Game thoughts

[edcollopy]

Mooney has an undisclosed injury, that is why he didn’t kick. I too wondered why we run only in the A gaps. It gets really old. 

[Danish43]

Nobody mentioned about the RS Freshman Johnson from Lubbock, he had some great runs.

[El Paso Eagle]

13 minutes ago, edcollopy said:

 I too wondered why we run only in the A gaps. It gets really old. 

I am hoping the plan was to keep it as basic as possible

[RBP79]

We were thinking that " no interception" and the that messy 5 minutes were pay back for what appeared to be a blown call by the refs on the side line TD they viewed as out of bounds. The replays seemed to show he was inbounds when he caught it. Ahhh CUSA officiating.....it comes back to me now.

[TheColonyEagle]

1 hour ago, DeepGreen said:

I didn't watch until the 2nd half but what I did see concerns me.  No defense.  This was Houston Baptist, a relative new program, who started FCS football just a few years ago.  Our line play is concerning.

Like the O Line reviews...I don't really get the "no defense" comments...

HBU has a really good offense. I believe I saw their QB was 2nd last year in passing in all of FCS.

We complained the past few years about giving up big plays so we kept everything in front of us. We only gave up 1 big play with starters in that I can recall. (the busted slant) We kept them between the 20s and held in the red zone. Last year we were one of the worst in the red zone. HBU was one of the best.

We were up by 40, 57-17 in the 4th quarter before they got 2 late TDs against our 3rd and 4th string.

We tackled better than we have in years last night. I don't know if that's something we're stressing but their tackling was excellent.

We actually made adjustments! 

I thought our secondary looks big. And Gaddie looks like he is going to be good. He nearly had 2 picks he jumped and they basically quit throwing to his side.

As for a lack of pressure....we only rushed 3 all night but rushing more wouldn't have helped...they got rid of the ball too fast. So the scheme was right for that offense.

I'm not saying this is 2001 but I saw some reason for optimism last night.

[Greendylan]

6 hours ago, NT91 said:

I hope SMU doesn’t hang 40 on us.

I would be ecstatic if they only scored 40 on us.

[97and03]

To add to the above, I thought we committed too many penalties. Hopefully just a game 1 thing only. 

[Side Show Joe]

4 hours ago, TheColonyEagle said:

I guess I don't understand the negative reviews of the O line....

New Oline

New coaches

we rushed for over 300 yards

our QBs were barely touched all night

I'm not going to confuse them with Wisconsin but I'm not sure what they could've done much better in their first game.....

Too much of our offensive production came in the second half, after the smaller and undermanned HBU defense had been worn out. North Texas only had 23 points at halftime. While our pass protection was descent, the run blocking was not good enough in the first half of the game, before the HBU defense became exhausted. The o-line has been our offense's achilles heel since Littrell got to North Texas. It needs to get fixed.

[TheColonyEagle]

2 minutes ago, Side Show Joe said:

Too much of our offensive production came in the second half, after the smaller and undermanned HBU defense had been worn out. North Texas only had 23 points at halftime. While our pass protection was descent, the run blocking was not good enough in the first half of the game, before the HBU defense became exhausted. The o-line has been our offense's achilles heel since Littrell got to North Texas. It needs to get fixed.

You mean the first half with a rebuilt OLine, new OLine coach, Sophomore QB making his first start, new OC?

That first half?

And then in the second half they meshed a little and showed FBS depth vs an FCS team?

That second half?

[DCSP]

I like #97.  Was fun watching him especially a couple times there in the 2nd quarter.  I'm gonna go back and look at the interior D Line on the re-play if i can find it somewhere.  He is a large Human.  When they got those 'everybody but the center' penalties, I liked to credit it to 97 and the folks that replaced him there.  

 

It was fun to be back in Apogee.     GMG.

[TheColonyEagle]

27 minutes ago, Side Show Joe said:

Too much of our offensive production came in the second half, after the smaller and undermanned HBU defense had been worn out. North Texas only had 23 points at halftime. While our pass protection was descent, the run blocking was not good enough in the first half of the game, before the HBU defense became exhausted. The o-line has been our offense's achilles heel since Littrell got to North Texas. It needs to get fixed.

Also, with that standard, you must think our D is amazing. They gave up 2 touchdowsn through 3+ quarters and one was on a short field.

Edited September 6, 2020 by TheColonyEagle

[southsideguy]

Why do our 3rd and 4th team always look like they have never even practice.   I understand they are on the third and fourth team but this year and last year when they find their way on the field they seem a little lost.   It was late in the game HBU is worn down but they score so quick and easy.  

[TheColonyEagle]

2 minutes ago, southsideguy said:

Why do our 3rd and 4th team always look like they have never even practice.   I understand they are on the third and fourth team but this year and last year when they find their way on the field they seem a little lost.   It was late in the game HBU is worn down but they score so quick and easy.  

They had their all conference QB still in

And that's the first time a lot of those kids have ever stepped foot on a college football stadium....

[Greendylan]

4 minutes ago, TheColonyEagle said:

They had their all conference QB still in

And that's the first time a lot of those kids have ever stepped foot on a college football stadium....

To add to this, it looked to me like the defensive formations late in the game were meant to be risky and put DBs on an island, presumably to test those 3rd and 4th team players.

[TheColonyEagle]

Just now, Greendylan said:

To add to this, it looked to me like the defensive formations late in the game were meant to be risky and put DBs on an island, presumably to test those 3rd and 4th team players.

I actually hope that was the case.....give them more experience

[El Paso Eagle]

As I said earlier, HOPEFULLY, we were being as basic as possible and "playing down" to our level of competition (which has been a concern under Seth).

A couple of comments -

Our D has a lot of work to do. I cannot not understand what we were giving such large buffers from the start. There seems to have been multiple plays where we were 7-10 yards off. I understand showing some respect, but their talent level was not that high.

That being said:

As far as HBU, they are a good offense. Zappe had about 150 of his yards on the two late TDs when they had their first team in and we were 3-3 deep or more. Will be interesting to see how they do against the Techs (TX and LA). Also, keep in mind, they are playing three game in the fall. I doubt they were holding back anything.

 

[Side Show Joe]

2 hours ago, TheColonyEagle said:

You mean the first half with a rebuilt OLine, new OLine coach, Sophomore QB making his first start, new OC?

That first half?

And then in the second half they meshed a little and showed FBS depth vs an FCS team?

That second half?

Yes and yes. I thought I made that clear. In the first half, I felt the o-line didn't open holes for our talented RBs. In the second half, the undermanned HBU defense was just too worn down.  We won't have that advantage against FBS programs like SMU. Any Mean Green fan that doesn't have concerns is in for some disappointment this season. Just for reference... last year we opened the season by beating FCS program ACU 51-31. That is too similar to last night's 57-31 win, and we all know how 2019 played out.

Obviously, we have different perspectives of how we view the current state of our offense. But, maybe we can agree on one thing.... If our o-line rolls through SMU's defense next week, I will be happy to revisit this thread and eat some crow. But, if SMU's defense dominates our o-line, will you be willing to do the same?

[Side Show Joe]

1 hour ago, TheColonyEagle said:

Also, with that standard, you must think our D is amazing. They gave up 2 touchdowsn through 3+ quarters and one was on a short field.

No. I never wanted Bowen to be our DC. I think his defense looked terrible last night. We gave up over 400 yards passing, and more yards and points than any other team playing in Week 1. Bowen's defense didn't record a 3-and-out until the 3rd quarter. That is totally unacceptable.

[TheColonyEagle]

55 minutes ago, Side Show Joe said:

But, if SMU's defense dominates our o-line, will you be willing to do the same?

Yes

[NorthTexasSportsNetwork]

8 hours ago, RBP79 said:

We were thinking that " no interception" and the that messy 5 minutes were pay back for what appeared to be a blown call by the refs on the side line TD they viewed as out of bounds. The replays seemed to show he was inbounds when he caught it. Ahhh CUSA officiating.....it comes back to me now.

That was a possession review not inbounds. If that’s what we are both talking about. The play in the left corner of the south endzone

[untjim1995]

9 hours ago, Greendylan said:

I would be ecstatic if they only scored 40 on us.

Yeah, HBU scored 31. I’ll be shocked if they have less than 50.

[untjim1995]

7 hours ago, southsideguy said:

Why do our 3rd and 4th team always look like they have never even practice.   I understand they are on the third and fourth team but this year and last year when they find their way on the field they seem a little lost.   It was late in the game HBU is worn down but they score so quick and easy.  

We heard the exact same stuff last year after we beat ACU. We let off the gas when we had our 3rd and 4th team on the field  on defense. They had a great QB to take advantage of that...it’ll be different against SMU...

And then we got smoked and the season pretty well faded as we got into October and had absolutely no defense or OL play.

SL is  disciple of Leach and a follower of Briles’ offensive strategies. Always has been. And those two guys never have given defense even a moment of priority. SL’s tenure here has been no different. We win if our QB play is great, we get some turnovers or special teams help, and generally out score our opponent. And in CUSA West, especially the Texas teams, that hasn’t been hard to do. But when we play teams with size and talent on offense, we usually get beat.  His defensive strategy is just what those other two have said—get me a couple of stops a game and I’ll win by outscoring you.  So to expect a defense here to be much different than what we have seen in the previous 4 years, seems either naive or just ignorant.

[TechBulldog11]

On 9/6/2020 at 5:08 AM, meangreen11 said:

Bean looked the best.

D sucked.

Addaway is a player.

Zappy may be the best QB we face other than Shane.

I watched the first half of y'alls game and would just say I would not worry about your defense yet.

 

They were dinking and dunking all game. Cheap yardage. Why do anything about that? First game against HBU, no need to press and get creative. That brings me to my second point: I am sure you were playing base defense all night. Why show blitzes and schemes against HBU?

[UNTLifer]

2 minutes ago, TechBulldog11 said:

I watched the first half of y'alls game and would just say I would not worry about your defense yet.

 

They were dinking and dunking all game. Cheap yardage. Why do anything about that? First game against HBU, no need to press and get creative. That brings me to my second point: I am sure you were playing base defense all night. Why show blitzes and schemes against HBU?

But to think about this logically would eliminate the need to fret and wring our hands.

[MeanGreen_MBA]

3 minutes ago, TechBulldog11 said:

I watched the first half of y'alls game and would just say I would not worry about your defense yet.

 

They were dinking and dunking all game. Cheap yardage. Why do anything about that? First game against HBU, no need to press and get creative. That brings me to my second point: I am sure you were playing base defense all night. Why show blitzes and schemes against HBU?

Finally, a man of reason. The sky is not falling. HBU does this to everybody. We kept them between the 20’s for the most part. They got 2 late TD’s in the 4th after we were up +40 points.