trussbussdad

Looking back at this season...I had to breath life into this post again.
After Beating Ball State
After scaring Georgia
After THE STAND
After #3 getting national recognition as a return specialist.
There were so many defining moments in this season. I am sure there are more moments to come.
THIS MEAN GREEN CAN WIN CUSA!!!!

I agree with the hard nose football. Offensively we are a hybrid...we will line up wiht 4 wides and beat you on the edge with our speed...but I love to see some football that will pound your ass with 5 yards in a cloud of dust. There is nothing more demoralizing to a defense than have a 10 play drive where they can't stop an offense banging them up the middle.
Defense...I love the way these kids are flying around to the ball and gang tackling. I mentioned the other day how stupid I thought it was for UTEP to start a qb with no college experience against a defense like ours. Yes he had a couple of plays, but overall this kid was thrown in a pool of sharks with a bleeding wound.

This game was plagued by ugly football. If it were not for some sloppy play and penalties by Ohio, the score could have been MUCH worse.
My summation:
- O line supposed to be our strength....
1 - 2.7 yards per carry...pitiful
2 - two penalties on #64
3 - #71 is supposed to be a pro prospect...saw many plays where his man ran right by him.
4 - Ohio D line was able to get off their blocks so easy, our O line did not stay engaged and finish blocks
5 - DT did not have the time to pass that he has in the past

- DT play
1 - was not as sharp / accurate with his passes as he was last week...several balls were behind, over the head or over thrown
2 - pressed the ball into bad coverages

- skills
1 - I thought Pegram was supposed to be a power back.......
2 - if the ball is within arms length, it should be a catch

Play calling
1 - even the hack announcers on ESPN3 commented on not throwing the ball on 1st down
2 - on 3rd and 5-8 yds, instead of trying to get enough for the first, we go for a "homerun" ball. use an intermediate pass long enough to get the first down.
3 - with less than two minutes left in the game and we are backed up to our around our 10, Ohio in prevent rushing 3, we run a screen pass???

Defense:
D line:
1 - Our D line was driven so far back, it cut off pursuit of our LBrs....and they did not get off of blocks
2 - we could not pressure Ohio qb with our front 4...had to blitz to get pressure.
3 - #90 was on "skates" all night
4 - Sarge...did injuries keep him off the field? When he was in, he was very effective.

LBrs:
1 - could not evaluate because the Dline was being driven back into their cut off lanes
2 - ZORR...missed tackles, bad fills

DBs:
1 - dropped 2 pic opportunities right in their hands
2 - terrible cut off angles...ALL NIGHT

WE HAVE TO STOP GIVING UP SO MANY BIG PLAYS!!! If i were any team, I go deep against our secondary on the first play every game....they seem to be sleeping and get a late wake up call that the game started.

Coaching:
1 - not aggresive in play calling like we were last week...very few blitz's. Did not see any corner blitz (refer to last year LSU game when our CB knocked out the
LSU qb
2 - with just over 2 minutes left in the game, we have 3 timeouts and we allowed the clock to run off without calling a timeout.

I know this Ohio team is much better than last weeks Idaho team...but our fundamentals sucked...blocking, tackling, running and passing and UNT were two different teams from last weeks fundamentals to this week. This was a game that we could have, should have won. Now the Ball state game becomes a must win game. Before the season started, I hoped for 3-1 non conference schedule...looking at a likely 2-2. We cannot go 1-3 in non conf. and with Ball St coming into town 2-0...we have to over achieve this week.
This team needs consistency, persistency, intensity.