Quote Originally Posted by zephyr View Post
1. The two teams you were discussing were not as bad as you figured they were. ULM is a much different team with Browning and they hate us and wanted to beat us after losing the last 5 or 6 years. We were not as focused and we had some poor turnovers late in the game that sealed it. I can handle this loss since those sometimes happen. USA was arguably playing the best ball in the belt the last 3-4 weeks or so. They have the best defense in the league and their QB has been on fire. I think I heard correctly that in 5 of their 6 losses, the combined point differential was 12 points which is including the 7 point loss to Tennessee.

2. We have a freshman QB who has not played any meaningful minutes to date in his career at the college level. Tough to put a kid in that position, especially when you give the league's best defense a week to prepare and come up with blitz packages to confuse him. It was a perfect storm from the beginning heading into the USA game.
I agree with just about all of this. However, as to your point #2, since we did have a freshman QB starting, my biggest problem/issue was, why didn't the OC put in a game plan that was suited to his specific situation? In other words, throw some screens, sneak the tight end out for some 5 to 6 yard pass plays, etc... Maybe that was part of the plan, but when we got down early, maybe the plan was changed? I don't know, but I do know that with as much talent as we have on the offensive side of the ball, we have very much underachieved. I know, I know, our offense has put up big numbers and a lot of points, but most of that has been against poor competition. I was not a fan of our OC when he was here under Bustle, and he has not changed. He is average at best. My hope is that the OC has had enough time to put together a more imaginative game plan for Tulane. We shall see.