And if you'd have had it at Tulane with the weather front that passed in an open stadium you prolly wouldn't have had two thousand people there. The dome is an excellent venue for a game. It is now configured to hold 67,000 capacity with the new end zone suites. We nearly filled the dome the night we played Tulane in the New Orleans Bowl. The fact is that hate filled politics has cost sporting venues everywhere from high school to the NFL. The so called Make America Great Again movement has only managed to make America hate again in a way I never knew since I was a very young child. You can hardly fill a stadium, or arena anywhere for any reason which is a damn shame.
I gotta say that the "script" for the first drive was amazing. They had Marshall's defense completely unable to react. One of the best opening drives I've seen in several years from a play-calling perspective.
On the other hand, play-calling got very predictable for a long stretch in the middle of the game. Our over-tendency to run on first down allowed the Marshall D to just tee off on Montrell - he did some very hard, thankless work trying to run into the teeth of the defense during the middle part of the game. Montrell's work wore down the defense and allowed Bailey to come in fresh and seal the deal at the end.
I would have like to have seen more first down passes during the middle part of the game to try to spread the defense out and give the running game some room (like those quick outside screens Napier loves). IMHO, we got predictable for a long stretch. However, I'm not expert enough to know whether that predictability set up the long passes, but I'm guessing it had a lot to do with the single coverage on the outside that got the safeties off of our receivers as they were playing run at the LOS.
I think Dez earned a good B plus. His plays had gotten predictable. But he took chances afterward. Learning curve I assume
I hope the coaches get a nice bonus. They deserve it.
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