D. Smith

Eastwood Eagle · October 16, 2015

Outside of that sick Hail Mary throw he really struggled against the first team defense. He was something like 7-21 late in the third when WKU pulled Doughty. He's obviously far and away our best guy, and he looked very good at the end (albeit against backups). Still, he needs to work on completing passes in tight windows. The passes he was hitting at the end we're not really throws where there was a small margin for error.
If he keeps coming along and taking care of things off the field the new head coach could have something to work with. And while we're righting Mccarney's wrong QB decisions, can we move Dillman to QB and let him get reps there? I don't want to roll with Greer and Means as our backups next year.

I didn't watch the entire game (got home late from work / watched Dallas Stars) but what I saw form D. Smith didn't look all that great. I mostly watched the third quarter and turned away after the fumble. So good to see that his actual stats improved, albeit against the backups.

Still wish D. Williams had not transferred. I feel like D. Williams has more potential / is more ready than D. Smith. But not doubt D. Smith is the guy for the rest of the year.

How many years do we get S. Smith?

I would be all in in putting Dillman in for a look at QB. As another poster said, but your best athletes in there. Also what is the deal on C. Means?

ChristopherRyanWilkes · October 16, 2015

He was 9 of 26 and 2 TDs when they finally pulled first team. That's a 34% completion rate against first team D. I think that, above all conspiracy theories, explains why he never started for Mac.
He does have a cannon of an arm but his accuracy is terrible. Especially when on the move. Don't really understand why they kept rolling him out considering how much worse his accuracy got as he moved. But he does have a cannon. So there's something to work with but 34% completion needs to step up in a big way if we ever hope to be competitive. And the O-line needs to learn how to run block.
Tee Goree showed up tonight and made a BIG BOY play for his first TD

Cosh was in the booth tonight. KP was the guy in green on the sidelines sending in the plays from upstairs.

Didn't you read the chat? That's the wide receivers faults. They just couldn't catch his passes because they were too awesome for them. I pointed this out in the chat and also made the statement that when it's a D.Smith incompletion it's the WR's fault but when it's a McNulty incompletion it's his fault. This isn't a defense of McNulty, just an observation of how our fans react to Smith. I think it's because of how desperately we want at least a decent QB and don't want to think what this team will be like if Smith isn't that QB.

BillySee58 · October 16, 2015

He was 9 of 26 and 2 TDs when they finally pulled first team. That's a 34% completion rate against the first team D. I think that, above all conspiracy theories, explains why he never started for Mac.

Yes, thank you for the exact numbers. If we're going to have a chance against anyone outside of UTEP and UTSA, he will need to be much better. But he obviously can be. He will get all the reps going forward, as he should.

It was also really good to get Kidsy going. Given his speed and ability, it's disappointing Kidsy only has a season and a half left here and hasn't given us more production. Mcnulty never spread the ball out much, and Kidsy was not one of the few guys he targeted regularly.

Stan R · October 16, 2015

1st item on the training list for D. Smith- learn to slide. PLEASE. I love the toughness but if he keeps taking hits head on we will see the backup QB very soon.

GMG_Dallas · October 16, 2015

Didn't you read the chat? That's the wide receivers faults. They just couldn't catch his passes because they were too awesome for them. I pointed this out in the chat and also made the statement that when it's a D.Smith incompletion it's the WR's fault but when it's a McNulty incompletion it's his fault. This isn't a defense of McNulty, just an observation of how our fans react to Smith. I think it's because of how desperately we want at least a decent QB and don't want to think what this team will be like if Smith isn't that QB.

I respectfully disagree. I think people were harder on mini because he had been the starter since middle of last year and with the team for 4-5 years. You expect a guy like that to make good decisions, be in sync with receivers, and just make overall good throws. He threw wobbly inaccurate ducks and that's the cause for a lot of his drops. Smith threw a few inaccurate balls, but his drops had zip. This was his first career D1 start if I'm not mistaken. Cut the guy some slack and enjoy the 4 TD passes.

Christopher Walker · October 16, 2015

Cosh was in the booth tonight. KP was the guy in green on the sidelines sending in the plays from upstairs.

Aha. Thanks.

MeanGreenHoops · October 16, 2015

Sorry, I thought he was pretty awful. At one point as we were getting blown out, he was 4 for 16 with a few throws in the dirt. If that had been McNulty people would have been losing their sh*t.

But since we are being positive, he was much better of escaping the pocket that our woeful O-Line cannot make. Also good running the ball, and the ball moves fast and he does spread it around.

I've seen a lot of other teams have backups come into games and look a whole lot better against us (in years past) than he did tonight. I hope that it was because it was his first game and first practice with the 1's and because WKU is real good.

Dajon looked much better every time we saw him than DaMarcus did yesterday. Such a shame the coaches couldn't coach up the talent and kept going to the safe QB.

Hopefully that was the worst game he ever plays and improves because he was too amped up. He has some skills, and if (and it's a big if) the errors were because of rust/nervousness/hyped up too much, then he will help us a lot.

Edited October 16, 2015 by MeanGreenHoops
forgot one more point

ChristopherRyanWilkes · October 16, 2015

I respectfully disagree. I think people were harder on mini because he had been the starter since middle of last year and with the team for 4-5 years. You expect a guy like that to make good decisions, be in sync with receivers, and just make overall good throws. He threw wobbly inaccurate ducks and that's the cause for a lot of his drops. Smith threw a few inaccurate balls, but his drops had zip. This was his first career D1 start if I'm not mistaken. Cut the guy some slack and enjoy the 4 TD passes.

Well, Mini was never given the benefit of the doubt that D.Smith has been given. Again, not defending Mini. It was obvious that Mini had physical and athletic limitations even before we saw him throw very many passes. Still, my point is that an incompletion is an incompletion and a loss is a loss.

BillySee58 · October 16, 2015

I didn't watch the entire game (got home late from work / watched Dallas Stars) but what I saw form D. Smith didn't look all that great. I mostly watched the third quarter and turned away after the fumble. So good to see that his actual stats improved, albeit against the backups.
Still wish D. Williams had not transferred. I feel like D. Williams has more potential / is more ready than D. Smith. But not doubt D. Smith is the guy for the rest of the year.
How many years do we get S. Smith?
I would be all in in putting Dillman in for a look at QB. As another poster said, but your best athletes in there. Also what is the deal on C. Means?

We get Smith for one more year after this season ends. I think he's better than Dajon, but his garbage time stat padding reminded me of Dajon against La Tech and Indiana's backups. D Smith gets 6 more games, but 4 are on the road. He has to be able to come out and silence the crowd before things get out of hand, especially as bad as this defense is. He had another fumble late in the game that WKU recovered in the endzone for a touchback, but it was offset because WKU's player couldn't get off the field so they had 12-men called. He gives our offense a lot of potential, especially with our skill guys.

As for Means, I think it's just inaccuracy. His senior year of HS he only completed 49% of his passes. That is very bad for a player set to make the jump to FBS ball. Since he's been here it's been the same, from the very little I've seen (none in person). 6-15 last spring game, threw bad balls on air in the short MGS videos from camp, and hasn't passed anyone up. I think that's it.

Mean_Green09 · October 16, 2015

We get Smith for one more year after this season ends. I think he's better than Dajon, but his garbage time stat padding reminded me of Dajon against La Tech and Indiana's backups. D Smith gets 6 more games, but 4 are on the road. He has to be able to come out and silence the crowd before things get out of hand, especially as bad as this defense is. He had another fumble late in the game that WKU recovered in the endzone for a touchback, but it was offset because WKU's player couldn't get off the field so they had 12-men called. He gives our offense a lot of potential, especially with our skill guys.
As for Means, I think it's just inaccuracy. His senior year of HS he only completed 49% of his passes. That is very bad for a player set to make the jump to FBS ball. Since he's been here it's been the same, from the very little I've seen (none in person). 6-15 last spring game, threw bad balls on air in the short MGS videos from camp, and hasn't passed anyone up. I think that's it.

But Connor Means is a gamer and Texas gunslinger.....

UNTexas · October 16, 2015

Meanwhile, in studio, Brian Jones, Rick Neuhisel and Houston Nutt were literally laughing out loud at our Mean Green right after the game.

We are a punchline. Easily the worst team in football.

NTAlum09 · October 16, 2015

I'll take Smith all season long with his attitude and willing to throw his body around to make a play or a first down. Yes he made errors and had first half jitters, but it was his first game against a pretty good Western Kentucky team. I see alot of passion and fight in this guy, give him time and he will grow. Not bad for a guy who started practicing in the fall, had to deal with a stubborn coach who barely gave him a chance and having only a couple of days to prepare for the best team in the CUSA East Division. 4 touchdown passes and 122 rushing yards....if only he would of been name the starter from day one and had more reps.

Got5onIt · October 16, 2015

We get Smith for one more year after this season ends. I think he's better than Dajon, but his garbage time stat padding reminded me of Dajon against La Tech and Indiana's backups. D Smith gets 6 more games, but 4 are on the road. He has to be able to come out and silence the crowd before things get out of hand, especially as bad as this defense is. He had another fumble late in the game that WKU recovered in the endzone for a touchback, but it was offset because WKU's player couldn't get off the field so they had 12-men called. He gives our offense a lot of potential, especially with our skill guys.
As for Means, I think it's just inaccuracy. His senior year of HS he only completed 49% of his passes. That is very bad for a player set to make the jump to FBS ball. Since he's been here it's been the same, from the very little I've seen (none in person). 6-15 last spring game, threw bad balls on air in the short MGS videos from camp, and hasn't passed anyone up. I think that's it.

Smith was forcing it. The last fumble in the endzone was a result of him jumping towards the pylon and getting blasted in midair. He plays with ZERO fear, putting his helmet down, trying to bulldoze defenders. I like that, but at the same time it scares me because we all know who the backups are. The other fumble in WKU territory during a zone read with Jimmy was a result of him trying to pull the ball after almost handing it off. These mistakes are correctable. He needs to settle down and play more controlled. Don't get too excited. He's the man from here on out. Live to play another down...

Edited October 16, 2015 by Got5onIt

VideoEagle · October 16, 2015

Lots of passes too high, low and behind the receivers. My father in law pointed out Smith isn't scared to throw into double coverage. If he does much of that he will have the interceptions go up. He looked much better against the backups but he also had time to relax and get comfortable. Next game is going to be telling as he will have had time to work with the receivers. 34% against starters isn't going to cut it but neither does the low 50% range we had with McNulty.

I can easily see why he didn't start before as we will lose a few games while he is learning.

"Forcing it"means he needs more practice time and just isn't ready yet. Since we don't care about winning more than one or two games this year, we can let a quarterback learn on the job. It is not a good situation if you want to win the most games but the losses this year should make us a better team next year.

Lurker · October 16, 2015

Big improvement. He needs to cut down on the jump passes and relax a little more. Honestly, this defense is just sad. They can not tackle and have zero gap discipline.

Our defense needs to involve their arms in their tackle technique. WKU does it and it seemed to be very effective.

Seriously, there was a lot of hitting but it seemed we were just running into the ball carrier until he fell down.

meangreendork · October 16, 2015

Well, Mini was never given the benefit of the doubt that D.Smith has been given. Again, not defending Mini. It was obvious that Mini had physical and athletic limitations even before we saw him throw very many passes. Still, my point is that an incompletion is an incompletion and a loss is a loss.

I think he would've been given the benefit of the doubt if he hadn't been here so long and if he was properly developed to be the starting QB. I feel like in his underclassman years, most of the practice reps went to Thompson and when Thompson (or any other QB we started) should've sat out, McNulty should've gone in.

Funny enough, that's the same thing that happened with Williams and Smith. Williams got leftover practice reps while he was here, then was expected to perform like a senior QB during his freshman year. Smith seems to be stuck with the same situation. Tbh, I think that Mac didn't really know what to do with QB development and was too interested in micromanaging that aspect of coaching to let Canales or anyone else do their job.

GMG24 · October 16, 2015

Yes, 1. Ball went through wr hands, hit his helmet and bounced into the air.
Smith went 17/35, but there were AT LEAST 5 drops.

That did happen, but he under threw it allowing the chasing LB to get a hand on it causing it to deflect off WR hands. The thing I want to see D. Smith improve on game to game is taking care of the ball while running. I have no complaints on throws as the errors he made were 100 % technical and due to him being amped up. I agree if he plays early and gets reps from day 1 we win at least 2 games. I saw once for sure that Carlos Harris had to tell D. Smith what the play was towards the end of the game. I quit watching the defense and only fast forwarded to the offensive possessions. I will re watch tomorrow AM, BUT my team had a HS game last night so I didnt get home till 10:30 and tried to watch what I could. I do like what I saw from the offense, and would like to see Chris Miles either get better in a hurry, or be replaced several times his end went right by him and was chasing D. Smith before he could even set his feet.

untjim1995 · October 16, 2015

I thought he showed lots of flashes of greatness, but he showed even more rust from being wasted on the sidelines. I can see clearly why his style of play irritated McCarney so much--very modern QB that makes plays with his feet and arm...or basically the complete opposite of the McNulty Busdriver he adored.

I think we would have beaten SMU with Damarcus Smith in the lineup, but I'm not sure if the team would have beaten Portland State or not, with the defense we are throwing out there. Keep in mind, that this is easily the worst defense we have fielded since the heart of the Dodge years, yet it took SMU three quarters to get anything of major note going on us. That's why we knew that losing to that squad was going to be very ominous to the rest of the season, a season that right now could really, really use this crazy thing called a bye week. But the greatest AD of all time didn't give us one this season, so playing the best team in our conference 5 days after suffering the worst loss in modern FBS football history, while breaking in a new QB and a new coach, went about how we expected it to go.

The upside is that just like in the Dodge years, most of the time that we suffer an ass-kicking, at least the offense should be more exciting to watch. UTSA will beat us, since we are their rag doll, so it will be up to UTEP to hopefully mail it in at the end of the year when they come here after Turkey Day to play us. UTSA just dominated UTEP in El Paso a couple of weeks ago, so I figure that should be our one hope for a victory.

Just to emphasize how awful this entire program is at this point, the average score of one of our games is now 50-17. That includes an FCS school, a team that was the absolute worst FBS team last year in SMU, another team that was the worst team in FBS in 2012 and 2013 in USM, then Rice, Iowa, and WKU. Its not an exaggeration to say that this team would challenge the 2008 Dodge team that went 1-11 and beat 0-12 WKU as its only win, as the worst team we have fielded since we moved back up in 1995. I am fairly certain that our last I-aa team in 1994, with Mitch Maher as our QB, would probably have beaten most of our teams we have rolled out since then.

MeanGreenHoops · October 16, 2015

We get Smith for one more year after this season ends. I think he's better than Dajon, but his garbage time stat padding reminded me of Dajon against La Tech and Indiana's backups. D Smith gets 6 more games, but 4 are on the road.

Curious as to why you think he's better than Dajon? He didn't make really bone-headed decisions?

MeanGreenTexan · October 16, 2015

Y'all,
Did you SEE that 50-yd bomb to Kidsey just before halftime? Can anyone else on the roster make that throw? Wow.

I have several observations on Damarcus from the 3 quarters I was there.

1. He's inconsistent when throwing on the run... and he threw on the run about 75% of the time. Several times, his running throws hit the floor about 5 yds in front of his receiver. When he sets his feet, he's lethal (see that Kidsey hail mary). He needs to recognize when he has a split second to stop running and set his feet to throw, even if it means taking a hit, otherwise the inconsistency will continue. This is VERY coachable. I expect this to improve.
2. My adopted player, Marcus Smith, let him down several times with passes that a dude who some were thinking had NFL aspirations should catch. They were not hitting him right in the numbers, but they were bouncing off of his hands. Marcus Smith needs to improve pass catching, and that's difficult to do. Hopefully he can work with Damarcus and get on the same page. Maybe it would help. Otherwise, he needs to get off the field and Loving needs more chances. There have been multiple passes to Marcus from McNulty that were plain dropped as well.
3. It was great to see that many plays go so far downfield. This opens up the run game for Wilson.
4. I was way wrong about his running ability. I thought, just from watching his Butler highlights, that he was more of a Romo-type pocket scrambler. Didn't know he was so effective going downhill as well. It's great to see a guy who can execute the read option, and not just hand off every single time like his predecessor. That fake keeper in the 2nd quarter where he faked a run, then stepped back into the pocket to pass fooled everyone, but he threw into double-coverage and missed his man deep. I hope to see more of that (not the throw into double-coverage though).
5. I'm glad he and Carlos finally hit (twice!) in the 4th quarter. Early on, they just could not connect, even on a pass in the flat. It's going to be imperative that these two get on the same page quickly if we're going to have any chance of winning games.

Ben Gooding · October 16, 2015

Curious as to why you think he's better than Dajon? He didn't make really bone-headed decisions?

D Smith is better than DW. There is no denying that. D Smith has superior arm strength, pocket awareness, field vision and up to this point decision making. Going off of playing time at North Texas, DW is probably more accurate, but I think that is slightly skewed because we don't have very much data on Smith and because Smith literally was in his first start 12 hours ago. The drops mixed with that 40 yd Goree catch that was called back made Smith's (decent) stats look far worse than what they really were.

17/35 228 yds 4 td 1 int 122 rush yds is very good. If WR's could catch the ball you are easily looking at...23/35 275-295 yds 4td 1int. 122 rush yds. He gives us anything close to that in 12 games next year we win more than we lose and that is exciting.

BillySee58 · October 16, 2015

Curious as to why you think he's better than Dajon? He didn't make really bone-headed decisions?

It's only one game, so he hasn't proven he is a better decision maker, yet. I do think he sees the field better and he looks like the game is moving slower than Dajon made it look. Dajon wasn't ready for that speed. Part of that is that Dajon was a redshirt freshman, and Smith is in his fifth year out of high school. Smith also has a stronger arm, although Dajon had a good one too, and I think Smith is a better runner (don't know who's necessarily faster). Smith's accuracy issue is a big one, though.

Cerebus · October 16, 2015

DSmith had 2-1 TD to Turnover ratio last night. I expect most of the rest of the year it will be closer to 1-1 than 2-1. However, there is no one else on the roster who could do that.

Roll with him through what is going to be a rough six games and we might have a good D1 QB by the end of the year.

MGNation92 · October 16, 2015

I'm hoping I'm not the only one who caught Chico's press conference comment about the receivers dropping balls. Said something along the lines of "They're gonna have to get used to catching the ball this fast, they're not used to the ball hitting them so quickly." Straight up dogging McNuggets. I loved it

GMG24 · October 16, 2015

I didn't watch the entire game (got home late from work / watched Dallas Stars) but what I saw form D. Smith didn't look all that great. I mostly watched the third quarter and turned away after the fumble. So good to see that his actual stats improved, albeit against the backups.
Still wish D. Williams had not transferred. I feel like D. Williams has more potential / is more ready than D. Smith. But not doubt D. Smith is the guy for the rest of the year.
How many years do we get S. Smith?
I would be all in in putting Dillman in for a look at QB. As another poster said, but your best athletes in there. Also what is the deal on C. Means?

They did not put many backups in on Defense until very late in the game.