BillySee58

Also not what I was saying. But people are acting like we’re going to give up 50 every week, or that a young defense has no hope of improving during the season, or that we should just hope games keep getting cancelled. This defense is not devoid of talent. It’s filled with guys who a lot of other schools wanted, but they’re low on experience. It’s going to get better. How much better is a fair question, but it’s a matter of how much, not if.

I’m not trying to do this crazy what if stuff, I’m just saying I fully expect us to move the ball and put up points early with being able to just go with Aune

I really think people are overlooking how good our offense is. Take away those 5 drives in the first half trying to get Bean’s confidence up, give those to Aune to get settled in quicker and we probably put a lot more pressure on SMU’s offense. We were a yard away from 42 points, and the points we did score were on SMU’s starters. We’re going to score points, and our defense is not going to be that bad again (it better not be). The 2017 defense took similar lumps against SMU and FAU and they ended up at least good enough for our offense to outscore opponents most games, then became a good defense in 2018. I’m not saying our defense is on the same trajectory, but I also don’t think they’re going to look helpless against average QBs and offenses.

Southern Miss is down. Hope we can jump on them early and not give them a chance to get their morale up.

Colorado State it is

True freshman Loronzo Thompson has been moved from receiver to defensive back https://meangreensports.com/sports/football/roster/loronzo-thompson/4722

Pretty interesting pickup here that has really flown under the radar. Davis was listed in the 2-deep this week behind Cam Johnson and saw some action this past Saturday. Davis is a transfer from Texas Tech, and former Euless Trinity Trojan, who was recently added to our roster. Below is his recruiting profile from when he signed with Texas Tech out of high school. Was primarily a special teams player at Tech but this is another P5 transfer for those asking for more of those. 4th P5 Transfer since this summer with the others being QB Amani Gilmore from Kentucky, DB Jordan Rucker from Purdue, and OL Jacob Farrell from OK State. https://247sports.com/Player/John-Davis-90921/high-school-174618/ https://meangreensports.com/sports/football/roster/john-davis/4953

SMU and Houston kicked our ass last year and it didn’t hurt recruiting. Also don’t think those losses hurting team morale is what lost us those games the rest of the way. Get the experience, have more on-field time together to click, and win some conference games and recruiting would keep going just fine imo. Also, I’m not very worried about recruiting right now. I’m more concerned on how we develop the guys we have, because it’s hard to imagine recruiting getting much better than it’s been the last two years. Until we start winning the conference and pushing into the top 25, we have recruited about as well as you can expect. Those guys are sophomores and freshmen. I think their development is what’s really going to make or break things for the Littrell era, as opposed to current high school juniors and seniors who won’t be in a position to be impact players for us for another 4 years or so.

I just don’t get the mindset that cancelled would-have-been losses are a net positive for a young, inexperienced team desperately in need of on-field growth.

Commits to OU

I’m wondering if it’s due to rules, set by CUSA or whoever, on a cap set at each position group for how many players can be out for COVID at a point in time before a cancellation is necessary. Perhaps at our linebacker group. I believe this was why Baylor had to cancel.

Bad

Edit key should be in a drop down after clicking the three dots in the top right of your post. Also, our roster currently shows Farrell at 6’6” 308 lbs https://meangreensports.com/sports/football/roster/jacob-farrell/4828

This a big-time commitment here, at a position of need. 11 other FBS offers including Arizona State, West Virginia, Kansas, and Georgia Tech

Blew a dude up on that Aune TD run

The LBs have been in serious trouble in the run game. 3-3-5 with a JACK or stack the last two years have not been able to keep our LBs clean. A large amount of tackles Saturday Howell and Wood were making while fighting off blocks.

Maybe a 4-2-5 could be a good base, especially on 1st and 2nd downs. Keep that extra DB but hopefully make life harder on opposing o-lines. Another thought is taking recruiting a true JACK more seriously, which is easier said than done. Not a lot of EDGE defenders in high school who have that experience. Since Littrell has been here, he really hasn’t recruited a JACK since Wheeler and Hamilton (originally recruited to play there) back in 2016. The other guys who played the position were Ejiya sliding over when Wheeler was injured, then Ozougwu (Mccarney grayshirt) and Jamie King (former Walkon) and now Wood and Nixon who are second-level LBs. This almost leads me to believe we wanted to transition to more of a stack look than when Littrell first got here. Was hoping Jacobi Johnson could be this EDGE/JACK but looks like he’ll need some time. But having more of a true JACK with some size and length who could put some pressure on tackles in the run game and pass game would be great. Unfortunately, much like good d-linemen, players with those type of frames/skillsets get swarmed by P5s, as we saw with Jayden Jones.

Every time we talk about SMU’s roster it always gets brought up how much they are bolstered by P5 transfers. They started 2 P5 transfers on offense and 4 on defense. While that is a decent amount, you would think half their starting lineup is made up of P5 transfers. It’s not. They have recruited very well at the high school and JUCO level, and have supplemented those signees with P5 transfers. Not the other way around. This is something we are starting to do more of with bringing in 3 P5 transfers over the last few months. Like Jim showed, we started off recruiting very poorly under Littrell and have made huge improvements. We had some standouts who masked depth and talent issues across the board for a couple seasons. Now needing to rely on the 2017 class and remaining 2016 class guys to be our senior leaders, we are often going to be at a disadvantage when it comes to upperclassmen talent this season, and probably next season with everyone freezing their current eligibility. But this is also a great opportunity to focus on developing our young talent. Feels like we have a lot of talent that we still haven’t seen much of this year. Hope that changes.

Lot of good stuff here and I agree with just about all of it. As for the the blitzing, I hate how reliant on blitzing we are. You talk about the 4-man fronts later, but man it would be nice to have two good ends putting pressure on the tackles every time the other team passes, rather than hoping a blitz hits home when it hasn’t been. When I played offensive line I would prefer a blitzing linebacker to a good passing rushing defensive lineman almost every time. I don’t know if it’s that Littrell is very big on playing older players or if it’s that the older guys truly are better, but I was hoping to see more young guys beat out older players for starting spots. Like with Roberts, Alberding, and even Lyles over Pirtle. Is Pirtle really the best player of that group or does he get to start because he is the senior? We still have a lot of young players playing, but that’s mainly because of how small our senior class is. I was hoping improved recruiting meant we’d have more cases of young guys hopping older guys who are less talented. Not having to rely on young guys is great and all, but if you have real NFL/all-CUSA talent on a CUSA roster, that talent typically forces its way into the field earlier than later. Reminder that everyone will still have the exact same eligibility next year that they do now. Think that’s why we’re going to see the coaches continuing to play true freshmen and not worry about preserving redshirts because they are preserved regardless. Was disappointing to not see the Murphy brothers playing over a walk-on converted fullback. Do the coaches not see them as potential starter caliber players? Not like they are true freshmen. Said it earlier, but I just don’t like how reliant we are on blitzes to get pressure. No sacks from our d-linemen this year and not really many instances where they have even come close. Also don’t like how easy it is for linemen to combo up to our linebackers on run plays. Just feels like we are constantly on our heels, not able to put enough pressure on the opposing offense. Yeah, let’s roll with Aune. He hit some impressive passes and he can make good passes downfield. He has plenty to work on, especially when that first read isn’t there, but that should come with experience so let’s give that experience to him. Would like to see us mix in more of the high-percentage confidence building throws for Aune that Bean seems to get when he’s in. A lot on here are so pissed, understandly so, that they aren’t giving any credit for the offense but most of that was against SMU’s starters in the second half, and we almost put up 35 in the second half with Aune under center. If he starts gotta think he gets settled in sooner and the points come sooner too. Hopefully we can build off that momentum.

I would need to go through and watch to say confidently, but from memory it is a combination. I don’t think he has a lot of confidence in his arm strength (against FBS DBs), and I don’t think the coaches do either. With Bean even more so than Aune, the first read is very frequently Jaelon Darden, often in the flats. And when it isn’t, he seems to be happy to check down. Which, if that’s gonna be the case, I think we have to run Bean more when he’s in or the predictability is just too high.

These are Bean’s career passing stats against FBS opponents: 26/45 (57.8%) for 205 yards (4.56 yards/attempt) and 4 TDs/4 INTs. The turnovers aren’t great but also the yards/attempt number is pretty paltry. And Saturday it was even lower at 3.22 yards/attempt, granted he only threw 9 passes.