calvin

After 9 games, I still dont know how good we are. This is a game we should have won by 25 or 30. Up by 17 and cant put a team away, this is getting worrisome to me. We still havent clicked on all cylinders, we still havent gone on any big runs, its getting frustrating. Too many turnovers and too many easy transitions buckets that we gave up. Hopefully we can win these first 2 conference road games.

I love the fact that we have won on the road so far b/c in the past we havent done that. It has worried me though that we havent been able to go on a big run or put teams away. We didnt exactly blow the doors off Cameron, and we have 2 point wins against JSU, SHSU, and NMSU all games where we could have put the games away. I would like to think that we are a lot better than we are playing so hopefully it will pick up soon. We need Josh to be more aggressive and take more shots on the offensive end and hopefully Collin will get out of his funk soon. How great would it be to win the next 3 and be 9-2 with UTA and MTSU coming in.

I wish I knew the answer to this but I dont. I really thought coming into this year that we were going to be good and after 8 games, I still think that but I still dont know how good we are. I dont think we have played really good so far and I am waiting for us to play a complete game. But on the other hand, maybe we are not as good as I thought. Hopefully we will get it rolling soon so we can see how to judge this team. With that being said, we must be doing something right b/c we are 6-2.

I can remember the days when I was hoping to just get 2 thousand into the Pit. So I am pretty fired up that we have been averaging over 3K the last couple of years. ANd it will keep going up.

Like CMJ said, BABY STEPS. If you have a media guide, look at it and see how this has been a horrible basketball program. Those schools you are talking about have big basketball traditions and probably dont have DFW right next to them and plus we had the BIG 12 title game and the HS football playoffs with Denton Guyer still in it. The attendence has slowly gone up the last few years, the atmosphere has slowly gotten better the last couple of years. Winning will do that and if we can continue to win it will only get better. The one thing that kills us is our home games over Christmas break b/c all the students are gone. The MTSU will be a huge game that would have a big crowd if it were after Christmas but we probably only have about 2500 on New Years Eve. IF we can win the games we are supposed to and not lose at Denver and at FIU and those games then I think our attendence could average 4K for Sun Belt games this year. B/c if we take care of business and win those games we can win 22-24 games this year. Which would be our 3rd straight 20 win season. And do people realize that we are starting 4 sophomores? The future is bright.

Maybe not start, but at least give the seniors some playing time. These guys have stayed loyal and stuck it out, to me the right thing to do would be to let them play some or a quite a bit on Saturday. The season is lost, we have no momentum and certainly wont gain anything from letting all the young guys play, let these seniors play on Saturday.

Did I miss something here? I have thought about this but I didnt know what happened to him so I didnt want to bring it up. Isnt he the one that called for Dickey's head with posts that were as long as novels and wasnt he the biggest advocate for bringing Dodge in here? Where is he now?

"Why does rolling over reverse the figure four leg lock? I never understood the physics of it. " You know what, I think that is one of life's mysteries. I have never understood that either ?

Not sure I like the idea of getting all these Juco guys in here. I wouldnt mind getting a couple defensive lineman but that is it. I would rather us keep building with HS kids. Ask Ron Prince how loading up with Juco's worked out for him.

My FT stat line doesnt add up, I guess the point I was trying to make was we missed an s-load of FT's.

They hit 13 threes we hit 5. They missed 6 free throws, we miss 15. I am never happy with a loss but they outscore us by 24 behind the arc and by 9 at the line and we are still within 10 at the end of the game. I think we have reason to be optimistic. Josh White is a gamer, he always plays well against the Big 12.

Well that is a little exaggeration but seems like they hit 20 of them. We have had games in the past where we have hit a ton so I know it goes both ways but I would like to have seen what the game would have been if they had only hit 8 or 9 threes. I think we are going to be just fine. We have good athletes and we rebounded well and most games those open 3's we had we fall. Only thing that concerns me is FT shooting and losing games in conference that we shouldnt. I think we have a chance to be good this year.

I didnt know how much it held? I thought if it held about 2,000 then it would be packed, so I wasnt sure.

Who all will be there for the season opener? Me and my 2 boys will be there. I am pretty fired up about this one. Do people think this thing will be packed ? Does anybody know what it officially holds ?

I remember a few years ago when we opened up at UT, Germaine Dawson was playing LB and made plays all over the field. I have to give it up to these seniors who stuck out, they are better men than me.

I think the biggest things that hurt Dickey were 1.) the fans lost major interest, and I think it was mostly b/c of the offense and lack of a passing game. and then 2.) I think he tried to rely too much on finding the diamond in the rough type players in recruiting. He built the program off of guys like Kassel, Booger, Hall, Cobbs and guys like that and at the end I think he was trying too hard to get guys like that, (Brandon Monroe, Kail Krider, Tye Rexrode and those guys.) When those guys didnt work out, it really showed. But if you remember and look back, we lost a ton of close games those last 2 years. I wonder what would have happened if we would have went 5-6 in those last 2 years b/c we could have. But it does know good to look back now. I just hope we arent like NMSU. They were decent when they had Samuel and when they switched to a spread team and changed their uniforms they have been TERRIBLE. Most of their wins have come against D-1AA. I think they are in year 4 of the change and they are still terrible.

Yes that Nicholls St game was very boring. And for the most part during the DD era it was boring, esp. the last 2 years. But the 4 year run was fun and we put up points during that run. I have to admit sitting in the stands during the Troy game I had the same bored feeling as I did during Dickey ball.

I wouldnt say that I am bored with the spread but I am old school when it comes to my football. I loved the old option attacks and I love watching old college football games on Classic. and I love watching Georgia Tech this year. Everybody said they wouldnt be sucessful but look at them they are leading the ACC. To me with the spread the game as evolved into 7 on 7. All these guys throw 40 passes right around the line of scrimmage and everyone thinks they are great for completing 75% of their passes. Stats dont mean as much as they used to. I would lot rather see a Cobbs or JaMario rushing for 200 yards then Vizza throwing for 300 yards.

Let me ask you this, why did it not take Rice 4 years to get going and they used to run the ball more than we did ? And why didnt it take Troy 4 years, they were a run based offense like us ? I am not against Dodge at all and I agree he should have 4 years, unless we go 0-12 next year. But my main concern is, why hasnt there been any improvement since day 1 ? To me it has gotten worse, and as a coach the wins and losses will take care of themselves but you have to show improvement or get worse and we havent shown any improvement.

I totally agree about Vizza. Is going through a sophmore slump or what ? We sat right by where the Mean Green come out of the tunnel in the end zone bleachers so were behind the play and could see everything and Vizza missed some wide open guys and they werent difficult throws. I dont know why we dont put Tune or Meager in there, its not like it would hurt anything.

At least we only gave up 25 at halftime instead of 42. I know it is bad to say that we looked better even though we gave up 45 points but if our offense could keep the ball more than 1 minute at a time then our defense could actually look better. Our first drive tonight on offense we had the ball for 21 seconds. Thats ridiculous, we just gave up a TD drive and then we go out there and only have the ball for 21 seconds.

I thought that Navy game on Nov. 10th of last year was the kick start to Dodge Ball, I thought that game was our coming out party and thought our offense would resemble that offense this year. So what has happened ? How come we cant move the ball, cant seem to get any big plays or sustain any drives? So frustrating. A few positives from tonight, I thought besides the first drive that our defense played well and played tough. Maybe some young guys are starting to figure it out. I feel a lot better leaving Fouts tonight then I have had all season. Right now Troy is so much more athletic than us. Their defense was really good I thought. But it was good to see us out there clawing and scratching and hitting.

We are the worst team. FIU went on the road and beat a MAC school last week, so I wouldnt say they are the second worst. By they way, would you say that Dodge or Cristobal had a tougher task as far as turning their programs around ?

I just looked, in 2002 in 13 games we gave up 192 points.

If you look at last year's champion though FAU, look at how they looked when they came to Fouts. We only lost what 30-20 or something like that. Dont you think the 02 team would have beat them ? It would have been tough for us to go to Troy and win, but with our defense, I always liked our chances.