Let me say that cliche' crap that everyone is obligated to preface their comments with around here: "I haven't let go of the rope; I'll be at the game next week; I still believe; better than things used to be around here; geaux cajuns"
NOW..
Bad luck? maybe some.
Momentum swing? sure.
Injuries? yep.
Blown calls? a couple.
On the road? matters...
But none of that stuff has anything to do with the following -
DEs and LBs lost containment all damn night long. Safety's got caught cheating up all night long. No one could make an open field tackle. Defensive line played well, but stayed on the field all night long, so they were completely exhausted.
Who the hell is wearing Surgent's #87 jersey, because it surely isn't the player I remember. Bubble screens worked well at the beginning of the game, but imagine this, UNT ADJUSTED. Did we gain more than 2 yards on a bubble screen after the first quarter? How often does this offense practice that play, because Broadway threw maybe 1 acceptable bubble screen pass that lead the receiver up field. Not to mention how long every single short passing play took to develop.
5 rushing attempts in the second half, home run balls on three straight 3rd and manageables in crunch time, awful play calling, awful clock management. Why would you not try to keep the ball AND score?
We played cocky football. We tried to out athlete them. We tried to surprise them. This conservative, base offense with a wrinkle here and there steam-rolled our #18 run defense in the country. 3rd and 8, and we blitz 3, including 2 LBs strong side?! How can your first thought not be "screen pass"?! Everyone in my house said, "WATCH THE SCREEN".
I understand that anything can happen on the road in conference. I understand you can't win them all. But losing like this, the things that we did wrong, and they way we epically crumbled at the end of that game tells me there is real problems on this team. This team misses Blaine Gauthier. Broadway may be the better passer, but this team played for BG last year. They miss his leadership on the field IMO. We were out coached, out played, out physical'd, more adjustments were made at halftime on their side, and as was said earlier, the team quit. We all knew the game was over with 10 min left in the 4th quarter. We fancy ourselves an "up and coming" program, or dare I say a fringe Top 25 team.. We're wrong. We have a lot of work to do.
That being said, everything is still in front of us. Gotta get it fixed.
OK guys my thoughts---When we went dry on offense with 3 and out for about 3 possessions we needed the interference NO CALL very obvious even to the announcers---Our great plays to make we didn't--- great passes and great efforts but no ball for Touchdown (terrible camera work)----This is the second year where this type of offense really has been effective against us---WKU the past year and now NTSU----They seem to have much better RBs than us----Had to hurt not having Gautier, Harris, Peoples, and Lawson---but I miss Carter the most --he was the special----Hud kinda put the whole thing together on the post game show---with the offense just not doing it in the second half---Defense out there forever----Big time FG by Baer and except for one short punt, an almost unbelievable placement of kicks to hold them in the 5 yard line-----It is football gentlemen and sooooo much depends who and how you match up with and a ton of variables and luck----This type of offense really hurts and the SCREEN PASS put the final nail in our plans----I said 7-5 before the season and we can get that---We need a huge push for fans this TUESDAY---WEAR WHITE and Cajuns will be alright-----We are deep at WR and the group needs to step up with Peoples and Lawson out----Butler, Robinson, Figaro, Brown, Surgent, and the TEs to become more of the game!!!! Oh and from the start --our offensive line is the same as last year --they can handle the pass rush pretty good but can't create the rushing holes!!!
We need to remember as fans that it is easy to say things like, we got out coached, our guys gave up, we played with no heart, etc... We have a head coach who has had great success at every place he has coached. In barely over a year he has the program at probably the most relevant it has ever been in its history. I will not believe for a second that those players "quit", "have no heart", or any of the other accusations thrown out there by some posters in this thread. Coach Hudspeth would not dress out guys with those character flaws and put them out there to represent his program. We got beat, unfortunately it happens sometimes and it sucks. I still believe we have the right man leading this team and I guarantee he is much more upset about this game than any of us and he will continue to work tirelessly to bring this program to a level that will make us all proud!
Agreed, I don't understand the game management on 3rd and manageable late in the game. Possibly reed was banged up...no idea why abandon any form of the run. I get why they are handling Broadway with kid gloves. Not having Harris was an eye opener and I too would like it if the kidnappers would return surgent.
HOWEVER relying on surgent to make sport centers top ten plays every game is a bad plan. We still control our destiny, get to fightin!!!!
UNT will lose another game. And when that happens, we still control out own destiny in the sun belt.
No running game. And/or no attempt on the part of coaches to have one in the second half.
Frustrating.
My guess is ASU, ULM and Western will all gameplan to run it right at us...and will also gameplan on D to MAKE us throw it over and over. From what I saw last night, that ain't the best news.
There are currently 4 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 4 guests)