TIgreen01

I watched MNF, in its entirety, for the first time in ages due to this broadcast last night. I can hardly stand Tessetore and the Mannings are awesome. Hope they keep this up. Interesting to me was that YoutubeTV was showing their broadcast first, ahead of the ESPN traditional broadcast. So it looked like they were even drawing better ratings-at least on that platform.

It is simple. We have to hit downfield throws in these next two games. And they need to go for TDs. We had receivers running free repeatedly in that first half Saturday but could never hit them. At least 2 missed TDs in the first couple of drives alone. The plays are there to be made. Ruder now has two games of tape out there that say he can’t complete these throws. If he figures it out we become a very good team overnight. If not, we continue to struggle.

This post needs to be pinned at the top of the board. Perfection.

I’m just glad we don’t have UTSA until the last game. Getting curb stomped by that place is embarrassing and runs me off every time. Getting blown out by schmoo makes me want to do the same, but at least I can justify it by acknowledging sonny dykes and his staff are just better across the board. They’ve crushed the transfer portal and basically took the lead there that everyone in the nation is now trying to follow.

I have always liked Littrell, but ideally he would have left for KSU and we’d have Graham Harrell as head coach. It’s just not been the same since his flirtation with them. The defense finally does look promising, but now that we have that fixed the offense takes a nosedive. Maybe he’ll get it turned around in the next couple weeks. If not, and we finish just 6-6 or worse, I’m aboard the move-on train.

It’s all too predictable.

The freak out really amps up after Rice beats them next.

I forgot they added Jim Leavitt at DC. Dangit

We need Seth to win. And we need donor pool and influence to be included in the criteria. I don’t know that any of these other schools being considered have done as much in the last 5-10 years to grow that pool of big money guys. You can see the commitment being made everywhere. From coaches salaries to capital investments and facilities upgrades. I think we are either going AAC or MWC. We’ve publicly made those our targets and I don’t see us settling for standing pat. With smu in DFW, MWC may be our most likely destination.

This. We add to the narrative that we don’t belong when we get blown out by these guys two years in a row. Can’t make it three years running, and really need to win outright.

Not cool, but glad to see you owning up to it. Don’t be trying to run off wardly! He’s one of the posters I like hearing from the most.

Yes!

This. Add in the INT on the first drive after halftime. The DB never has a chance if that ball is thrown out in front, or even over the top as the safety had cleared out. I boil that down to timing and rust and expect to see that cleaned up next week.

It isn’t the holding back on RPOs that has me concerned with what I saw from Ruder. It’s that he rarely attempted a downfield throw, and when he did he was inaccurate. Throws were out of bounds or behind receivers. Maybe on the sideline throws the receivers didn’t give him anywhere to go, don’t know without watching a replay…but in general, he needs to give our receivers a chance to run onto the ball. Almost no yards after the catch, which with our stable of talented receivers, was really surprising. Maybe this comes down to timing and comfort level with our receivers and we’ll see improvement as the season progresses.

So who does the AAC add? App St, UTSA? Sadly those two seem like locks. UTSA is hot garbage as an actual school, but that didn’t stop Boise St from rocketing up. I just don’t see schmoo or Tulsa voting for us over them. Budget-wise Old Dominion continues to outpace all other CUSA/SBC/Mac schools and could potentially argue that their basketball would get better and closer to what it once was with better competition.

6-6. I could see the defense losing confidence after smu torches us for 60, and this thing spiraling…but will remain optimistic that Phil won’t lose them entirely and we start to show progress late in the season. Using Phil’s time at Baylor as a comparison, his first 2 seasons there the defense gave up 37 points per game and finished 113th overall. In his third season they jumped up to allowing just 23 points per game. They won the conference that year. After that he had them in the 24-28pts allowed per game range. The hope here is that the turnaround will happen quicker, but I think next year is the earliest we should expect a big jump up. We should match up better with our conference mates in terms of talent than Baylor did when he first got there.

Preseason polls are almost always just a rehashing of where things finished the year before. We sucked last year. Now if we actually finish 6th in the division this year I’d bet Littrell, himself, would agree it’s time to move on. I don’t see us being as bad as we were last year. Bennett isn’t going to fix the defense overnight, but he’s actually had an off-season to prepare and teach, where last year our brand new DC didn’t…and it showed.

Quinn spawned the greatest avatar in the history of gomeangreen.com. Quoner!? That counts for something in my book. But this is Booger all the way….and then Cobbs, Quinn and Spencer. Booger was unbelievably fun to watch. All four of these guys were, really. Every single one of these dudes played with a chip on their shoulder. Quinn had the TD catch (against LaLa?) where the two defenders collided, knocking his helmet off but leaving him standing, flexing over them on ground. Spenser’s gorilla stomp celebrations, PCobbs ducking under and around would be tacklers. Booger had too many ridiculous plays to name, but my favorite was the fumble recovery for a TD against Baylor.

That’s a dream scenario. Awesome!

I wouldn’t necessarily count the cowboys out. Lamb is not the prototypical slot guy. He’ll eventually slide outside. McCarthy could be looking for that next Randall Cobb type do it all playmaker, which Darden fits perfectly. That said, my money is on KC or Arizona.

Mason Fine, Freshman JaMario, Brelan 2004 2017 2013 Not a loser in the bunch, though. Freshman JaMario is still the second best player I’ve ever seen in green behind Booger. Factor in the entire offense, and 2013 goes to first, 2004 second and 2017 third. Oline matters.

I’ll call for us to be at least .500 this year. I think we obviously win game 1. Then we’ll take one of the UAB/LaTech games. We probably lose the schmoo, Mizzou and Liberty games. But then I agree with Brett, the schedule gets easier from there and we finish the season on a win streak. Not going to pick individual games, because I still see us being inconsistent, but put me down for 6-6 or 7-5. Also, I don’t care how badly UTSA whooped us last year. That’s a win this year. Littrell has proven he can get to .500 with just a serviceable defense. Bennett isn’t going to deliver a world beater defense in year one, but it is going to be much improved over last year and will get better as we get games and experience.

I’m on board elevating basketball. I say that on the day I renewed football season tickets.

My father-in-law played for SFA back then and he says the same things. Both the Snake pit and Super pit were considered awesome and daunting places to have to go play and great to watch a game in. I don’t get all the push to build a new arena. It’s got to be all about luxury suites but I hate the new basketball venues built around suites first. They lose the intensity. The super pit, even half full is still a tremendous game watching experience.

It’s been a few years now, but I had it on good authority that Mac was looking to move up fast. He was taking his assistants with him, too. See the ASU move. What I don’t know is if money was his thing or P5/blue blood bball school. Either way, if money could be a factor it’ll be across the board. We have to bump up pay for everyone of his assistants, not just him. Now, before everyone gets butt hurt, isn’t this what we said we wanted? We want hungry coaches on the rise, not decline. We just need to keep finding those guys and bringing them here and we’ll be fine. Not another Benford.