Brock Solid...

[Virginia Redbird]

An interesting article by Randy Reinhardt in the Pantagraph. The article essentially lists the Redbird's all-decade team. I can't say that I could argue with any of the picks but there are a lot of very good players in the group selected and honorable mentions. The most interesting info was on the number of 10 win seasons, playoff appearances and playoff wins for the Birds all time and for Coach Spack alone. Check out the article for the numbers. It is a good read.

https://www.pantagraph.com/sports/college/illinois-state/brock-solid-taking-a-look-at-the-best-from-a/article_25d81e88-7c3e-5631-b1e8-0dd54aadf09a.html#tracking-source=home-top-story

 

[StLRedbird]

That's a really good walk down memory lane. Thanks, Randy.

Interesting that there are no linebackers that played after '15 on the list.

 

[fourthandshort]

good find, thanks for posting .. here's another good one linked to above article, not sure i saw it posted here yet. It's about who's back in 2020 and expected to fill in .. I didn't think Megginson had another year .. must be medical redshirt is expected ?? But Spack acknowledges he may not be 100% by next fall since it was back injury .. sounds like they aren't expecting him to play full games in 2020. Great way to bring along a younger by playing him half the reps.

But other than losing some guy named James Robinson, it looks fairly promising. Certainly defense will be very strong again, while offense will depend on some real question marks at the skill position. OL should be good enough, TE should be solid .. I think WRs will come around at some point and prove to be a strength. RB position will need some time for our young depth to develop .. so that is big variable, we'll need Proctor to carry a bigger load next year .. he is talented, and we'll see how much of the load he can bear.

Hoping QB Davis continues to settle down in the pocket .. watching others play is a great way to see the game from different angle and perspective, so that may help him settle in pocket further. But they also confirmed, he will be on restrictions for spring ball .. so guess zero contact and they will bring him back slowly.

https://www.pantagraph.com/sports/college/illinois-state/after-fcs-quarterfinals-illinois-state-football-enthused-about-prospects/article_bd630a22-15b3-5239-a034-3e4d89616d35.html

 

[normalbird]

Grigsby?

Meredith?

Others?

 

[Virginia Redbird]

Grigsby?

Meredith?

Others?

The article only covered players from the past decade. If they played before that they would not have been included in this list. If I recall correctly, I saw Meredith in the honorable mention list.

 

[MadBird]

Grigsby?

Meredith?

Others?

The article only covered players from the past decade. If they played before that they would not have been included in this list. If I recall correctly, I saw Meredith in the honorable mention list.

Yes, Meredith was HM. Sort of surprised, but hard to quarrel with who was ahead of him.

 

[ISUBU]

Grigsby?

Meredith?

Others?

The article only covered players from the past decade. If they played before that they would not have been included in this list. If I recall correctly, I saw Meredith in the honorable mention list.

Remember, Meredith converted to WR from backup QB. I think he was very good and getting better almost game by game while he played receiver for us. But as part of a strong team and playing only a couple of WR seasons, he just didn't have the volume of work that those ahead of him had.

Of course he had a strong post-ISU resume!!! I think he is a great Redbird representative!

 

[fourthandshort]

Meredith had an ok season as JR, then broke out and was really good as SR. I think the others had 3+ good to very good seasons.

 

[fourthandshort]

forgot to mention .. this was a very good perspective on what Spack has done for this program by comparison to his predecessors. And must also say, Spack did this playing in what has become the top conference in FCS ... prior to 2010, neither MVFC or Gateway ever dominated like MVFC has dominated starting with 2011.

Obviously the dakotas are responsible for raising the bar, for MVFC overall. But as I commented on another thread, the MVFC OOC playoff record (excl NDSU at 26-1) going back to 2011 is 25-12 .. well above any other conference during this same period. Again this 25-12 is OOC playoff games only and excluding NDSU's 26-1 overall.

In theory, if the FCS selection committe is doing a perfect job picking the best teams (putting aide weak autobids), most conferences should have about a .500 record in playoffs. Only Colonial is around .500 excluding their top program (JMU or UNH). Big Sky drops from about .500 to about .360 win % excluding EWU, though they have been much better the last 2 playoffs. Southland also drops a lot after excluding SHSU ... from about .500 to about .250. No one else is in same discussion. Still looking for my data on this.

 

[Chi-bird]

A couple of observations:

We’ve had some pretty elite d-lineman over the past decade but our linebackers have probably been the weakest position.

 

[Total Red]

We’ve had some pretty elite d-lineman over the past decade but our linebackers have probably been the weakest position.

Right, I was surprised when looking back at how deep Redbird Football has been at some positions and not so much at others. The Honorable Mention D-Line may actually have more talent than the All-Decade selections. I'm not disputing the choices. Brunner, Underwood, Palmer, Keene and McKnight have all been highly productive players but I would love to have the quartet of Harris, Corwin, Ridgeway and Perkins on the field at the same time. Ridgeway still has two years to go but he's already a star. Harris missed his senior year and Perkins was gimpy half the time he was here. Teddy "GOF" Corwin was the only one that came close to touching his ceiling. If you had that group in their prime and healthy they would be amazing.

WR is a deep too. Any All-Decade team that can put C. Meredith on the HM bench is fully loaded but Isubu has it right with Meredith coming on at WR late in his career. Well that's better than peaking in high school.

QB is not deep. Roberson and Brown are the clear stars and then nobody else makes the HM team. It's like the Hall of Fame. You have to be restrictive or it doesn't mean anything. RB has two guys on HM but there's a drop off after the obvious selections of Robinson and Coprich. Those two are in a league by themselves as elite ball carriers.

 

[Virginia Redbird]

forgot to mention .. this was a very good perspective on what Spack has done for this program by comparison to his predecessors. And must also say, Spack did this playing in what has become the top conference in FCS ... prior to 2010, neither MVFC or Gateway ever dominated like MVFC has dominated starting with 2011.

As much as we complain at times this really put the contributions of Coach Spack to Redbird Football into perspective. The Birds have never had such consistent success as Coach Spack has brought to the program. If he could only figure out the QB position....

 

[fourthandshort]

forgot to mention .. this was a very good perspective on what Spack has done for this program by comparison to his predecessors. And must also say, Spack did this playing in what has become the top conference in FCS ... prior to 2010, neither MVFC or Gateway ever dominated like MVFC has dominated starting with 2011.

As much as we complain at times this really put the contributions of Coach Spack to Redbird Football into perspective. The Birds have never had such consistent success as Coach Spack has brought to the program. If he could only figure out the QB position....

this ... based on Randy;s sources, Spack has accomplished more success in his tenure, than all other prvious ISU coaches combined. Winning seasons (remarkably only 2013 was below .500), playoff participation (5 years), and certainly quarterfiinal appearances (4 years), plus the only Natty appearance. Not sure how many decades, we've actually been playing football, but here is what I found on wikipedia .. this suggests we are in our 7th decade .. so if true, Spack has had more success in this decade, than all other coaches had in over 5+ prior decades.

Classifications
1906–1956: None
1956–1972: NCAA College Division (Small College)
1973–1975: NCAA Division II
1976–1977: NCAA Division I
1978–1981: NCAA Division I–A
1982–2006: NCAA Division I–AA
2006–present: NCAA Division I FCS

Very impressive tenure by our own standards .. Spack has certainly raised the bar during the most competitive MVFC/Gateway decade ever.

Now if we can just get the IPF done and figure out the QB position more consistently .. clearly, he has figured every other phase of this game out.

 

[MadBird]

Very glad Coach Spack came along, and very glad he's stayed and continued building a tradition.

People want success, some on here and "out there" want instant, immediate championship success, and that's hard to achieve, especially when you're starting not so high (ie. the Bison had a pretty solid DII base on which to build). It's kinda subtle, but you know, Spack has the program in a place where 6-5, maybe even 7-4 to some, is a disappointment, and not a good season (and many of us remember those years). Just that change in mindset, where success is expected, not hoped for, is a big deal.

As to the QB situation, yeah, what up with that? I go back to his days as an assistant - he had some decent QB's. I think he crossed paths with Jeff Christensen and Sean Payton at EIU, and Drew Brees, Kyle Orton, and Curtis Painter at PU. Seems like he'd get some appreciation for having and developing decent QB's, even tho he wasn't on that side of the ball. Gotta work on that.

 

[fourthandshort]

Very glad Coach Spack came along, and very glad he's stayed and continued building a tradition.

People want success, some on here and "out there" want instant, immediate championship success, and that's hard to achieve, especially when you're starting not so high (ie. the Bison had a pretty solid DII base on which to build). It's kinda subtle, but you know, Spack has the program in a place where 6-5, maybe even 7-4 to some, is a disappointment, and not a good season (and many of us remember those years). Just that change in mindset, where success is expected, not hoped for, is a big deal.

As to the QB situation, yeah, what up with that? I go back to his days as an assistant - he had some decent QB's. I think he crossed paths with Jeff Christensen and Sean Payton at EIU, and Drew Brees, Kyle Orton, and Curtis Painter at PU. Seems like he'd get some appreciation for having and developing decent QB's, even tho he wasn't on that side of the ball. Gotta work on that.

Note on 6-5 records in 2016-18 vs 2009-10 .... it was a much stronger team in 2016-18 than when Spack got here in 2009 and 2010, and went 6-5. Now the difference is each of those years in 2016-18 that we went 6-5, each year we spent several weeks in top 10 and then top 20 after that before slipping. In 2016, we got a deserved bid at 6-5 and nearly knocked off 9-2 UCA on road. In 2009 and 2010, we never even sniffed top 25 at 6-5.

We're just at a whole different level since MVFC took over FCS around 2011 with the Dakotas fully ready to compete at high level .. and then all ships rose. So the degree of difficulty (i.e. SOS in MVFC) does not compare to when Spack first got here and seasons prior to then.

 

[StLRedbird]

Quick scan of the Sagarin conference rankings back to 2003 confirms what 4th just said. MVFC has ranked head & shoulders over other FCS conferences every year since 2010. In almost every one of those years, MVFC ranked higher than some FBS conference divisions, sometimes several. For the record, FBS conferences made the transition to divisions from 2008-2012, or thereabouts. That was the big opportunity. If the superconferences emerge it will be Opportunity II. *cough, cough*

Sorry, I diverge. From 2003-2010, the 1-AA/FCS landscape was dominated by four or five conferences - A-10/Colonial, Southern, Big Sky, Great West, and Gateway/MVFC. The A-10/Colonial did not strike me as dominant, just one of the aforementioned gang of five.

Edit: Added the tangent about why FBS.

 

[Chi-bird]

Spack has been a great coach for ISU on so many levels. In addition to the on-field success, he has done so with student athletes that have done a great job of representing our university.

 

[JKL2]

Can we give the poor guy a raise?

 

[JKL2]

Can we give the poor guy a raise?

 

[fourthandshort]

Lets pile it on some more. He took the program from near bottom to the top of MVFC in the APR rankings. APR basically measure how well you recruit kids that stay eligible and eventually graduate.

I believe we were about 7th or 8th of MVFC teams when Spack got here and rose to 1st place for 3 straight years: 2013-14 to 2015-16. Then though our score stayed about same level (~ 970 ish), we dropped to 2nd in 2016-17 and maybe 3rd in 2017-18. Interestingly, the MVFC conf scores also rose as a conference after ISU took over the top of conf in 2013-14 (see bottom of this post). NDSU was lingering around 4th to 6th prior to 2104, and apparently decided to shore this area of their program up since then.

Also of interest is our rise to APR top of MVFC occurred during the 2 best consecutive years on the field in ISU football history: 2014-2015.

What was funny was how much crap ISU and Spack used to take on AGS for his "lack of discipline" surroounding his program .. it was laughably wrong. But they had more than a handful of regular posters bashing Spack whenever they could, including our very own OSBF. If I've done anything of value with my posting, I've slowy convinced AGS posters, they were dead wrong about Spack .. other than he should have suspended Coprich for at least 1 game for his marijuana bust IMO.

It got fairly easy to do this once we won the MVFC APR award 3 straight years. Nobody bashes Spack or ISU football anymore. Basketball is a different story.

Below is our APR rise under Spack ... 940's and below is considered bad. 950's is ok, 960's is pretty good. MVFC ranks pretty well compared to most conferences, but is usually 10-15 APR points lower than Colonial.

Sport School State Academic Year Multi-Year Rate Penalties Postseason
Football Illinois State University IL 2017-2018 969
Football Illinois State University IL 2016-2017 972
Football Illinois State University IL 2015-2016 969
Football Illinois State University IL 2014-2015 970
Football Illinois State University IL 2013-2014 972
Football Illinois State University IL 2012-2013 958
Football Illinois State University IL 2011-2012 953
Football Illinois State University IL 2010-2011 943
Football Illinois State University IL 2009-2010 939
Football Illinois State University IL 2008-2009 948

Below is our 2013-14 year when we first hist 1st place ... lot of distance between us and field:

Sport School State Academic Year Multi-Year Rate Penalties Postseason
Football Illinois State University IL 2013-2014 972
Football University of Northern Iowa IA 2013-2014 962
Football South Dakota State University SD 2013-2014 955
Football North Dakota State University ND 2013-2014 953
Football University of South Dakota SD 2013-2014 949
Football Western Illinois University IL 2013-2014 947
Football Indiana State University IN 2013-2014 945
Football Southern Illinois University at Carbondale IL 2013-2014 944
Football Youngstown State University OH 2013-2014 943
Football Missouri State University MO 2013-2014 939

Bottom line, Spack has made us into a very respectable program on and off the field.