- It’s sure nice to win and break a five game losing streak, even if it was against one of the worst teams in NCAA football.
- It was also nice to win on the road for the first time in a while and to beat Army who has clearly had our number for more than a decade.
- Still, we’re a bad team. Beating an FCS squad and two of the “bottom feeders” in the G5 world is nothing to “crow” about.
- Shudder. Could this mean that CJ gets another year? Could a win at SMU and a two game road winning streak warrant an extension? I woke up thinking about that. OK, not really, but it’s a disconcerting thought.
- Good for Andrew DiRocco. Two clutch field goals including the game winner IS something to “crow” about. The kid is 7 for 7 this year and doing better than anyone, certainly me, expected. Bring in a solid strength coach and get his distance up to NCAA standard (at least 45 yards or so) and he could be an asset, not a liability. A “no option” zone (shouldn’t punt and can’t kick a field goal) between the 20 and 40 yard lines is too big.
- What’s up with Tanner Lee? He was never particularly accurate, but most of his balls “looked pretty” (good spirals) until the past two weeks. Last week the rain was used as an excuse. Now, we’re hearing more and more about the broken finger. That sounds plausible, even probable, as a cause for the horrible passes. Hope it’s the case. That, at least, is correctable over time. Of course, that he’s playing ahead of our other three scholarship QB’s also says something bad.
- Our offensive line outplayed Army’s defensive line. I don’t think that is necessarily a good thing, just my observation. We generally protected our QB on passes and blocked several plays pretty well. In fact, five of our 28 rushing attempts went for at least 10 yards. That’s pretty good. And our running backs average 5.0 yards per carry which is very good. The offensive line generally played well in my view.
- Hilliard is the man! He had four of our five carries for at least ten yards. I thought two of those were well blocked and the others were all on Hilliard. He’s earned the starting job and the bulk of the carries.
- Badie is being misused—badly. He had two rushes against Army both on pitches in which he was immediately surrounded going sideways by 3-4-5 defenders—NO Chance! If those are the only plays he knows or the only ones he’s used for, the defenders will ALWAYS be ready. We need to have some misdirection the other way to use him as a decoy or, better still, turn him into a full time “slot back.” He’s fast, elusive, and can catch the ball. Moreover, we don’t have anyone else who can do that job as well and with Hilliard getting most (should get even more) of the carries, he’s not needed at running back.
- We started two tight ends in the game for the second time (Ardoin and Jones). The other time was against Navy. And we played two tight ends for much of the game. I suppose the reason was to get more blocking to support the run game. If so, we haven’t recruited the right guys. Our tight ends are more receivers than blockers. At least they are better receivers than blockers. Ardoin’s TD was a great individual effort, by the way. But, if we are going to use our tight ends primarily for blocking, we need to get at least one who is better suited to the task.
- Veal is clearly our #1 target at wide receiver. In fact, Breaux only had one pass thrown his way until the final drive when he caught two. Veal was open a great deal also even though he only caught four passes. After having two open opportunities deep down field early (the horrible miss by Lee and the 90 yard TD), I don’t know why we didn’t continue to take occasional shots throughout the game. One thing that troubled me was that on his 90 yard TD, two Army DB’s seemed to be catching Veal. I know he doesn’t have “elite” speed, but that was disconcerting. Maybe they were faster than I'd given them credit for.
- I thought he defensive interior line played very well; Smart, Redwine, and Wilson all had god games from my perspective and bottled-up the Army “inside” game completely. They were “spelled” only briefly by Calvin Thomas and Jason Stewart because both Eldrick Washington and Eric Bell did not play. Since Guerry reported no injuries on that front, I guess the latter two are simply no longer in the “mix” for time.
- The rest of our defense did not fare as well in my opinion. Our defensive ends, linebackers, and defensive backs were out of position time and again on pitches to the outside. It wasn’t even that we missed a lot of tackles, but that we were not even in position to make “touches” until well down field. We also over-pursued or took bad angles on virtually every “trick” play Army ran. If Bob Toledo had the success with his “tricks” as Army did, he’d probably still be the coach (Ugh!!)
- Nickerson is our only DB with BCS-level “cover skills” and he has been beaten badly several times this year. The rest simply are not doing the job. Lionel “Speedy” Washington may or may not be a great defensive coordinator (I think he’s pretty good), but I believe he is an outstanding coach of defensive backs. That ours are so bad at coverage suggests a lack of talent, not a lack of coaching.
- After depending so much on freshmen last year, our “true freshman” class this year continues to provide virtually no help. Seven of the 15 are redshirting. Two of the eight who have played this year (Glenn and Shy) have now sat out the past two games. Are they injured? Hicks and Preston had no looks in their brief appearances at wide receiver and Block had one punt blocked and average 32.0 yards/punt on the other four. Teamer, Eugene, and Shenall, despite making some nice plays in other games, had a total of two tackles between them. That’s not a lot of contribution from the class that most people recognized as “sub-par” to start with. On other teams, more of these kids would have redshirted. And on a lot of them, never been signed.
- Speaking of redshirts, I found it interesting that Sam Davis saw his first action of the year, making a tackle, and removing any chance of redshirting. Davis was the walk on who was a highlight of fall camp when he briefly worked out with the first team and coaches were marveling at his skills. Well, in game 10, he got to showcase them, at least fleetingly.
- Poor snapping must be contagious. LeGlue, after doing a good job of snapping for a few weeks seems to be getting worse.
- I don’t think conditioning was much of an issue in this game. Yes, Army controlled the clock and ran 68 plays to our 57, but they gained most of their yards (234 of 362) in the first half. They stopped themselves more often than not. Fumbles, even though they recovered them forced them into long yardage situations and “going for it” on fourth down four times; they only made one. Up until their last two drives, we held them in check throughout the 3rd and early 4th quarters. Of course, the 87 yard drive to tie the game was a complete breakdown of our defense.
- Finally, our own game winning drive was a positive way to finish off the game. Some, including me, thought we should have been more aggressive, but it’s hard to argue with success. Lee was 3 for 4 on the drive for 30 yards and Hilliard ran three times for another 24. Thank heaven for DiRocco making the field goal.
- Two games to go.
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