Thank goodness CUSA appears to be very, very weak this year......we may have a chance!
This season has now landed squarely on the shoulders of Mr. Blake Baker - if he can't get things locked down on D while our QB and Oline are developing, it will be a long year. Maybe CUSA is weak enough to give us a legit shot at a 4th bowl game....just maybe.
The days of us outscoring CUSA teams 48-37 are over though....we gotta have a more aggressive, attacking defense.
Our offense is broken. We are back to the drag it out playcalling finally signaling the play in with ~10 seconds until the play clock expires. This is likely adding to J'Mar's confusion on the field as it is becoming a Chinese fire drill to get the play off in time.
Also, MS State's defensive coaches were drawing up our plays on whiteboards on the sidelines. By the 3rd Qtr they were bored and yawning. But hey, it isn't hard to draw up "run up the middle", "run up the middle", "fumble".
Y'all, I think we're going to be ok. The long fumble to set-up 3-93 I would blame more on the center (I wouldn't blame J'Mar so much on trying to fall on it). He should have ran more, but that recognition will come with time, unless Holtz is telling him not to scramble. Defensively, we really onlY gave up 30 points, and I was really happy that we blocked 2 extra points. And what about that flagrant targeting penalty that the refs whiffed on for the sliding J'Mar. I believe that was the same situation that got Bradford ejected against Navy.
I was sitting right behind the MSST bench, and when the refs missed an obvious call (so many holds and DB's getting to our receivers early) , every time one of their assistants would look at us and say "yeah, that was bad, but it's not up to me" with a huge smile on his face
Anyway, I think the next two games should tell us where we'll be. I think South Carolina may actually be the better defence, but WKU looks deliciously vulnerable
Mama said there'd be days like these. No question it was very hard to watch last night...honestly, if not for turnovers, I believe the score would have been a lot closer.
We have been very fortunate (and spoiled) to having rock star players that have helped this University compete against the P5 schools we've faced the last several years. But let's not kid ourselves. We are who we are, and at this time that's C-USA. What we witnessed last night, to be fair, was really the talent separation between our conference and the SEC. As hard as it was to watch us be beaten into submission by State last night, our REAL test will come in the next few weeks when we're playing our peers.
I am not pleased with the performance last night at all, but I'm not throwing in the towel yet either.
Also, I thought J'Mar''s passes to be very good, except on that screen where he overthrew BScott.
Was happy to Dancy getting some PT. He had 7 rushes for 45 yards. And he showed tremendous discipline not running a kickoff or two out of the EZ. Once he got one only about 3 yds deep, and you could tell he thought about it, but that dude's kicks were so high their coverage team would have been inside the 15 waiting on him. It had to be killing him to take a knee each time. But, to his credit #23 made the smart play.
Also, glad to see former Rummel Raider Israel Tucker get a couple of carries. He was small when he played big time 5A high school football, and he's even smaller now!
JMAR is playing scared and has zero confidence. Any qb that plays that bad deserves to be benched. So far I have yet to see the same qb from last year's ark game. He doesNT make a quick decision and throw to a spot. He waits until he sees someone open. He also seems to be scared of contact. He doesn't seem to want to stand in and throw if he is going to get hit. That was his best asset from the one game last year. It was one game but the coaches need to let him know if he plays even half as bad as yesterday he will be benched.
Scott, glad to see you were honorary captain last night.
On the QB question.....unfortunately we've already seen that Holtz chooses a #1 and sticks with him, no matter what. In Holtz's defense, he has done a damn good job of getting us a good QB three years running. So, maybe he knows what he's doing. Or....all our QBs suck really, really bad and he has our best one starting. Weston looked "okay" last night. But it was against their back-ups and there was hardly any pressure on him to perform well. Game wasn't hanging in the balance....
We've seen pretty bad QB play two consecutive weeks.
Growing pains are to be expected, but game-changing turnovers are the kind that aren't and shouldn't be tolerated.
Say what you want about Baker and the defense, but our offense/special teams giving the other team extra possessions with a short field aren't making Baker's job any easier.
I don't see Smith being a 3 year starter. I bet Jack Abraham is kicking himself for transferring. Our future at QB is a true freshman right now.