BillySee58

Last year I thought TJ Taylor's scoring ability would win us a close game or two. Then the whole in eligibility thing happened. Oh well, better late than never! We have some damn talented basketball players on this team.

Congratulations on your accomplishments here Derek

Where in my post did I say I was surprised at that? That was the main reason I wanted to see us out anyone else at qb this year. The coaches never trusted DT all three years and he really never did much to earn it. Don't know if the coaches would've trusted any other qb more, but we knew going in that they didn't trust DT and they still don't. 11 games into this "new" season.

Good stuff!

I want to agree with the last sentence in this post so bad, but I just started a thread about how it was a team loss.

Stop reading my mind!

Blame game is fun and all, and I'll admit to being guilty of it, but we lost as a team. You can blame DT, the defense, coaching or whoever you want. Whether you think one guy or unit deserves more of the blame, it's irrelevant. We lost as a team, and we're 7-4 as a team. Let's get this win in Tulsa and get your tickets to support these guys in Dallas for a bowl game.

I agree. To me that a was a lack of trust in DT. The coaches felt more confident running a fake than letting DT throw it on 4th and 10.

Bingo. Defense has been spoiling us all season to the point that we think they played terrible. If you give up 21 points a game over the course of the whole year that's good for 23rd in the country. We're used to this from DT and the offense. And yeah, not a great coaches game by any standards.

They didn't do a great job. Had they done better they would've held them to more like 14 or even only 7 points. Whether they gave up 7, 14, or 21 points today we should be able to win.

He's our first 3-year starter at qb since the mid 90s, besides Scott Hall who didn't get to throw the ball. Of course he's going to set records. The passing game has evolved immensely since the mid 90s and DT has been our first 3-year starter at qb to actually get a chance to reap the benefits of the evolution of the passing game. The records are irrelevant. You could blame the lack of development on both of them, but DT long-winding throwing motion limit his release time and accuracy to the point where the ceiling of development is pretty low. He actually has maximized his potential IMO. He's not a trainwreck, but when you have a championship caliber team you need your qb to step up and will your team in the close games against good teams. We saw UTSA's qb will them today. Team win for them, team loss for us. But man, today showed how big a part of a team a qb is. That's why some of them get paid $20 million a year to play 16 games in the NFL

Ryan, that thread about DT being the elephant in the room couldn't have been more right and it was proven today. We were winning with DT, but not because of him. We had a championship team in just about every aspect except qb. People are bitching about the defense but they only have up 21 points. Not a good game by them, I agree, but they've spoiled us to the point that we feel like they did bad even though they only have up 21 points. We chose to ignore the elephant in the room

They had the ball 33 minutes, us 25

It isn't all DT's fault. He's just not the difference maker we needed. Look at what you just said about Soza. He was a difference maker and made big plays when they needed them. Again, not the defense's best game, but they held them to 21 points which should win a game at home against UTSA.

There were some drops. But there were also some drops where, as a qb, you take your fair share of responsibility for not putting the ball where it should've been. But that's not the biggest thing about DT. He didn't play terrible, just wasn't anywhere near the difference maker we needed to pull out a win.

D may not have done well on 3rd down, but they held UTSA to 21 points. They did their job. We should be able to score more than 21 points at home against UTSA. No excuses. Green P1 was spot on, as always, in the other thread saying at some point you need your qb to be a difference maker. Not just the reason you don't lose. We're calling this a bad game by our defense. They have up 21 points. Giving up 21 points a game would be good for 23rd in the country. That is getting the job done.

Maybe this is what a good qb actually looks like. I know we haven't seen one play since Aaron Murray in the Georgia game.

I've stayed relatively quiet because we've been winning, but the qb play has been pitiful. Blame it on drops or whatever you want, he's been bad. We'll never know, but I refuse to believe that if we had started Williams, Berglund, or even Mcnulty that they would be this bad at this point in the season. DT hasn't improved, he's proven that his time here. Maybe those guys would've been a little rough at the beginning of the year, but through experience and talent they would've put us in a better position to win than DT does.

Offense is going to have to pull their weight. Defense will be fine IMO

That's possible too. Based on Mac's recruiting he wants his OLB's to be fast and cover a lot of space and his MLB's to be big thumpers. Akunne has cut weight and gained a lot of speed and agility since getting here so he's suited well to play both. Wallace is basically the epitome of a thumper.

Yeah, and then when you see that Rivals ranking and such you can't help but hype him up in your mind. But he seems really involved in beyond the green. He's always peeking in on the defensive huddles on the sidelines in between series. It should be a fun competition in spring to replace Orr between Fred Scott and Wallace. Scott isn't a slouch either.

The thing I like about Wallace is that he didn't redshirt at Oregon. Maybe he didn't start as a freshman or sophomore, but he was good enough to not be so buried on the depth chart that he wasn't redshirted by default. Look at Pegram and Trice. They were in a similar situation. They weren't starters but they were good enough to play and see the field as true freshman and sophomores. Our big school transfers who didn't work out were usually redshirted as freshman from whatever big school they came from simply because they were buried as freshman and continued to be buried the rest of their career. I.E. Stradford

We had two in Overlander and Hardwick. Technically Hardwick was the only Benford signee since Overlander signed under Jones, but both left after 1 year. Last year we signed 3, 0 are playing and 1 is on the roster but ineligible this year (Greg Wesley). We have 0 Benford high school signees playing on the current team after two recruiting classes.

Southern miss a pretty impressive 4-0. Wins against Jackson State, DePaul, North Dakota State and South Alabama.

Yup. New and improved, baby! Would you have expected anything less after an offseason under Benford's tutelage?