Purdue	23.6	23.5	23.0
Florida St.	Miami (Fla.)	-3.7	-2.8	-3.3
Marshall	UAB	4.3	4.4	5.1
LSU	Arkansas	0.6	1.5	2.2
Texas St.	Georgia Southern	-1.0	-2.9	-2.0
Middle Tennessee	Florida Int’l.	17.6	17.5	18.0
Tulane	Tulsa	1.0	0.2	2.2
North Texas	UTEP	0.6	-0.3	1.3
Louisiana-Monroe	Arkansas St.	0.1	-0.3	-0.5
Fresno St.	New Mexico	21.4	22.6	24.7
Colorado St.	Air Force	-6.5	-6.6	-7.2
San Jose St.	Utah St.	5.3	4.6	4.0
San Diego St.	Nevada	2.6	1.2	1.7

FBS vs. FCS Games This Week

FBS	FCS	PiRate
Florida	Samford	31.2
Massachusetts	Maine	1.8
Army	Bucknell	38.8

FBS Teams With The Week Off

BYU

Illinois

Liberty

Navy

Nebraska

This Week’s PiRate Ratings

Rank	Team	Rating
1	Georgia	135.4
2	Alabama	130.6
3	Ohio St.	129.5
4	Oklahoma	122.4
5	Texas A&M	120.8
6	Iowa St.	120.6
7	Utah	117.9
8	Cincinnati	117.6
9	Wisconsin	117.4
10	Oklahoma St.	117.2
11	Auburn	117.0
12	Penn St.	115.9
13	Ole Miss	115.8
14	Notre Dame	115.0
15	Michigan	114.8
16	Oregon	113.7
17	Texas	113.4
18	Clemson	113.4
19	Iowa	113.3
20	Arkansas	113.2
21	Baylor	112.4
22	NC State	112.3
23	Wake Forest	111.7
24	Florida	111.6
25	L S U	111.6
26	Arizona St.	111.3
27	West Virginia	110.7
28	Kentucky	110.6
29	Mississippi St.	110.3
30	North Carolina	110.3
31	Pittsburgh	110.1
32	Tennessee	109.9
33	Michigan St.	109.7
34	Coastal Carolina	109.6
35	BYU	109.4
36	Miami (Fla.)	109.4
37	Nebraska	109.2
38	T C U	109.2
39	Purdue	109.1
40	Kansas St.	109.0
41	U C L A	108.8
42	Oregon St.	108.4
43	U S C	108.1
44	Louisiana	108.0
45	Minnesota	107.6
46	Washington	107.0
47	Boise St.	106.9
48	Appalachian St.	106.0
49	Virginia	105.9
50	Washington St.	104.9
51	Houston	104.7
52	Louisville	104.1
53	Florida St.	104.1
54	Liberty	103.3
55	SMU	102.7
56	Nevada	102.6
57	U T S A	102.4
58	UCF	102.0
59	Indiana	101.9
60	Texas Tech	101.8
61	Syracuse	101.8
62	California	101.8
63	Boston College	101.4
64	San Diego St.	101.4
65	Air Force	101.3
66	Maryland	101.2
67	Virginia Tech	101.1
68	South Carolina	100.9
69	Fresno St.	100.8
70	Georgia Tech	100.8
71	East Carolina	100.7
72	Stanford	100.4
73	Army	100.4
74	Missouri	99.5
75	Colorado	98.5
76	Illinois	98.0
77	Marshall	98.0
78	Toledo	97.1
79	Miami (Ohio)	96.6
80	U A B	96.4
81	Northwestern	96.2
82	Central Michigan	95.9
83	Ball St.	95.6
84	Eastern Michigan	95.4
85	Georgia St.	95.3
86	Tulsa	95.3
87	Memphis	94.6
88	San Jose St.	94.5
89	Western Kentucky	94.5
90	Rutgers	94.2
91	Tulane	93.9
92	Western Michigan	93.2
93	Colorado St.	93.0
94	Utah St.	92.9
95	Troy	92.8
96	Arizona	92.7
97	Florida Atlantic	92.5
98	Buffalo	92.1
99	Wyoming	92.0
100	Kent St.	91.6
101	South Alabama	91.5
102	Hawaii	90.8
103	Navy	90.0
104	Northern Illinois	89.9
105	USF	88.9
106	Middle Tennessee	88.3
107	Ohio	87.7
108	Georgia Southern	86.3
109	Duke	85.7
110	U N L V	85.1
111	U T E P	84.5
112	Louisiana Tech	83.3
113	North Texas	83.0
114	Arkansas St.	82.4
115	Texas St.	81.9
116	Rice	81.3
117	New Mexico	80.9
118	Vanderbilt	80.4
119	UL-Monroe	79.6
120	Kansas	79.5
121	Old Dominion	79.0
122	Charlotte	78.9
123	Bowling Green	76.3
124	Temple	75.8
125	Akron	75.7
126	Southern Miss.	73.4
127	Florida Int’l.	73.1
128	New Mexico St.	72.0
129	Connecticut	68.7
130	UMass	66.1

PiRate Ratings By Conference

American Athletic Conference
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Cincinnati	117.4	116.8	118.7	117.6
Houston	104.8	103.9	105.3	104.7
SMU	102.5	102.6	103.0	102.7
UCF	101.9	100.7	103.5	102.0
East Carolina	100.3	100.1	101.7	100.7
Tulsa	95.4	95.2	95.3	95.3
Memphis	94.1	94.5	95.2	94.6
Tulane	93.9	92.8	95.0	93.9
Navy	89.9	89.7	90.5	90.0
USF	89.0	88.5	89.2	88.9
Temple	75.5	76.4	75.6	75.8
AAC Averages	96.8	96.5	97.5	96.9
Atlantic Coast Conference
Atlantic Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Clemson	113.1	113.0	114.1	113.4
NC State	112.2	112.0	112.7	112.3
Wake Forest	111.6	111.3	112.1	111.7
Louisville	103.8	103.6	105.0	104.1
Florida St.	103.9	104.1	104.3	104.1
Syracuse	101.6	101.9	101.9	101.8
Boston College	101.4	101.4	101.5	101.4
Coastal Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
North Carolina	109.8	109.8	111.2	110.3
Pittsburgh	109.8	110.5	110.2	110.1
Miami (Fla.)	109.7	108.9	109.6	109.4
Virginia	105.6	106.5	105.5	105.9
Virginia Tech	101.7	100.8	100.7	101.1
Georgia Tech	100.7	100.8	100.8	100.8
Duke	85.8	86.4	84.8	85.7
ACC Averages	105.0	105.1	105.3	105.1
Big 12 Conference
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Oklahoma	123.3	121.6	122.4	122.4
Iowa St.	121.2	119.8	120.7	120.6
Oklahoma St.	117.5	117.2	117.0	117.2
Texas	114.5	112.7	113.1	113.4
Baylor	113.0	112.3	112.0	112.4
West Virginia	112.0	110.4	109.8	110.7
T C U	109.9	108.7	108.9	109.2
Kansas St.	109.5	109.0	108.4	109.0
Texas Tech	102.2	102.2	101.1	101.8
Kansas	81.6	79.6	77.3	79.5
Big 12 Averages	110.5	109.3	109.1	109.6
Big Ten Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Ohio St.	129.1	129.0	130.4	129.5
Penn St.	114.9	115.5	117.2	115.9
Michigan	114.2	115.0	115.3	114.8
Michigan St.	109.5	109.6	109.9	109.7
Indiana	101.9	101.6	102.0	101.9
Maryland	102.1	100.9	100.6	101.2
Rutgers	93.3	95.2	93.9	94.2
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Wisconsin	116.9	116.7	118.5	117.4
Iowa	113.1	112.7	114.0	113.3
Nebraska	108.9	109.1	109.7	109.2
Purdue	108.5	108.5	110.4	109.1
Minnesota	106.9	107.6	108.5	107.6
Illinois	97.6	98.0	98.5	98.0
Northwestern	96.1	96.4	96.2	96.2
Big Ten Averages	108.1	108.3	108.9	108.4
Conference USA
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Marshall	97.6	97.9	98.6	98.0
Western Kentucky	93.3	94.9	95.4	94.5
Florida Atlantic	92.0	93.0	92.4	92.5
Middle Tennessee	87.9	88.1	88.8	88.3
Old Dominion	78.4	79.3	79.4	79.0
Charlotte	78.2	79.1	79.4	78.9
Florida Int’l.	72.8	73.1	73.3	73.1
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
U T S A	102.0	102.7	102.6	102.4
U A B	96.3	96.5	96.4	96.4
U T E P	84.2	85.4	83.7	84.5
Louisiana Tech	83.7	83.9	82.3	83.3
North Texas	82.8	83.1	83.0	83.0
Rice	81.3	81.3	81.4	81.3
Southern Miss.	73.3	73.7	73.0	73.4
CUSA Averages	86.0	86.6	86.4	86.3
FBS Independents
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Notre Dame	114.2	114.9	115.9	115.0
BYU	109.5	109.1	109.7	109.4
Liberty	102.9	103.4	103.6	103.3
Army	100.5	100.4	100.2	100.4
New Mexico St.	72.3	72.9	70.8	72.0
Connecticut	69.3	69.8	67.1	68.7
UMass	67.2	66.6	64.5	66.1
Indep. Averages	90.9	91.0	90.3	90.7
Mid-American Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Miami (Ohio)	98.0	96.4	95.3	96.6
Buffalo	92.8	91.9	91.7	92.1
Kent St.	91.4	92.5	91.0	91.6
Ohio	87.3	88.1	87.7	87.7
Bowling Green	76.8	77.0	75.0	76.3
Akron	76.9	75.6	74.6	75.7
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Toledo	97.8	97.2	96.3	97.1
Central Michigan	96.9	95.7	95.2	95.9
Ball St.	96.6	96.1	94.2	95.6
Eastern Michigan	96.6	95.4	94.3	95.4
Western Michigan	93.5	93.7	92.4	93.2
Northern Illinois	90.9	89.7	89.1	89.9
MAC Averages	91.3	90.8	89.7	90.6
Mountain West Conference
Mountain Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Boise St.	106.4	106.7	107.6	106.9
Air Force	101.0	101.2	101.8	101.3
Colorado St.	93.0	93.0	93.1	93.0
Utah St.	92.5	93.4	92.8	92.9
Wyoming	91.6	92.0	92.4	92.0
New Mexico	81.4	81.3	79.9	80.9
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Nevada	102.1	103.2	102.4	102.6
San Diego St.	101.7	101.4	101.2	101.4
Fresno St.	99.9	100.9	101.7	100.8
San Jose St.	94.8	95.0	93.8	94.5
Hawaii	91.1	90.8	90.5	90.8
U N L V	85.4	84.9	85.2	85.1
MWC Averages	95.1	95.3	95.2	95.2
Pac-12 Conference
North Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Oregon	112.7	113.9	114.7	113.7
Oregon St.	108.2	108.5	108.5	108.4
Washington	106.3	107.4	107.4	107.0
Washington St.	104.4	105.4	104.9	104.9
California	100.0	103.0	102.4	101.8
Stanford	100.2	100.9	100.1	100.4
South Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Utah	117.8	118.0	118.0	117.9
Arizona St.	110.8	111.4	111.7	111.3
U C L A	108.6	108.9	109.0	108.8
U S C	108.0	107.8	108.4	108.1
Colorado	98.8	98.6	98.2	98.5
Arizona	92.6	92.7	92.8	92.7
Pac-12 Averages	105.7	106.4	106.3	106.1
Southeastern Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Georgia	134.9	135.3	136.2	135.4
Florida	111.1	112.2	111.6	111.6
Kentucky	110.0	111.2	110.5	110.6
Tennessee	109.8	109.7	110.2	109.9
South Carolina	101.4	101.0	100.4	100.9
Missouri	99.8	99.9	98.9	99.5
Vanderbilt	80.9	80.4	79.9	80.4
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Alabama	130.6	129.9	131.2	130.6
Texas A&M	120.3	121.0	120.9	120.8
Auburn	117.1	116.6	117.4	117.0
Ole Miss	115.9	115.7	115.8	115.8
Arkansas	113.4	113.3	112.8	113.2
L S U	111.0	111.8	112.0	111.6
Mississippi St.	110.1	110.5	110.4	110.3
SEC Averages	111.9	112.0	112.0	112.0
Sunbelt Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Coastal Carolina	110.2	108.6	110.0	109.6
Appalachian St.	105.6	105.4	107.1	106.0
Georgia St.	95.6	94.9	95.4	95.3
Troy	92.6	92.8	93.0	92.8
Georgia Southern	86.4	86.6	86.0	86.3
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Louisiana	108.6	107.2	108.3	108.0
South Alabama	91.8	91.7	91.0	91.5
Arkansas St.	82.6	82.7	81.8	82.4
Texas St.	82.9	81.2	81.5	81.9
UL-Monroe	80.1	79.9	78.8	79.6
Sun Averages	93.6	93.1	93.3	93.3

Conference Ratings

Rank	Conference	Rating
1	Southeastern	112.0
2	Big 12	109.6
3	Big Ten	108.4
4	Pac-12	106.1
5	Atlantic Coast	105.1
6	American Athletic	96.9
7	Mountain West	95.2
8	Sun Belt	93.3
9	Independents	90.7
10	Mid-American	90.6
11	Conference USA	86.3

Playoff and Bowl Projections

Bowl	Team	Team
Bahamas	UTSA	Kent St.
Cure	Air Force	Coastal Carolina
Boca	Memphis	Florida Atlantic
New Mexico	UTEP	Fresno St.
Independence	BYU	Marshall
Lending Tree	Central Michigan	Appalachian St.
L. A.	San Diego St.	USC
New Orleans	UAB	Louisiana
Myrtle Beach	Middle Tennessee	Miami (O)
Famous Idaho Potato	Northern Illinois	Boise St.
Frisco	San Jose St.	Western Michigan
Armed Forces	Washington St.	Army
Gasparilla	Florida	Houston
Hawaii	Central Florida	Nevada
Camellia	Ball St.	Troy
Quick Lane	Eastern Michigan	Wyoming
Military	Louisville	East Carolina
Birmingham	Liberty	Western Kentucky
First Responder	Syracuse	Oregon St.
Liberty	West Virginia	Missouri
Holiday	Virginia	UCLA
Guaranteed Rate	Maryland	Texas
Fenway	SMU	Boston College
Pinstripe	Clemson	Minnesota
Cheez-It	Miami (Fla.)	Iowa St.
Alamo	Baylor	Utah
Duke’s Mayo	Wake Forest	Mississippi St.
Music City	Penn St.	Tennessee
Las Vegas	Purdue	Arizona St.
Tax Slayer Gator	Pittsburgh	Arkansas
Tony The Tiger Sun	North Carolina	Washington
Arizona	Toledo	Utah St.
Citrus	Wisconsin	Ole Miss
Outback	Iowa	Kentucky
Texas	Kansas St.	Auburn
Peach	North Carolina St.	Cincinnati
Fiesta	Notre Dame	Michigan
Rose	Oregon	Michigan St.
Sugar	Oklahoma St.	Texas A&M
Cotton	Ohio St.	Oklahoma
Orange	Georgia	Alabama
Championship	Georgia	Ohio St.

Fire The Coach!

The firing of football coaches began early this year. Quick openings at USC, Connecticut, Georgia Southern, LSU, Texas Tech, and TCU plus the firing of Washington State coach Nick Rolovich for failure to obtain the required Covid Vaccine, makes a record seven coaches fired in the middle of a season. If fans in the Sunshine State had their way, two more head coaches would join that list, maybe three if Florida International had a fanbase.

I never publish the over-the-top negative emails, texts, and comments when an upset fan wants to go on a tirade seeking the loss of a coach’s job. Instead, I usually reply privately to the commenter asking him to explain what the coach is not doing that other successful coaches are doing. Usually, the answer is always either play-calling or personnel decisions.

“If Coach Smith had put Billy Jones in at quarterback in September, and sent in longer passing plays, we’d be 9-0 right now,” is a typical type of response. My reply back to them most of the time includes video of the fan’s team and the top team in the country, running virtually the same offense. Whereas. the top team’s QB gets 3.5 seconds to locate a receiver, and he’s passing to three future NFL receivers, the fan’s teams’ QB gets less than 2 seconds to locate a receiver that is months away from selling insurance, teaching at a Middle School, or working at a sports radio station. When the top team plays a Cover 2 Combo defense, their five underneath defenders stick to the other team’s receivers like glue, and the safeties can play a but closer to the line of scrimmage, because they are sprinters that won’t be beaten deep. When the fan’s team uses the same defense, two or three of the underneath defenders lose their assignment, and the safeties have to play another 5 yards off the ball to keep from being beat deep by superior athletes. When the top team runs an inside zone blast play, their offensive line quickly controls the initial defensive surge and then take care of the linebackers. The fan’s team’s offensive line briefly opens a running lane in the first second after the snap, but by the time the running back gets the ball and arrives at the line of scrimmage, he faces a blockade.

How much of football success in a college game is determined by which team has more talent? The correct answer is somewhere between 80 and 90%! As legendary coach John Wooden stated in one of his famous quotes, “The team with the better players almost always wins.” He said that about basketball, and it is even more true in football, where quicker, and stronger means more to the sport’s success than everything else.

Look at the top recruiting classes of the last five seasons. The best cumulative classes and the best teams this year are strongly correlated. It isn’t a perfect one to one, but if your favorite team has had five consecutive top 10 classes, and your buddy’s favorite teas has had five consecutive recruiting classes in the 20-40 range, chances are about 90% that your team is going to beat his team when they play.

Coaching is not a difficult task. 130 head coaches at the collegiate level know how to teach the game to their players. 130 college strength and conditioning coaches know how to get players beefed up. Find 130 people between the ages of 35 and 60 in your neighborhood with driver’s licenses. How much difference is there in driving their cars down the road? I am not talking about speed; I am talking about keeping the car in the proper lane, not running over the kids waiting at the school bus stop, and not wrapping their vehicle around the telephone pole. The differences will be subtle.

Now say that of these 130 drivers in your neighborhood, 20 have brand new 2022 models that almost do the driving for the driver. 30 others have a 2020 or 2021 model that is easy to drive, but unlike the 2022 models above that parallel park for the driver, the driver must do more work on those one and two year old cars. The rest of the drivers have older model cars, and the bottom 30-50 have cars with issues that impair the drivers’ abilities to keep the car on the road as perfectly as those elite 20. Maybe some of the cars have faulty brakes. Others have leaking oil. Some have bald tires, and the steering on some is a bit loose, and the car “floats” a little.

The best driver of the 130 neighbors will have issues dirving the faulty cars. The least competent of the 130 drivers will still parallel park a new 2022 car easily and effortlessly.

College team fans can sometimes be the number one hindrance in a coach’s ability to recruit. Putting Coach Smith on a hot seat and creating a Fire Coach Smith website, accelerates the issue. When Coach Smith is given a private vote of confidence by his school, but the school’s fans and media say his days are numbered, 18 year old kids hear and see this and become hesitant to sign at State. Maybe, it’s just one or two players, but these could be the ones that move the needle in a couple of years. Rival schools quickly let these 4-star and 5-star talents know that State is on the verge of firing Coach Smith, so come to Tech and play for Coach Williams, who just got a major contract extension and could run for Mayor in Techtown and win by a landslide.

Let me use one example about how insane fandom can be. I will use the hometown college team, Vanderbilt. The Commodores have strict academic restrictions on who coaches can recruit. Of the top 1,000 recruits in a season, about 75 have the academic talent to earn admission to the school. Unfortunately, none of these 75 are required to put Vanderbilt on their list of potential colleges. The A+ student with ACT/SAT scores high enough to gain admission to Vanderbilt, or for that matter, Harvard, Yale, Cal Tech, and MIT, frequently uses that intelligence to realize that four years in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, or Columbus, Ohio, will allow him to be a star in the classroom and on the football field. By becoming a star at Alabama or Ohio State, his ticket for life is virtually guaranteed to be a skybox seat with private valet parking.

First year Vanderbilt head football coach Clark Lea faces a near impossible task of trying to recruit enough players in the high three-star range and up to compete in an SEC that is light years tougher than it was 10 years ago. With Oklahoma and Texas headed to the league, the small private school that shares more in common with former SEC member Sewanee and former Big Ten member Chicago than Alabama or Georgia is in an impossible position to succeed. The talent level between Vanderbilt and the next weakest team in the SEC is almost as far apart as the number 13 SEC team is to Alabama and Georgia. Lea has talent that could not win the Conference USA divisions. 20 FCS teams have more talent, and East Tennessee State totally dominated the Commodores in the season opener.

Vanderbilt defeated 1-8 Connecticut, a team that only beat Yale and then just barely, when the Huskies had to use their backup quarterback. The Commodores won the game on a final play field goal by a kicker that had been #2 at Alabama and was not going to see action. That UConn team lost to UMass, a team that was just dominated by Rhode Island.

Lea took over a car that had brake, transmission, steering, and suspension issues along with bald tires and a leaking head gasket. He has to drive on the same street with 13 brand new state of the art smart cars. Yet, there are deluded fans that believe he should be at the head of the motorcade and is to blame for the car not being able to stay in its lane or even start on cold mornings.

The monumental task of trying to build this program into one that can compete for minor bowls once every three years is already suffering from the arrows being publicly shot by a small amount of vocal fans, three of which have sent me emails venting about how Lea cannot coach. Since I do not participate in any of the public sports forums for Vanderbilt athletics, as I basically stopped following the program as a fan over a decade ago, I only see what these fans send me, but I can easily see that when recruits read this scathing criticism on these forums, and both their parents and they do read them, it creates reasonable doubt, and players begin to decommit, which has happened in the last fortnight.

Years ago, I made a public statement on a sports radio show that trying to win SEC football games at Vanderbilt was akin to beating a similarly skilled opponent in chess when he has both queens, and you have nine pawns. These vociferous fans have now robbed Lea of a bishop. Lea will be the coach at Vanderbilt for at least three more years after this season, and a minority of Vanderbilt fans may see their opinions become fact somewhat because the three recruits per year they turn away makes the difference in a couple of wins per year.

If you are a fan of a fledgling football program like Arizona, Kansas, or Vanderbilt, anything you can legally do to enhance your school’s recruiting efforts should be the obvious way to support your school other than with your checkbook. Successful recruiting is the only way a school can overcome bad times and improve to mediocre to decent to above average to really good. In the SEC of the mid 2020’s, Vanderbilt may face a situation similar to what Sewanee and Chicago faced in the late 1930’s. The task for Coach Lea is already close to impossible; if you root for the Commodores, don’t remove the “close.”