Process of elimination. We were better than every team except for the playoff participants from the MVFC, Big Sky, and CAA.
We were better than Sacramento State and Idaho, but inferior to Montana and Montana State.
We were better than Richmond and Delaware, but inferior to Albany and Villanova.
We were vastly inferior to SDSU and NDSU.
We were better than North Dakota, the most overrated team in our conference.
That leaves SIU, South Dakota, and UNI. The latter two beat us so I guess that I will place us below them. But UNI was terrible by the end of the year.
I would place us in position #9.
I also think we are 9 or 10. I did a similar analysis. If YSU is truly 9th in 2023, it would mean ysu is in the 93rd percentile of all teams in the FCS. If YSU is 10th the team ends up in the 92nd percentile of all FCS teams.
Paladin correctly predicted this earlier this year and he had the wherewithal to closely predict our regular season record in the MVFC. People here don't have to like the message, but the guy is correct. I hate this censorship crap. We would be fortunate to have him back here.
Now I think we can be critical since the season is over.
1. Does Phillips deserve to remain head coach? My answer is YES! The question for me is has he reached his ceiling? Is this the best we can do with Phillips?
2.we definitely have to address the defensive play. For me it's less about the players (unless you're talking about the DL) and more about the coaching and scheme. You can't leave your secondary on an island when you can't get pressure from the DL. We have to upgrade the DL. The loss of Howard is going to hurt on defense. He was the best LB we had.
3. Do we need to upgrade the defensive coaches?
I think Phillips has the program going in the right direction. Now that he's achieved the playoffs, in 3-4 years depending how you count the COVID year, I think people can back off a bit with criticismsnI see all over this board.
The real question is if Phillips is another Heacock. Keep in mind Heacock only made the playoffs a couple times in a weeker Missouri Valley/Gateway conference. The difference between Philips and Heacock is that Phillips is a far better recruiter overall.
You win with players. It's a lot more difficult to improve from the 92nd percentile to the 99th. The amount of effort required is much higher in both recruiting and coaching.
But we are once again better than 90% of the FCS.