I'll be responding to several different posts here.
Coach Spack has said more than once that it is a player's game. It's mostly up to them. Coaches get too much credit and too much blame for wins and losses. Mostly I agree with him. I would add though that's it is up to him to recruit those players. At times he has been able to do that. Tre Roberson didn't just fall into our lap. He had options. That was a great recruiting job. Same with Annexstad. You have to give Coach Spack credit for recruiting Zack because he didn't have an OC when Zack committed. Petersen came later.
And some people think that Coach Petersen could get pulled away by a FBS team. Funny, nobody had anything good to say last year when we scored 20 points or less 7 times. Petersen was hot at Appalachian St. in '20 and he got hired as OC at Illinois. Then one bad season at Illinois in '21 with a less than mediocre QB and he gets fired. Then he has the lackluster '22 season here at Illinois State. The offense perks up in '23 under a 6th year QB and all of sudden he's hot again? He's the same coach people. When the players play well then coaches look like geniuses.
Coach Petersen does deserve some credit for the offensive improvement. He's tailored the offense to what Zack does best and that is accuracy in the short passing game. Zack can throw long but those are riskier throws, and we don't have a good deep threat (speed/size combo). The short passing game holds sacks and int's to a minimum. Those are drive killers. It does require the QB to compete a lot of passes to get down the field but Zack has the accuracy to do it. The horizontal passes are ok, but I don't like them on 3rd down. I'd rather send the receivers past the sticks and make sure the reception gets you a 1st down. Riskier I know, but I hate getting 4 yards on 3rd and 7.
So it's a player's game but fans still want to talk about Coach Spack's future. First, I'll say that sticking with Coach Spack is not a vote for mediocracy. The program has had up and downs before. The 'Birds were 5-6 in '13 and almost no one saw a 13-2 on the horizon for the next year in'14. Tre Roberson and some other outstanding players will do that. Can he pull a Tre out of his hat again? Probably not, but he's done it before, so he stands as much chance as anyone, maybe more. We could have a very good team coming back next year. The biggest hole to fill will be the QB position. Zack will be hard to replace. But Coach Spack got Roberson and Annexstad, so he could do it again. He also has an IPF to help him.
Most of his teams do finish in the middle but that doesn't mean he's fine with 5-6 or 6-5. As fourth points out we play in the best FCS conference with good to great players and coaches on opposing teams. You can strive for greatness and get knocked back every year by other quality programs doing the same. If anyone thinks that Coach Spack is content to play out his final years without making another playoff run, then they don't know him at all.
Meanwhile we have 3 games to play this season. I don't like discussing big picture coaching decisions during the season, but you got me to bite. Now beat Bill Murray.