A fine whine...

[cr8zyncalif]

I was pretty unhappy last night, so I just went to bed after the game and figured I'd sort through the inevitable meltdown on the board in the morning.

At least we are not as over the top as the UW board. But it's pretty bad when that is the high point of the morning.

Any time you lose there will be second-guessing of the coach. Shoot, that happens even when we win. I don't know what he was thinking a couple of times, so it is hard for me to just out and out say it was a mistake in any sense other than hindsight. Clearly a number of his decisions did not work out, and many of those seemed to defy common sense. But hey, what do I know?

For me the whole game came down to two things:

- We couldn't get a stop when we needed one on their last 2 drives.
- We couldn't get a first down...even one lousy first down...on our last possession. Or was it our last 2 possessions? I don't recall.

This would not be the first time that we lost an early game to a lower level team that then proved that they were a very, very good team. I hope this proves to be the case this year. USU did their job and earned their win. I'd love to see them run the table. I suspect their offense is as good as it looked in the 4th quarter when their QB got hot and made some really nice throws...some of which were running throws. Many of those completions, particularly the sideline completions, simply could not have been defended by anyone. I don't know if they can do that consistently, but if they can, they will have the top offense in their league. I also have to note that their WR's dropped some passes earlier in the game, but their hands were glue in the 4th quarter.

Their D were not world beaters. They were solid for the conference in which they play, had no really weak spots, and will probably end up in the top 1/3 of their conference for defense...maybe even the top 1/4. There is no way, however, that they should have held us to 23 points...particularly with as many chances as we had to get more than that. Been a while since I've seen that many inaccurate passes, but that was far from the only issue.

There is plenty of blame to go around. Red zone failures. Dropped passes. Missed blocks. Missed tackles. Questionable play calling. Failure to hold the pocket together against a 4 man rush. It looked a lot like the first game of the season...go figure, huh?

Our defense needs to understand why they could not get a stop in the other team's last 2 drives. And our offense needs to decide whether we are, or can be, a running team.

Some soul searching needs to take place on the practice field this week.

 

[chugspig]

I simply cannot understand our angles and tackling. How can Rodgers be on the playing field? He’s a 6th year senior and is routinely whiffing on anything outside the B gap. It defies reason, and is so predictable. We deserve these outcomes on defense as long we run out guys like that.

 

[95coug]

I was pretty unhappy last night, so I just went to bed after the game and figured I'd sort through the inevitable meltdown on the board in the morning.

At least we are not as over the top as the UW board. But it's pretty bad when that is the high point of the morning.

Any time you lose there will be second-guessing of the coach. Shoot, that happens even when we win. I don't know what he was thinking a couple of times, so it is hard for me to just out and out say it was a mistake in any sense other than hindsight. Clearly a number of his decisions did not work out, and many of those seemed to defy common sense. But hey, what do I know?

For me the whole game came down to two things:

- We couldn't get a stop when we needed one on their last 2 drives.
- We couldn't get a first down...even one lousy first down...on our last possession. Or was it our last 2 possessions? I don't recall.

This would not be the first time that we lost an early game to a lower level team that then proved that they were a very, very good team. I hope this proves to be the case this year. USU did their job and earned their win. I'd love to see them run the table. I suspect their offense is as good as it looked in the 4th quarter when their QB got hot and made some really nice throws...some of which were running throws. Many of those completions, particularly the sideline completions, simply could not have been defended by anyone. I don't know if they can do that consistently, but if they can, they will have the top offense in their league. I also have to note that their WR's dropped some passes earlier in the game, but their hands were glue in the 4th quarter.

Their D were not world beaters. They were solid for the conference in which they play, had no really weak spots, and will probably end up in the top 1/3 of their conference for defense...maybe even the top 1/4. There is no way, however, that they should have held us to 23 points...particularly with as many chances as we had to get more than that. Been a while since I've seen that many inaccurate passes, but that was far from the only issue.

There is plenty of blame to go around. Red zone failures. Dropped passes. Missed blocks. Missed tackles. Questionable play calling. Failure to hold the pocket together against a 4 man rush. It looked a lot like the first game of the season...go figure, huh?

Our defense needs to understand why they could not get a stop in the other team's last 2 drives. And our offense needs to decide whether we are, or can be, a running team.

Some soul searching needs to take place on the practice field this week.

A big part of our defensive problems stem from low awareness. Our guys don't know where they are, where the ball is, or where they should be. Our OL routinely got moved off the ball, and I'm not sure where our outside contain was. Our LBs and safeties didn't account for the RBs coming out of the backfield (look at 4th down on USUs final drive). Our DBs gave up too much underneath. On the last two USU drives, we were surrendering 15 yards, even as the field got short. Their QB had 10 straight completions because they weren't challenged. We tried to blitz late while still giving the receivers 10 yards. Should have left the LBs home and jammed receivers at the line.

Our game plan - on both sides of the ball - was awful. USU didn't need a strategy, they just had to play good football. They did. We didnt.

 

[How_did_this_happen?]

I was pretty unhappy last night, so I just went to bed after the game and figured I'd sort through the inevitable meltdown on the board in the morning.

At least we are not as over the top as the UW board. But it's pretty bad when that is the high point of the morning.

Any time you lose there will be second-guessing of the coach. Shoot, that happens even when we win. I don't know what he was thinking a couple of times, so it is hard for me to just out and out say it was a mistake in any sense other than hindsight. Clearly a number of his decisions did not work out, and many of those seemed to defy common sense. But hey, what do I know?


For me the whole game came down to two things:

- We couldn't get a stop when we needed one on their last 2 drives.
- We couldn't get a first down...even one lousy first down...on our last possession. Or was it our last 2 possessions? I don't recall.

This would not be the first time that we lost an early game to a lower level team that then proved that they were a very, very good team. I hope this proves to be the case this year. USU did their job and earned their win. I'd love to see them run the table. I suspect their offense is as good as it looked in the 4th quarter when their QB got hot and made some really nice throws...some of which were running throws. Many of those completions, particularly the sideline completions, simply could not have been defended by anyone. I don't know if they can do that consistently, but if they can, they will have the top offense in their league. I also have to note that their WR's dropped some passes earlier in the game, but their hands were glue in the 4th quarter.

Their D were not world beaters. They were solid for the conference in which they play, had no really weak spots, and will probably end up in the top 1/3 of their conference for defense...maybe even the top 1/4. There is no way, however, that they should have held us to 23 points...particularly with as many chances as we had to get more than that. Been a while since I've seen that many inaccurate passes, but that was far from the only issue.

There is plenty of blame to go around. Red zone failures. Dropped passes. Missed blocks. Missed tackles. Questionable play calling. Failure to hold the pocket together against a 4 man rush. It looked a lot like the first game of the season...go figure, huh?

Our defense needs to understand why they could not get a stop in the other team's last 2 drives. And our offense needs to decide whether we are, or can be, a running team.

Some soul searching needs to take place on the practice field this week.

When will we have a good linebacker group again (no offense Jahad)? Really disturbing. Interior defensive line was getting pushed around severely all game. Then no linebacker help up the middle. That's what I saw.

We were so scared of the long pass that we routinely gave their receivers 10 years each pass. It was shocking.