We all know how bad we are so how do we manage out of this?

[StarkVegasSteve]

I also think it's psychological.

What are the players we have playing for? How many are actually from MS or have pride in the university? The players aren't playing as a team and only care about themselves. Toledo is probably an outlier these days with a veteran team, but I bet they get paid less than our players. They had something to prove and mopped the floor with us. Remember Leach's Pirate speech at Texas Tech? That was emphasizing teamwork because pirate crews were made up of people with various backgrounds that came together for a common goal.

I think we have a bunch of mercenaries just getting paid without having to put in the work to actually do what we're paying them to do.

We need to kick them off the team and NIL should be earned not just given for just being on the team.

They're playing to get to the next level. Just as Jeffrey Simmons was, Dak Prescott was, Fletcher Cox was, Fred Smoot was, Eric Moulds was, probably Johnnie Cooks was. These players do not have the mindset of fans. They didn't before NIL and they don't after. We just don't have a lot of talent right now. This isn't an NIL issue. We will get markedly worse if we start doing earned NIL payments, and btw I do not hate that idea. However, no one worth a crap will be playing for us. We just need to get better players. It's that simple