As I asked in another thread,

Quote:

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Sort of makes me wonder. Is it better to be ranked, yet miss the playoffs? Or to make the playoffs and exit early with such a dismal performance?

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The defense played well enough to win almost any game in modern football. And I acknowledge that Elko has made progress in building a stronger culture. But to prepare and game plan for a couple weeks and then lay an egg at Kyle Field in front of 100,000+ and up to 19 million on tv?

There's obviously more work to be done. And not just moving around the deck chairs on a troubled ship. We should expect, though we may not necessarily get, substantive changes.

Only eight months or so until the next game. At my age, it goes by fast. We'll see.

CB, '67

Definitely not great. If the success barometer was making the playoffs, then it was successful. With that said, though, it was also disappointing because this team could have gone further and played better. So barely successful since we didn't actually play up to our potential

It's a good-great season if it is the start of an era...
If it is just a blip, then it's "something" but not great...
I'm from the Jackie Sherrill era and the standard in which I judge each team and only JFF has come close....

Soooo, @ ND, lsu and Mizzou at the time, we're just like playing Samford?! OK.

Very good season, 3rd best season since 2000, but certainly didn't finish good. Any season you play 13 games and win 11 it's a good season, period.

Great start.
Horrible finish.

99% of us are feeling worse with the texas and Miami losses than the notre dame and lsu wins.

The game plan for texas seemed poorly planned. Our defense didn't seem to react to texas adjustments.
The offense for Miami was just as poorly executed.

Aggies won earlier season games because we had better talent. Aggies are losing a lot of talent this season. I trust Elko to fill it and I am hoping our new leaders on the staff side can get it done.

Maybe next year is the year we really know we have something special with Elko. Or maybe we find out we don't.

That's what's fun, and insanely stressful, about college football. However, Aggies doing well, or poorly, doesn't change our successes and relationships. Some of us in this board need to chill.

I like Marcel Reed. I'm not excited about him being our QB next year. He lowers the ceiling on what we can do.

From thejonatron above

"Great start.
Horrible finish."

Had to imagine any aspect or enterprise in ordinary life where that sequence is deemed praiseworthy.

it's the classic 1975 vs. 1976 argument

1975 started 10-0...finished 10-2

1976 started 3-2...finished 10-2

both beat t.u.

which season was better? Does it really matter? The history books say 10-2

W said:

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it's the classic 1975 vs. 1976 argument

1975 started 10-0...finished 10-2

1976 started 3-2...finished 10-2

both beat t.u.

which season was better? Does it really matter? The history books say 10-2

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Yes, it does matter.

JFF 2012. 11-2.

Significantly better than this year. It's who you beat and how you beat them.

Successful and underwhelming all at the same time. You really need to capitalize when schedules work out like they did this season. Won't be as friendly in the future.

Agsrback12 said:

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Successful and underwhelming all at the same time. You really need to capitalize when schedules work out like they did this season. Won't be as friendly in the future.

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Exactly. This was a fun season with some great moments, but at the end of the day we have nothing to show for it.

Successful? YES!
Great? No.

Successful, Yes. But at least one if not two additional wins from being great

Successful with a horrendous ending.

I think we need to define what successful means.

I look it as: How many of our Big Picture goals did we accomplish? And to me those are:

Primary Goals:

-Win enough to make the playoff (absolutely, knocked it out of the park)

-Deep run in the playoff (nope)

-Win a National title (not this year)

Secondary Goals:

-Beat Rivals (50/50)

-Make SEC title game (close but not quite)

-Win SEC title (nope)

So we didn't accomplish a lot of the objectives this year and the real difference was the sip game. Win that and suddenly we go from only 1.5 objectives completed to 4 complete with all 6 still in play.

Just shows how football is a game with very little margin of error and one game, one play, one inch can be the difference.

91% of FBS teams did not make the playoffs. We did.

Approximately the same won't win 11 games. We did.

We have another chance next year.

Nope, good season but lost to rival for 3 in a row going back to 2011. Missed our best player playing in moss both years. Lost home playoff game. Ended season playing 3 bad games in a row essentially with qb regressing. Ol should have been dominant and wasnt.

Defense cant stop the run and not sure if players or scheme but run defense has sucked last 2 years since elko back

12thMan9 said:

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91% of FBS teams did not make the playoffs. We did.

Approximately the same won't win 11 games. We did.

We have another chance next year.

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And I get what you are saying and I'm not saying 11 wins isn't great

I'm saying that most years 10+ wins is going to be the minimum required to achieve our other, higher goals. It's the ticket, the price of admission to get in, but in of itself does not get us to our higher goals.

If we had beat dip then suddenly we would have accomplished a lot more of our higher goals. We would have beaten both our rivals. We would have been in the SEC title game and had a chance to win it. We would be a bye seed and therefore a deeper run in the playoff would be more likely.

So winning is important but so is winning the strategically important games that set you up for for higher success.

Losing the sip game was the biggest blunder of the season because it severely limited our ability to accomplish our higher goals and winning the really big games with the nation watching and everything on the line is a place we're still pretty bad at and will be one of the biggest markers of Elko success here: can he overcome the spotlight curse and get A&M teams to win the biggest games when everyone is watching

I think you're right, I also think you have to spell it out more like this, because there are many on this board who would not see 11-2 positively at all, because of a lack of trophy, instead of seeing were we are leading.

I feel it was success but not great. I really thought at beginning we would be 8-5. So I'll take this season as a success. Loved watching defense, wanted to pull my hair out at times watching Reed.

Neither successful nor great because we played so poorly to finish the year, and it was generally within our control to play better. We just didn't. So I can't call that great or successful.

Successful, yes.

The issue is that Marcel really didn't get much better statistically. He slightly regressed.

His interception rate went up.
His completion percentage basically stayed the same, even with better receivers. .
His avg per completion went up, but his receivers were far better than 2024.
His total rushing yardage went down despite playing far more snaps.
The opponents he played were easier than 2024.

The main issue is that the offense plays better when he runs more. And he ran less. If he's not going to run, he's more of a detriment to our offense, because he's not very good as a passer, and is not a threat to run, which stresses the defense.

We went to LSU at night and emptied the stadium.

Solid to good. Not close to great season.

No.

Same result as last year, with an easier schedule. **** the bed at the end of the season.

Agreed. I wanted to see him run like he did last year, it would've help open up the pass.

You basically explained it perfectly. We lost to tu, didn't make our conference champ, didn't win any games outside of the regular season and its our 3rd best year in a quarter century!

Hang the banner!!!!

Very sucessful, one of the best 10 in the country.

DTX_12 said:

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You basically explained it perfectly. We lost to tu, didn't make our conference champ, didn't win any games outside of the regular season and its our 3rd best year in a quarter century!

Hang the banner!!!!

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Hang it next to the RC statue we're destined to place outside Kyle Field.

Wearer of the Ring said:

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From thejonatron above

"Great start.
Horrible finish."

Had to imagine any aspect or enterprise in ordinary life where that sequence is deemed praiseworthy.

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Talk about lacking context.

So if your sales team sold, and lets just make it simple numbers.....

$1mm for 25 straight years with maybe two years jumping up to $5mm.

Then you hire someone new, and they sold $5mm in their second year which basically matched your best production in 27 years through November, but then didn't make any more sales in December, I think you'd be okay and could see a reason to have some optimism they could also do well in 2026.

yes, ideally, you try to find a way to get them to close out a little better to be even better than any in the last 27 years. But to blindly say this in ordinary life would never be met with praise lacks MAJOR context. Which isn't surprising for this board who only sees things in a vacuum with no in between apparently.

zooguy96 said:

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W said:

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it's the classic 1975 vs. 1976 argument

1975 started 10-0...finished 10-2

1976 started 3-2...finished 10-2

both beat t.u.

which season was better? Does it really matter? The history books say 10-2

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Yes, it does matter.

JFF 2012. 11-2.

Significantly better than this year. It's who you beat and how you beat them.

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In history, no it really doesn't. Obivously bringing home individual hardware like the heisman, sure.

But as a team, no. It really didn't. That team also had significantly more 1st rounders than this one did. So maybe a little more patience is in order.

I care about the program Elko may or may not be building, which is a major unknown right now. Sure. But certainly no where NEAR as doom and gloom as this board makes it seem. More good than bad and that's really not debatable.

What Elko has done so far in rebuilding a quality roster from where he took over is more sustainable than hoping for a new coach to inherit 6 first round NFL talents on offense and 11 NFL caliber starters.

Good not great. Winning either the texas or Miami games would have been difference makers. At least we made the cfp, won at lsu and Notre Dame. but that's it. Making the seccg and or advancing in the playoffs would have been huge. Now we go into another season of "can they win big games at the end of the season".

Yes. 11-2. Next question.