For My Own Sanity.........

FirefightnRick · September 7, 2007

I'm not even including the two outright holds on the outside during the first two td's that OU scored(Weathers and Roman) that at least should have postponed those two scores if even for one more play, each. But I posted these two pictures above to show one of the MANY things(a lack of your own execution, included) you have to overcome when you play the top conferences in their house. I'm not making excuses for our poor play, I'm not blaming the refs and I'm not blaming Quoner for wanting to touch me this saturday. But after re-watching the game frame by frame I couldn't help but notice that as bad as that game went for the Mean Green there are some positives to take away from it.

I know our D played poorly most of the day but as has been said, a lot of it can be corrected and I believe they will. The above frames are when OU scored their 3rd TD on us. It was on a 4th and goal from the 2 yard line and you can clearly see the OU RB's knee was down as Mahan and Stevenson put him on the ground long before he got to the goal line. From this, I felt our run defense truly held their own for much of the first half considering it was hitting possibly the largest O line in the nation. Even still, on this play it took OU 4 downs and a gift from the sideline judge in order to put the 21st point on the board.

I've seen it before what a goal line stand can do for a defense. I only wished we would have gotten the chance to see? Our next posession we drove for 19 yards and one 1st down then Spencer punted OU back to their own 13 yard line, which they then coughed it up right back to us on their own 18. However, due to a missed block and an errant pass we miss a wide open Stickler across the middle where he could have walked into the endzone. That was three simple plays, one by the refs, and two by us that didn't go our way yet would have had us at only 14-7 late in the 1st quarter and possibly a completely different game at that point?

As for the offense overall, you can point to nearly all of the first 5 drives for NT on offense and see ONE person not getting his assignment and causing the play to go south for us. One guy misses his block and it's a loss. Then HE would get his man and the dude next to him misses his? Considering how very much outmanned we were in speed and size and the fact that we as a program are starting from complete scratch, I feel this team will come together eventually and show it's full potential.

Like I said, this is for my sanity. Many may not agree with me and that's ok. I'm always looking for the positives to take away from each game.

Rick

Edited September 7, 2007 by FirefightnRick

TheTastyGreek · September 7, 2007

Now I kind of want to touch you on Saturday, too. Group hug?

Seriously... good post. Didn't realize this had happened. Posts like this (and of course all the juvenile humor) are what make me love GMG.com.

Edited September 7, 2007 by TheTastyGreek

greenminer · September 7, 2007

I don't recall seeing those white circles on TV. How did the refs miss that?! BS!!!!!!

I don't blame Quoner for anything.

Cr1028 · September 7, 2007

BCS bias. Tonight, MTSU you didn't play well on offense, it was the fact that Louisville's D was playing poorly. A mid-major can't do anything, the BCS school has to play poorly for us to win. If they played well, we couldn't possibly hold a candle according to the so-called "experts".

MeanGreengdub · September 7, 2007

Nice observation. I went ahead and copied those pics and sent them to my OU friends. Although I'm a big OU fan myself, my Mean Green come first.

untcampbell · September 7, 2007

We were discussing this when it happened, watching at a friend's party.

Again, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't make that much difference but in a rout of this magnitude, I disagree with Coach. 59-10 is better than 79-10 and a few plays called correctly delay scores for them, add points for us, etc.

OU needed no help from the refs, and I really find it hard to believe they didn't see the knee touch.

MeanGreenSig · September 7, 2007

Quoner I propose a name change:

FFRoner

:lol: :lol:

PerryG2480 · September 7, 2007

I thought for a second that the RB's other arm might be stretched out with the ball breaking the plane. However, this angle shows that it was not the case. From RJY's site.