Chris Collins’ don’t just fall off trees. NU hit the jackpot with him.
Braun’s future
- Thread starter Baz=Heisman
- Start date
Mike Davis took IU to the NCAA Championship game (where they havent been since). Thats way better than “good.” If Braun took us to the playoff finals and then flamed out forever, I would be fine with that!
This is not a good team, but a Ramsey/Bryant level of QB would make it a competitive team. Having an NIL that can afford a decent QB (recruit or transfer) instead of Jacob Schmidt having to do this with paper clips and duct tape (and paying minor sport athletes) would do it. That's it. 1M for a good QB*.
*Also decent judgment from Lujan and Braun. Any multi-celled organism can see that this group of QBs couldn't play for a top half MAC team.
*Also decent judgment from Lujan and Braun. Any multi-celled organism can see that this group of QBs couldn't play for a top half MAC team.
You're seeing the result of that. So if that's what you want, no use complaining about it.
There is a nice picture of Fitz congratulating Sullivan after game ,his son is heading to Iowa ,once the lawsuit is paid off why would he think about returning,the mud that was slung by a unqualified AD and a complicit President in an attempt to engineer a statement hire did more damage to the program than any loss .
Oh wait, like last year when we won 8 games (and could have probably won 10)? Please.
We will see if IU can sustain success. I have a ton of IU friends so I’m happy for them this year but their success IS transfer based. Cool point about the OL but all their skill guys are transfers and many one year guys. We will see.
He also wasn’t necessarily ready to be a head coach. Flash in the pan quick, then five years in the woods, and now perhaps the program is stable and strong.
Braun also has a lot to learn.
Gosh I hope NU lucks into a Buie at the QB position.
I’m good at reading between the lines. You’re not a Collins fan for whatever bizarre reason. Spin it anyway you want, Collins is BY FAR the most successful and accomplished NU bball coach in NU’s history. And I’m pretty certain he recruited Buie, not “lucked” into him. Shame on you.
Yes, but the argument here seems to be "NU is forever screwed because of the portal/NIL" and Collins' recruiting hasn't missed a beat. If NIL was an insurmountable problem you'd already be seeing a dip in his recruiting no matter how good he is.
That’s fair. But recruiting in football and basketball is very different. The sheer amount of players required makes a huge difference.
i wouldn’t worry about what most of our fans think. 3 seasons ago the vast majority wanted CCC fired.
Naaah, I’m just saying that CCC’s first run didn’t make him a genius, just like Braun’s first run didn’t make him a genius.
CCC was not a finished product when NU hired him. He has gotten infinitely better at game management, riding his stars versus trying to build depth by putting players in the court for three minutes at a time and thinking that made them ready.
It would have been easy to get rid of him following the third straight disastrous year. He was a far worse head coach at that time. Gragg gave him an ultimatum, the board had a meltdown, and I — yes I — thought he needed one last year with Boo as the undisputed guy to see if it could work. And now it has! Onto the next challenge. (I still don’t get how Lowery, who had already taken another job, got here. But I’m thankful he did!)
It’s easy to be down on Braun now. He mismanaged the first drive, again, yesterday. He arguably mismanaged NU to a loss against Wisconsin. In both cases, he’s repeated the exact same mistake (yesterday, the long kick; the week before, the aggressiveness inside his own 5 late in the half) for two consecutive weeks. It’s actually pretty grotesque.
But the same things that made us excited about him are still largely present, just like the core of CCC was present during the 2017 run. Braun’s got to get better.
Basketball is different than football because a transformational recruit can change a programs trajectory. Find the right guy, nurture him, have some things go right. Give him cool hair and a crooked smile and a passion for big moments and it’s even better.
Football’s a bit different. Culture building matters more, and I believe Braun is a good culture builder. But can have the world’s most dynamic receiver or running back, and it won’t matter if there’s not a QB to get him the ball or a line to give him some breathing room. (See also, Kirtz ‘23 v ‘24, Tyus, Bowser.)
My biggest disappointment with Braun is that there were not changes in strength and conditioning in the offseason. NU hired from within, in a program that hadn’t developed OL and hadn’t kept anyone healthy. I hope that’ll be rectified this off-season.
Uh. Horror? I know we are approaching Halloween but I still don’t know where that interpretation would come from. I thought it was great.
I don’t understand how anyone can have confidence that NU can develop a NIL fund necessary to be competitive in the new era. NIL is little more than the legalization of a system in which NU was decidedly uncompetitive. It will reinforce the previous competitive environment. It minimizes all of NU’s positive differentiators and maximizes our weaknesses.
Look what we are talking about here: We need to buy our next “good” quarterback. Folks, NU is not going to be a school to do this! They will always be outbid by schools with larger fan bases, cash and more attractive sponsorship opportunities.
I could maybe see how NU could support a 15-person basketball team at a competitive level. But 90 football players? No chance.
Sadly, I must agree. I see nothing that NU that will embrace the new norm for football.
And some are still holding a grudge because they were wrong.
This is a very good post overall with a lot of good, likely future projections, and I hope the optimistic version of this comes to pass for NU.
Vandy’s reputation hasn’t been tarnished but they drastically lowered standards for athletes about 10 years ago.
Last edited:
Here's the answer. 1) shave 25 million off that Edifice Rex they are building and give it to NIL. Have it be a trust fund and take out say 2M a year. (Or) Only shave 10M off that white elephant of a stadium and just spend it over 3 years, thinking player revenue sharing will right the ship 2) they don't need a top 20 QB.. They need a QB that is not worse than, say, 12th in the B1G.
I have to just add how much I love @JimStarr777.
Collins steadily built the team into an NCAA team without any transformational recruits. That’s a poor argument to say basketball is about transformational recruits.
It would have been very unrealistic to think he could just continue the success he given our limitations but people like to ignore those limitations in the face of someone who had such success at NU. Just because CCC had success doesn’t mean everyone else would or that it should just automatically continue. He’s not a genius but he’s done an amazing job. Please just acknowledge it.
As some of us mentioned when the media was awarding David Braun "Coach of the Year" - while he had done an admirable job getting NU to a bowl game and winning it, it is entirely possible that the prime reason for that success was a highly unified group of players who were pissed off at their university's president and athletic director for firing their head coach and throwing their reputations under the bus.
Braun made a number of bad in-game decisions, especially early in the season, when he was, understandably, pretty green. But as defensive coordinator, the improvement was quite significant. "Cats Against The World" lit a fire under that team.
The exodus of NU players via the portal after last season ended was not a great sign.
And the number of NU players hugging Sullivan after the Iowa game says a lot too.
Braun made a number of bad in-game decisions, especially early in the season, when he was, understandably, pretty green. But as defensive coordinator, the improvement was quite significant. "Cats Against The World" lit a fire under that team.
The exodus of NU players via the portal after last season ended was not a great sign.
And the number of NU players hugging Sullivan after the Iowa game says a lot too.
Point is, about half of their transfers are from JMU with around 44 players on the roster not having been considered good enough to have been ranked by the rating services.
So you don't exactly need transfers from the Bamas of the world; plenty of good/experienced players from G5 or even lower programs, some of whom should be able to pass admissions.
And like I stated before, the coaches at Vandy and Dook did a better job in evaluating their transfer QB.
Last edited:
110 wins and a winning overall record at NU would indicate that you don't know what your are talking about. You really need to get familiar to NU FB history from 1974-1994 where in 21 years we won all of 39 games (that includes Gary Barnett's first three years) to have a clue.
They are all a problem. But the idea is based on what we have seen about NU recruiting, we are more likely have a better shot at getting the needed guys for the OL (since they tend to be some of the brightest) than we do at several of the skill positions. And once you have a good OL it likely is easier to convince the skill positions that coming to NU gives them a reasonable chance to shine.
Gotta start somewhere
It wasn't short sighted. It was basically the only option we had when he was upgraded to interim. That he did OK again pretty much in a box where it would be hard to bring in anyone else. Besides would you trust the powers that be at the time to do a good job being able to bring in the right guy under the circumstances? Maybe now with the new AD but certainly not with Gragg
It should be obvious to everyone that the current team does not have the offensive talent level needed to be competitive this year. When we had the talent on offense last year with Braun as interim, the team won 8. So, I’m not blaming Braun or Lujan for lack of offense. Aldo when Fitz was made head coach, he made a lot of mistakes. I am seriously gonna wait a few years to give the coaching staff a chance to recruit and develop players. Yes, we need the portal players, so I hope NU will use some of their media contract money to get what we need. It will always be hard for us to compete with the academic restrictions, but we have won 8-10 games in several years and I think we can do that even under the new NIL rules. I just won’t panic because Braun can’t take a team who the media expected to only win 4 games this year to a bowl game.
I hate to say it, but that history is totally irrelevant. It does not live in the world of current recruits, who are too young to have ever seen … Mike Kafka play quarterback.
It’s our own trauma, not theirs.
(of course, these recruits have never seen a decent NU-recruited quarterback, at least since they were 6 or so.)
I know what you mean (NU hasn't developed a high school QB into a good college QB since Thorson) but Fitz did recruit two good transfer quarterbacks via the portal (Ramsey and Bryant). And two more who were supposed to be good (Hilinski and Hunter Johnson).
Its a little unfair to say that only high school recruiting matters, especially now.
Last edited:
Point is, the Dark Ages only exist to the 50 and over set. So, unless we’re recruiting Gen Xers, it’s irrelevant.
