Tuesdays With Mark Hudspeth - July 18, 2017

[KajunKrazy]

That game in New Orleans against Tulane was a GREAT to be at and cheering for my Cajuns but it was also VERY painful the way it ended.

Yep thats the one that got away and hurt the most from a fans perspective in my opinion.

The 2 times we got skull drug by Tech are the 2 losses in huds career, that I have the hardest time getting over. They made it look like we were playing an SEC power. There is no excuse for that to happen and Mark should have felt more pressure over those than he did.

[Boomer]

Yep thats the one that got away and hurt the most from a fans perspective in my opinion.

The 2 times we got skull drug by Tech are the 2 losses in huds career, that I have the hardest time getting over. They made it look like we were playing an SEC power. There is no excuse for that to happen and Mark should have felt more pressure over those than he did.

.......They actually started out good.....moved the ball and had them pinned at their one.........in Ruston we scored first!!! Bbbbbbbbbbbbbbut!!!

[Just1More]

A competent offensive scheme would have given us a special season. No doubt, with Coach Hall coming in, there is reason to think bigger than last season, IF we find a legit #1 RB to go with that.

That's the category where I hold both an optimistic and pessimistic view of Hud going forward. On one hand (optimism) I think he would have continued the initial success (which breeds more success) had he operated the offense better (greater risk/reward) - and I still believe it's there to be had with our program.

On the same hand, (pessimism) the obviousness of what he should have been doing with the offense never appeared on his dashboard... so I'm skeptical that he has the intellect/humility to see it and make the necessary improved coaching decisions.

My opinion may differ from others with respect to our offense... but I do not believe we lacked the plays in the playbook. We had the "spread the field to the edge" playbook. I also think we had the players (no program has talent out the wazoo in the SBC or the G5). We lacked the perseverance to stick with the risk until it paid off. Our staff (Hud) was way too quick to revert to pounding the ball up the middle. It was disgustingly ironic that pounding the ball up the middle was as adverse to progress as every single play call we had in our books. It was just much more comfortable to the staff (Hud) than the rest of the offensive play options.

That said... I'm curious what the base offense is going to be with JD at the helm... and the initial platooning of RBs I expect we'll see. Will we get creative for a change... and stick with the creativity... despite some failed plays here and there early on? Or will Hud try and run the exact plays he liked with Gautier/Broadway - Zo/Elijah... regardless of the unique skills of the skill players we have this year?

I'm concerned that Hud will believe the vote given him by the coaches in the SBC... that his OL is the best... and that may mean we'll see far too many RB up the middle - coupled with design QB run plays - meaning that no defense we face will respect the edges or depth of our offense.