Guys, we are lucky. We could have played Troy last night and gotten absolutely pasted.
Guys, we are lucky. We could have played Troy last night and gotten absolutely pasted.
I was thinking during the game we are not very good this year. Any win is a good win, and that is true. But, heck, LSU lost to a Belcher. Ole Miss got pasted 66-3, Tenn lost at home 41-0. Moo State got pasted 49-10. CFB has more parity now than at any other time in history. We like to say, well, we didn't play very well, blah, blah, blah...but how about South Alabama did play well!? Their front 7 is stout. They don't have great depth and eventually wore down, especially in the 4th qtr. But, when fresh they were beating us on the LOS. Sometimes you just have to tip your hat to the other guys and say "good job."
We also had a lot of very poor FIELD POSITION last night. It seemed like we spent the entire 3rd quarter inside our own 10-yd line. We just couldn't dig ourselves out.
Even though South Alabama punted 6 times (for 39-yd avg), we only had one (1) punt return for just 5 yards. Teddy Veal has got to do better than that, or we need to put someone else back there returning punts. Meanwhile, Tech used 2 different punters to punt 4 times for a 37-yard average. That's high school punting stats at best. Also, Barnes was 2 for 3 (66.6%) in kicking FG's last night (he missed a 43-yarder), and the South Alabama kicker was 3 for 3 (100%).
Bottom line, we need our kicking/punting game to perform much better than they did last night, and we need them to "flip the field for us".
1) Below is LA Tech's STARTING field position on each drive in the 2nd half last night:
Tech 19
Tech 28
Tech 12
Tech 10
Tech 11
USA 27
Tech 26 (End of Game)
WOW! With the lone exception of that 6th drive --which was caused when USA tried to convert a 4th down and failed-- Tech had miserable starting field position the entire second half. In fact, LA Tech's average starting field position for those first 5 possessions in the 2nd half was their own 16-yd line. That leaves a long field to cover.
2) And below is LA Tech's starting field position for the last two drives of the first half:
Tech 1
Tech 11
WOW! This means LA Tech had an average starting field position of their own 13-yd line for SEVEN (7) CONSECUTIVE drives!
Holtz has got to address this. We're lucky we survived this.
COYHCSH has never considered the punting to be important. His punt receiving strategy is to have a good "fair catch" guy back there.
Warhawk Report @WarhawkReport
ULM vs Sun Belt...2-0.
LSU vs Sun Belt...0-1
Even ULM is talking $jlt today.
I keep thinking that we are not that bad either. I think our offense is the problem only because they get mental mistakes through-out the game. I actually think our defense is pretty darn good this year because we have given all of our opponents problems for most of the game. Our losses came because well...the defense could not contain late in the games. We had a competitive game in the 1st half against Miss St and were beating South Cacalackie for most of it. The offense has to do their part on 'defense' by sustaining drives and eating clock AND cutting down the mistakes. I do like our offense more and more and the Learfield guys on the call last night were very complementary of J'Mar about his poise and calm even in tough moments.
Hey Hog Dog you should email the coaches and tell them to take the electric Teddy veal off punt returns
It's a wake-up call for programs like ours. Easy to take " lesser " teams and conferences like last nite for granted. We nit pick wins over teams we assume are inferior-- I find myself walking out of 18-- 30 point wins disappointed -- coaches job is to win-- not impress fans.