defeat from MTSU land

[greenmean]

Absolutely, correct with that comment!!

I talked to alot of North Texas fans who were actually at this game and they agreed with me 100%.

First off, the better team lost in this game.  The team that wanted it more, however, wound up winning.

Middle Tennessee did in fact give you this game with five UNFORCED turnovers despite what ever beliefs alot of you other guys may have because not a single ball was passed into coverage resulting in an interception.  Not a single ball was jolted from hit by a North Texas defender.

MTSU's five turnovers were a result of bad passes and poor ball-handling skills plain and simple.  No one disagrees with me there except those of you who watched it on TV through green-colored glasses.  Shocking as it may seem not even your own fans who were actually at the game instead of watching it on TV will disagree with me there.

All we heard all week was how North Texas was going to run us ragged.  UNT only managed a paltry 152 nets yards total rushing on the game and many of those were losses.  Cobbs got his 100 yards in BARELY and Thomas didn't even come close with only 58 yards on 10 carries.  Ran us ragged?  I don't think so.

North Texas didn't even have 300 yards of total offense.  You only had one offensive touchdown and the defensive touchdown you scored was off an interception that was passed not into coverage, nor was our QB pressured to pass it.

This isn't sour grapes.  This is simply how it is.  If we play our remaining 9 games like we did tonight against North Texas we will go 0-11.  If North Texas plays their remaining games like they did against us with no passing offense you won't win the conference 'cause you'll lose to FAU and Troy and Tulsa, Kansas State, La Tech, and LSU will be completely disastrous with blowout losses.  You want a winning season?  Then you'll have to establish a more balanced offense and you have to stop the run, because ya'll looked horrible tonight on offense and defense.

The better team lost, BUT the team that wanted it more did win.  I congratulate you for that, and I hope you do do well in out-of-conference play.  The Sun Belt has looked pathetic this season early on out side of Sun Belt play with Louisiana-Monroe's loss to 1-AA Northwestern State and 38-0 loss to Wyoming added to the 56-3 blowout loss handed to FIU by Texas Tech and the 31-10 loss handed to Louisiana-Lafayette by pathetic Eastern Michigan of the MAC.

Our conference as a whole has a crapload of work to do if we want respect because none of us our playing good right now.

By the way, seeing the eight football playing member conference flags flying in our stadium tonight looked pretty sweet.  I like that touch.  It reminds us that we are unified as a conference.

Best of luck on the rest of the season.  Your fans and team are very classy and I admire Coach Dickey very much.  He's a risktaker and very classy.  That is something we need leading our team at MTSU right now.  I wish you the best of luck on the rest of the season.

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Wouldn't committing five turnovers make you not the better team????? Its a game, you either win or you lose, you lost, we are better. Or atleast last night we were, no excuses.

[medpilot21]

That WR (Henry) had one of the worst looking injuries I have ever seen. I really hope he gets back, but it looked pretty serious.

As for BlueRaiderPride...another year of sour grapes. What a shock???

GMG!!!

[GreenBrigadeDebbie]

BlueRaiderPride, the better team NEVER loses. On paper entering the game, it seemed like you had the advantage. But in football, the games are decided on the field. We were the better team last night and handed you a loss. I have been cordial towards you (like every other opponent NT faces) but your comments made me start to feel a little different. You guys always smack talk and then never live up to it and then come up with lame a$$ remarks that the Mean Green is always not so "Mean" or that we were handed the game, yada yada yada. Face it, you guys have NEVER beaten us. You can call us a pathetic team (even though we are the only ones to have ever represent the conference in the bowl game) but how ridiculous is it to be 0-5 against a team what you guys call pathetic?????

I love your enthusiasm about the Raiders, but you look like a child when you come on the opponents' fan board (after a loss mind you) and bitch and gripe to us about the game. It's over...We won (we were the better team) and you lost. Start prepping for your next game and stop living in the past.

Edited September 11, 2005 by GreenBrigadeDebbie

[Nt4Life!]

BLue Raider, you have to realize that was our FIRST game of the season, with a ton of young people. First games are tough, espefcially with all the questions we have on our team. MAking mistakes is part of the game, we chose to make less and the subject of turnovers, some were forced. For instance the last one getting yanked down inside your 30, he was trying to throw to his far receiver but couldnt making it short for the interception.

You might have noticed but only time Cobbs and J-mo got stuck is when hit in the backfield. I dont care who you are but no blocking you are not going to be able to run.

Our QB, hopefully next game he will feel a little more confident. Your guys are not the better team.

Just glad we got by the first one, here's to getting better.

Props for LIttle JOhn getting in the backfield

Edited September 11, 2005 by Nt4Life!

[BlueRaiderPride]

John, you probably weren't even at the game, and I watched the same sh!t on replay myself.

1st interception -- Chris Miller had great pressure up the middle and Marks was on his way down when he overthrew the ball to the WIDE open WR and it was picked off by Weathers.

That doesn't make it forced. He opted to try to make something happen when he should've thrown it away. That makes it unforced.

2nd interception -- I didn't really watch Marks on this play, but Holman was in the perfect place to pick off that pass and went the distance.

Marks broke a tackle and threw it right into your player's hands. Not a single Blue Raider within' 15 feet of that guy, which is why he broke it and went the distance. That was just one of those less efficient passes. I talked to Marks after the game, so I know what I'm talkin' about.

3rd interveption -- Eli Hutchison was pulling on Mark's jersey and pulling him backwards. Mark ended up flat on his butt and the pass came up way short and in Mendoza's hands.

Again, he opted to try to make somethin' happen when he should've thrown it away. That ball also did not go into coverage. No MTSU player was within probably 5 feet of the UNT player which is why he returned it for a healthy gain. That's not a pass in coverage. That's just poor efficiency.

1st fumble -- Graves came up and SMACKED your WR hard. The ball popped out and the good guys ended up with it .

Now this one is horsesh!t comin' from you. Our guy, was on the way down because he was grabbed at the legs by one of your guys. Our guy's knee popped the ball out of his hands because he wasn't holding on to it properly! Smacked? Bull-freakin' crap!!!

2nd fumble -- I didn't see this happen, but I heard it was a bad exchanged between Marks and Gross.

It was a bad exchange. Alot of confusion.

It is pretty frustrating to have you over here flying the morale victory crap again.

*You lost to Bama and you find a way to spin it to sound like you won.

*You lost to North Texas and you are over here sayin the best team  lost. (not that you are a homer by any means) You have lost FIVE times in a row. You are 0-5 agains the good guys. You can out that morale victory in your pipe and smoke it.

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Hey, buddy. That wasn't a moral victory against Alabama, and that sure as hell wasn't a moral victory against North Texas. Freakin' Canisius would kick our @ss playin' that bad. You guys got your work cut out for you. Your one dimensional offense and porous defense won't stop many teams with good coaches who know this game and what it takes to win, but that's why ya'll beat us.

[TIgreen01]

BlueRaiderPride, no offense, but you need to watch the tv coverage from the game. What you saw and what was shown on tv definitely don't match up. At least then you'll understand where most of these comments are coming from from our perspective.

That said, the pass that got returned 99 yards turned this game....that to me looked like an awful pass, but who knows what Marks was reading. Either way, I will say this about this year's NT squad--we have a TON of playmakers all over the field. Our Dline was getting pushed around by the experienced MTSU OLine, but when we needed plays they came up big as did Weathers, Graves, Holman and Mendoza. I think that we'll see as the year progresses that we've got the best LB corps in the conference. Thought our O got better as the game wore on as well. We didn't look too confident starting this game, but by the time the 4th quarter rolled around we were starting to gel.

I hope that MTSU has a good year the rest of the way...they certainly have some playmakers on the D. You just got the feeling, watching this game, that everytime NT made a big play to kill a drive or MT made a mistake(whichever colored goggles you're looking through) that the MT players got down on themselves. It was alot like watching the UT-OU games the last 5 years....MT just seems to believe that a higher authority has it against them to beat NT.

Finally, I don't see any team outside of Florida challenging us for the Sun Belt conference title this year. MT looks pretty good, and I hope they can finish strong enough to land in a bowl game this year. The Sun Belt needs as many bowl teams as we can get.

oh, yeah....and my prayers are with #3....I didn't particularly like the "horse collar" tackle that our guy put on him--that's just a dangerous play and ended up costing your man his career. Very, very unfortunate.

[BlueRaiderPride]

I hope that MTSU has a good year the rest of the way...they certainly have some playmakers on the D.  You just got the feeling, watching this game, that everytime NT made a big play to kill a drive or MT made a mistake(whichever colored goggles you're looking through) that the MT players got down on themselves.  It was alot like watching the UT-OU games the last 5 years....MT just seems to believe that a higher authority has it against them to beat NT.

Finally, I don't see any team outside of Florida challenging us for the Sun Belt conference title this year.  MT looks pretty good, and I hope they can finish strong enough to land in a bowl game this year.  The Sun Belt needs as many bowl teams as we can get.

oh, yeah....and my prayers are with #3....I didn't particularly like the "horse collar" tackle that our guy put on him--that's just a dangerous play and ended up costing your man his career.  Very, very unfortunate.

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Very good post. I don't need to say anything else about this game. We know what we have to do. We have the defense to stop Akron, but do we have the offense? 7 points doesn't win games with five turnovers. Not even Southern Cal could pull that off against Siena. 9 more games like last night and we won't win a game this year. That's a fact that even our players agreed with me on.

BTW, that was Chris Henry who is probably our most talented receiver who was injured.

Best of luck the rest of the season.

[GangGreen]

I hope MUTS goes 0-11 this year. I have no reason to wish them well. I guarantee they would be ecstatic to watch us lose.

Blue Raider, why should any of us feel sorry for your team? Y'all are our biggest rival. I have no sympathy for the crapiness of your team.

[GreenFlag]

Gloom and Doom....."so sorry for them" blah blah.....this is crap

every year teams win and lose just like this....nobody "hands us the game" heads up play and good effort by young players won this game.

WE EARNED EVERY BIT OF THIS GAME...

The better team won....let's let it carry over to next week.

Right on the money. Better athletes/teams don't make forced/unforced mistakes/turnovers. The MUTS might have great athletes but UNT has great football players.

[ntmeangreen11]

I believe Middle Tennessee has a real shot at 7-4 or 8-3. They're right on our tails. Tulsa is next.

[greenminer]

I'm not so sold as I used to be on the "unforced turnover" debate.

Your offense ran nothing knew to Marks yesterday, as I'm sure every formation and read that he had to perform was rehearsed at some point last season and this past fall/spring. Whether a UNT player is in his face or not, a bad decision was made because he's thinking he has to make a play before too long, or a UNT player is eventually going to be there to kill the play. On top of that, the UNT player has to actually be in his own position to make the interception/play/what-have-you.

If the UNT players are not on the field, does he make the same bad decision as if it's simply playing catch with his recievers? That may be a weak argument, but to some extent, that can be argued to be a forced turnover.

correct me if I'm wrong.

-gm

Edited September 11, 2005 by greenminer

[mad dog]

Blue Raider... I don't know what to tell you. I'll go over this one more time, in case there's some kind of difficulty in understanding. If you don't get it at this point, I'm just going to give up, because you are not listening at all right now.

He opted to try to make something happen when he should've thrown it away. That makes it unforced.

By your logic, no interception is ever forced. Ever. If a guy smacking you at the point of release don't constitute a forced error, nothing does.

Not a single Blue Raider within' 15 feet of that guy, which is why he broke it and went the distance. That was just one of those less efficient passes.

If this is true, then Marks just threw a pass to a cluster of defenders. I know he's a better QB than that. Maybe you don't have as high an expectation of a guy of his talent as I do, but this was not just an "inefficient" pass. It was a throw made under pressure, and Holman broke at least two tackles on the way downfield. Read, forced, and EARNED.

Again, he opted to try to make somethin' happen when he should've thrown it away. That ball also did not go into coverage. No MTSU player was within probably 5 feet of the UNT player which is why he returned it for a healthy gain. That's not a pass in coverage. That's just poor efficiency.

Fella... Hutchinson had his hand on Marks' arm as he threw it. There was no one in the area because Hutch disrupted Marks' throwing motion, and Mendoza picked it off. And I don't know what game you were pretending to watch, but the play wasn't returned at all. Mendoza fell to the ground after making the pick.

Now this one is horsesh!t comin' from you. Our guy, was on the way down because he was grabbed at the legs by one of your guys. Our guy's knee popped the ball out of his hands because he wasn't holding on to it properly! Smacked? Bull-freakin' crap!!!

Once again, I implore you to get a copy of the game tape. I watched the play from four different angles. Your guy had the ball in his inside hand, and Phillip Graves swung his right hand and punched the ball out. It is as plain as day, and the only explanation as to why you don't agree with this is because you didn't see it at all. Whether or not you choose to accept it, Phillip Graves forced the fumble, and I'll be sure to ask him about that this week when I see him in practice.

You're right about the muffed exchange between Marks and Gross on the other fumble. The recovery was opportunistic, and, if ANY turnover can, in fact, be unforced, this would be your argument.

I'm not sure if I'd even be talking on this board if I just got beat by a "one dimensional offense and porous defense." Seriously guy, just take a day or two off. You're talking in frustration, and looking like an ass for it.