Murray State?

[olcoach78]

I have been away from Murray for while and am wondering why the Racers are so down. What is deal? Is there any hope for the future?

[Maroons]

Current Murray Coach Matt Griffen is the man that turned UT-Martin into a contender... so surely anything is possible. He is in his second year and the team isn't showing many signs of improvement, but that is probably because the team is still very very young. The majority of the roster has been freshman and sophomores for his first two years as he is attempting to rebuild the program from the ground up. The previous coach, Joe Pannunzio, relied heavily on transfers and so Murray had some instant success with him... but when the school got rid of him (because the team was awful his last year) Griffen came in and attempted to clean up the program by starting over and cutting guys that didn't want to play his way. Thus, they have been starting over. In other good news, Murray replaced the green concrete with the more modern FieldTurf.

However, I have heard that Griffen may have gotten himself in trouble and might not be returning next year... but I am not sure how reliable the information is.

[olcoach78]

Current Murray Coach Matt Griffen is the man that turned UT-Martin into a contender... so surely anything is possible. He is in his second year and the team isn't showing many signs of improvement, but that is probably because the team is still very very young. The majority of the roster has been freshman and sophomores for his first two years as he is attempting to rebuild the program from the ground up. The previous coach, Joe Pannunzio, relied heavily on transfers and so Murray had some instant success with him... but when the school got rid of him (because the team was awful his last year) Griffen came in and attempted to clean up the program by starting over and cutting guys that didn't want to play his way. Thus, they have been starting over. In other good news, Murray replaced the green concrete with the more modern FieldTurf.

However, I have heard that Griffen may have gotten himself in trouble and might not be returning next year... but I am not sure how reliable the information is.

What kind of trouble might you be speaking about?

[Houndawg]

Current Murray Coach Matt Griffen is the man that turned UT-Martin into a contender... so surely anything is possible. He is in his second year and the team isn't showing many signs of improvement, but that is probably because the team is still very very young. The majority of the roster has been freshman and sophomores for his first two years as he is attempting to rebuild the program from the ground up. The previous coach, Joe Pannunzio, relied heavily on transfers and so Murray had some instant success with him... but when the school got rid of him (because the team was awful his last year) Griffen came in and attempted to clean up the program by starting over and cutting guys that didn't want to play his way. Thus, they have been starting over. In other good news, Murray replaced the green concrete with the more modern FieldTurf.

However, I have heard that Griffen may have gotten himself in trouble and might not be returning next year... but I am not sure how reliable the information is.

I hope they're working on getting away from recruiting cheap shot artists.

[OSRacer]

We are way down. I mean way, way down...

"Maroons" hit the nail on the head, our previous coach relied heavily on 1A (FBS) and juco transfers to build the roster. At the time we had tremendous talent at spots but we were pretty average and inconsistent during his tenure. When Coach Griffin came in he cleaned house. As a result, Murray has a roster this year with 6 seniors and 5 juniors. Of those upperclassmen only 3 seniors and 3 juniors start or see significant experience. This team is extremely young. However, he has recruited good young football players. Murray should turn a corner next season (by turning a corner I mean a winning season) - Beyond that we should be very competitive. The last 2 seasons have been abysmal. If we can ever get a coach to stay longer than 3 or 4 seasons we could have the continuity needed to build a consistent winner but we have had this type of turnover for the past 30 years so I don't ever expect that to change....

[olcoach78]

Well I hope they are able to get it going again. If Griffen leaves, I hope the hire someone the administration will get behind. It is a great place that should have a great football team.

[Coach37]

Don't be too hard on yourselves; you gave us all we could handle. I was impressed with your young players, they play extremely hard! We are very young also, 8 Sophomore starters on offense, the best thing about a Soph is he will be a Junior next year.

Keep the Faith.

[OSRacer]

We are trying to keep the faith, but it has been a tough couple of seasons...

I do think we are on the right track and we will better in the long run because of this approach. Also, we have or will be making facility improvements the next few years that will pay dividends.

The future is bright, it's just hard to see right now...

[TTUEagles]

At least Murray has won a conference title in the past 10-15 years and has made the playoffs. Try being a TTU fan. Last conference title was in 1975! We are very optimistic for TTU and all of the facility enhancements on the horizon/new coach, etc. I really hope the rest of the OVC is starting to catch up with the usual front runners: EKU, EIU, Jax. St. This conference HAS to win a playoff game soon !

[olcoach78]

If Griffen leaves, who are some names to replace him?

[OSRacer]

He's not going anywhere....

[ekufbfan]

Murray fans...what's your take on the game this weekend with EKU???

GOOOOOOOOOOO COLONELS!!!

[OSRacer]

I hope to get up to the game...My take is that EKU is starting to get pretty good again, and if we have the same breakdowns that have haunted us through the season it will get ugly early. I hope we can keep it competitive. I don't know much about EKU, but after looking at their schedule they should win out. Murray, on the other hand, is still trying to figure out how to play. I like the way we are recruiting - we have some great young players - but we are very young. This causes us to get pushed around a little bit. When these youngsters mature look out as I think we will burst on the national scene (it may be next year). Our QB may be the best in the league (as a redshirt freshman) and we have decent backs and recievers. Our defense plays hard but teams have been able to execute against us....I think it will be a long day for the homestanding Racers, but if we can keep the mistakes to a minimum EKU may be in a slugfest....

[EKU05]

We'll be trying to force the mistakes for sure...the reason we are where we are is because we're among the nations leaders in TO ratio. That's in stark contrast to the first four years of the Danny Hope era at EKU.