Thoughts on the Troy game

[UNTstormchaser]

For anyone interested, here are my thoughts on tonight's loss. I'm no football connoisseur, but I'd like to think that I know a hell of a lot more than the average student in attendance.

1) The offensive playcalling was the strangest combination of overly aggressive and incredibly predictable that I've ever seen, and that was one of the reasons for the loss.

2) Our special teams coach needs to be fired tonight, for a few reasons.

3) Derek Thompson is the epitome of inconsistency and unpredictability at the QB position.

4) The D looked really good for the most part.

5) I predict we drop 50 on FAU next week.

So, I'll go one by one and explain myself for each of them.

1) I'm being completely serious when I say that the playcalling tonight was the strangest I've ever witnessed in a football game. I'm sure there have been plenty of stranger instances, but the playcalling tonight really stood out to me.

Firstly, our first down playcalling was ridiculously conservative and predictable, save for the one flea flicker later in the game, and probably a couple other minor instances. Outside of that, we literally did a safe run play every first down. I understand that Thompson was sucking, but if you're going to run the same crap over and over again, the other team is going to get wise to it, and they'll find a way to stop it. If you noticed, this is exactly what happened as the game went on. Drive after drive, the offense stalled out because of a crappy first down run that put us in tougher passing situations where we had to go with our weakest parts of the playbook in order to have a chance at getting the first down. I'm certainly not suggesting that we should have thrown the ball more often, but damn it guys, mix it up a bit more often on first down.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, our playcalling was wayyyy tooooo aggressive a lot of the time. The obvious ones are the two 4th downs we went for (WE SHOULD HAVE KICKED PEOPLE...Olen misses a 40 and a 47 yarder and gets yanked? What the hell? It isn't like he shanked an extra point again...), but one can just as easily question the motives behind calling about 5 trick plays in a single game. I felt like I was watching a futuristic game of Madden at times with all the reverses, double passes, etc. I loooove trick plays, but one or two in a game is enough, and the following week you shouldn't call any....there is a reason they're called "trick" plays.

I mean, overall, I didn't mind the playcalling. I like how we went with the running game a lot when it was working. I don't like that we made the run game predictable. And I certainly don't like ridiculous unnecessary aggression that probably cost us the game.

2) After last week, I was absolutely not on the "BURN ANYTHING THAT HAS TO DO WITH SPECIAL TEAMS" bandwagon, but I am now. Seriously, there are so many ridiculous flaws that should be an embarrassment for a D1 football team, let alone one that's trying to re-establish themselves as relevant in both this state and the country.

What was up with Chancellor tonight??? It was like someone stripped him of his manhood before the game. Offensively he looked really good. On special teams, he was worthless. Since I doubt that he was so fearful of Troy that he suddenly became a passive player, we need to look at the coaches. Why the hell would they tell him to be so passive? Fair catches on punts where guys were literally 10 yards away from him, AFTER HE GATHERED AND SECURED THE BALL. Why???? A few times it was necessary. There were just as many times where everyone around me sighed in disbelief at his lack of aggression on returns. And what about early in the game when he just watched as the line drive punts rolled by him to give us 10-20 yards worse field position...perhaps he could have just grabbed it and fell on the ball??? So frustrating. Someone with his world class speed needs to have the freedom to run whenever he has an opportunity to, and being passive on returns is not going to help that cause at all.

The kicking game was really bad. A botched extra point last week may not be the coaches' faults, but going 0-3 on field goals, yanking the starting kicker to put in someone who had a hard time reaching from 35, etc., really makes the coaches start to look bad. Couple that in with the fact that we've already allowed multiple return TD's (including kickoffs and punts) this season, and a slew of other minor to moderate level concerns and such that are too numerous to remember and list, and I'm starting to point the finger towards the sidelines. Since I don't know how much control the STC has over everything, how much control McCarney has, whether the players we have are just plain not good at special teams and have no hope at being coached up, or whatever else you can think of, I can't place my blame solely on one guy. But I think a good target is the ST coordinator, so that's who is getting my wrath here. Fire him.

3) I think we're all in agreement that Thompson sucked tonight. He threw a few really good balls during the game, but outside of the few that were solid, he looked like shit. There is no covering that up. He looked timid, and honestly threw better while on the run than while standing in the pocket with no one around him. Last week, he looked fantastic. He looked promising against LSU. But, he sucked against Texas Southern and Troy. It doesn't make sense, I've tried to make sense of it and I just cannot. Maybe one of you guys can tell me how the same person that went 25-28 on the road at a top 15 team can suck bad enough to go under 50% passing against an average Sun Belt team, because I can't figure that out. This is certainly an alarming and urgent problem, as without good QB play, we go nowhere this year.

4) On a more positive note, the D played really well again. They pressured the Troy QBs, they made some plays in the secondary...overall, they really looked good again. I feel like the D is absolutely the strong point of the team right now; all four weeks I've been impressed. Other than a couple of things, I really feel confident in the defense going forward this season. The only things that worry me are that we cannot stop a screen to save our lives, even when a team runs multiple plays multiple times each in one game, and that a lot of the guys still seem to hit instead of tackle. I think the tackling looked better this week, but there were still instances where terrible technique resulted in missed/broken tackles, or the ball carrier getting an extra couple of yards after contact.

5) I'm serious about this last one. I feel like McCarney is going to put these guys through a week of hell and they will come out focused, ready, and pissed, against FAU. Maybe 50 is excessive, but I think if given the opportunity, Mac will have no problem running up the score a wee bit. FAU is absolutely awful and if we lose next week, I don't know if I'll be sane again until basketball season starts.

Anyways, if anyone actually reads through all of this, I'd love to hear some thoughts and opinions about the game/what I said/whatever else one may want to put. Good night everyone, and Go Mean Green.

*before anyone makes a joke on the lack of a social life, the alcohol is on it's way, so I figured I'd make this while I'm waiting haha

[UNTexas]

I think the D played lights out awesome football.

The kickers were the worst I have ever seen at any level of football and I was a long snapper at UNT who pays attention to that aspect of the game more than most. The snaps, holds, and blocking were fine. Special teams is a third of a game and we sucked tonight and last weekend for that matter.

For goodness sake run a kickoff out or a punt.

Our QB is more on or off than anything I have ever seen, and I am a Cowboys fan.

I am shocked.

Edited September 23, 2012 by UNTexas

[Greenhorn]

I disagree on the number 2. A coach cant go out there and make a field goal.

As far as play calling, I noticed last two timeouts in the first half resulted in failed 3rd down conversions and the first timeout in the 2nd half resulted in a delay of game. Also, numerous times there were 8-9 guys in the box and a running play was ran.

DT is holding this offense back. He deserves credit for what he did last week, but tonight he was awful. He wasnt even giving the receivers a chance. This could play into why even when Troy packed the box, Canales called a run. It wont work though and you saw that tonight.

If Dereck can't keep a team honest, I expect to see the same results.

The running game and D played winning games today. The special teams and DT played awful.

[Green Crazy]

For anyone interested, here are my thoughts on tonight's loss. I'm no football connoisseur, but I'd like to think that I know a hell of a lot more than the average student in attendance.

1) The offensive playcalling was the strangest combination of overly aggressive and incredibly predictable that I've ever seen, and that was one of the reasons for the loss.

2) Our special teams coach needs to be fired tonight, for a few reasons.

3) Derek Thompson is the epitome of inconsistency and unpredictability at the QB position.

4) The D looked really good for the most part.

5) I predict we drop 50 on FAU next week.

So, I'll go one by one and explain myself for each of them.

1) I'm being completely serious when I say that the playcalling tonight was the strangest I've ever witnessed in a football game. I'm sure there have been plenty of stranger instances, but the playcalling tonight really stood out to me.

Firstly, our first down playcalling was ridiculously conservative and predictable, save for the one flea flicker later in the game, and probably a couple other minor instances. Outside of that, we literally did a safe run play every first down. I understand that Thompson was sucking, but if you're going to run the same crap over and over again, the other team is going to get wise to it, and they'll find a way to stop it. If you noticed, this is exactly what happened as the game went on. Drive after drive, the offense stalled out because of a crappy first down run that put us in tougher passing situations where we had to go with our weakest parts of the playbook in order to have a chance at getting the first down. I'm certainly not suggesting that we should have thrown the ball more often, but damn it guys, mix it up a bit more often on first down.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, our playcalling was wayyyy tooooo aggressive a lot of the time. The obvious ones are the two 4th downs we went for (WE SHOULD HAVE KICKED PEOPLE...Olen misses a 40 and a 47 yarder and gets yanked? What the hell? It isn't like he shanked an extra point again...), but one can just as easily question the motives behind calling about 5 trick plays in a single game. I felt like I was watching a futuristic game of Madden at times with all the reverses, double passes, etc. I loooove trick plays, but one or two in a game is enough, and the following week you shouldn't call any....there is a reason they're called "trick" plays.

I mean, overall, I didn't mind the playcalling. I like how we went with the running game a lot when it was working. I don't like that we made the run game predictable. And I certainly don't like ridiculous unnecessary aggression that probably cost us the game.

2) After last week, I was absolutely not on the "BURN ANYTHING THAT HAS TO DO WITH SPECIAL TEAMS" bandwagon, but I am now. Seriously, there are so many ridiculous flaws that should be an embarrassment for a D1 football team, let alone one that's trying to re-establish themselves as relevant in both this state and the country.

What was up with Chancellor tonight??? It was like someone stripped him of his manhood before the game. Offensively he looked really good. On special teams, he was worthless. Since I doubt that he was so fearful of Troy that he suddenly became a passive player, we need to look at the coaches. Why the hell would they tell him to be so passive? Fair catches on punts where guys were literally 10 yards away from him, AFTER HE GATHERED AND SECURED THE BALL. Why???? A few times it was necessary. There were just as many times where everyone around me sighed in disbelief at his lack of aggression on returns. And what about early in the game when he just watched as the line drive punts rolled by him to give us 10-20 yards worse field position...perhaps he could have just grabbed it and fell on the ball??? So frustrating. Someone with his world class speed needs to have the freedom to run whenever he has an opportunity to, and being passive on returns is not going to help that cause at all.

The kicking game was really bad. A botched extra point last week may not be the coaches' faults, but going 0-3 on field goals, yanking the starting kicker to put in someone who had a hard time reaching from 35, etc., really makes the coaches start to look bad. Couple that in with the fact that we've already allowed multiple return TD's (including kickoffs and punts) this season, and a slew of other minor to moderate level concerns and such that are too numerous to remember and list, and I'm starting to point the finger towards the sidelines. Since I don't know how much control the STC has over everything, how much control McCarney has, whether the players we have are just plain not good at special teams and have no hope at being coached up, or whatever else you can think of, I can't place my blame solely on one guy. But I think a good target is the ST coordinator, so that's who is getting my wrath here. Fire him.

3) I think we're all in agreement that Thompson sucked tonight. He threw a few really good balls during the game, but outside of the few that were solid, he looked like shit. There is no covering that up. He looked timid, and honestly threw better while on the run than while standing in the pocket with no one around him. Last week, he looked fantastic. He looked promising against LSU. But, he sucked against Texas Southern and Troy. It doesn't make sense, I've tried to make sense of it and I just cannot. Maybe one of you guys can tell me how the same person that went 25-28 on the road at a top 15 team can suck bad enough to go under 50% passing against an average Sun Belt team, because I can't figure that out. This is certainly an alarming and urgent problem, as without good QB play, we go nowhere this year.

4) On a more positive note, the D played really well again. They pressured the Troy QBs, they made some plays in the secondary...overall, they really looked good again. I feel like the D is absolutely the strong point of the team right now; all four weeks I've been impressed. Other than a couple of things, I really feel confident in the defense going forward this season. The only things that worry me are that we cannot stop a screen to save our lives, even when a team runs multiple plays multiple times each in one game, and that a lot of the guys still seem to hit instead of tackle. I think the tackling looked better this week, but there were still instances where terrible technique resulted in missed/broken tackles, or the ball carrier getting an extra couple of yards after contact.

5) I'm serious about this last one. I feel like McCarney is going to put these guys through a week of hell and they will come out focused, ready, and pissed, against FAU. Maybe 50 is excessive, but I think if given the opportunity, Mac will have no problem running up the score a wee bit. FAU is absolutely awful and if we lose next week, I don't know if I'll be sane again until basketball season starts.

Anyways, if anyone actually reads through all of this, I'd love to hear some thoughts and opinions about the game/what I said/whatever else one may want to put. Good night everyone, and Go Mean Green.

*before anyone makes a joke on the lack of a social life, the alcohol is on it's way, so I figured I'd make this while I'm waiting haha

i thought these two areas were lacking, i couldn't remember any pressure on the qb and whitfield was torched many times this game and only bad throws by their qb kept them from being noticed. overall the defense was good. until the end of the game they had only one good drive, which resulted in a td and one long play that accounted for their other td. our d kept them in check.

[trussbussdad]

Defense playing lights out..overstated. They play good at times. miss tackles could not be counted. Troy had nearly 400 yds total offense...no Defense did not play lights out...must disagree with you here.

Special teams....Missed pat's, missed fg's, on side kick recovery, kick off return for td.....yes....special teams needs an enema.

QB....NEVER THROW A BALL AWAY WITH 4TH DOWN IN OUR RED ZONE. We would have been better to throw into a crowd and force a play or take an interception, but to throw it in the stands????? Hope Berglund and /or the commit from Pflugerville "show up" to play ball. Thompson....GREAT KID...but as a qb...SLOW, and rag arm and like a box of chocolates...you never know what your going to get.

OL...there was alot of penetration and backs having to get yards after being hit behind the LOS.

Coaching...just as much as I would not want to be a player at practice next week, I would not want to be a coach in a meeting with Mac...play calling....was the guy sitting next to me and I the only ones that noticed that on first down, every Troy defender was within 7 yds of LOS? Not getting the correct personnel package on the field and burning a time out.

Not too late to turn this season around, but i am not as optimistic as i was a few weeks ago or even last week after a great showing against K st. FIU, W. Kentucky, Ark St., ULM, ULL, and then Houston...do not look promising right now.

Edited September 23, 2012 by trussbussdad

[VideoEagle]

Special teams play overall was terrible. But how often does ANY kicker make 47 year fired goals? Ithink it was a mistake pulling the experienced kicker for the 27 yarder. That led to no faith in field goals no matter the distance. From the post game interview, pulling the veteran kicker for a true Freshman and then abandoning the kicking game was a Caoch Mac decision. I think that was a mistake but not a firing one. He let his emotions make decisions instead of rationally think them through. You can't let one play cloud you thinking and must be ready for the next one.

[KRAM1]

Don't think I have ever been more disappointed leaving a game than I was last night. This was a MUCH needed win for the Mean Green and they just did not play well AT ALL. Don't know why...good and loud crowd and a home game. I think the fans and students pretty much did their part last night. I saw lots of "new faces" on the alumni side and in the Club Room area last evening, but what I saw on the field left me just drained. I feel really really bad for Zach Olen...great kid, great family...just in a bad game-day slump. Too bad Mac didn't give him that last FG try...might have made that and made all the difference in the world in his "head" going into the next game. As that's where the problem lies...always is with these kickers...sort of like golf, but I digress.

Needed this win in a bad way...cannot believe what I saw with special teams again last evening...why do we "fair catch" every punt even when the defenders are 7+ yards away when the ball is caught? How do we get caught napping on the on-sides kick? How do we pick up the personal foul penalty in the second half when driving for the tying score? How do we not have all the players on the field coming out of a time out...plus a TV time out? How do we overthrow receivers time and time again...wide open receivers I might add?

Very disappointed for the fans, the students and the players. these kids wanted that win as badly as anyone could and they worked their tails off in practice this last week...as they always do. No player or coach went out there to pretty much "lay an egg" in a crucial agme...win that game and the season sets up well for attendance and standings...lose it and well...we'll see.

Down on this team and coaching staff...NO WAY!!! Disappointed in what I saw last night at Apogee...ABSOLUTELY! Could not have come at a more crucial time for the Mean Green. BUT, good news is...another game next week. The sun came up this morning here over Apogee and the sky is not falling.

My bride and I will be back in our seats cheering for the Mean Green on Tuesday night....Oct. 16th. If this team and staff ever needed it's student body and fan base to "show up"...it needs the support on Oct. 16th. I'll be there...here's hoping you will be as well.

PS...Coach Mac...at Monday's Coach Mac Show, please don't tell us again about all the "skins on the wall" you and your staff have...please tell us what you plan to do to fix special teams and the offense. I have full faith in the fact that your staff can "right this ship", but let's concentrate on the "here and now" and not whatever past glory you and your staff had at places that don't mean a thing today! It's what's going on with our beloved Mean green that matter to us...talk to us about that...please and thanks.

[MeanGreenDan]

Defense playing lights out..overstated. They play good at times. miss tackles could not be counted. Troy had nearly 400 yds total offense...no Defense did not play lights out...must disagree with you here.

Special teams....Missed pat's, missed fg's, on side kick recovery, kick off return for td.....yes....special teams needs an enema.

QB....NEVER THROW A BALL AWAY WITH 4TH DOWN IN OUR RED ZONE. We would have been better to throw into a crowd and force a play or take an interception, but to throw it in the stands????? Hope Berglund and /or the commit from Pflugerville "show up" to play ball. Thompson....GREAT KID...but as a qb...SLOW, and rag arm and like a box of chocolates...you never know what your going to get.

OL...there was alot of penetration and backs having to get yards after being hit behind the LOS.

Coaching...just as much as I would not want to be a player at practice next week, I would not want to be a coach in a meeting with Mac...play calling....was the guy sitting next to me and I the only ones that noticed that on first down, every Troy defender was within 7 yds of LOS? Not getting the correct personnel package on the field and burning a time out.

Not too late to turn this season around, but i am not as optimistic as i was a few weeks ago or even last week after a great showing against K st. FIU, W. Kentucky, Ark St., ULM, ULL, and then Houston...do not look promising right now.

You are "closer to the situation" than most of us are. Do you have any insight as to realistically the chances of seeing Osborne get a shot? Is there anything going on that is keeping them from throwing him out there?

I noticed him getting warm on the sideline after another one of DT's 10' overthrows, but not sure if they told him to or if it was on his own.

[trussbussdad]

enough said

[Green P1]

PS...Coach Mac...at Monday's Coach Mac Show, please don't tell us again about all the "skins on the wall" you and your staff have...please tell us what you plan to do to fix special teams and the offense. I have full faith in the fact that your staff can "right this ship", but let's concentrate on the "here and now" and not whatever past glory you and your staff had at places that don't mean a thing today! It's what's going on with our beloved Mean green that matter to us...talk to us about that...please and thanks.

Yes PLZ.

[SilverEagle]

PS...Coach Mac...at Monday's Coach Mac Show, please don't tell us again about all the "skins on the wall" you and your staff have...please tell us what you plan to do to fix special teams and the offense. I have full faith in the fact that your staff can "right this ship", but let's concentrate on the "here and now" and not whatever past glory you and your staff had at places that don't mean a thing today! It's what's going on with our beloved Mean green that matter to us...talk to us about that...please and thanks.

Dang Mark! Am I reading correctly? You actually put down your pom poms for a minute and gave the coach some pointed constructive criticism? Good Job!.......

[SilverEagle]

enough said

Show us examples of how he duplicates these efforts in an actual game (and a close fought one at that), and I'll be more impressed. But thanks for the info.

[SilverEagle]

For anyone interested, here are my thoughts on tonight's loss. I'm no football connoisseur, but I'd like to think that I know a hell of a lot more than the average student in attendance.

1) The offensive playcalling was the strangest combination of overly aggressive and incredibly predictable that I've ever seen, and that was one of the reasons for the loss.

2) Our special teams coach needs to be fired tonight, for a few reasons.

3) Derek Thompson is the epitome of inconsistency and unpredictability at the QB position.

4) The D looked really good for the most part.

5) I predict we drop 50 on FAU next week.

So, I'll go one by one and explain myself for each of them.

1) I'm being completely serious when I say that the playcalling tonight was the strangest I've ever witnessed in a football game. I'm sure there have been plenty of stranger instances, but the playcalling tonight really stood out to me.

Firstly, our first down playcalling was ridiculously conservative and predictable, save for the one flea flicker later in the game, and probably a couple other minor instances. Outside of that, we literally did a safe run play every first down. I understand that Thompson was sucking, but if you're going to run the same crap over and over again, the other team is going to get wise to it, and they'll find a way to stop it. If you noticed, this is exactly what happened as the game went on. Drive after drive, the offense stalled out because of a crappy first down run that put us in tougher passing situations where we had to go with our weakest parts of the playbook in order to have a chance at getting the first down. I'm certainly not suggesting that we should have thrown the ball more often, but damn it guys, mix it up a bit more often on first down.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, our playcalling was wayyyy tooooo aggressive a lot of the time. The obvious ones are the two 4th downs we went for (WE SHOULD HAVE KICKED PEOPLE...Olen misses a 40 and a 47 yarder and gets yanked? What the hell? It isn't like he shanked an extra point again...), but one can just as easily question the motives behind calling about 5 trick plays in a single game. I felt like I was watching a futuristic game of Madden at times with all the reverses, double passes, etc. I loooove trick plays, but one or two in a game is enough, and the following week you shouldn't call any....there is a reason they're called "trick" plays.

I mean, overall, I didn't mind the playcalling. I like how we went with the running game a lot when it was working. I don't like that we made the run game predictable. And I certainly don't like ridiculous unnecessary aggression that probably cost us the game.

2) After last week, I was absolutely not on the "BURN ANYTHING THAT HAS TO DO WITH SPECIAL TEAMS" bandwagon, but I am now. Seriously, there are so many ridiculous flaws that should be an embarrassment for a D1 football team, let alone one that's trying to re-establish themselves as relevant in both this state and the country.

What was up with Chancellor tonight??? It was like someone stripped him of his manhood before the game. Offensively he looked really good. On special teams, he was worthless. Since I doubt that he was so fearful of Troy that he suddenly became a passive player, we need to look at the coaches. Why the hell would they tell him to be so passive? Fair catches on punts where guys were literally 10 yards away from him, AFTER HE GATHERED AND SECURED THE BALL. Why???? A few times it was necessary. There were just as many times where everyone around me sighed in disbelief at his lack of aggression on returns. And what about early in the game when he just watched as the line drive punts rolled by him to give us 10-20 yards worse field position...perhaps he could have just grabbed it and fell on the ball??? So frustrating. Someone with his world class speed needs to have the freedom to run whenever he has an opportunity to, and being passive on returns is not going to help that cause at all.

The kicking game was really bad. A botched extra point last week may not be the coaches' faults, but going 0-3 on field goals, yanking the starting kicker to put in someone who had a hard time reaching from 35, etc., really makes the coaches start to look bad. Couple that in with the fact that we've already allowed multiple return TD's (including kickoffs and punts) this season, and a slew of other minor to moderate level concerns and such that are too numerous to remember and list, and I'm starting to point the finger towards the sidelines. Since I don't know how much control the STC has over everything, how much control McCarney has, whether the players we have are just plain not good at special teams and have no hope at being coached up, or whatever else you can think of, I can't place my blame solely on one guy. But I think a good target is the ST coordinator, so that's who is getting my wrath here. Fire him.

3) I think we're all in agreement that Thompson sucked tonight. He threw a few really good balls during the game, but outside of the few that were solid, he looked like shit. There is no covering that up. He looked timid, and honestly threw better while on the run than while standing in the pocket with no one around him. Last week, he looked fantastic. He looked promising against LSU. But, he sucked against Texas Southern and Troy. It doesn't make sense, I've tried to make sense of it and I just cannot. Maybe one of you guys can tell me how the same person that went 25-28 on the road at a top 15 team can suck bad enough to go under 50% passing against an average Sun Belt team, because I can't figure that out. This is certainly an alarming and urgent problem, as without good QB play, we go nowhere this year.

4) On a more positive note, the D played really well again. They pressured the Troy QBs, they made some plays in the secondary...overall, they really looked good again. I feel like the D is absolutely the strong point of the team right now; all four weeks I've been impressed. Other than a couple of things, I really feel confident in the defense going forward this season. The only things that worry me are that we cannot stop a screen to save our lives, even when a team runs multiple plays multiple times each in one game, and that a lot of the guys still seem to hit instead of tackle. I think the tackling looked better this week, but there were still instances where terrible technique resulted in missed/broken tackles, or the ball carrier getting an extra couple of yards after contact.

5) I'm serious about this last one. I feel like McCarney is going to put these guys through a week of hell and they will come out focused, ready, and pissed, against FAU. Maybe 50 is excessive, but I think if given the opportunity, Mac will have no problem running up the score a wee bit. FAU is absolutely awful and if we lose next week, I don't know if I'll be sane again until basketball season starts.

Anyways, if anyone actually reads through all of this, I'd love to hear some thoughts and opinions about the game/what I said/whatever else one may want to put. Good night everyone, and Go Mean Green.

*before anyone makes a joke on the lack of a social life, the alcohol is on it's way, so I figured I'd make this while I'm waiting haha

Good job. I look forward to more observations from you and the student side.

[UNTcrazy727]

Just read Vito's thoughts on the game...pretty much puts the blame offensively on the WRs and let's DT slide. Did he even watch the game last night? If we just have average quarterback play last night we win easily.

[SilverEagle]

Special teams play overall was terrible. But how often does ANY kicker make 47 year fired goals? Ithink it was a mistake pulling the experienced kicker for the 27 yarder. That led to no faith in field goals no matter the distance. From the post game interview, pulling the veteran kicker for a true Freshman and then abandoning the kicking game was a Caoch Mac decision. I think that was a mistake but not a firing one. He let his emotions make decisions instead of rationally think them through. You can't let one play cloud you thinking and must be ready for the next one.

To me pulling the kicker after the second miss didn't do anything but mess with his head the rest of the season. When FFR and I were driving back home, FFR was on the phone talking to John McDowell (SUMG). In between the unprintable comments he was making he made an excellent observation. He said ...."what are the chances that the kicker will make the rest of his kicks vs the chances that our bi-polar offense tonight was going to make 4th and 10+ yards inside the red zone?

[smoothfresh]

I guess I have to accept blame for my Facebook with Poppy question concerning why not go for it on 4th and 1 last week at K-State. 4th and 10 plus going for it is a bad call and to combat that a QB that throws the dam ball out of the endzone.

Last night was a bad deal but I would like to thank everyone who did show up (this attendance number has to be wrong but oh well).

All we can do is move forward and cheer our a$$es off next week and the rest of the season (which I honestly believe can be positive).

PS: What a scene on The Hill yesterday, Harry get them pics up because this will put a smile back on all our faces.

Edited September 23, 2012 by smoothfresh

[UNT 90 Grad]

Show us examples of how he duplicates these efforts in an actual game (and a close fought one at that), and I'll be more impressed. But thanks for the info.

This. McCarney said Olen only missed one kick all week in practice, and that included with defense going at full speed.

[eulessismore]

Show us examples of how he duplicates these efforts in an actual game (and a close fought one at that), and I'll be more impressed. But thanks for the info.

Did y'all not watch the video? The first 2:10 of it WAS from actual games. And, at the 2:02 mark, he is shown kicking the go ahead field goal in their 2011 playoff win against Euless Trinity. The following link describes the weather conditions in that game, but doesn't go near far enough in describing how bad the weather was that day (no I wasn't there, sorry to say, just happened to be driving past Pennington Field as the game ended). As I recall, there was a cold rain on top of those swirling 40 mph winds. Here's the ESPN feature on his kick that day. And this, for an Arlington Martin team that had done almost nothing against Trinity in several previous attempts over the last decade, when Trinity basically looked like men against boys. Here's the link:

http://espn.go.com/b...ce-solid-as-ice

Edited September 23, 2012 by eulessismore

[BDPG]

To me pulling the kicker after the second miss didn't do anything but mess with his head the rest of the season. When FFR and I were driving back home, FFR was on the phone talking to John McDowell (SUMG). In between the unprintable comments he was making he made an excellent observation. He said ...."what are the chances that the kicker will make the rest of his kicks vs the chances that our bi-polar offense tonight was going to make 4th and 10+ yards inside the red zone?

This

[BDPG]

I was also wondering why our coach chews out our kicker BEFORE our kicker goes in to kick a FG