Late to the party

TheFranchise · September 24, 2013

Well my friends, I've had some time to process this and really think about what we witnessed on Saturday and count me in with the "happy" camp. Granted, I'm not planning any parade routes or anything ridiculous like that, but I am feeling overall "pretty decent" about what took place in Athens. And while I'm feeling pretty "not sucky" about the whole thing, there are definitely some areas for concern. Here are some things I took from that game.

1. Jub Jub can make one heck of a football call. Due to a family trip on the bride's side of the family that was planned several months ago, I listened live while cruising down I-20 towards East Texas. While I was disappointed that I couldn't see it as it happened, I knew George would not disappoint me with making me feel like I was there. His call of Brelan's kickoff return was greatness. The signal gave way moments after our blocked punt, which was kind of fitting since that's where our chances started to give way.

2. Brelan Chancellor is electric. If there's not one already, we need to get a nickname for this dude. Considering Apogee is an electricity provider, and we play at Apogee, something like "ABC" (Apogee Brelan Chancellor) or something like that might be nice. I dunno, I was never really good at the nickname thing.

3. We MUST get better man-to-man coverage. This was our glaring weakness. We keep leaving the corners alone on islands and they have to learn the first thing I learned as a defensive back -- WATCH FOR THE BALL!!!!!! (I realize this has been stated quite often around here, but what's one more time, right?) It was literally the first thing I learned as a young Jr. High DB -- if you turn and look for the ball, you can literally land on the receiver backwards and not get called. Why? Because if you position yourself right, you can actually make the receiver try to go over YOUR back. PLAY THE BALL. I know it's sometimes easier said than done, but if you see a receiver put his hands in the air, TURN AROUND!!

4. This team has guts. For that brief period of time after the blocked punt, I felt like we had a shot to take this thing. I'm not going to lie -- there was a bit of doubt there, too. But man, it felt really good to be playing meaningful football late in the third quarter against a top 10 team! And not one single time did they give up out there. I truly feel like they left it all on the field Saturday, and for that I am dang proud of our guys! I don't know how many heard the sideline reporter talking about Coach Mac's halftime speech, but it was exactly what the guys needed to hear. And out of the gate, it looked like they took it to heart.

5. We need depth. I believe this was another key difference Saturday. And in FBS football, it's typically what separates the big guys from the smaller guys. I believe in Coach Mac though, and think he'll get us there. Let him keep recruiting his kind of players and keep coaching them and I think we'll like what we see.

6. It's easy to over-react. As many have already said in the past 50-something hours, Saturday's performance meant nothing if we don't take care of business from here on out. "One game at a time" needs to be this team's mantra, and I think it will be. There's still a lot of football left. Some think that's a lot of opportunity to screw things up. Some think it's a lot of opportunity for good things. I believe in the latter.

7. I'm proud to be a Mean Green fan/student!

That's all I've got to this point that hasn't already been said. I did get to watch this last night after we made it back home. I want to see that same energy in two weeks against Tulane. And then again here against MTSU . . . etc. I think they can do it. I think the good far outweighed the bad Saturday. Let's hope the boys in green prove me right from here on out!

Harry · September 24, 2013

Good thoughts!

HoustonEagle · September 24, 2013

Well my friends, I've had some time to process this and really think about what we witnessed on Saturday and count me in with the "happy" camp. Granted, I'm not planning any parade routes or anything ridiculous like that, but I am feeling overall "pretty decent" about what took place in Athens. And while I'm feeling pretty "not sucky" about the whole thing, there are definitely some areas for concern. Here are some things I took from that game.

1. Jub Jub can make one heck of a football call. Due to a family trip on the bride's side of the family that was planned several months ago, I listened live while cruising down I-20 towards East Texas. While I was disappointed that I couldn't see it as it happened, I knew George would not disappoint me with making me feel like I was there. His call of Brelan's kickoff return was greatness. The signal gave way moments after our blocked punt, which was kind of fitting since that's where our chances started to give way.

2. Brelan Chancellor is electric. If there's not one already, we need to get a nickname for this dude. Considering Apogee is an electricity provider, and we play at Apogee, something like "ABC" (Apogee Brelan Chancellor) or something like that might be nice. I dunno, I was never really good at the nickname thing.

3. We MUST get better man-to-man coverage. This was our glaring weakness. We keep leaving the corners alone on islands and they have to learn the first thing I learned as a defensive back -- WATCH FOR THE BALL!!!!!! (I realize this has been stated quite often around here, but what's one more time, right?) It was literally the first thing I learned as a young Jr. High DB -- if you turn and look for the ball, you can literally land on the receiver backwards and not get called. Why? Because if you position yourself right, you can actually make the receiver try to go over YOUR back. PLAY THE BALL. I know it's sometimes easier said than done, but if you see a receiver put his hands in the air, TURN AROUND!!

4. This team has guts. For that brief period of time after the blocked punt, I felt like we had a shot to take this thing. I'm not going to lie -- there was a bit of doubt there, too. But man, it felt really good to be playing meaningful football late in the third quarter against a top 10 team! And not one single time did they give up out there. I truly feel like they left it all on the field Saturday, and for that I am dang proud of our guys! I don't know how many heard the sideline reporter talking about Coach Mac's halftime speech, but it was exactly what the guys needed to hear. And out of the gate, it looked like they took it to heart.

5. We need depth. I believe this was another key difference Saturday. And in FBS football, it's typically what separates the big guys from the smaller guys. I believe in Coach Mac though, and think he'll get us there. Let him keep recruiting his kind of players and keep coaching them and I think we'll like what we see.

6. It's easy to over-react. As many have already said in the past 50-something hours, Saturday's performance meant nothing if we don't take care of business from here on out. "One game at a time" needs to be this team's mantra, and I think it will be. There's still a lot of football left. Some think that's a lot of opportunity to screw things up. Some think it's a lot of opportunity for good things. I believe in the latter.

7. I'm proud to be a Mean Green fan/student!

That's all I've got to this point that hasn't already been said. I did get to watch this last night after we made it back home. I want to see that same energy in two weeks against Tulane. And then again here against MTSU . . . etc. I think they can do it. I think the good far outweighed the bad Saturday. Let's hope the boys in green prove me right from here on out!

Enjoyed your post. Only one correction. Apogee is not an electricty provider

TheFranchise · September 24, 2013

Enjoyed your post. Only one correction. Apogee is not an electricty provider

Well, leave it to me to mess up a little thing like that. Glad you liked the rest, though!

**Searched a little further** Looks like they're a network provider. M'kay.

meaniegreenie · September 24, 2013

Okay, here's my dumb little idea for the day.

I hear talk about us having a real home-field advantage at Apogee. I don't really think it's quite there yet since it's influenced a lot by the quality of the teams we have played at home. (Although, I really think that ULL game was an advantage.) But that's not the point.

Anyway, if we can really turn Apogee into a hostile/advantageous place (would help to have a full stadium), I think a chant of "Ap-o-gee, Ap-o-gee, Ap-o-gee..." would be pretty cool. It's got a good cadence and tone that would be easy to chant and it sends a little love back to the company for giving us those sweet $$$'s. I'm sure they'd love to hear the TV announcers say, "Looks like the fans have gotten into their usual Apogee chant as UNT wraps up another good home win."

Edited September 24, 2013 by meaniegreenie

foutsrouts · September 24, 2013

Might be interesting, but I'm scared that if we ever get 10,000 fans for the opposition in there, that it could be modified to "A-po-thee, A-po-thee, A-po-thee."

meaniegreenie · September 24, 2013

Might be interesting, but I'm scared that if we ever get 10,000 fans for the opposition in there, that it could be modified to "A-po-thee, A-po-thee, A-po-thee."

Yeah, or I didn't think about what interesting twist the students or band might put on it.