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Post by FLCATAMOUNT on Dec 14, 2023 15:33:11 GMT -5
Good article. I am not sure that Reid or CJ will be great players in the ACC. They put up great numbers for Western and they will be around great players at Pitt. Also, I am not sure that Reid will be the featured back for Pitt and I don’t know if he will like that if he is not the main guy. Reid is injury prone and not as durable as some backs. Moving to the ACC will not lessen his chances of getting injured either. Lee will be an undersized receiver in the ACC but he has good speed. If they do leave which I think is a done deal, I hope they are successful and they get everything they are dreaming of in the FBS world. They will be missed.
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Post by Speedwell Cat on Dec 14, 2023 16:33:02 GMT -5
Wouldn't surprise me if Reid ends up at Coastal. The Sun Belt might be a better fit. Interesting that in the article Kerwin doesn't seem to think anything is a done deal
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Post by wcugrad95 on Dec 14, 2023 16:59:50 GMT -5
Agrree - interesting comments by Kerwin in that article about "praying we might get them (Reid and Lee) back".
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Post by catamountalum04 on Dec 14, 2023 17:58:59 GMT -5
He knows they aren't coming back
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Post by wcugamer2 on Dec 14, 2023 20:42:41 GMT -5
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Post by mtncat1 on Dec 14, 2023 22:17:17 GMT -5
Right now I can’t stand the Bells. They used Tusculum College as a feeder school for WCU. Now they are using WCU as a feeder school for Pitt. It is one thing for Players to enter the Portal but it is another thing for an X Coach to offer scholarships to existing players to follow him. I firmly believe that Cole will be heading north. If you are going to take a star receiver & running back, it makes more sense for Kade to grab the QB that makes his offense work. Remember the Bells brought in their previous & experienced QB to run their RPO offense in their first year in Cullowhee. All of this must be taking its toll on Kerwin Bell. It has to be having impact on recruiting & having to rebuild his program because his son is taking his key players. You can rest assured Kerwin will look after his son even if it hurts WCU & the success of the Football Program. You can forget SoCon Championships & playoffs appearances. Bell will not have a good year this coming year because of the turmoil created by Kade & the killer schedule next season. Players leaving with coaches have been going on for years, it's just easier now with this new incarnation of the transfer portal. While it might have been a seldom occurrence for Western, if you have success people take notice. and when you have the #1 offense in FCS, people definitely take notice. I also follow Marshall football, and I remember when Jim Donnan left Marshall in 1995 for the Georgia job, he took a hand full of key Marshall players with him. Also, the Marshall fan base is ready to cut ties with their current coach Charles Huff for various reasons, and Kerwin Bells name has come up numerous times on various forums as a coach Marshall should go after, and the criteria mentioned has been his ability to rebuild and his current success at Western. I would hope that Kade has a gentlemen's agreement not to poach his father’s players from Western, but in the end if a player wants to leave and you know you can win with a former player, the nice points might be out the window. Oh my! Huntington, WV? Wow, if Kerwin thought the WCU area was, hmm, a bit different than Florida or south Georgia, well well, take a grand visit to the rotten core of the origins of the rust belt! Huntington, WV. I just don't know how to even begin the conversation about the drastic difference Kerwin and his wife would live in compared to, yes, even Cullowhee! Anyone on here reading this board please don't doubt my knowledge of this place! I know what I speak of and it is too long of a story to bore you with! Replace resorts and mountain living with basically the complete opposite except mountains (that look more like rolling hills with trees). Then, replace those "mountains" with strip mines, and a downtown Huntington that's rotting from within with a Starbucks in the middle struggling to survive. Yeah, you have the Marshall campus which is about as quaint as turd fashioned into a chocolate layer cake. Man, you'd have to pay me $1,000,000,0000,000....nope not enough zeros behind that 1 to move there to even be assistant to the assistant of part time ticket counter for the athletics department. Call me crazy but no amount of annual salary would be enough for me and my wife to ever endure the Huntington life to live there and coach for 1, 2, 3 or however many years to reach that "golden goose egg" of retirement to "live happy" when the eventual time comes when we all know we have to hang up the hat and retire and really live life! Why not stay in Cullowhee and live in pure, rich, beautiful mountain scenery and make great money whilst breathing clean air, and then, if you don't want to live here in your retirement years, rent out your desirable mountain home via AirBNB or VRBO (where folks actually want to vacation) and buy a place in Florida or on the coast somewhere near where you grew up in FL area and live out your days? Kerwin, if you EVER leave WCU, PLEASE don't go to Marshall!! Go anywhere but there! I believe, respect, admire, and appreciate you more than than that to encourage or support your decision to go there. OK, rant over, Kerwin, not matter what, thanks for what you have done for WCU! YOU proved many wrong and brought two back to back winning seasons to WCU! Thank you! Thank you! As we say here in the mountains of the area, "stay on these roads". Which, in short, means, we want you here and appreciate you.
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Post by wcu77 on Dec 15, 2023 12:11:32 GMT -5
If our new DC can stiffen up that unit, and it appears from his record that he can, we will be okay there. Then if the new OC can put a solid line to run behind and pass block, we should be okay with Cole and Adams and some others. Will all that happen, who knows? We just have to wait and see now and hope we don't lose any more important players in the meantime
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Post by atlcatamount on Dec 15, 2023 13:07:42 GMT -5
Players leaving with coaches have been going on for years, it's just easier now with this new incarnation of the transfer portal. While it might have been a seldom occurrence for Western, if you have success people take notice. and when you have the #1 offense in FCS, people definitely take notice. I also follow Marshall football, and I remember when Jim Donnan left Marshall in 1995 for the Georgia job, he took a hand full of key Marshall players with him. Also, the Marshall fan base is ready to cut ties with their current coach Charles Huff for various reasons, and Kerwin Bells name has come up numerous times on various forums as a coach Marshall should go after, and the criteria mentioned has been his ability to rebuild and his current success at Western. I would hope that Kade has a gentlemen's agreement not to poach his father’s players from Western, but in the end if a player wants to leave and you know you can win with a former player, the nice points might be out the window. Oh my! Huntington, WV? Wow, if Kerwin thought the WCU area was, hmm, a bit different than Florida or south Georgia, well well, take a grand visit to the rotten core of the origins of the rust belt! Huntington, WV. I just don't know how to even begin the conversation about the drastic difference Kerwin and his wife would live in compared to, yes, even Cullowhee! Anyone on here reading this board please don't doubt my knowledge of this place! I know what I speak of and it is too long of a story to bore you with! Replace resorts and mountain living with basically the complete opposite except mountains (that look more like rolling hills with trees). Then, replace those "mountains" with strip mines, and a downtown Huntington that's rotting from within with a Starbucks in the middle struggling to survive. Yeah, you have the Marshall campus which is about as quaint as turd fashioned into a chocolate layer cake. Man, you'd have to pay me $1,000,000,0000,000....nope not enough zeros behind that 1 to move there to even be assistant to the assistant of part time ticket counter for the athletics department. Call me crazy but no amount of annual salary would be enough for me and my wife to ever endure the Huntington life to live there and coach for 1, 2, 3 or however many years to reach that "golden goose egg" of retirement to "live happy" when the eventual time comes when we all know we have to hang up the hat and retire and really live life! Why not stay in Cullowhee and live in pure, rich, beautiful mountain scenery and make great money whilst breathing clean air, and then, if you don't want to live here in your retirement years, rent out your desirable mountain home via AirBNB or VRBO (where folks actually want to vacation) and buy a place in Florida or on the coast somewhere near where you grew up in FL area and live out your days? Kerwin, if you EVER leave WCU, PLEASE don't go to Marshall!! Go anywhere but there! I believe, respect, admire, and appreciate you more than than that to encourage or support your decision to go there. OK, rant over, Kerwin, not matter what, thanks for what you have done for WCU! YOU proved many wrong and brought two back to back winning seasons to WCU! Thank you! Thank you! As we say here in the mountains of the area, "stay on these roads". Which, in short, means, we want you here and appreciate you. Mtncat1, I didn't mean to stir up bad memories!! LOL.. I actually grew-up in Sylva, as my Dad was a professor at Western for over 30 years, before retiring. I also attended Western in the early 80's, so you don't have to sell me on how beautiful Western North Carolina is. It's one of the main reasons my parents decided stay at Western even when other universities came calling. That being said, my experience in Huntington seems to have been different to yours. I lived there in the early 90’s and found it to be quite charming. We had a great house on the south side near Ritter Park. I've lived in a few college towns, due to my Dad's profession, and I don't think I've ever lived in a place that was so passionate about their hometown team as Huntington, collectively is, about Marshall. One simply has to harken back to Marshall's days in the SoCon and how their fans traveled. They used to take over Asheville during the SoCon basketball tournament. BTW when I attended Western I hated Marshall, it wasn't until I moved to Huntington that I became a Herd fan. Because as they say, "winning is contagious" and boy did they win a lot! Like you, I hope Kerwin Bell, does the same as Bob Waters (who was a great friend of our family) and decides to spend the rest of his career at Western, he could certainly do a lot worse!! Go Cats!
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Post by tarcat on Dec 16, 2023 22:41:22 GMT -5
Sigh. And we have, what, nearly three more weeks of wait-and-see what shoes drop next?
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Post by catamountalum04 on Dec 16, 2023 23:04:20 GMT -5
yep to see if the rumors of our O line coach leaving and taking all the sr o line players with him to Pitt and also the rumor of Cole leaving to go to Pitt as well. We could still see more dark days ahead
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