Another year, another real tough schedule for the men's tennis team.
https://godrakebulldogs.com/sports/mens-tennis/schedule

Season kicks off at Cornell. Ivy teams are always good.
Match after that is Northern Illinois at home. I just hope they can beat Northern Illinois, who they lost to last year. Embarrassing loss, really should be beating that team 7-0.
Then they spend most of the next two months on the road. Only 7 home matches the entire season

Naming out games we'll probably lose because I'm a debby downer:
Nebraska (old Drake could beat 'em each year, dunno about us nowadays) 
Vanderbilt (tough)
Wisconsin (old Drake could beat 'em each year, dunno about us nowadays) 
Arkansas (tough)
Oklahoma (very tough)
Utah State (tossup maybe?)
Utah
Western Michigan (tossup maybe?)
Wichita State
Marquette

Got worked by Cornell, lost 1-6. 
So probably more or the same this season.

We have definitely lost our recruiting pipeline. We don’t have a true number 1 player, won all the doubles matches which was a nice surprise but got worked in every singles match but 1. With this schedule we’ll be lucky to win more than a few matches.

Lost to Nebraska another team we used to always beat. Oh well.

Honestly, didn't expect it to be as close as 3-4.
If Nebraska wasn't super average, I'd almost call it a moral victory.

We’ve won the doubles point in both matches. Positive. The bottom of the lineup got destroyed unfortunately.

Does the Tennis program still have the extra funding it had a few years back? They seemed to have more money than other sports. Flew all over the country. If they don't, that could explain the current results. If they do they nee t be looking for a new coach.

Drakey

They fly all over, as the schedule is stacked with really strong teams.
This year they're just getting their lunch handed to 'em each time.
No idea what Coach Koz's contract is, but I imagine being the first coach to win an NCAA tournament match at Drake gives him the benefit of the doubt til the end of said contract.
Whenever it ends, you'd think their first call is to James McKie. Former player, current associate head coach at #2 Tennessee.
Just not sure he'd leave the #2 team in the country, a national title contender with amazing facilities, for Drake. Even if he's on the Drake Tennis Mount Rushmore, James likely can wait for a shot at a team in a more stable conference than the Summit. 

This brings up a question for you, TennisDog.  Do Murray, Belmont or UIC have tennis programs?  If so, will there be enough MVC teams with tennis for it to become an MVC sport again?

Not enough, nope.
Drake
UIC
Belmont
Illinois State

Seems odd to me that out of 12 schools only four have mens Tennis.

Is that a common percentage of schools across the rest of the mid major world?

Men's tennis is usually one of the first to get chopped, it seems. 
Even big schools like Minnesota have cut men's tennis but kept women's tennis.

Losing to Montana State may be one of the worst losses of the last... 15 years? Sure Montana is 8-3, but anytime they play someone decent they get crushed. 
Shouldn't be losing to Big Sky teams.
I'm predicting a 6 win season, at best. Oof.

Well tennis we pulled out our best win in 2 years over Western Michigan, ranked 44. I believe they beat us 7-0 last year. Congrats Bulldog tennis! That’s a really good win.

And another very good win over 55 ranked and old Valley rival Wichita St. Great weekend!

So I think the SID writing the tennis pieces may have had a wee typo. I'm pretty sure Western Michigan was #74.
But they just beat #55 Wichita State today. Total surprise!

Happy my harsh criticism could knock some sense into them 🤣

So maybe... 8 win season?

With this schedule that would be a pretty good season.

So just actually looked at the rest of the schedule. It actually gets much easier besides Vanderbilt. I think we’re only going to lose 1 or 2 more matches Tennis. This team is showing improvement.

Lost a close one to Vandy 4-3. Very improved as the season goes on.

Beat Samford and the we just lost a super tough one to Bama. Had 2 match points at 5-4 on court 1 and lost a tiebreaker for the match. This team looks to me like they will make the NCAA’s if we keep improving.