What to make of this game. A painful dose of reality, but there were good things too

[outoftown]

I have wildly conflicting thoughts on this game.

1) This felt like a major letdown performance by a fairly young team. One has to wonder if they last weeks win had them psychologically feeling like they could take more risks than they could, a hallmark of youth. Being this young wee were probably due a down game

2) What is true for the team is also true for QB Mason Fine. both INTs are completely on him, that fumble also. He started getting significantly better in the 4th quarter, and then of course he showed how shifty he is. His mistakes killed us, but his upside almost brought us back into the game. Then again he (and the coaches) also showed less than perfect clock management at the end. I fear that one dose of reality we have to take from this is, that freshmen growing pains really are painful to fans. There were lots of banging your head against the table moments. Overall I feel he was not put in a great position to succeed today, but also reacted worse than he should have.

3) The defense missed a few more tackles than usually, but also was on the field a lot, and put into bad field position often. It just so happens to be the first time they could not get a turnover of their own. I guess that streak was bound to tend too. Overall this loss is not on the defense, which seems just to be solid. Today it would have had to be stellar -not just solid - to win us the game.

4)All of our turnovers were of the self-inflicted and stupid variety (no unfortunate deflections or so). That needs to stop immediately and I am sure the coaches will have a long session taking to the responsible parties about that this week.

5) On another note: we were in this game. Considering what all went wrong that is remarkable. Things went wrong on our offense, we had four turnovers and our defense couldn't get any...and yet, if 3 minutes before the end the refs don't call back that TD (which I am sure not all referree crews would have) we 'd be having a very real shot at getting this to overtime. The potential to overcome -4 in turnovers is not coming out of nowhere. It is due to consistent defense and increased explosiveness on offense (although methodological offense was comlpetely missing today.). But it is very hard to win when you are -4 on turnovers.

6) I feel like our coaches made some mistakes they didn't always make this season. It seemed that we took the wrong lessons from the last few games. In those games UNT had success running after we had forced teams to not overly stack the box by completing a number of passes early. Today we started running from the outset, it did not work because UTSA was primarily concerned with stopping that. We tried some passes in the first half, but couldn't complete partially because we were in third and long when we did try and it was kind of clear what was to come.

7) Also, they need to practice the two minute offense with Fine some more. There was a lack of awareness of the urgency of the situation.

8) There is little reason to believe that this performance characterises this team better than the performance we saw against army. Particularly the younger players will probably learn an important lesson from this loss.

9) Sadly enough this is another blown opportunity to create momentum with fans. The narrative of being on a three game winning streak when going into homecoming would have been completely different. But seeing as it is less than 50% probable that UNT beats La Tech, maybe that is ok. Having all the 'on the fence' fans around when we finally have a big home win is probably what till hook them into coming more frequently, while losing in those big spots is what makes them skeptical of giving UNT football a chance for some time.

Edited October 30, 2016 by outoftown

[jacksondf]

Bad blocking and turnovers were the difference.  

I'm not worried.  We are heading in the right direction.  

[EagleMBA]

I had a bad feeling about this game (I posted my fears as early as Monday) and I'm sorry to say they came true. Maybe they needed a good kick in the nuts to get focused for LaTech; that game will present an opportunity for big-time redemption.

At the end of the day, I would trade a nUTSAck loss for a LaTech win.

Edited October 30, 2016 by EagleMBA

[KingDL1]

I am wondering if Fine has a hurt hand, I have seen him throw bullets 30+ yards deep with precision. Yet today he lost grip in his throwing hand that turned into a fumble, his throws were off, and as Dwayne pointed out Fine's passing looked off last week also.  

[outoftown]

Just now, KingDL1 said:

I am wondering if Fine has a hurt hand, I have seen him throw bullets 30+ yards deep with precision. Yet today he lost grip in his throwing hand that turned into a fumble, his throws were off, and as Dwayne pointed out Fine's passing looked off last week also.  

Its possible.He has taken a lot of hits this season.

[rws69]

Clock management at end of first half may have cost us the game.

[NorthTexan95]

The biggest problem was ... again ... the offensive line.  We couldn't run the ball and Fine was under pressure most of the night.  Both interceptions, while bad passes, occurred when Fine was under pressure.  We couldn't get enough push to score inside the one yard line. Wilson's fumble was because he was trying to do too much ... because the oline didn't give him a chance.  

Fine, while under a lot of pressure, did not handle it well at times.  He's one tough kid but he doesn't seem to have progressed over the last month.  He needs more help from the rest of the offense.  Hopefully we can recruit a quarterback or two who will push him and take over if they are better.  I don't think we need to bench him right now ... I don't think we need to rotate quarterbacks ... but he needs to improve if we're going to get any better.  What we've seen so far isn't going to keep him starting next year when hopefully we'll have a choice.    

[EagleMBA]

2 minutes ago, KingDL1 said:

I am wondering if Fine has a hurt hand, I have seen him throw bullets 30+ yards deep with precision. Yet today he lost grip in his throwing hand that turned into a fumble, his throws were off, and as Dwayne pointed out Fine's passing looked off last week also.  

No info, just speculation...it is not uncommon for quarterbacks to whack their hands on opponents' helmets on the followthrough while passing. That is the first thing I thought of when this observation was made.

[KingDL1]

10 minutes ago, EagleMBA said:

I had a bad feeling about this game (I posted my fears as early as Monday) and I'm sorry to say they came true. Maybe they needed a good kick in the nuts to get focused for LaTech; that game will present an opportunity for big-time redemption.

Tom I think you Jinxed us.

[NorthTexan95]

3 minutes ago, rws69 said:

Clock management at end of first half may have cost us the game.

Not being able to crack a hole for Wilson to run one yard was a bigger issue.  However, I agree with you that it wasn't handled well.  They should have taken another time out earlier to save tiem. 

[El Paso Eagle]

1 minute ago, KingDL1 said:

I am wondering if Fine has a hurt hand, I have seen him throw bullets 30+ yards deep with precision. Yet today he lost grip in his throwing hand that turned into a fumble, his throws were off, and as Dwayne pointed out Fine's passing looked off last week also.  

If he's hurt and the coaches are not giving us the best chance to win then shame on them. I keep hearing people say how no one expected this team to win 4 games and how we should be happy. You know what; when you start out on something and you find out you are ahead of schedule you have a couple of choices -

1) you sit back and talk about how happy we are and how we will get them next year

2) You RAISE THE BAR. Play every game to win.

Sorry but when it comes to Fine it seems the coaches have one set of rules for the other 21 starters (if you don't perform or you not playing well we will sub you out) and another standard for Fine.

2 minutes ago, NorthTexan95 said:

The biggest problem was ... again ... the offensive line.  We couldn't run the ball and Fine was under pressure most of the night.  Both interceptions, while bad passes, occurred when Fine was under pressure.  We couldn't get enough push to score inside the one yard line. Wilson's fumble was because he was trying to do too much ... because the oline didn't give him a chance.  

Fine, while under a lot of pressure, did not handle it well at times.  He's one tough kid but he doesn't seem to have progressed over the last month.  He needs more help from the rest of the offense.  Hopefully we can recruit a quarterback or two who will push him and take over if they are better.  I don't think we need to bench him right now ... I don't think we need to rotate quarterbacks ... but he needs to improve if we're going to get any better.  What we've seen so far isn't going to keep him starting next year when hopefully we'll have a choice.    

If you have a struggling O-line and you add in a QB that the other team does not have to respect his passing you have a recipe for disaster.  

[outoftown]

8 minutes ago, El Paso Eagle said:

If he's hurt and the coaches are not giving us the best chance to win then shame on them. I keep hearing people say how no one expected this team to win 4 games and how we should be happy. You know what; when you start out on something and you find out you are ahead of schedule you have a couple of choices -

1) you sit back and talk about how happy we are and how we will get them next year

2) You RAISE THE BAR. Play every game to win.

Sorry but when it comes to Fine it seems the coaches have one set of rules for the other 21 starters (if you don't perform or you not playing well we will sub you out) and another standard for Fine.

Yea, I kind of agree that Morris should have come in for a series or two. just to make the point to Fine that you cant repeatedly have these kind of mistakes without coming out for a bit.

On the other hand it is dangerous messing with a QBs confidence.

Edited October 30, 2016 by outoftown

[KingDL1]

1 minute ago, El Paso Eagle said:

If he's hurt and the coaches are not giving us the best chance to win then shame on them. I keep hearing people say how no one expected this team to win 4 games and how we should be happy. You know what; when you start out on something and you find out you are ahead of schedule you have a couple of choices -

1) you sit back and talk about how happy we are and how we will get them next year

2) You RAISE THE BAR. Play every game to win.

Sorry but when it comes to Fine it seems the coaches have one set of rules for the other 21 starters (if you don't perform or you not playing well we will sub you out) and another standard for Fine.

Don't know just speculating. Fine may still give us our best chances in the eyes of the coaches. To know that you would have to be at practice.

At times you might want to remember we are a very very young team with brand new staff and a brand new system with what was it only 68 scholarships? Learning on all levels.

[EagleMBA]

1 minute ago, KingDL1 said:

Tom I think you Jinxed us.

I fear it is true, Tony. I shall have to ignore bad feelings in future and concentrate on good feelings, like pick-6s and such.

For my pennance, I will sign off now, drink a couple of glasses of cheap red wine, and force myself to watch an old episode of "Dr. Who".

[El Paso Eagle]

2 minutes ago, outoftown said:

Yea, I kind of agree that Morris should have come in for a series or two. just to make the point to Fine hat you cant repeatedly have these kind of mistakes without coming out for a bit.

On the other hand it is dangerous messing with a QBs confidence.

I might agree if team after team was not doing it. Look at UT and their True Freshman.

[PlummMeanGreen]

19 minutes ago, EagleMBA said:

I had a bad feeling about this game (I posted my fears as early as Monday) and I'm sorry to say they came true. Maybe they needed a good kick in the nuts to get focused for LaTech; that game will present an opportunity for big-time redemption.

At the end of the day, I would trade a nUTSAck loss for a LaTech win.

All week long I had a bad feeling about this game, too, EagleMBA.

LaTech? It's why we play the game, folks.

See y'all at Apogee!

GMG!

[KingDL1]

4 minutes ago, EagleMBA said:

I fear it is true, Tony. I shall have to ignore bad feelings in future and concentrate on good feelings, like pick-6s and such.

For my pennance, I will sign off now, drink a couple of glasses of cheap red wine, and force myself to watch an old episode of "Dr. Who".

Stock up on the Mean Green Kool-Aid also :)