Went to the Danny Hope luncheon

by bresch on Jun 30, 2011 10:37 AM EDT

I had the opportunity to go to the Coach Danny Hope luncheon in Indy yesterday. Here are the few tidbits I took away from Coach Hope's talk:

- They have split recruiting away from being part of the Director of Football Operations job to new role (it has some fancy name) that will focus on getting and retaining talent. Finally, we'll have a guy who is in charge of recruiting (most big time programs have two or three guys on that.)

- The new strength and conditioning guy is from the 49ers. This guy is some kind of holistic guy who focuses on strength, conditioning, speed, change of direction, nutrition, muscle regeneration, etc type guy. Coach was very excited about having this guy. Hopefully he has some secret ACL workout for the team.

- He said that he was very optimistic about this season (duh, right?); but he acknowledged that he was optimistic about last season. He said he was optimistic last season even though the team had a lot of challenges (no QB who started a B1G game, no DB who started a B1G game, a very green LB situation, Bolden out, an O-line that was green, etc) and that this season a lot of the questions going into last season have been answered.

- He talked about the both Marve and Henry, and that no matter which QB ends up being the starter, the other has physical gifts (great speed, or a cannon arm) that will get them on the field.

All in all, I think coach did his job: I am excited about the upcoming season. I no longer feel like I was doing my Boilermaker duty by shelling out some dough for two season tickets; but, that I am going to see some exciting football this season. I no longer think a 6 win season is the best we can hope for, I think we could sneak up on either Iowa, Michigan, or ND and get to 7 wins.

Boiler Up!

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God I hope your right about 7 wins.

by boilerjake on Jun 30, 2011 10:45 AM EDT reply actions

Yeah, me too

I see the following wins:
MTU
Rice
SMSU
Minny
Illinois
IU

That means we need to knock off ND, Iowa, or Michigan. I don’t think PSU, OSU, or Wisconsin would be anything but huge upsets.

by bresch on Jun 30, 2011 10:58 AM EDT up reply actions

Illinois is going to be pretty damn good this year

That would be a surprising upset

by chops1221 on Jun 30, 2011 4:08 PM EDT up reply actions

Luckily those two of those three "within reach" games are at home.

by Danulas on Jun 30, 2011 12:39 PM EDT reply actions

I See Five Wins

But with solid games (and growing momentum/confidence) through the Minnesota game, I could also see the Boilers knocking off a couple of other teams to get up to seven wins.

We have Ohio St. at home, and with the Bucks possibly being stuck in a nightmare of a season following the Vest scandal, this could be the year a lot of B1G teams get their licks in on the Bucks. Unfortunately for us, the OSU game comes on the heels of a visit to Madison, so hopefully we aren’t mauled so badly up there that we can’t recover.

Oct.15th through Nov. 19th will be a doozy this season…..culiminating with the Bucket game the 26th. In that 6 game stretch, we have to win at least one to get to five wins IF we start the season beating everyone but ND. Beating ND and then Minny would be a huge boost and put us potentially at 5-0, though I don’t count on absolute wins against our first three opponents by any means.

Middle Tenn. St was ranked as the 61st most prolific offense in the nation last year, 31st on the ground. Rice was the 78th best offense in the nation last year. We were 106th – albeit with the injury bug. The Owls, in Texas, won’t be a pushover. MTSt will be a handful here. Both of those teams do have key starters that graduated, so that could play a big part in the outcome as well.

Does everyone agree that IF Hope can’t lead the Boilers to a minimum of 5 wins this year, he’s done? ( Not that I think five wins is a great achievement, but just curious as to the feelings of the rest of you should that turn out to be the case.)

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by BoilerMacR on Jul 3, 2011 11:11 AM EDT reply actions