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Message: [QUOTE="reedny, post: 1137370, member: 1423"] Bizarre game -- with almost all of the strangest moments going against us. On the first drive, I watched AB drop a sure TD pass -- right in his chest. Two other drops followed by other receivers. Just PP focus. Then MD took over and started lighting us up with long passes and easy scores. They obviously had scouted our blitzes and knew exactly what we were going to do. CJB just walked up to the line, looked at our D-posture, and threw right to the open guy for chunk gains. Swing passes and bubble screens were especially wide open with terrible coverage. This is coaching, period. We were not ready for their scheme or their speed, and the big early deficit reduced the effectiveness of our 'ground and pound' game and forced us to throw. That's when misfortune and malfeasance took over. Reddish intercepts a long bomb to a UM receiver, only to cough it up into his arms again as they hit the deck. Unbelievably bad luck. Hunt made the situation worse with a bunch of poor passes. Aside from one long play (too little too late), he was as poor in the air as we was good on the ground, wasting great protection by consistently throwing behind receivers or committing mental errors ... one right into Likely's hands. Worst guy in the Dome to hand an INT to ... might as well have unlocked the Dome door right then and there. The rest was a mix of highs and lows -- excellent defense, ugly offense and amazingly poor officiating. I have to say this crew was an embarrassment. It whistled for the team with momentum, ignored shockingly obvious holds by MD while simultaneously calling us for every nickel and dime infraction they could find. I hope they never come back. But more importantly I hope we never waste such good line play, hard running and lock-down (second half) defense with second-rate preparation and shoddy passing execution by our QB and receivers. It especially hurts that, after all our painful miscues, the Defense stiffened up after halftime and gave us a ray of hope. Despite scoring 31 first-half points, all MD could manage in the second half was one FG. Instead of filling this vacuum with points, the offense STB -- consistently finding ways to stall drives. You're not going to erase a 3-possession deficit by going 60 yards in reverse. At this point in the schedule, with "national relevance" out the window, I'd say our goal should be to avoid humiliation by keeping games close with better pass defense. We obviously don't have the chops to win in the ACC: poor pass coverage will create deficits, negating our ground game and putting more pressure on our talent-challenged receiving corps. Even in close games, opposing teams are likely to stack against the run, so I don't see us scoring enough points to keep up with ND, LV, BC, Pitt, CL or FS. Maybe our board gurus have some solutions -- my analysis is pretty gloomy. But until our LB's and secondary -- who think they can "play with anybody" -- stop hemorrhaging yardage to everybody, the future looks grim. If you make MD look like FS, what's going to happen when you play FS? [/QUOTE]

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