As if on cue, the tweets began peppering my phone late in the fourth quarter.
"This is horrible football."
"These coaches need to understand that offenses have evolved since the 1950s."
"This coaching staff sucks."
And, the inevitable caveat: "I could coach this team better than these guys."
Well, go ahead. Take a whack at it. Give it your best shot. Knock yourself out.
And when you've become bowl eligible for the ninth straight season, as Long's Aztecs did in Saturday's 16-13 squabble with San Jose State, give me a ring. Then I'll know that you, too, have accomplished something that as of today has been achieved by only seven other FBS schools (Alabama, Clemson, Georgia, LSU, Oklahoma, Stanford and Washington).
Otherwise, politely put a sock in it.
Unless you understand, truly understand, how fortunate San Diego State's football program is to have Rocky Long as its head coach, let me offer a little trip down memory lane.
A word of caution: Take a blindfold, because it's gonna get scary. Ugly scary.
Did you know that 4,387 days — more than 12 years — elapsed between the time SDSU played in the Las Vegas Bowl on Dec. 19, 1998, and the time it found its way back to the postseason in the Poinsettia Bowl on Dec. 23, 2010?
Did you know that under four different head coaches in that span, Rocky Long won more games in seven seasons (64) than those four coaches combined in 12 years (59)?
Did you know that the Aztecs entered last season's Armed Forces Bowl against Army as one of only five schools (Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State and Oklahoma) in the nation with an opportunity to win 11 or more games in 2015, '16 and '17?
Did you know that, despite it all, there is still ample bitter on Twitter? I actually received a direct message via Twitter on Saturday suggesting SDSU should be ashamed of itself.
Ashamed? Here's shame for you. Shame is winning four or fewer games in a season eight times, something the Aztecs managed to accomplish from 2000-2009.
Shame is drawing crowds so small that you could overhear conversations between players and coaches on the opposite side of the field...from the press level.
Shame is posting a 2-10 season and the absurdity of linemen attempting field goals at the end of practices.
Shame is a string of seasons where losses outnumbered wins by more than 2-to-1.
Shame is coaches telling you that stats don't matter, even when their defense ranks 114th among 120 FBS teams.
In time, you grow weirdly numb to it, presumably the brain's way of informing you that it's a long way down in the event you're considering hurling yourself out of a press box.
But here we are, bowl eligible for a school-record ninth straight season, and it's still not enough. It's never enough. Not six straight wins, which is tied for the seventh-longest streak in FBS play. Not Long's record of 70-30, which includes a staggering mark of 45-13 (.776 winning percentage) against Mountain West opponents, a number that swells to 47-13 (.783) when you include championship games.
Not a mark of 25-4 in its last 29 regular-season league games.
And certainly not a meager 16-13 victory over winless San Jose State, which apparently has no business even competing in the sport, or so I was informed via Twitter.
"It's nice being bowl eligible, but you can ask our fans — the majority of people that were here and the people watching on TV — if we're not bowl eligible, they are upset," Long said. "Our program has gotten to the point right now that if we don't win, or we don't go to bowl games, everybody's mad and wondering what's wrong. So, I guess I fall into that category, too.
"But we won tonight, and like my father always told me, there's no such thing as a bad win."
Long touched on this in a discussion we had prior to the season, wondering aloud how long it would be before people began demanding more, demanding more of a program where last season 26 of 130 FBS teams — 20 percent — won 10 or more games. That's one in five, one of them being SDSU, which did it for the third straight season.
"Our program is such now that even the fans might feel like last year (10–3) was a disappointment, and we still won 10 games," Long said. "When have you ever seen a program win 10 games and there's a feeling of disappointment? The teams that are winning three and four games think you're an idiot if you feel that way.
"The majority of programs in this country are really, really happy if you can win eight or nine games. We won 10, and I feel like there's business that we didn't take care of. Now, that's good and bad at the same time, because you've got to realize that the teams you're playing want to win, too. They have coaches. They have scholarship players. It's not like we're playing people that can't beat us. Anybody we play can beat us, the same way we can beat anybody we play.
"So, the perfect scenario says you go 6-6. But I felt like at the end of last year that there was a little disappointment around here, and we won 10. Nobody's ever satisfied, even the guys who win the Super Bowl. They're satisfied for about three weeks and then they start worrying about the draft."
At the moment, despite those oblivious to the fact that the Aztecs are playing short-handed, Long is merely worried about when his starting backfield might be healthy enough to find the field again. Starting quarterback Christian Chapman has missed five-plus games with a medial collateral knee sprain. Starting tailback Juwan Washington has been absent for three-plus games with a broken clavicle. Starting fullback Isaac Lessard also has been out for three-plus games.
In the interim, SDSU has yet to lose, beating Boise State on the road, winning with youth and inexperience, winning with a defense that ranks No. 5 in the country against the run and No. 14 overall, winning with a head coach and a group of players who have come to understand that it's not enough. It's never enough.
"That's big time," quarterback Ryan Agnew said of the team becoming bowl eligible for a ninth straight season. "We set goals at the beginning of the year, and the ultimate one is to win the conference championship and the next one is to earn a bowl bid. But you have to go out and earn it."
And maybe, just maybe, even be recognized for it.
McGrane: When Will Enough Ever be Enough?
