TheTastyGreek

MeanMag is in Atlanta on business. Gruu, FilmerJ and Quoner have work obligations. GMG1999 probably lives too far away to make it in time for the game. Anyone else... Not sure. Right now it looks like just me and euless from the usual tailgating group. It'd be nice to have you out there.

To be fair... RV inherited the guy who won us those four conference titles and took us to the four bowls. He wanted to fire him halfway through the first championship season. He gets credit for those like my dog gets credit for taking medicine- Yeah, it happened and he was involved, but someone forced it down his throat. As for the Athletic Complex, we couldn't pay our bills on it and needed a couple of very big bailout checks to close the deal. We were the mortgage crisis before the mortgage crisis was cool. I'll leave it to someone else to point out exactly where the most critical check that actually built that place came from. Suffice it to say, there's a reason Mattress Mac was able to throw his weight around over the name on our practice field. Football stadium... It's been started with student money, and the vote that passed was the one largely driven by our SGA hero. Throw in the problems with Ann Clinkscales and the Goldfields... I'm not trying to bash RV, and I think some of the threads I've seen lately that rip into him have been insanity. But let's not credit the man for things he isn't responsible for. We'd have been rebuilding again instead of going to New Orleans. We'd have an unfinished cinderblock tower housing our Athletics Department. And I'm not saying we wouldn't be building the stadium... But it's possible. RV has done some very good things. But, as recently as 12 months ago, I legitimately thought he might be relieved of duty, even after the stadium vote passed. He's had far from a perfect tenure. I do love Johnny Jones, though. Big thumbs up on that one.

I'm watching the new Prisoner on AMC. SUCKS. Absolutely terrible so far. Very, very disappointed.

I'm going, FilmerJ is almost certainly in, and MeanMag is probable. We'll all be traveling together.

You guys will basically be the home team.

You kept saying that 3 years ago, too.

Serve? No. Protect? Yes.

I'm looking forward to seeing all of you guys there. Very, very excited about this game.

Let me go ahead and say that I agree with this. And I hate it when I see DBs get burned without even raising their arms. And I hate seeing us get pushed around at the line of scrimmage. And I don't get the Gilmore stuff. The defense isn't good. Some games, it isn't even adequate. But it's better, and generally it IS doing enough, despite all the problems and miscues and how we practice and the personality conflicts and whatever else is going on that kneecaps this whole operation. This isn't a team with a whole lot of margin for error anywhere. We can't put Riley in 3rd and long situations, time after time, and expect him to be able to magically rescue us. We can't rely on the kicking game to hit a last second field goal from 48 yards away. And we can't put a ton of weight on our defense, because it isn't strong enough to support it. If they hold an opponent to 17-28 points... That's not a great result. But it ought to be enough, against a schedule with 8 Sun Belt opponents, 2 MAC opponents, and a service academy, to give us a chance to win games. So far this year... It HAS. The defense is barely good enough to do it's own job. It can't compensate for special teams. It can't compensate when we're giving up points on offense. I know what DeLoach is capable of here. If he can't get anything more than this out of the defensive unit, I sincerely believe that there is nobody else out there we could get who possibly could.

The defense gave up 14 points in the 2nd half. Both TDs were on drives that started on our half of the field because of a miscue on offense or special teams. One of them, FIU needed 7 plays to go just 16 yards. Defense forced a 4th down. In the entire game, the defense only surrendered as many points as the offense had scored halfway through the 2nd quarter. For at least the 3rd time this season, the defense did enough to win the game if not for an INT-for-TD or a blocked punt or either. The defense hasn't been good, but it's been largely adequate to occasionally quite decent. The defense did enough to win us the game against Ohio, Lafayette, and FIU. If it weren't for some of the most godawful kicking in the history of feet and balls, they probably would have done enough for us to win against FAU. They aren't great. They shouldn't have to be. They've done enough to put us in position for 6 wins, if not for points scored against the offense or special teams, or for repeated and almost unrecoverable errors by both or either. This is a defense trying to climb its way out of the cellar of D-1 football. When they have to fight the opponent, they tend to do enough. When they've got to fight the opponent and every other aspect of their own team... They aren't good enough to handle that. Yet.

What time are you getting there? I want to stake out some bleacher seats behind the NT bench. SUMG says it's not difficult if we get there early enough.

Again... DeLoach can't coach QBs not to throw INTs for touchdowns. He can't coach the special teams unit not to get punts blocked. And he isn't responsible for teaching the offensive skill guys how to not fumble the football. He's also not teaching the offense to fail to convert on 1st and goal, and he's not coaching receivers to drop TD passes. The defense has had a few good games, a discouraging number of bad ones, and one or two that were just adequate. Last night was an adequate performance. We should have won, and the reason we didn't wasn't because the defense blew the game.

He'll feel a lot better next year when Robert Griffin is back.

Definitely. We'll both be there, and we'd love to see you.

It didn't have to be this way.

And he (and I) will be there supporting the basketball team.

Why does football deserve support and basketball doesn't? That's our school, too. Especially considering that football already has the financial support (and will next year, no matter what)?

Since the board will crash in 5 minutes and/or 3 negative threads... Remember there's a basketball game in a few days in Arlington. Be there.

Dear Gary DeLoach- Next time, please coach the quarterback not to throw an interception for a TD, the special teams not to get a punt blocked, and the offense not to turn the ball over in our own red zone at the end of the game. Also, you get no credit for making FIU convert on 4th down late, either. This is all your fault. Love- Idiots.

He's annoying as hell... But remember FIU's situation: No cheerleaders, no band. If he's not hyping things, it's probably like watching a game in the library.

And he seems to be exactly what people have been crying for- a pass-first PG.

Northern Iowa 71 @ Denver 65 Denver played very, very well in this one... Led all but the last 63 seconds of the first half, kept it within one possession for most of the second half. The biggest lead Northern Iowa had all night was the 6 point margin of victory. I wish they'd have won this one, but all in all, it was a very good effort against an opponent that's a much better team than perhaps most people realize.

Because of the speed of their D-1A path and their unusual scholarship distribution, USA does not have a formal classification (1-AA, D-II, etc.) in this first year. They basically have to field scrimmages in order to get games for their players in this first season.

Early results: South Alabama 76 @ Houston Baptist 64 AR Little Rock 64 @ Mississippi 92 FIU 70 @ Monmouth 99 Florida Tech 63 @ Florida Atlantic 86 New Orleans 59 @ Georgia 67 King 73 @ MTSU 93 LA Monroe 62 @ LSU 82 ----------------- 2nd half: Northern Iowa 30 @ Denver 26 FIU gets shamed by almost 30 by a Monmouth team that has sucked, hard, for the past three years and was just barely mediocre for a few years before that. Bad, bad loss to a bad team. UNO was up on Georgia in the 2nd half, then went scoreless for 5 and a half minutes. Pulled back to within 2 points with 2 minutes to play, but UGA hit a 3 pointer and started pulling away.

A very straightforward +1 for everything. Math doesn't have to be hard, people.