I feel better about a lot of things after today's game. In no particular order:
--I believe Nassib is going to take it up a notch his senior year.
--I believe that the OL is better than I expected, and will only improve as the inexperienced guys gain PT and Pugh returns.
--I believe that the WR corps is better top to bottom than we've had in years, and this was without Lemon / Stevens [Y TE].
--I believe that Broyld lived up to the advanced billing, and will be even more of a factor as he gains game experience.
--I believe that the RB corps are more that adequate--might not be an individual 1000 yard guy, but they'll get the job done.
--I believe that we can move the ball and score points better than in years, maybe more than a decade.
--I believe that we will win games with this offense. We won't struggle to move the ball this year like in recent years.
--I believe that the defensive speed is impressive.
--I believe that we are better up front than we were in 2010, where we were a top rated group.
--I believe that MPB is the difference maker at DE we needed replacing Chandler.
--I believe that the kicking aspect of ST is improved, especially kickoffs.
There were also some bad things that scare me:
--ST coverage for BOTH punts and kickoffs was a huge disappointment.
--Too many penalties--ugh.
--Too many big plays given up--three in particular killed us, the punt TD, the fluke INT / bit return, and the backward pass debacle.
--Per above, we just don't have the talent differential to withstand spotting the opposition big plays / points like the 21 we gave up today.
--The tackling was disappointing--need to improve. We have speed / depth, but the tackling is unacceptable.
We made a TON of miscues today, all of which cost us the game. The thing is, eliminate even just ONE of those miscues and we win. That's how close it was today.
Still think we get to 6 wins. 7 isn't out of the realm of possibility.
