A decade ago the members of this board discussed at great length the merits of the "Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere" approach to program building (ala Florida State / Fresno State) versus the "Marshall Plan" (later employed by Boise). By the end of Bicknell's tenure, the consensus here was that in the BCS-era, the growing divide between the "haves" and the "have-nots" had rendered the former approach obsolete. The way to build a program was to get wins, get wins, get wins. I was among those who arrived at this conclusion.
Through yesterday I was, frankly, disgusted with our team's late-season collapse. We were exposed as a team that can only beat bad teams, but not good ones. Missed tackles, dropsies, stupid penalties, low energy ... this season had far greater potential than WAC #3.
My disgust was confronted with cognitive dissonance this morning when I realized -- this is what we wanted. We wanted to get scads of wins, even if it meant playing patsies. We wanted to get national attention. We wanted to get N.La excited about our team. Nine wins, in historical perspective, is still really stinking good for Tech's program. 25K in JAS, on quarter break no less, is pretty freakin fantastic. Back-to-back winning seasons had not even happened since I became a Tech fan half my life ago. And there was a time, very very recently, where we could expect to choke against at least one of the supposed cupcakes. But we beat all 9 teams we were "supposed" to beat, and got blown-out by nobody.
Though I remain disappointed whenever I think of what this year might have been, my former disgust has been replaced with acceptance that this was, on the whole, a really good year when viewed in perspective of the program's history and ongoing development. Not the best it could have been, but still an excellent foundation on which to build.