I am into moral victories with this bunch, so well done Dawgs! Made a game of it deep into the 4th quarter.
I am into moral victories with this bunch, so well done Dawgs! Made a game of it deep into the 4th quarter.
Thoughts on the year…..
Offense- OL was serviceable, have some quality receivers, RB’s run hard and we have more than one. QB play was terrible after McNeil was injured. We have to do something in the off season. Turner can fill a backup roll. Lyddy needs to develop/improve tremendously before he sees anymore playing time.
Defense- We suck. Need better players at all positions. Grubbs being out was a huge loss. Hopefully he makes it back next year. The loss of the Bell Brothers in the portal was a big loss. Need to develop a “nastier” attitude. Need a DB like Chad Boyd.
Coaching- Plenty of 1st year blunders. Some of our schemes were limited by personnel. Need to be more disciplined and limit mental mistakes. Not terrible for a new group that inherited a bare cupboard and plenty of poor habits from Holtz tenure.
Correct on all points. Whenever you consider the limited personnel we had on offense, some of the play calling makes more sense. With PM at QB we are a bowl team. Without him, we may only win one game this year.
As far as defense, we need help at all positions. 2/3 of our class needs to be defensive players. I can say that I have never seen a less talented defense than what we had this year. If you look at the last several years, we’ve always had at least one guy that ends up in the league. This year we might have one guy that could start for another FBS school.
When Cumbie calls plays for Lyddy to throw the ball vertically things aren’t so bad. The ball is decently on target. It didn’t help when Smoke dropped his easy one. What doesn’t work are the throws to the flat when the D is ready for it because we don’t throw anywhere downfield enough. My take on Cumbie is that he doesn’t have confidence in Lyddy throwing in the middle of the field at any distance. Right now based on how Cumbie is calling plays for Lyddy I’d be surprised if Lyddy stays or plays here. He’s definitely undersized for today’s game, but that can still work if the QB is very skilled and plenty smart. Only time will tell about Lyddy and he may not get much time again.
Defensively our linemen are sitting ducks to be blocked. They can’t get off a one on one block for anything hardly ever. So, with our 4 man line that leaves the offense with an extra lineman and a blocking back to get to our linebackers. As overwhelmed as we are at trying to play man to man defense we’d be better off falling down at the line of scrimmage so people would trip over us. I’m serious. When you stay on your feet but get blocked 3-5 yards out of the way you’re doing nothing helpful.
All in all I guess you’ve got to give this coaching staff at least one freebie year to pull together. That is except for the special teams coach. To me, he’s failed big time based on the fact that he can make up his units from every player on the roster and coaching to some simple fundamentals that he didn’t manage to do.
I’m going to keep saying it until it happens the way we need it to. Get Rattay back here to develop our QBs and help with the offensive schemes.
How big is Sokol? How big is Cameron? I don’t remember either of those guys being over 5’11 or so. But they had some of Tech’s best talent historically around them and they had long enough in the pocket to make a sandwich. Also, those defenses weren’t great, but were serviceable. Right now, in my mind, McNeil and Lyddy both would have had success if they had FBS talent around them.
Worst defense and special teams in my 41 years on earth.
Good post. In fact, several of you guys have made good posts in this thread. Special Teams coach needs to be fired and the whole thing blown up. NO MORE FBS TRANSFERS on DEFENSE. Those SFA transfer players are horrible. And you are absolutely correct about the incompetence of our DL. They can't seem to even stick an arm out and try to grab a RB who's running RIGHT BESIDE THEM. They were just horrible. Case in point, UAB RB McBride on Saturday. He would run within inches of a LA Tech Defensive lineman, and our lineman wouldn't even TRY to stick an arm out to try to stop him. Like so many other inexplicable failures this season, it was truly absurd.
Totally agree about Tech's Defense and Special teams. I'm still in shock at how bad those guys were/are. It's truly hard to believe until you see it.
BTW, Lyddy showed me nothing on offense this season. I think he wasted a golden opportunity by not taking advantage of all the turnover at QB this season. Nobody expects miracles from a freshman QB, but he had a chance to get a lot of reps and a lot of playing time under his belt this season. It was TEED UP for him. But Lyddy seemed to shy away from the spotlight instead of seeking it out.
I can't wait to see a LA Tech football game where 90% of the throws are NOT to the sideline, or a damn fade route.
As early in the game as you made this comment 22’s play only got worse. I swear it looked like McBride singled him out as the guy to run at so 22 could make whatever other feeble attempt at a pretend tackle. Perhaps the best one of all was McBride’s 3rd quarter TD run when he hit 22 at the 6 yard line and pushed him all the way back into the end zone. Tech‘s defense was so far from making any tackles on the UAB running backs even if they’d been playing flag football.
How does a team replace an entire defense? We may be looking at really bad again next year.
To all of you complainers, as Tech52 will say, "that's easy to say from your couch."
None of you have the right to complain, don't believe your lying eyes, our defense and the whole team was stellar. Tech52 knows!