Fall 2021 Season

wiu712 · Fri Jul 30, 2021 12:58 pm

Lines, depth hold keys to WIU moving up in Missouri Valley standings.
From Prairie State Pigskin:
https://www.chicagonow.com/prairie-stat ... standings/

Mon Aug 02, 2021 7:43 am

It was mentioned earlier in this thread, but the MVFC Preseason Poll and All-Conference Team have been released: https://s3.amazonaws.com/sidearm.sites/ ... n_Poll.pdf

Not surprisingly, we're last in the preseason rankings.
We have one player on the Preseason first team: WR Dennis Houston.
Tony Tate is on the second team list twice, for WR and for Return Specialist.
QB Connor Sampson, OL William Waddell, and Punter Adam Fellner received honorable mentions.

letsgonecks · Fri Aug 06, 2021 3:18 pm

I know we talk about it every year, but the lack of info put out is annoying. I get we're not a major program and in a small market, but we get no player info. Would like to hear or see something about players that left or came in. Players not yet at camp or potentially not yet eligible for some reason. Don't need specifics, just hey they're working through some things and hope to get them in camp soon.

I'm hoping and assuming we get an end of the week update on the website about the first week, but can't believe we have nothing on twitter. Every team in the Valley that started camp has shared pictures and even videos. We seem to share the least amount info on our programs than anyone else.

Ok, my yearly rant is over, just pumped for the season and craving my info.

4EverPurple&Gold · Fri Aug 06, 2021 6:58 pm

letsgonecks wrote: ↑Fri Aug 06, 2021 3:18 pm I know we talk about it every year, but the lack of info put out is annoying. I get we're not a major program and in a small market, but we get no player info. Would like to hear or see something about players that left or came in. Players not yet at camp or potentially not yet eligible for some reason. Don't need specifics, just hey they're working through some things and hope to get them in camp soon.

I'm hoping and assuming we get an end of the week update on the website about the first week, but can't believe we have nothing on twitter. Every team in the Valley that started camp has shared pictures and even videos. We seem to share the least amount info on our programs than anyone else.

Ok, my yearly rant is over, just pumped for the season and craving my info.

This is something that I always talk about. Compared to other teams in the MVC we don't put out much. Would love to hear about our new guys that we brought in and the mold, what the team focused on the spring. Even a photo that we are practicing. We are 4 weeks away from the first game and nothing.... Hopefully there is a media day soon of some sort.

But anyway.... we are 27 days away!

GV Dad · Fri Aug 06, 2021 7:24 pm

Completely agree!! I’ve said for 3 years now, our Marketing is a freaking joke. It takes effort to be this bad. Even worse now that Fitz has moved on.

huskie · Sat Aug 07, 2021 5:36 pm

Leadership in the athletic depart is a joke. The President, and Athletic Department need to be held accountable. First thing I would do is demote Danielle Surprenant to Assistant Athletic Director, and name Paul Bubb Acting Athletic Director until a search for a new Director is completed.

Western_101 · Sat Aug 07, 2021 6:53 pm

How do people feel about our chances for the upcoming season?

We haven't won a lot of games under the Elliot regime.

Western has 7 preseason ranked teams and last years FBS MAC Championship winner on the schedule.

Coach Elliot has his work cut out for him.

HoosierNeck13 · Sun Aug 08, 2021 5:24 am

No disrepect meant, but if we have another poor season, it's time to look for a new coach.

Sun Aug 08, 2021 9:51 am

HoosierNeck13 wrote: ↑Sun Aug 08, 2021 5:24 am No disrepect meant, but if we have another poor season, it's time to look for a new coach.

Yeah, I think that's pretty much expected at this point. In 2018 he took over and went 5-6 with mostly Coach Fisher's players. 2019 he goes 1-11 only winning a close one against South Dakota. 2020 Fall season gets cancelled because of COVID, but in the Spring 2021 season they go 1-5, eventually grinding out a win against a pretty bad Youngstown State team that went 1-6 that "season".
2 wins in the last 2 seasons. By all indications, Coach Elliott is a great guy, but he's just not getting it done on the field.

I think in a normal situation, if we played a Fall 2020 season and assuming we only win 1 or 2 games, he would have been let go after that season was over. That would have been 3 years, which is often the "standard" for new coaches to prove themselves. Because of COVID and the weirdness of the season, my assumption is that they extended his contract another year to get through this next fall season, then if there's little to no improvement this fall, it'll be time to make a change. Also the timing will be better because the end of the regular college football season is when there's a lot of shuffling around of coaches to different teams and stuff, so there should be a larger pool of coaches available and looking for jobs than there would have been in April.

GV Dad · Sun Aug 08, 2021 5:13 pm

Western_101 wrote: ↑Sat Aug 07, 2021 6:53 pm How do people feel about our chances for the upcoming season?

We haven't won a lot of games under the Elliot regime.

Western has 7 preseason ranked teams and last years FBS MAC Championship winner on the schedule.

Coach Elliot has his work cut out for him.

The schedule is brutal. The Football Gods owe us some breaks, that's for sure. If we stay relatively healthy, and we get improved OL play, we could be competitive. With our schedule, how many wins "competitive" turns into is anyone's guess.