I would agree. I was a bit off on my prediction for this year myself, particularly when it came to offensive production. Des does, as you say, have to continue to adapt and learn but the biggest thing and still a question of mine, is be able to recruit to fill those coffers of players that are leaving. One thing Napier could do was bring in big boy football talent. We could compete up front on both sides of the ball with anyone with Sauce and Manac etc.. on that line. I'd like to see us bring in Ferrod Gardner and Lorenzo McCaskill types and become a physical defense again.
Look man, you could see the writing on the wall from the beginning. They were obviously the more physical team up front on both sides of the ball. It often took us 8 players to get their QB down. I mean, do you remember the play on 3rd down and long where we stopped him and he somehow wiggled out of the tacklers and gained 10 yards dragging our entire defense with him?
On the other hand, they were single man tackling even guys like Bill and Washington. They set the tone and were not going to let the running game get going. We needed to start by establishing our passing game which has been the case often this year to loosen that front 7 up and then run from it. But we didn't and when we did pass it was mostly underneath stuff. We were going much more vertical earlier in the year and it was working. We just moved away from that recently.
But make no mistake about it, they were the better team last night
They knew we wanted to run the ball with a backup QB in there and they shut it down. We could have come out to establish the pass but we didn't and they were ready. They also knew how soft our interior rush defense is and they exploited that heavily. USA did the same thing to us when they beat us as well. We didn't adapt early enough in that game and this game we just got steamed over especially after Chandler went out.
Marshall’s gameplan last night was their gameplan in every game. They run the ball and take shots over the top. Defensively of course they will try to stop the run once our true freshman is in the game. We tried throwing it. He threw 8-10 high passes. Kids adrenaline was probably through the roof and couldn’t settle down.
Definitely need to find some physicality in the trenches. DC did a lot to make up for a lot of our limitations but we will need much more talent in the front 4 to be the team we want to be. I’m positive the coaches see this as well but it’ll be finding the guys that can help.
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