Hot Takes with Hinners

2009 is regarded as Middle Tennessee’s greatest football season ever.

10 wins and a New Orleans Bowl victory – that is where the bar was set.

Quarterback Dwight Dasher was a special player for head coach Rick Stockstill and (then) offensive coordinator Tony Franklin that year. The Blue Raiders ranked 22nd in the nation in total offense, and the campaign was filled with highlight reel plays and a feeling that, perhaps, that unit would go down as the greatest offensive team ever for the Blue Raiders. It was a remarkable and memorable season, to say the least.

And yet, the production that team had is nothing like what we are seeing from the 2016 Blue Raiders. What fans are witnessing right now is nothing short of historical.

To put things into perspective, the 2016 Blue Raiders are on pace to have 1,100 yards more than that famous 2009 team. They’re projecting to score over 60 points more and average eight more points per game. MT is not just on pace to beat the 2009 stat line; they’re going to crush them. Let that sink in for a second.

It’s hard to put it into words what people are seeing play out on the field every Saturday, but it’s special – and it’s one for the history books, should the current trends hold.

If you’re a fan of Middle Tennessee, you’ve never seen anything like this from your beloved.

You’ve seen nothing like it for two reasons - Obviously, this is a historically good team, but people also haven’t seen anything like this because they haven’t been looking.

The apathy of the Blue Raider fan base can, at times, be nothing short of soul crushing.

I talked about this during Homecoming, and I’m talking about it again. Forget the Homecoming allure, now I’m bringing you cold hard facts and numbers to try to wake this fan base up.

Everyone wants to see scoring. If you ask a casual observer of football what it is they look for when they watch a game, they’ll tell you that points is what they seek. It’s not just the fans, either – the game itself has taken measures to ensure more points get put up on the board. Take a look at the way the game treats defenders these days. Hit the quarterback too high or too low – penalty. Drop the hammer on a receiver who’s not looking – penalty. Touch someone beyond the five yard marker downfield – penalty. There are so many measures in play right now that make things very difficult to play an effective defense.

Every league, from the college ranks to the pro’s, has made rule changes to allow teams to score more often. In baseball, they say chicks dig the long ball. Well, in football, chicks dig the TD’s.

MT has one of the best offenses in the league this season and the greatest anyone in Murfreesboro has ever seen.

So, what more do you want?

What more do you need?

Thankfully, I do not work for MT and my job is not to get fans energized about the program and out to the games. If it was, I’d have to fire myself. Not because I would be bad at it (which is debatable), but because it is literally the closest thing to impossible right now.

The Blue Raiders have everything you could ask of a team. There are players like Brent Stockstill, Richie James and I’Tavius Mathers, who could all be playing on Sundays in the future. You have the chance to watch them now. You have exciting, light-it-up scoring, and a coach that is committed to the city and the team. Do you even know how rare that is?

Wake up, folks.

The college season is gone in a blink of an eye. The players are no exception. Here today, but gone tomorrow.

Don’t miss it. You’ll regret it, I promise.